The Legends of Tono: 100th Anniversary Edition

March 25, 2010 — Zack Davisson

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the classics of Japanese folklore

The Legends of Tono: 100th Anniversary Edition

Much of what we know of Japanese folklore might have been lost forever if it were not for two authors, Lafcadio Hearn and Kunio Yanagita. Both were avid collectors of the mysterious tales of weird and imaginative creatures that were passed down as oral folklore but never written down. Both did their work at the start of the Meiji era, a time when, in the name of modernization, the government and scholars of Japan were actively attempting to wipe out the beliefs and superstitions of previous eras which were thought to be embarrassing to a country entering the modern age.

“The Legends of Tono” (Japanese title “Tono Monogatari”) is the most famous of Yanagita’s works, collecting the narratives of the small town of Tono in Iwate prefecture, as told to him by local resident and storyteller Kizen Sasaki. The stories collected in “The Legends of Tono” include some of Japan’s most famous monsters like the kappa and the child-ghosts zashiki-warashi. Along with Hearn’s Kwaidan: Stories And Studies Of Strange Things and Ueda Akinari’s Tales of Moonlight and Rain, “The Legends of Tono” is one of the most classic and important books on Japanese folklore.

A surprisingly small book for one that carries so much weight, there are exactly one hundred and nineteen legends spread out over fifty-eight pages. Many of these legends are only a sentence in length, and often there are three to four different legends on a page. Some of them are a bit longer, maybe a paragraph or two, and typical of Japanese folklore they do not tell a complete story but rather just describe an odd circumstance or the history behind some strange stone or tree local to a certain village. Many explain customs of the time in Tono village, and the movements of household gods and festivals. Some are sexual cautionary tales, and other frights designed to keep people in their proper place for fear of punishment. Yanagita’s style was to record the legends in a straight-forward manner without decoration and little elaboration.

However, packed inside Yanagita’s short sentences is an ocean of depth, one that is almost impossible to know just through a quick reading. Indeed, in Japanese there are annotated versions of “The Legends of Tono” that go on for four hundred pages or more digging into each of Yanagita’s terse sentences as if mining for gold. His simple and direct writing style would become a massive influence on author Mishima Yukio (The Sailor who fell from grace with the sea) who considered “The Legends of Tono” to be the finest-written work of Japanese literature.

There was more to “The Legends of Tono” than simple folklore gathering and writing however. This was a book with a political agenda. Yanagita was protesting against official histories at the time, which concentrated only on the rich and powerful and ignored the lives and hopes of the millions of poor peasants who, in the words of someone with similar inclinations, “did most of the living and dying” in Japan. Yanagita did not want to see the stories of these people lost to the tides of time, and so he gathered them up and wrote them down for future generations.

This “100th Anniversary Edition” celebrates the original 1910 publication of “The Legends of Tono.” It reprints the 1975 translation prepared by Yanagita-scholar Ronald A. Morse. Morse includes a preface to the 100th Anniversary Edition, the original forward to the 1975 edition written by Richard M. Dorson who had actually worked and studied with Yanagita, and a new introduction discussing the relevance of Yanagita’s work today. These three introductions add a bit of bulk to the publication, and some background on Yanagita and his relevance.

Morse also includes a “Guide to English-Language Writings on Kunio Yanagita and “The Legends of Tono”" in the back of the book for those interested in pursuing further study on the man and his works.

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Hanako and the Terror of Allegory Volume 1

February 16, 2010 — Zack Davisson

Hanako and the Terror of Allegory Volume 1 (Hanako & the Terror of Allegory)

 
3.0 out of 5 stars The Terror of a Bad Translation
 
After seeing the preview in Deadman Wonderland Volume 1, I was really looking forward to “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.” After all, the series was being done by Esuno Sakae, the creator of Future Diary, which is a series I absolutely love, and the topic was Japanese folklore, which I love so much I got a Master’s Degree in it. But unfortunately this first volume in the series just didn’t deliver.

