The giant, legendary Yamakachi is a snake said to live in Mount Tsurugi in Japan. Villagers are fearful of the beast and will sometimes bring weapons to protect themselves when visiting the mountain.
Illustration of the snake, www.cryptidz.fandom.com
In May of 1973, a worker claimed he saw a giant, blank snake with a white stomach. The worker said it was over 10 meters long. After his report of the creature, many others claimed they saw the same thing. An expedition was launched in June of 1973 to look for this beast of a snake. They found no snake, only a track left by the snake. They said it was about 16 inches long and led through flattened brush and weeds. The people who searched for the creature said the track was definitely left by a large snake. A local museum claimed to have a jaw from this kind of snake measuring about 13 inches wide but critics are sure it's just the re-ensembled jaw of a shark.
Mount Tsurugi, www.shikoko-tourism.com
Other parts of Japan have their own reports of giant snakes. In 1987 in the Kochi prefecture, a farmer heard a commotion coming from his coops and when he looked he saw a 7 meter long snake eating his chickens. He claimed his dog chased the creature of the property. There was another report in the Izu prefecture of a giant snake, this time a white one that was said to be about 9 meters long. It was found near a hotel construction site and it scared the workers so bad that they refused to go to work for many days. An inspection of the area was conducted but nothing was found.
The longest snake in the world is the reticulated python. They can reach over 6.25 meters long. There are reports that they can sometimes get to 10 meters in length. One of those 10 meter long snakes was found in 1912. The next longest snake is the green anaconda and it grows up to an average of 5 meters long and sometimes can reach to 6 meters. The longest snake that can be found in Japan is the Ovophis okinavensis however, adults grow to up to 80 cm which is just under a meter. No type of boa or python is native to the archipelago.
Reticulated python, www.phillyvoice.com
Green anaconda, www.pinterest.com.mx
Ovophis okinavensis, www.reptilefact.com
I couldn't find any other information regarding these reports, no photos, news reports etc. It all seems to be word-of-mouth. If these accounts are true, it could be likely that the snake(s) they are seeing are exotic pets that escaped or were let out into the wild. You can get pythons and boas as pets in Japan and they are common to find in the Japanese pet trade. Of course, it could be possible that an unknown species of snake lives in Japan.. who knows...
...or, it could very well be stories to keep the legend of the Yamakachi alive.
Anyway, thanks for coming by! Don't forget to follow!