The Three Great Onryō are Japan's most dreaded vengeful spirits — Sugawara no Michizane, Taira no Masakado, and Emperor Sutoku — each wronged in life, each so terrible in death that their wrath reshaped history and their spirits demanded perpetual propitiation.
After Sugawara no Michizane's death in exile, devastating thunderstorms struck the capital and lightning killed his political enemies — the Kitano Tenjin engi emaki depicts storm demons in Raijin's own iconography above the stricken court, the dead scholar's fury and the thunder god's power fused into one force.
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