Nird looks like Tengloom except it has red feathers and a yellow beak, and yellow eyes with black circles. He has bushy eyebrows that hang over his eyes, giving him a frowning look. He is dressed in a blue haori and white, baggy trousers, a grey tokin cap, and tall one-toothed geta. He sits a squatting position and his face peers out from behind the olive-green book he's reading. A pair of wings stretches out from his back.
Nird is always reading and is said to hate noisy people.
As a Tengu Yo-kai, he is capable of blowing powerful winds at his enemies, said to come from the underworld. He can also weaken healing powers.
His Japanese name, "Yomi Tengu", translates as "reading tengu" (Japanese: 読み天狗,"reading tengu"). Based on its underworld-themed techniques, it's likely also a play on Yomi (Japanese: 黄泉,Yomi), the land of the dead in Shintoism.
His English name, "Nird", is a corruption of the word nerd, but also is a portmanteau of nerd and bird.
His Spanish name, "Tengullón", is a combination of tengu and empollón (clever).
His German name, "Schmöka", is a corruption of "schmökern" (browsing; used when someone buries oneself in a book: "in Büchern schmökern").
His Portuguese Brazilian name, "Nerdave" is a transliteration of the English name.
Origin[]
Nird is based on a tengu, a highly populated and diverse race of crow-like youkai. More specifically, they resemble the lower caste of tengu, called kotengu (small tengu) but sometimes also karasu-tengu (crow tengu) or konoha-tengu (foliage tengu). Kotengu are bird-like compared to their high-ranked brethren, which are instead humanoid (see Tengu#Trivia), though they wear the same hermit garbs and tall tengu-geta (one-toothed wooden clogs named after them). They're also sometimes less intelligent and dignified, but they still have their species' proverbial arrogance.
Trivia[]
In other languages[]
Language
Name
Meaning
Japanese
ヨミテング Yomi Tengu
French
Bibliotengu
A combination of bibliothèque (library) and tengu.
Japanese
French
Spanish
German
Italian
Portuguese (Brazilian)