Quick: we need a truck of live mice, a thousand kegs of sake and the world's biggest heat lamp!note
The Yamata no Orochinote is an eight-headed, eight-tailed serpentine monster in Japanese Mythology, similar in appearance to the Lernaean Hydra, give or take a head or two. According to Shinto legend, the Orochi was defeated by the storm god Susano-o, who while Walking the Earth after getting booted out of Heaven, answered a request for aid by two earthly deities who were forced by the Orochi to hand over one of their daughters every year to be devoured by the beast, and were now down to their eighth and last one, Princess Kushinada. Just to distinguish the tale from Western dragon slaying myths, Susano-o first lured the Orochi out by disguising himself as Kushinada (with the real one disguised as a comb in his hair), and then killed it by setting out a bowl of strong sake for each head, letting it drink itself into a stupor (as it only had one stomach), then lopping them off. Inside Orochi's body, Susano-o found the sword Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi ("Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven"
) that was later renamed "Kusanagi" ("Grass Cutter"), and is one of Japan's Three Sacred Treasures.
According to a wide assortment of anime and video game series, the Orochi is alive and well and at large in present-day Japan. Sometimes it's literally Orochi, or anything from a Monster of the Week to a Big Bad with snake-themed powers. The trope holds pretty strong and is different than simply being associated with snakes; if your anime or manga story has a Crystal Dragon Jesus, chances are that Orochi will be its Devil.
Compare the Hydra from Greek Mythology and Our Hydras Are Different; although (usually) those serpents aren't as intelligent, or the multi-headed Dragon from the Book of Revelation.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ranma ½:
- The series has character that shares a personality almost identical to its mythological counterpart; when it stirs it does little more than desire to eat women and drink booze. However, it appears to have only seven heads. Turns out the eighth is in back — it's the size of a small mountain, with the seven smaller (though still huge) dragon heads and necks sprouting from the back of the main head's skull. Kind of like a dragon version of a Beholder. This Orochi has magical moss growing on its main head that is a powerful curative- even drinking water that flows past the moss can sustain a person's life, as well as making animals grow to unnatural sizes. Notably, the male characters also have to dress in drag in order to lure it out (while Akane disguises herself as a boy to avoid it). Unfortunately, they all look so hideous the Orochi isn't fooled.
- Another spiritual example/reference is Happosai,note a sake-swilling Dirty Old Man who goes into withdrawal if he is unable to sate his perversion and perhaps the most powerful martial artist in the series. In his Back Story, he was only beaten when his students re-enacted the myth; left out enough sake for him to drink himself into a stupor. Then, lacking any weapon they trusted to cut the nut's head off, they sealed him in a cave with a bundle of dynamite by means of a Zigzag Paper Tassel-adorned boulder. He of course returns to bug Ranma, and finds himself thwarted time and time again by his intended victim - a Hot-Blooded "Manly Man" acting as a perfect Susanoo figure, complete with an Attractive Bent-Gender curse that Happosai always falls for.
- Blue Seed. Unless you read the subtitles, which tend to mistranslate it as "Orochi no Orochi".
- Destiny of the Shrine Maiden has an Orochi whose 'necks' are giant mecha.
- In The Mystical Laws, Yamata-no-Orochi is one of the good guys and affiliated to the forces of light since Konohana-no-Sakuya-bime summons it to devour the Godom fleets on their way to Japan and then does it again to protect Shou and Princess Theta from Tathagata Killer's demonic dragon.
- Naruto: One of the main villains is Orochimaru, a rogue ninja with the ability to summon snakes. (And oddly, the Kusanagi sword.) In this case, he's actually based on the character of the same name from the folktale Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari (As are Jiraiya and Tsunade, of course). However, since the original Orochimaru was likely named after the Orochi, we'll keep him here. Later on, Orochimaru briefly displays the ability to turn into one (pictured above on this page) with a technique called Yamata no Jutsu;. Shortly afterward, he is killed by Itachi using a technique named Susanoo in a pseudo - Shout-Out / Mythology Gag. The sword wielded by Susanoo is even made of sake.
- Many of the plot elements in Masamune Shirow's science-fantasy manga Orion are loosely based on the Yamata no Orochi legend, with the Orochi itself showing up as an unintentional byproduct of activating a "nine-headed naga reactor" that was intended to gather and eliminate negative karma.
- Orochi The protagonist of Kazuo Umezu's horror manga, who appears as a young girl with psychic powers.
- The☆Ultraman has a robot Orochi called Janyur III, who is also The Juggernaut and one of the most powerful monster Ultraman Joneus need to defeat.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Yamata Dragon, one of Noah's monster cards in the Virtual World Arc.
- Chimeratech Overdragon is a mechanical version of this, and the anime depicts it as growing heads equal to the number of Machines you use to summon it.
