What is "hyottoko"

is a comical Japanese character, portrayed through the use of a mask. His mouth is puckered and skewed to one side. Some masks have different eye sizes between the left and right eyes. He is often wearing a scarf around his head (usually white with blue dots). There is a similar character for women called or .

The origin of the name comes from and , because the character is blowing fire with a bamboo pipe, hence the shape of the mouth. Local dialects transformed it into Hyottoko , palatalizing hio to hyo and making the /t/ geminate.