Bokka and the Obariyon's Story
The Obariyon is a parasitic yokai born from the unseen weights people carry; regret, obligation, grief, and exhaustion made manifest. It ambushes weary travelers, leaping onto their backs not merely as a physical presence, but as the embodiment of a single, overwhelming burden that cannot be set down. Though it appears as a creature, it possesses unnatural, supernatural density, reflecting how emotional and mental strain compounds over time. Feeding on fatigue, doubt, and despair, the Obariyon grows heavier and more oppressive the longer it is borne.
It often first appears small, no larger than a child, perched high upon the shoulders and deceptively manageable at the start. Yet with each step, it grows, its weight compounding until it becomes an unbearable mass. In some tellings, this quiet progression echoes the weight of responsibility carried over time, a burden that begins close and familiar before revealing its true cost.
Folklore frames this encounter as a trial of endurance rather than cruelty. The burden begins manageable, yet increases with each step as responsibility deepens and escape becomes impossible. Those who collapse beneath the weight are crushed; those who endure to the end of their journey find the burden transformed, “transmuted into gold,” suggesting that what is carried in hardship may, through perseverance, become something of lasting worth.
This month’s release was an idea sparked by the one and only Fin the beardless wonder, and brought to life by the unstoppable creatives of BFG.
For our sculpture, we chose perhaps the most unfortunate victim: a traveling bokka, already bent beneath an over-encumbered pack, now forced to bear an even greater, unseen weight upon his journey.