- Evil Dragon Ananta, which gets stronger the more Reptiles you banish to summon it.
- Yamata Dragon
- Digimon:
- Digimon Tamers has Orochimon, who is a cyborg with seven robotic heads and one biological one. They grow back after being damaged by most attacks, too. Inverted in that drinking sake made it stronger, not weaker.
- Digimon Frontier has Susanoomon. He has a BFS named Orochinote . Sadly, he and Orochimon never met, and Susanoomon being an end-of-season super-duper mode and Orochimon being a mid-season Monster of the Week the previous year, they're not really in the same league.
- Doraemon has an episode where Nobita and Doraemon, on one of their many time-traveling escapades, ends up in a prehistoric village where they battle an eight-headed, invincible orochi who can No-Sell all of Doraemon's gadgets. The monster is later revealed to be a hologram and never actually exists.
- Maken-ki!: Contrary to the Japanese legend and most other depictions, here, the Orochi is portrayed as a benevolent deity, who was revered by man. She lived among them in human form and was given the name "Himegami" (lit. "god princess"), since her shikigami felt the name "Orochi"note was unbefitting of her. And she's revealed to have been Kodama's biological mother.
- In Shaman King, Bokuto no Ryu's spirit ally Tokagero's Oversoul form is an eight-headed dragon on top of a Formula One car. In addition, one of Ryu's strongest attacks is his "Ame-No-Murakumo that slew Yamata-No-Orochi", which surrounds his wooden sword in cloud-like swirls of energy before slashing. A bit of a mix-up of the legend's particulars,note but cool either way.
- In Ayakashi Ayashi a main character just happens to be Orochi himself, and the fight with Susanoo is re-enacted in the end (well, more or less), with interesting results.
- In Hell Teacher Nube, the most powerful Yokai of all (surpassing even Baki) is the great and terrifying Yamata No Orochi, whom a Mad Scientist summons from the netherworld using ancient technology and mystic rituals. It would have devastated all of Japan if not for Nube and his students' intervention. The method by which it was dispatched is actually an awesome moment for the manga — Nube's kids use the same Magitek to summon a city-wide Kesaran Pasaran (a benign, wish-granting white fluffball with eyes) and ask it to send the Orochi back where it came from. The Orochi isn't so much whisked away as torn to shreds when the Kesaran Pasaran squashes it..
- Mugen Densetsu Takamagahara: Dream Saga, based on Japanese myth, has a chapter re-enacting the Orochi story.
- In Sekirei, Tsukiumi has an attack called Yamata no Orochi.
- In Tenjho Tenge, the story of Susanoo and Orochi is presented as a symbolic allegory for the story of the founding of the Gaoshiki clan, to which most of the characters in the series belong. the story goes that a shogun who was referred to as "Susa" discovered that the rivers of his domain were being polluted by the runoff from iron mines run by eight clans (portrayed as the eight heads of Orochi). Susa invites the eight clan heads to a party, tricks them into lowering their guard and then decapitating them. Going a bit further, Susa then rapes the clan heads' daughters, who commit suicide, all except one, whose attempts fail, thus putting her in the role of Kushinada, albeit considerably less willing than the traditional version.
- Akazukin Chacha and friends defeated a nine-headed snake who ate virgin girls by getting him drunk on sake, just like in the myth- though, since this was a Magical Girl show at the time, Chacha had to transform to finish him off.
- YⱯIBA: The Yamata no Orochi dragon appears in the penultimate story arc. Is revealed that his body actually IS Japan, and when revived he turns into a country-sized, planet-wrecking abomination.
- In Kanokon the female protagonist Chizuru is revealed to be its reincarnation.
- In Persona 4: The Animation, Yamata no Orochi is one of Yu Narukami's personas. Notably, it's the first persona Yu created through fusion.
- In Bleach, Hiyori Sarugaki's Zanpukuto is called Kubikiri Orochi. Its Shikai is a saw sword.
- Renji also gains this theme to an extent. His reforged Bankai, Souou Zabimaru, also has a serrated blade, representing its new half: Orochiou.
- Tokyo Ghoul: In the sequel, a mysterious and powerful Ghoul that hunts other Ghouls is given the alias "Orochi" (or "Serpent"), in reference to the mythological beast.
- In A Certain Scientific Railgun, in order to stop Mikoto's out-of-control Level 6 Shift, Touma tries to use his Imagine Breaker and ends up losing his right arm. In response, a dragon head emerges from the stump of his arm (something that previously happened in A Certain Magical Index) and extends into a large serpentine form. Then seven other serpentine dragons emerge as well (each wildly different in appearance from the other) and all of them join efforts to bite and seal away Mikoto's power.
- In Gintama, the Yato's devastated and abandoned home world Rakuyo is inhabited by a giant 108-headed dragon known as the Orochi.
