A is an animal in Japanese folklore

Japanese folklore

The folklore of Japan is heavily influenced by both Shinto and Buddhism, the two primary religions in the country. It often involves humorous or bizarre characters and situations and also includes an assortment of supernatural beings, such as bodhisattva, kami , yōkai , yūrei ,...

 with the head of a tiger and the body of a carp. It was believed that this animal could cause the rain to fall, and as such, temples and castles were often adorned with roof ornaments (shibi

Shibi (roof tile)

A is a Japanese ornamental tile set on both ends of the ridgepole that tops a shingled roof. The kanji for the word mean "kite" and "tail" respectively...

) crafted in the form of a shachihoko, in order to protect them from fire.

The above kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 can be pronounced in two different ways. When pronounced "shachihoko", it refers to the mystical animal mentioned above. When pronounced "shachi", it usually means orca

Orca

The killer whale , commonly referred to as the orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas...

. This is a source of confusion, even among the Japanese.