Japan is full of places with unusual names, like Kinugawa (“Angry Demon River”), which caused all the flooding earlier this month. So, it’s understandable that when someone sees a place marked Crab Claw (“カニの爪” pronounced “kani no tsume”) on Google Maps, they might think it’s the name of a hill or some quirky little fishing village.
But one Japanese Twitter user decided to investigate and went to get a look at what this “Crab Claw” actually was. It turns out Google Maps wasn’t being coy or silly — it was being 100 percent literal!
▼ “Hunh??”
Hokkaido, despite obviously being part of Japan, does have its fair share of idiosyncrasies, so you might almost expect the prefecture to have a small town called Crab Claw. Wikipedia even has a list of Hokkaido place names that are difficult to read, partially due to the influence of the Ainu language and places whose name are read in a way that seemingly has no connection to the kanji used.
But it turns out that when Google Maps indicates that a “Crab Claw” is located somewhere, it’s not playing around or joking. In fact, one Twitter user went to see what “Crab Claw” actually was, and this is what he found…
▼ “That’s literally what it was.”
Yep! It turns out there’s a giant crab claw sticking out of the ground in north-eastern Hokkaido! And now that everyone knows it’s there, it seems that the giant crab claw is getting quite a few visitors, which is great if you want to see it but you don’t have the time to drive across the ocean to Hokkaido.
▼ “It was actually there! （°ω°）”
▼ “The ‘Crab Claw’ that’s being retweeted. There were so many people coming for a look!”
▼ “I took a selfie with the famous Crab Claw! (*´∀｀) I’m off to Monbetsu City! Later!”
This tweet also gives us some insight into the construction of the claw. It’s apparently 12 meters (about 39.4 feet) tall and six meters wide, it weighs seven tons, and it was built in 1975. That’s a long before “trolling” became a thing people do, so we kind of consider them pioneers.
▼ It also apparently attracts bears.
This certainly is one of the stranger pieces of public art we’ve seen, but it does make sense. Hokkaido’s crab is famous throughout Japan and many travel to the prefecture for both sightseeing and to dine on the seafood. We’re not sure how it ended up on Google Maps, but we tip our hats to whomever put it on there. And a round of applause for the people who decided to erect this monument to crab!
It’s just too bad we can’t eat it…
Sources: AOL News, Google Maps
Images: Google Maps