- Hozuki's Coolheadedness: Yamata no Orochi works in the Screaming Hell, the part of hell where drunkards are punished.
- One Piece: Wano arc villain Kurozumi Orochi has an Orochi motif to him, up to and including his having eaten the Mythical Zoan fruit Hebi Hebi no Mi, Model: Yamata no Orochi. Due to his multiple heads, he can also survive being decapitated, even in his human form. After several fakeouts, he eventually dies for real after having his last head cut off.
- Fairy Tail: Former Wizard Saint and current Spriggan 12 member God Serena is able to cast a spell that creates eight serpentine dragons at once, each representing one of his eight Dragon Slayer Magics and color-coded to the respective element, that visually resembles an Orochi.
Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering: In the Kamigawa setting, the term "orochi" refers to a race of forest-dwelling four-armed bipedal snake-people. O-Kagachi, the biggest and baddest of all spirits, is a take on Orochi proper.
Comic Books
- Usagi Yojimbo: In one arc, Grasscutter, the tale is told as the origin of the story of the sword Kusanagi.
- In Godzilla: Rage Across Time, Orochi is summoned to protect Japan from the invading Mongols but is quickly killed when Godzilla suddenly appears. So he's lured over to the invading horde instead.
Fan Works
- Codex Equus: Yamata no Orochi is a fallen dragon god and a major villain in Neighpon's history. He's a son of Tiamat and Bahamut, and his eight heads are said to have been made in an attempt to spite his mother, who is multi-headed herself. His return is a major focus of many stories set there; he was slain a thousand years ago, but used a Dying Curse to make each of his heads become a monstrous demon to ravage Neighpon a thousand years later. If all of them are killed, Orochi will be resurrected.
- Godzilla Neo: Orochi is an Ancient Beast that fought Ikusagami and lost, but his severed heads became Kaiju of their own. They were Varan, Baragon, Manda, Shiigan, Barugon, Vagnosaurus, Jyarumu and Balkzardan.
Film — Animated
- The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon: Orochi (though not mentioned by name) appeared when Susano (who appears here as a cute little kid), battles him in by killing the heads one-by-one in a 21-minute long battle that takes up a quarter of the film.
- Strike Witches: The Movie: There's a picture early on what depicts Susano-o fighting against Orochi alongside two Witches. The appearance of Orochi of a eight-necked black snake with blue hexagonal pattern on the back and eyes made out of red hexagons seems to indicate that Orochi was actually an ancient Neuroi.
Film — Live-Action
- Godzilla
- King Ghidorah is a three-headed dragon who Ishiro Honda says was based on Orochi. At one point he was supposed to have the full eight heads, but this was reduced to three to make things easier for the special effects team. This is subtly referenced in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack!, where King Ghidorah is alluded to be an immature Orochi— having only grown 3 of his fated 8 heads.
- Godzilla himself is indirectly compared to Orochi in Shin Godzilla. Operation Yashiori, the plan to freeze Godzilla by pumping a liquid coagulant down his mouth, is named in reference to the sake that Susano-O used to subdue Orochi.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): One of the unseen Titans is named the Yamata no Orochi, which is located beneath Mount Fuji. Whether it actually looks like the classical mythical depiction isn't shown; at most we see security camera footage of its containment facility being destroyed as it breaks free once King Ghidorah takes command of all Titans, but the creature itself is not visible.
- Subtly referenced in the climax of Godzilla vs. Kong. Mechagodzilla gets possessed by the uploaded mind of Orochi-analogue King Ghidorah and comes very close to killing both Godzilla and Kong. Josh gets the idea of short-circuiting Mechagodzilla's controls by pouring Bernie's whiskey flask into its control panel, much like Susano-O getting Orochi drunk on sake. This interrupts Mechagodzilla just long enough for Kong and Godzilla to recover and destroy the mech.
- The Thrilling Sword, a Taiwanese fantasy movie, had a nine-headed sea serpent summoned by the main villain, Lord Xia, to terrorise the kingdom.
- Yamato Takeru (or Orochi: The Eight-Headed Dragon) had a very chubby Orochi, here the Scaled Up form of Physical God Tsukuyomi. It also bore an notable resemblance to Ghidorah, another Toho creation.
- In Onmyōji II, the two chosen children, who are actually reincarnations of Susanoo and Amaterasu, are each marked with a four-headed serpent tattoo that combine to make the Mark of Orochi.
- A Nine-headed Chinese dragon shows up in the fantasy action film, The Invincible Dragon. The protagonist claims he encounters this dragon as a child, which somehow inspires him to grow up to be a martial artist and fighter who calls himself "Jiu-long" (Nine Dragon), even though most of the characters of the film thought he was bluffing, or he was merely hallucinating a childhood memory. The movie even toys with the notion that the dragon encountered by the protagonist is All Just a Dream or a hallucination. At the end of the film, the Nine-headed dragon personally appears in the climax to save him and devour the Big Bad, revealing the childhood memory to be Real After All.
