Whenever a kana writing for *bakemono* is given, it is either in the long form “化け物”, or short “化物”. However, several sources also indicate a separate kanji for *bakemono*, 鬽, e.g. on [jisho.org](https://jisho.org/search/%E9%AC%BD%20%23kanji) and [wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%AC%BD#Japanese). I have never seen it used, though. Is it ever used? If not, why not, and why is it in the dictionary? Would people with a normal level of kanji familiarity be able to understand it?
5 comments
[Pretty much never](https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E9%AC%BD)
> If not, why not, and why is it in the dictionary?
Because the dictionary has all kinds of extremely obscure stuff.
Also, what dictionary did you check? For example [kanjipedia doesn’t even have it](https://www.kanjipedia.jp/search?k=+%E9%AC%BD&kt=1&sk=leftHand)
> Would people with a normal level of kanji familiarity be able to understand it?
My hunch would be no, but even if they did, it’d be because they randomly stumbled upon it, learned it in a trivia kind of question, or because they are big nerds. I wouldn’t worry about it.
This is an alternate form of 魅, you will find more words if you look for that one.
There are tons of common words that can be written with very obscure kanji that nobody knows like this. It’s trivia or party tricks essentially, there’s no practical use to knowing them. I bet you nine out of ten natives wouldn’t know this character.
Many, many, -mono ending words have a disused historical single kanji variant that were replaced by the two kanji with okurigana in the language reforms or before that even
Example: 兵 can be read TsuwaMono, and you will have trouble finding a Japanese person who knows that.
化物語 — a novel by Nisio Isin
(Edit: I thought I would be able to find an example of it’s use in the text of the novel, but I realize I may be wrong about that. My Japanese reading skills are too poor to skim the book to find it, if it is there.)
A google search ( [https://www.google.com/search?q=%E9%AC%BD+site%3Ajp#ip=1](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E9%AC%BD+site%3Ajp#ip=1) ) limited to the .jp TLD gives a small number of examples, but they are mostly from old literary works (and a few online dictionaries).