Kappa

The little green guy in the corner, not the big shark guy in the other three corners.

A kappa (河童) is a Japanese turtle-like monster that lives in rivers. Although free to leave their watery home, a kappa becomes dangerously weak if the plate on its head is not filled with water.

Fiction

Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

Car Robots cartoon

When Gelshark tried to recall the name of the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Cappadocia|{{#if:||Cappadocia}}]] ruins, he was at first stuck on associating the word with kappa. He mistakenly recalled the name as kappa no heso ("Kappa's Navel") and kappa no sara ("Kappa's Plate") before he got it right. While subsequently recalling his conversation with Gigatron about the ruins, he remembered that Gigatron also believed that the ruins were called kappa no heso and that he himself back then already thought it was kappa no sara. Gigatron's Raid!

The kappa gag was excised from the Robots in Disguise version of "Gigatron's Raid!"

Beast Wars II cartoon

When Scylla fell flat on her face while trying to run after Tasmania Kid in mechabeast mode, the latter asked if she was like a kappa on land in that they both don't do well outside of water. Megastorm's Reckoning

Ask Vector Prime

In the timeline of Aurex 615.03 Epsilon, the Beast Wars was waged in Alpha Q's universe 300 years after the Autobot/Decepticon war. The Maximals and Predacons fought multiple sub-wars on this universe's planets until the Alternity had to step in. In the Dust War on Plains Planet, Maximal creatures of earth, wind, and fire fought against Predacon oni, tengu, and kappa. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/03

Notes

• The comic "Bare-Brained New Year" does not make explicit reference to kappa, but Rattrap's brain falling out when he makes a polite bow evokes the need for a kappa to always have the plate on its head filled with water. The go-to way to get rid of a kappa by tricking it into politely bowing so it'll spill the water.

External links

• [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Kappa (folklore)|{{#if:Kappa|Kappa|Kappa (folklore)}}]] at Wikipedia