The Zashiki-warashi is a child-shaped house spirit told mainly in Japan’s Tohoku region. It dwells in the tatami parlor (zashiki) and plays pranks, yet the house it inhabits was believed to prosper.
The core lies in the omen that the moment it leaves, the family falls. Like Korea’s Eop, it carries the sense of an invisible housemate dwelling within the safest of homes and holding its fate.