- Ultraman Tiga Gaiden: Revival of the Ancient Giant has the monster Kurayaminoorochi being a direct reference to the orochi mythos, being a monster that carries the Yaminaginotsurugi sword which is crucial in helping Ultraman Tiga defeating the villain Dogouf at the end of the film.
Literature
- Book of Imaginary Beings: The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi, which had eight tails and eight heads, was so large that trees grew on its backs and heads and that its body stretched over eight valleys and eight hills, and had devoured a king's seven daughters over seven years. When it came back for the eighth, a god (whom Borges names "Brave-Swift-Impetuous-Male") got it drunk on rice beer and cut off its heads.
- Cursed World alludes to the Orochi in the name of it's big bad, Lord Orochi. Whose full name, as president of the ONY megacorp, is Orochi Yamata.
- Dracopedia: The Yamato no Orochi, or Japanese hydra, is a species of hydra native to Japan, South Korea, Sakhalin and Kamchatka. They resemble giant salamanders with necks branching into many small heads, and grow to around three meters long. They mostly hunt by hiding near riverbanks and snatching small animals as they pass by, and have become critically endangered due to habitat loss as a result of heavy industrial development in their natural habitats.
- Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari: The Big Bad Orochimaru is the son of a human and a snake demon, granting him powerful Snake Magic which is the natural counter to Jiraiya's Toad Magic. Like his namesake Orochimaru plots to kidnap a woman to be his bride, and at one point nearly kills Jiraiya and his wife Tsunade by poisoning them in their sleep.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider Hibiki:
- The Big Bad of the movie is actually Orochi, but it only has one head. But other elements of the legend are used: the villagers are forced to give one of their daughters as sacrifice each year, and Ibuki disguises himself as the sacrifice.
- Orochi is also the name of the event at the end of the TV series, where if it is not stopped "everything will be destroyed", but Orochi itself doesn't appear.
- Kamen Rider Gotchard features the Jyamatanoorochi Chemy, which normally isn't malicious unless it's forcibly turned into a Malgam. Said Orochi Malgam also happened to be the first one Big Bad Geryon was directly involved with in the show.
- Ultraman Orb: Maga-Orochi is the most powerful of the King Demon Beasts . While the monster bears very little resemblance to its namesake, its sealing at the hands of Zoffy and a psychic princess is implied to have inspired the legend. Its true final form, Maga-Tano Orochi (or Magata no Orochi depending on the translation), bears more of a resemblance due to having multiple heads, and is by far the most powerful monster in the series as well as the Final Boss.
Mythology and Religion
- The Xiangliu or Xiangyao of Chinese mythology is basically a Chinese counterpart of Orochi, but differs from it by having nine heads rather than eight. According to the myth, Xiangliu was essentially a Walking Wasteland, devastating the ecology wherever it went and causing clean water to become pungent and filthy simply by breathing. It was ultimately slain by Yu the Great. A Living Statue of Xiangliu turns up as a minor obstacle in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.
Tabletop Games
- Legend of the Five Rings: Orochi are simple (one-headed) Sea Serpents.
- Dungeons & Dragons: The first appearance of the Yuan-Ti Anathema in 3rd Edition resembled a giant, multi-headed, vaguely humanoid snake.
Video Games
- In Asura's Wrath, the form Gohma Vlitra takes when it absorbs the Mantra stored within the Karma Fortress after Deus' defeat by Asura and Yasha is an eight-headed Orochi made of rock and lava, and is probably the biggest depiction of an Orochi ever, literally having his heads so big they cover the entire circumference of planet Earth. Also the center mass where the snakes originates from shifts to reveal a giant monstrous face. It makes the YⱯIBA version above seem tiny by comparison.
- In Bleach DS: Blade of Fate and its sequel Dark Souls, Yamata no Orochi is Head Captain Yamamoto's ultimate attack, consisting of sending a large snake-like pillar of fire straight upwards, which then comes back down as eight smaller streams. Subverting the trope, this character is actually a protagonist and ally. Furthermore, his basic special attacks are all numbered heads. Useable are heads 1 through 5, though sound test data reveals there were heads 6 through 8 planned.
- BlazBlue:
- The Black Beast bears a heavy resemblance to Orochi in its appearance. It was created from the Murakumo Unit (ν-13), and defeated by the wielder of the Susano'o Unit (Hakumen). It was a failed attempt to create the Kusanagi Unit, and destroy the Master Unit Amaterasu.
- Phase 0 reveals that Celica A. Mercury was engineered to be a sacrifice to the Black Beast to temporarily halt its rampage through the use of Kushinada's Lynchpin. Oddly enough, the one who rescued her from this fate is not the Susanoo figure. The original Bloodedge fought against the Black Beast to ensure that her sacrifice would not be necessary.
