The Cursed House arc in Dandadan is an intense, horror-fused ride with dangerous yokai and creepy antagonists, The Kito Family. Part of the horror comes from a prophecy involving an active volcano and the lengths the Kito Family went to keep it from erupting.
Who Are the Kito Family?
The Kito Family are a clan of cryptid beings called subterranean that have lived on the Earth for at least two centuries. The family has six members. There’s the matriarch Naki Kito and five males Juichi, Juhiko, Jugenna, Jurian and Jumanuel.
At the beginning of the arc, they are Jiji’s landlords for the new house his family moved into. They’re unsympathetic to the string of suicides and madness that plagues their home. They’re particularly cruel to Jiji over his parents’ failed attempt to take their lives. They make it clear he still has a roof over his head because they allow it and have no qualms with kicking him out into the street if they wanted to.
So already, you’re left with the feeling that the Kito Family are up to no good. Unfortunately, it just gets worse from there.
The Legend That Started It All
Over 200 years ago, a Mongolian Death Worm made its lair deep inside a volcano near Byakuja Village. The creature was mistaken for a Tsuchinoko, a massive, serpent-like yokai. There was a prophecy warning of a “dragon rising to heaven” as an omen.
The Kito family interpreted the message as the Tsuchinoko demanding a sacrifice to keep the volcano dormant. To prevent disaster, the locals offered human sacrifices, typically children or families. Cursed houses were built as altars over its lair.
The Kito Family took that legend and made a cruel ritual. For two hundred years, they lured unsuspecting families into a cursed mountain house. They let the Tsuchinoko’s psychic waves drive them to suicide, and called it appeasement. The Kito Family never stopped to ask whether they were right about the sacrifices. They followed their take faithfully, insisting it was the only thing protecting the village.
Momo Learns the True Meaning of the Prophecy
When Momo kills the Tsuchinoko by luring it above ground and exposing it to sunlight, the volcano erupts. The prophecy appears to confirm itself. The matriarch of the Kito Family doesn’t waste time to blame Momo for causing the very thing her family tried to prevent.
But when Momo hears the phrase “the dragon rising to heaven,” something doesn’t add up. Sunlight is lethal to the Tsuchinoko. Dragons are known for their flight while the Tsuchinoko does the opposite. It burrows, living in the dark by necessity.
So how could a creature be the “dragon rising to heaven” if it can’t tolerate sunlight?
You know what actually rises to the sky near a volcano preparing to erupt? A geyser: a natural hot spring that shoots boiling water and steam high into the air from deep underground. Hot magma heats the water trapped in volcanic rock, then the pressure builds as steam expands until it blasts out of the ground. It’s one of the biggest warning signs of an eruption.
The “dragon” in the prophecy was never a supernatural beast. It was water trying to communicate that magma was close to the surface. And the Kito Family had mistranslated it for two hundred years.
The most frightening stories are the ones where people stop questioning and accept the things that fit their narrative to be true.
The Sacred Tsuchinoko Becomes a Fire Hose
How does a teenage girl with psychic powers stop an erupting volcano? By using a dead yokai corpse, of course.
The Tsuchinoko’s corpse, it turns out, can channel water from one end to the other. Momo lifts the dead worm with her psychic powers and turns it into a fire hose. Pumping hot spring water through its body to cool the lava flows threatening Byakuja Village.
The Kito Family attacks her for it, screaming about desecration while lava floods the village. It never occurs to them that it’s more important to stop the volcano first. The family would defend their stupid ritual over solving the problem the ritual was supposed to address. Tradition has been ingrained into the Kito Family to the point where they’ve lost sight of its original purpose.
Eventually, Chiquitita and the Dover Demon’s spacecraft take over the hosing duties, freeing Momo to deal with the Evil Eye and rescue Okarun who’s trapped inside a burning house. Okarun is alive, the Evil Eye has been restrained and Byakuja Village is saved. Exposed for the monsters they are, every member of the Kito Family is arrested except for the matriarch Naki Kito, who escaped.
Two Hundred Years of Sacrifices Were For Nothing
For over two centuries, innocent children and their families lost their lives for nothing. The volcano was always going to erupt. No sacrifice had the power to delay it. The Tsuchinoko’s presence was incidental, it had no more power over the volcano’s timeline than the families it consumed.
Every death the Kito Family caused was preventable. One of those deaths led to the creation of the Evil Eye, a murderously violent yokai who has a major impact on Dandadan’s story going forward.
The volcano didn’t erupt because Momo broke some sacred prophecy. It was going to happen eventually. She just made sure there were witnesses.