The story opens with Hiranuma Kanae, a young girl who is being hunted by “The Man under the Bed with an Axe.” She knows that the story is nothing more than an urban legend, but her belief in it is so strong that it has manifested in reality. Through a rumor in an internet chat room, Kanae locates Aso Daisuke, the Allegory Detective. Daisuke specializes in cases like Kanae’s in ridding the world of what he calls “Allegories,” stories that have taken on a life of their own due to intense belief. Daisuke destroys the allegories by creating a situation where the believer is forced to confront the allegory, acknowledging that the allegory is nothing by a creation of the believer’s subconscious, and that active disbelieve dispels the threat.

Kanae soon joins the staff, and Daisuke, Kanae and his assistant Hanako head off to tackle more allegory cases. There are three stories in this volume, all based on Japanese urban legends. The first one is “The Man under the Bed with an Axe,” followed by the ubiquitous “Slit-Mouthed Woman” (“kuchisake onna”) and finally the “Human-faced Fish” known as “jinmengyo” in Japanese which is a popular legend that pops up in the news from time to time.

All of that seems pretty cool, which is why I was looking forward to the comic so much, but there is just too much here that doesn’t work.

To start off, “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory” is saddled with a really sub-par translation. I don’t know if the translator, Yamashiita Satsuki, is a native speaker of English or not but the translation is really stilted and lacks fluency. The whole comic reads like the words were looked up individually then assembled with proper English grammar but without any emotion or sense of storytelling in English.

Next, the series doesn’t quite commit one way or the other to being a supernatural comic or a high-tech comic. The “Hanako” in the title “Hanako and the Terror of Allegories” is an Allegory herself, specifically “Hanako-san in the Toilet,” which is an urban myth similar to “Bloody Mary” ie if you repeat the spirit’s name a proscribed number of times in the bathroom alone, the spirit will appear. However, aside from the backstory, this Hanako is a computer genius who spends her time making a “de-visualize program” for the allegories that strip them of their allegorical nature and allow the believers to see them for what they truly are.

At first I thought the series was going to be something like Fables, with the fairy-tale creatures being real, but instead the “de-visualize program” reveals that the allegories have no independent existence, and are nothing more than psychological projections of the believers. This forces the series to collapse under its own internal logic, because if Hanako is herself an allegory, wouldn’t the “de-visualize program” destroy her as well? And as all of the rest of the allegories have some specific target, some human being with enough belief to cause them to manifest, who is manifesting Hanako?

And while I was familiar with all of these legends, they are very Japan-specific, and the text offers little explanation for new readers. While everyone might recognize or understand “The Man under the Bed” and there have been a few movies released for The Slit-Mouthed Woman, I highly doubt many Western readers would be familiar with “Hanako from the Toilet” or “The Human-faced Fish.” There is a single page at the end of the book giving a short explanation of some of the myths, but it really isn’t enough. A good translator will make endnotes to deal with some of the cultural ambiguities, but that doesn’t happen here.

Maybe all of this will be fixed in future volumes, and I have learned not to give up on a series after the first volume. There are some nice Lovecraftian notes, especially with the “Human-faced fish” episode, and I always appreciate that. A new translator would definitely be the first order of business. However, as it stands there isn’t so much to recommend for “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.”
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Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide

December 29, 2009 — Zack Davisson

4.0 out of 5 stars Night parade of 100 demons

Japan is a monster country. While other countries may have their vampires and wolfmen, their unseelie courts and ogres and giants, Japan is home to a traditional eight million different varieties of spooks and lurkers in the dark. Japanese children obsess on them and memorize them the way American children do dinosaurs, and you would be hard-pressed to find a child without at least one of the ubiquitous tomes detailing their haunting places and special attributes.

“Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide” (subtitled “A survival guide for foreigners”, although this is only subtly written in Japanese), is one of the few books available on this traditional aspect of Japanese culture. Emulating such books as The Zombie Survival Guide, it takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the bizarre menagerie. It acts like a video game guide, giving statistics such as height, weight, favorite food, method of attack, surviving an encounter, etc…A total of forty-six yokai get the treatment, from the famous beasties like the kappa and tengu, to the lesser-knowns like the dorotabo and the hashi hime.

This is very much a “flipping book”, not to be read in one sitting but going through checking out the yokai who catch one’s eye. Every entry is accompanied by an illustration, by Morino Tatsuya. Morino was an assistant to the yokai-master Mizuki Shigeru, and while his ability is not at Mizuki’s level he does a good job with the style. All of the illustrations are in color, and are often accompanied by older artwork such as ukiyo-e prints and toys featuring the various yokai.

When reading this book, I was of two minds. One the one hand, it is pretty cool to have an English-language introduction to yokai in any form. One the other hand, I would have been so much better to simply translate any of Mizuki Shigeru’s numerous beautiful and authentic books dealing with the subject. The idea of a “survival guide” works great when dealing with a familiar topic like zombies, but seeing as how most Westerners would be unfamiliar with yokai a more straight forward book might have been better.

People just looking for a fun and casual book will find this a treasure, however. Yokai appear quite often in Japanese video games and anime, and this kind of book would be a perfect resource to those who want to learn a little bit more about what they are seeing. It would also be a great guide book for role playing gamers who want to introduce a Japanese flavor to their campaigns.

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Kappa

December 22, 2009 — Zack Davisson

5.0 out of 5 stars The distorted mirror of Kappaland

“Kappa” is told from the point of view of Patient 23, an asylum inmate who tells of his incredible journey into the heart of Kappaland, peopled by the Kappa, the magical creatures of Japanese folklore.

In the tradition of “Gulliver’s Travels,” inside Kappaland, Akutagawa, author of “Rashomon” and “In the Grove,” has created a twisted reflection of both his contemporary Japanese society and his own self-loathing. It has been a difficult tale to interpret in Japan, being hailed as either a children’s story, a social satire or simply weird. Akutagawa himself feared insanity due to his mother’s mental deterioration during his youth, and his own justified fear of the taint of madness in his blood.

Akutagawa’s mental state when writing “Kappa” is important background, and the paperback edition comes with an extensive mini-biography of the famous author that is almost the size of the story itself. Akutagawa never wrote novels, and it is strange to see a single story packaged in one book. The introduction/biography is well written as well, and helps to reveal the story.

The writing in “Kappa” is sharp and quick-witted. The satire is equal parts clever and odd. Religion, marriage, arts and entertainment, all are in part skewered and skewed. The book is an incredibly fast read, and one that you will want to pass to your friends to read as well, so that you can see what someone else makes of it.

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The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

October 6, 2009 — Zack Davisson

bamboo

5.0 out of 5 stars A subtle blend of story and art

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Kodansha’s Illustrated Japanese Classics)

This is an elegant package. The story is a classic Japanese folktale interpreted by one of Japan’s greatest writers. A cautionary tale about love between humans and spirits, it is a well paced story, calm and quiet like a new moon. The text is balanced with the original Japanese script on one side and the English translation on the other. Interspersed though out are beautiful paper-cut illustrations. “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” is very much a piece of book art.

The only drawback of this edition is the size. It is small, and would have benefited from a hard-backed coffee table edition. As it is, it is too fragile to be a child’s book.

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The Moon Maiden and Other Japanese Fairy Tales

September 4, 2009 — Zack Davisson

moon

 

 
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully illustrated collection of Japanese fairly tales
 
Originally published in 1923 under the title “Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales,” Grace James collected various Japanese fairly tales and re-wrote them to match the style of Western British children’s literature of the time. As a result, “The Moon Maiden and Other Japanese Fairy Tales” is one of the least authentic yet most readable and child-appropriate books in the genre.