- Hazama/Terumi who helped make the Black Beast also invokes Orochi imagery; one of his attacks involve creating a swarm of snake heads behind him and he has a few attacks that, with Japanese language settings, namedrop the serpent. To make things even odder he used to be in the Susano'o Unit, and is actually the real god Susanoo.
- Daily Life With Monster Girl Online, now defunct, had Kagachi, a Cute Monster Girl take on the legendary serpent. Her design is certainly unique: a bipedal, pretty girl in an elegant kimono with eight scaly tails, while her hair tapers off into seven live snake heads (and her human head makes eight). Despite her serpentine nature, orochi are considered a dragon subspecies, rather than lamia. In keeping with the legend, in both of her Care artworks, she's plastered on sake.
- Dark Souls has one, though it has seven rather than eight heads.
- Dragon Quest:
- Dragon Quest III: The portion taking place in Zipangu/Jipang is a loose retelling of the Orochi myth, with your party in the place of Susanoo.
- Dragon Quest XI has an even looser retelling play out in Hotto during the second act, with the chief differences being that the dragon is a furry one-headed creature, will eat any humans whether they're young maidens or not (the sacrificial victim the heroes themselves save is a middle aged mother), and the dragon is a Forced Transformation whose mother, the village's leader, is willing to feed other people to while she seeks a way to undo his curse.
- Fate/Grand Order
- In the Nasuverse, Shuten-Douji is the Yamata-no-Orochi's (also known by the name of Ibuki Daimyojin) daughter, which is the source of both her Dragon and Divine Traits. She's powerful enough to be considered one of Japan's Three Great Calamities, but would much rather laze about and drink all day rather than actually do much destroying and has a very complicated relationship with Sakata Kintoki and rivalry with Minamoto-no-Raikou. Much like dear old dad, she died from getting her head chopped off after being tricked into getting blackout-drunk, though unlike him her severed head nearly managed to kill her enemies before it expired. Due to her connection with Orochi, she is capable of summoning a fascmile of him. She also has an Older Alter Ego called "Ibuki-Douji", which taps directly into her connection with Orochi to make her a monster worthy of the title of one of Japan's Three Great Calamities, but doing so warps her personality, which is one of the few things she's legitimately afraid of. This version of her wields the Kusanagi that was originally inside of her father's corpse, and is also able to summon an Orochi, though unlike any other Orochi in-game, including the ones summoned by Chiyome and even Shuten, this one is even bigger and has unique white scales, implying it's her calling on dear old dad himself.
- Orochi appears as a boss-type enemy first in Shimousa, though mechanically it's a re-skin of the existing Hydra enemy with different skills, resembling a massive black-and-grey scaled many-headed serpent with red eyes. The Assassin of Paraíso Mochizuki Chiyome has the ability to summon Orochis at will with her Noble Phantasm due to her cursed blood as a result of one of her ancestors being cursed directly by Yamata-no-Orochi. This has left her with a complex, and for the enemy version of her in Shimousa it only gets worse when the Shuten-Douji on her side is ordered to excite her cursed blood into overdrive for a power boost, at the cost of her sanity.
- Fate/Samurai Remnant:
- Assassin's Noble Phantasm lets him summon monstrous serpents with multiple eyes, up to and including an avatar of the Yamata-no-Orochi, due to him being Koga Saburo—the ancestor of Mochizuki Chiyome who was cursed by the Orochi itself. This Orochi is much different in design from the ones in Fate/Grand Order, resembling less a single giant snake with eight heads than multiple snakes wrapped and fused together, with a dominant middle horned head, six smaller heads framing it, and the eighth head serving as its tail.
- Saber's Noble Phantasm conjures the visage of the Yamata-no-Orochi and fires it as a Sword Beam, which they use to vanquish the Orochi avatar summoned by Assassin. That's because Saber's sword is the Amenomurakumo-no-Tsurugi, another name for the Kusanagi taken from Orochi's tail by Susanoo.
- Final Fantasy: Orochis, sometimes winged and sometimes not, appear in several games as stronger, green Palette Swaps of the hydras. The one in Final Fantasy II's Soul of Rebirth mode in Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls, as an optional boss, is a Palette Swap of Tiamat instead.
- Fire Emblem:
- In Fire Emblem Fates, a recruitable character from the Hoshido kingdom is a spellcaster named Orochi. She doesn't seem to have lots of ties to Orochi itself save for the name and how she wears several hair decs, one of them being a huge golden comb.
- Fire Emblem Heroes, meanwhile, features an actual incarnation of the Orochi: Heiðr, whose curse eventually worsens to the point of turning her into a giant, golden Orochi. Seiðr, who cares for Heiðr like a sister, is horrified at the thought of having to kill her to put her out of her misery. Unfortunately, things go From Bad to Worse when it turns out that King Njörðr reveals the whole thing was a trap for Seiðr in order to turn her into Gullveig, the Golden Seer, and she fell for it.
