Click-Clack Mountain is a famous traditional Japanese fairy tale. The original story was written in the Edo period, and the first half depicts cannibalism.

It begins with a badger caught by an old farmer in his field. Although the farmer tied the badger up for dinner, his wife showed mercy and freed the animal. However, the badger killed its saviour and cooked the wife into a bowl of soup, which the farmer ate. The badger showed the human bones to the farmer to reveal the murder, and it ran away.

Many famous writers, including Dazai Osamu, tried to rewrite the story. He skipped the first half and chose to portray the badger's unrequited love for a rabbit, who had heard the tragedy from the farmer and became an agent for revenge. Although the original story did not state the characters' genders, Dazai insisted on depicting the rabbit as a 16-year-old girl and the badger as an ugly man in his thirties.