My mermaid mistake

When I wrote up The Shadow over Nishinomiya, I was well aware of all the Mermaid aspects from various sources that I was intentionally fusing in with Lovecraft and Japanese mythology, and I assumed that using the word "Kappa" would be a very thin disguise. Instead all the comments I've gotten have been very narrowly focused on a single source.

Anybody else try and fail to merge mythologies and get universal blank stares?

I'm surprised that anyone could mistake the kappa for a mermaid. It's one of the most well-known Japanese creatures to Western minds.

In my story they both exist, they're just the same critters at a hundred years old and then at several thousand years old.

Ohhhhhhhh. That kind of makes perfect sense—it ties in very well to the myth of the kitsune, which is a normal fox that's lived long enough to get magic.

I felt like tossing a nod to the story of the Japanese girl who ate mermaid flesh and lived a very long time. I just couldn't find the right place to foreshadow this into revealing the reverse, as it is the sirens who eat men.