- In For Honor, the Orochi is an assassin hero for the Samurai faction, specializing in fast, mobile attacks with the katana. The Orochi dragon itself is represented by several symbols that Samurai classes can wear on their armor, as well as helmet ornaments and mask effects.
- The party in G.O.D.: Heed the Call to Awaken encounters Yamata no Orochi at Izumo Shrine just as Ai is to be its sacrifice. A boss battle ensues, which is when Ai joins the party, and head by head the monster is killed. Shortly after, Ai's grandmother Gibo reveals that the aliens have the ability to materialize human fear and that the Yamata no Orochi and other monsters walking about are their doing.
- Golden Sun: The Lost Age has Susa and Kushinada who fill similar roles. The party has to solve a puzzle involving mirror redirection before Susa's sake gambit can work, though. After the Orochi (here named Serpent, has only one head and looks like the standard Eastern dragon with wings on) dies, the party can return to where his body is, and retrieve the Ame-No-Murakumo, titled Cloudrender in the game.
- In Gotcha Force, the green-haired main antagonist although if you win all the optional missions against her she does join your side of the game was named Orochi. None of the Borgs she uses has anything to do with the actual creature (granted, the closest the game has to it are Dragon borgs). However, she does sometimes make a hissing noise when she is losing.
- The King of Fighters:
- The Orochi Saga, the Story Arc spanning from The King of Fighters '95 to KOF '97, has the literal Orochi as the Big Bad. (He's technically sexless but is referred to as a "he" in this entry due to plot developments and for convenience's sake.) In this series, he's a fanatical servant (and the offspring) of Gaia, who believes that Humans Are the Real Monsters and considers the very beings that Gaia made a threat. Similar to the myth, he is defeated by the Kusanagi, Yasakani, and Yata clans, who sealed him away. (A scant amount of official artwork and The King of Fighters: KYO actually depict Orochi as a woman during this period, implying he reincarnated into a female host back then.) Unfortunately his influence spread to the Yasakani — who were already envious of the Kusanagi — and after a time, they made a contract with him to gain power. This caused a civil war with their former allies, much to Orochi's glee. He's also got a cult of servants known as the Hakkesshu, who in the present are made up of a musical band (Chris, Yashiro, Shermie), a Sinister Minister (Goenitz), two sexy secretaries (Mature and Vice), a homicidal maniac (Ryuji Yamazaki), and the father (Gaidel) of a hot soldier girl (Leona) who was killed by the Sinister Minister because he decided to bow out on Orochi's plan, and his plan is to gather enough energy so he can be fully revived and destroy humanity (alongside a backup plan consisting on the Human Sacrifice of a Girl Next Door who happens to be the reincarnation/descendant of Princess Kushinada). He doesn't make an actual appearance until '97, where he possesses Chris to act as the Final Boss (an Anti-Climax Boss, given his predecessors). In the end, he is defeated by the Three Sacred Treasures (Chizuru, Kyo and Iori). In a last-ditch effort, he tries to turn Iori against Kyo and Chizuru by stirring up Iori's half-Orochi blood and turning him into Orochi Iori. This fails, as Orochi Iori ensnares Orochi long enough for Kyo to deliver the deathblow (under approval of the spirit of Iori's ancestors, who regret what they've done), thus letting Kushinada's current incarnation/descendant Yuki (who also happened to be Kyo's girlfriend) escape her destiny and giving Chizuru the chance to seal him away again and prevent The End of the World as We Know It. Orochi, on his death throes, decides to wait and observe humanity to see if they're truly deserving of his "judgment."
- While the second KOF saga (The NESTS Chronicles) had — for better or worse — a plot that heavily distanced itself from the above mythos and instead focused on the technological exploits of the titular Nebulous Evil Organization, the next arc (The Tales of Ash, which started in 2003 and ended in XIII) sticks more closely to the original Orochi Saga in terms of mysticism. Not only is there a new Nebulous Evil Organization known as "Those From the Past" trying to undo the seal on Orochi (and they've partially succeeded as early as Act 1, thanks to their hold over Chizuru in 2003), but the (unaffiliated and divisive) Villain Protagonist of the saga, Ash Crimson, goes around with the facade of a weak and unassuming fighter, only to pop up and steal the powers of Chizuru and Iori (as Orochi Iori, no less) at the end of 2003 and XI, leaving Kyo as the only remaining non-depowered descendant of the three clans that sealed Orochi. Of course, Ash has singled out Kyo as his final target.
