Helpful commenters point out that the country’s souls are in no danger, however.

While Japanese food is often light and healthy fare, the country’s carnivorous foodies will tell you that the highest-quality meat is heavily marbled with fat. Restaurants and butchers will often promote their choicest cuts with photos like this.

To Japanese connoisseurs, those crisscrossing white lines may as well be a secret script spelling out “I’m delicious,” and are as beautiful as any piece of fine art hanging in a museum. However, Japanese Twitter user @zogu8011 recently tweeted a less inviting image hiding in a hunk of beef, which had been sliced through to reveal the devil himself waiting inside.

https://twitter.com/zogu8011/status/1025034152230313985

Actually, since the Japanese language lacks both a definite and singular indefinite article, we can’t be sure if @zogu8011 is tweeting that this is “the” devil or simply “a devil.” Either way, though, prominent horns, blood-red eyes, pointed ears, protruding bat wings, and twisted torso are all well-established aspects of devilish imagery.

Online comments from Japanese Twitter users included:

“Freaky. I’m drenched in sweat looking at this.”
“I bet you could process meat to be like this on purpose, like they do with Kintaro candies.”
“Maybe it’s a devil named ‘Calories.’”
“Does…he have a drill-shaped dick?”

However, it’s worth noting that unlike in some other countries, where people have reported seeing Jesus in potato chips and tortillas, religious figures generally don’t bother to make an appearance in food in Japan (except for the times when confectioners purposely make sweets that look like Buddha). And in keeping with that, a number of commenters on @zogu8011’s tweet pointed out that the image is actually from a slice of beef cut in Mexico back in 2016.

So if you’re of the mindset that wagyu beef is so heavenly good it could never be sullied by the devil’s presence, you’re still right. And if the meaty vision of the dark one is still giving you nightmares, you can always do like this Japanese Twitter user did…

…and choose to see it as an awesomely adorable kitty cat instead.

Sources: Twitter/@zogu8011, Huffington Post, Excelsior
Featured image: Twitter/@zogu8011
Insert image: Pakutaso