Photo/Illutration The head office of MUFG Bank in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Kappa is an amphibian “yokai” mythical creature in Japanese folklore that carries water in the depression--or “dish”--on the top of its head.

The surest way to beat a kappa in sumo is to bow deeply to it before the bout, so that it will inadvertently reciprocate the gesture and spill the water, according to folklorist Kunio Yanagida (1875-1962).

“While there is water in its cranial depression, the kappa retains supernatural strength,” Yanagida explains in “Yokai Dangi” (Yokai stories).

The water is its veritable lifeline, as losing it through spillage or evaporation will severely debilitate it.

In the financial industry, credibility must be the equivalent of the kappa’s water as once lost, it is hard to restore. But that does not seem to be the case anymore, given two unimaginably vicious scandals that recently came to light at Nomura Securities Co. and MUFG Bank.

In the Nomura case, an employee who visited the home of a female client in her 80s allegedly drugged her with a sleep-inducing substance, took off with about 18 million yen and set fire to her home. The suspect has been charged with robbery and attempted murder.

In the MUFG Bank case, an employee has been accused of rifling through customers’ safe deposit boxes and stealing cash and jewelry worth billions of yen.

The boxes cannot be opened without the approval of a managerial-level bank official, which the perpetrator turned out to be. The perpetrator’s victims are believed to number around 60.

The elderly victim in the Nomura case knew the suspect. She could never have imagined he would almost kill her.

And bank safe deposit boxes, by their very nature, are supposed to be secure.

Both suspects were fired from their respective companies. Their unprecedented crimes while working for traditionally “respectable” financial institutions fill me with horror.

One victim invited her financial adviser to her home and the others entrusted their assets to the bank’s safekeeping, precisely because they all must have felt it safe to trust these industry giants.

Spilled water is never easy to recover.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 7

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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