Issun the Wandering Artist

One of the more comical characters within Okami's pantheon is Issun, the self-proclaimed "wandering artist" who helps Amaterasu (and by extension, the player) on her journey throughout the game. Juliet Piggott chronicles the mythological story of "Issun Boshi," whose name means "Little One Inch," in which Issun Boshi is a tiny boy with a needle for a sword. At one point, after battling a demon and defeating it from within its gullet, he discovers a lucky mallet, which ultimately allows him to become a normal-sized man (92).

In Okami, Issun is just like his namesake: a tiny boy, clad in samurai garb, who wields a needle as a weapon.

(Okami, np)

In fact, at one point in the game, players must venture to the insides of an emperor who has fallen ill in order to battle a demon that's lodged itself within his stomach (np). Though it differs slightly from the mythological version, in which Issun goes inside of a demon instead of a human, the theme of using size to defeat an evil from within is similar.

The lucky mallet appears as well, though it's discovered prior to fighting the emperor's internal demon. Rather than being used to increase the size of the user, "it can shrink people down until they become so small that they can pass through the eye of a needle" (Okami, np).

(Okami, np)

Once players use the mallet, however, they shrink down to the point where Issun looks like he's regular human size. Perhaps there's a bit of humor at work here: rather than Issun growing to your size, you shrink to his size. At that point, he looks normal, but the fact remains that he's still the size of a bug.