- In XIII, it turns out that Ash is a mix of Fake Defector, Well-Intentioned Extremist and Guile Hero whose actions have been one long Batman Gambit to counteract the ambitions of his time traveling identical ancestor Saiki, the leader of Those From the Past. In an unforeseen Heroic Sacrifice, Ash attempts to take Saiki's own powers, and when Saiki performs a Grand Theft Me on Ash (the infamous SNK Boss Evil Ash), Ash regains control and stays in the future, creating a Temporal Paradox: as Saiki is stuck in the present, Ash will be erased from history, with Saiki in tow. All to protect the Lady of War who was supposed to battle Those of the Past instead, Elisabeth Blanctorche, who doubled as Ash's Only Friend and Cool Big Sis. This causes a massive Cosmic Retcon, which reverts everything back to the way it was before 2003 and the story proceeded like normal, only with the exception that there's no Ash, and Those From The Past's involvement becomes so minor they cannot gather enough power to do the rest of their plots. End of story? Orochi's still sealed away. And Ash became a post-mortem hero for at least half the fandom.
- Then it's revealed in XIV that Verse, the Final Boss, isn't quite a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere but tied to the aforementioned Temporal Paradox caused by Ash in the last game. And one of the many spirits residing inside this entity is none other than Orochi. Verse's defeat causes Orochi to escape into the world once more, only to be quickly sealed away by Chizuru. However, as revealed in XV, Verse also released the souls of Goenitz, Yashiro Nanakase, Shermie and Chris. They return to the living as if nothing happened, but secretly plot to resume their old plan to revive Orochi again.
- In Len'en, there are siblings Adagumo no Yaorochi and Saragimaru who're youkai born from Yamata no Orochi's corpse. Yaorochi wants to restor the Kusanagi sword and provokes the incident. They are not evil whatsoever, it's just that they feel a connection with the sword because they were born from Orochi's arm.
- Mega Man Zero has the Guard Orotic, a Boss occupying a factory that La Résistance must take over. Two heads represent each of the three elements (fire, ice, lighting), while the last pair is non-elemental.
- Metal Saga: The primary sidequest in the Japanese village has you take the role of Susano-o in a loose retelling of the myth. This is strange, as it's an After the End game.
- In Miitopia, the Orochi is a blue-scaled serpentine dragon that carries a golden orb it uses to attack. It only shows up as an enemy in the Sky Scraper area, which is only accessible late in the game. It also has a counterpart named the Red Orochi (which has red scales and a blue orb) that can only be found in the postgame.
- Nioh: In a game with such a focus on yokai, it was only natural that Orochi would make an appearance, as a mutated, castle-sized Fusion Dance between Edward Kelley, his Guardian Spirit Uroboros and tons and tons of Amrita. The beast's eight heads spit globs of status-ailment causing element attacks, and while each ailment is its own flavor of annoying, it's very easy for them to add up to the disastrous Discord status.
- Ōkami takes this trope even further by retelling the original legend, featuring the characters Susano (who deals the final blow to the monster) and Kushi (the woman who was to be sacrificed to it). It is a long, two-phase battle that involves force-feeding Orochi the legendary sake, then taking out its heads one by one, before Susano jumps in to deal the final blow. The player even receives their first sword/glaive as a prize from the battle, although it's not the Kusanagi blade. You get that from a different boss entirely. The sword you do get is a reborn version of Tsukuyomi, which is a sword in the game. Fitting that the same event would bring together Amaterasu, Susano, and Tsukuyomi. When the same battle reoccurs in the past, Nagi is even dressed up in Nami's sacrificial robes. Defeating him that time earns you the Thunder Edge, which seems to be based off of the Ame-no-Murakumo, the Kusanagi no Tsurugi's original name.
- Onmyōji (2016): Yamata-no-orochi appears as a Piñata Enemy of the mitama dungeons and the Greater-Scope Villain whom Yaobikuni serves.
- In Otogi: Myth of Demons, the Yamata no Orochi (or its equivalent) is the guardian of the tower that separates the afterlife and life. Raikoh must climb the tower while avoiding the creature, as it is almost impossible to kill without the Moonlight Sword. If one has the sword, though, they can kill the Orochi in about one hit, and the prize for doing so is the Orchid Malevolence, a sword that kills everything in one hit, but also makes Raikoh a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
- Pokémon: Hydreigon is partially based on King Ghidorah, who is in turn based on Orochi.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet adds in Hydrapple in The Indigo Disk, whose Japanese name is "Kamitsuorochi". Hydrapple itself is a subversion, however; it's 7 separate serpents coinhabiting a candy apple, rather than a multi-headed dragon.
- In Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, the Orochi is actually a monster made of... bananas.
- In The Secret World, the Orochi Group is the name of an Ambiguously Evil multinational megacorporation based in Tokyo.
- Shin Megami Tensei. Orochi can usually become one of your Mons. Hilariously, in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (where the protagonist wears full-body-concealing armor), telling it you're a beautiful woman will cause Orochi to join instantly.
