The city of Gobo, Wakayama Prefecture, said that a stone statue of a folklore monster designed by the late manga artist Shigeru Mizuki has been missing since last week and was apparently stolen.

A city official found on Aug. 2 that the statue had been snapped from its base in a park. The municipal government has alerted the prefectural police.

The 50-cm-tall stone figure depicts the yokai monster called Taka Onna, a female said to easily get jealous and whose height triples when she gets angry and walks around to peek into people's houses.

Mizuki, who died last year at age 93, was a renowned cartoonist who created the popular yokai manga series "GeGeGe no Kitaro."

The park has 10 yokai stone statues, including those that appear in the "GeGeGe no Kitaro" series.