Bake-zōri.

Bake-zōri (化け草履, ばけぞうり) is an old zōri sandal turned into a tiny hopping yōkai. It usually has one eye in the center of its body and small arms and legs sprouting from the sole, making it look like a child's toy turned animate. Compared with umbrella and lantern tsukumogami, its form is especially humble, built from an everyday object close to the floor and close to the body.

That humble origin explains much of its charm. Bake-zōri is not majestic or frightening. It is domestic irritation made visible, the kind of thing a house might accidentally produce once enough worn-out objects have absorbed enough boredom.

Bake-zōri's defining behavior is noise. It scampers through the house at night, clacking and chanting nonsense rhythms that imitate the sounds of sandals against hard surfaces. The best-known refrain, full of onomatopoeia and odd counting, turns the spirit into a tiny performer whose haunting is part song and part tantrum.

The yōkai is typically harmless, but not entirely benign. It arises from neglect and can pester or annoy those who treated it poorly. Like many tsukumogami, it reminds householders that disregard has consequences, though in this case those consequences are comic rather than catastrophic.