- In Smite since Susano is a playable deity, his lore obviously mentioned his feat of slaying Orochi (though it's never mentioned by its name, just 'the eight-headed serpent'). Likewise, in his winning animation, he's depicted of being attacked by an endless horde of giant serpent heads as a reference to Orochi... and he kills them over and over.
- Senran Kagura: The Final Boss of the first game is called Orochi, where it is depicted as a female, humanoid snake construct with just five necks, with only one of its necks having a head. It is later explained that Orochi here is an yoma, and represents the grief of all of the Serpent Girls who have died. It is later revealed that the form Orochi took was an incomplete version of the true form, which turns out to look nothing like the creature of legend. It doesn't even look like a serpent in any way.
- Super Mario 3D World: King and Queen Hisstocrat. Their giant heads dressed in regal clothing emerge from the sands, and they can summon a maximum of seven smaller snakes each to help fight. Their smaller snakes are a different color than the Hisstocrats and you don't see them connect, but damaging the Hisstocrat causes all of their summoned snakes to take damage.
- Taiko no Tatsujin: There's a track named "8OROCHI" (simply pronounced as "Yamata no orochi") by REDALiCE. Also in the third 3DS game, there is an Orochi as one of its bosses.
- In Tales of Berseria, the fifth Empyrean is called Innominat — or the Nameless Empyrean — and is described in ancient text as an eight-headed dragon that eats Malevolence. In the game, it's revealed that seven of the heads are Therions that represent and feed a certain type of Malevolence, which Innominat must devour to eventually awaken himself as the eighth head.
- Tengai Makyou: Orochimaru is depicted as a pretty blue haired bishounen and one of the hero characters, Also a Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari reference, as his partners are Jiraiya (although spelled differently, as Ziria) and Tsunade.
- Warriors Orochi: A loose reinterpretation of Orochi as a demonic, humanoid Blood Knight with his own army of demons is the Big Bad of the game.
- The very premise of Warriors Orochi is that Orochi himself essentially got bored and squished Japan's Sengoku Period and China's Three Kingdoms era together (represented by characters and areas from the Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors series) in order to fight history's greatest warriors. Predictably, he's the final boss of every Story Mode but his own in the first two games and and is rather difficult to beat. Although it takes a fair amount to unlock Orochi in the first game, you're able to play as him right off the bat in the second. And in both he's still about as absurdly powerful when you're in command of the giant snake man with the funny hat as he is as a boss.
- The third game has for its Big Bad the more familiar form of Orochi called Hydra (lit. "demon snake"/Youja in Japanese), which is stated to be the actual Orochi's power running so wild after his defeat in the previous games that the heroes have to employ time travel shenanigans against it, but such is its power that its mere existence created a space-time rift that's preventing time travellers from just going to a time before its birth and further assimilating France's Hundred Years War and Greece's Trojan War (respectively represented by characters and areas from Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War and Warriors: Legends of Troy) as well as the universes of Ninja Gaiden/Dead or Alive, Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll, Soulcalibur and Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland and its sequels, in addition to the Sengoku and Three Kingdoms periods. The Ultimate expansion expanded Orochi's origin further: Instead of a demon out of nowhere, it turns out he used to a mythological Chinese Dragon, Yinglong, who rebelled against the Celestial Emperor because he saw the Emperor enslaving demons via a magic mirror and thinks that's terrible. Breaking the mirror to give the demons free will corrupted him into Orochi. Don't mind how doing such thing can change one's nationality.
- In Yo-kai Watch, a Yo-kai named Orochi (Venoct in English versions) is befriendable in the game's story. He doesn't share much of a resemblance to the giant eight-headed serpent, though his Soultimate is called Octo-Snake and can multiply his two dragon scarf heads into eight, referencing the Yokai of legend. Yo-kai Watch 2 introduces Slurpent (Yamaton in the original Japanese versions) who has only one head but also sports eight tongues as a reference to the original Orochi's eight heads. Yo-kai Watch: Forever Friends has the actual Yamata No Orochi, who is incinerated and killed.
Visual Novels
- In Destiny Ninja 2, it turns out that when Ayame Kushinada purifies the polluted symbols with the Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven, it eats up her life force because her ancestor was a sacrifice to Orochi, and the sword was born from his body. The Orochi in this game is more of a good guy, and in one route he sacrifices himself to save Ayame and Yamato Island.
Web Comics
- In Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden, the curse that caused the death of Splinter and devastated the turtles originated from the slaying of the Orochi and the creation of the swords Kusanagi and Tokuta, the latter being the cursed sword from the prologue.
Web Original
- In A Conspiracy of Serpents, it's revealed that Yamada is actually the legendary eight-headed dragon Yamata no Orochi, who caused mass destruction in Japan.