Chussie is an amphibian cryptid reported from Lake Chuzenji, Tochigi, Japan.
Description[]
It is 5 to 15 meters long and looks like an amphibian or reptile, particularly resembling a giant salamander. There are rumors that this giant amphibian lives by feeding on the bodies of people who have died in water accidents in the lake or committed suicide in the lake, but there is no evidence of this.
Sightings of Chussie are very scarce and there are no credible sources where sightings have been properly documented. A small number of sighting records do exist if credibility is not a priority.
A story is sometimes presented that around 1971, a university research team or a missing person search team encountered a four-meter-long frog-like creature with a tail at the bottom of the lake, but the source of this story is unknown, and no such testimony has been documented.
A recent book of ghost stories from Tochigi Prefecture includes a sighting of a 3-meter black figure-like object floating and moving slowly on the surface of Lake Chuzenji, which may also be related to Chussie.
In Japan, there was a cryptid boom in the 1970s, and it is possible that this creature was created in response to the fad. The fact that the monster is believed to be in Lake Chuzenji despite the lack of reliable sightings and that the alleged sightings are dated to the 1970s reinforces this hypothesis.
Explanation[]
Its true identity is sometimes assumed to be a giant salamander because of its appearance, but the giant salamander is only about 1 meter long and is not distributed in Tochigi Prefecture.