The stories are a mix of Japanese legends from various sources such as the The Kojiki, known in English as The Records of Ancient Matters, Lafcadio Hearn’s books such as Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan, and various other native fantastic stories. There are thirty stories in all, most of which take up a few pages at most.

Included are the various origin stories of Japan, such as the creation of the country by the gods Izanagi and Izanami, as well legends such as the creation of the jellyfish, the tanuki tea-kettle, the Bell of Dojoji and Urashimataro who is Japan’s Rip van Winkle character. Some ghost stories are included, such as The Peony Lantern and Karma, and a few monster legends such as The Cold Woman, which is a retelling of Hearn’s Yuki-onna.

James’s writing style is very light and easy, and her word choices help establish a fairy-tale mood. She tends to use very fanciful translations, such as calling Otsuyu from The Peony Lantern “The Lady of the Morning Dew” and always refers to the Emperor as “The Mikado” or the “August Child,” all of which are appropriate terms but rarely directly translated.

One of the real treasures of this Dover edition of “The Moon Maiden and Other Japanese Fairy Tales” is the inclusion of all sixteen color illustrations by artist Warwick Goble. The pictures are really beautiful, and capture the magic of the stories perfectly, as presented by Grace James. Many of these re-print editions come with black-and-white illustrations in order to save money, so I was thrilled to see them here as originally intended.

If you are seeking authenticity then “The Moon Maiden and Other Japanese Fairy Tales” is probably not the book for you. There are many other books that present the legends as they are, such as the scholarly Myths and Legends of Japan or the sociological Tales of Old Japan. However, if you just want to drift away to fantasyland or have a child interested in Japan but not interested in studying about Japan, then this is the perfect book.
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Tales of Old Japan: Folklore, Fairy Tales, Ghost Stories and Legends of the Samurai

August 31, 2009 — Zack Davisson

old japan

 
5.0 out of 5 stars Fairy tales and the soul of a country

“Tales of Old Japan” is a book with an interesting pedigree. From 1866-1870, Author A. B. Mitford was an attaché with the British Legion at Edo (Modern day Tokyo), and one of the first foreign diplomats to Japan. He served as a translator for the young Meiji Emperor, and became intimately familiar with the country and its language.

Upon his return to Britain, he became discouraged and disappointed by Western media reports of the Japanese people, portraying them as an uncouth people lacking in morals or character, with vicious men and wanton women. Mitford set out to correct that error by writing “Tales of Old Japan,” showing through Japanese legends and fairly tales the moral heart of the country, what they admired, what they aspired to, and what they feared.

Because of this, “Tales of Old Japan” is much more than a collection of stories. Published in 1871, it is the first English-language book of its kind, and many famous Japanese tales, such as “Okiku and the Nine Plates,” and “The Forty-Seven Ronin,” appear here for the first time. Each tale was selected not only for its own interest, but to teach Western audiences about the soul of the Japanese people through their native fairy tales. After each story, Mitford writes about how the story is seen in Japan, what people admired about the heroes and despise about the villains.

These insights are what separate “Tales of Old Japan” from other books of this style. It is less academic than Myths and Legends of Japan and yet more than a collection of fairy tales like the massive Japanese Tales. Similar legends are collected in all three books, although they are presented differently. Mitford’s book is very readable, but uses translations common of the era, such as “Prince” and “dirk” to represent Japanese concepts like the Daimyo and the samurai’s shortsword wakizashi. Some of his language might be considered sexist or racist by modern standards, but that is something that must be forgiven for a book over a hundred and thirty years old. Mitford admired the Japanese, and shows so at every turn.

“Tales of Old Japan” covers legends of loyalty (“The Forty Seven Ronin”), love (“The Loves of Gompachi and Komurasaki”) the importance of the sword (“A Story of the Otokodate of Yedo”), the feudal system (“The Eta Maiden and the Hatamoto”), vengeance (“The Ghost of Sakura”) as well as a large collection of fairy tales and superstitions, like “The Tongue-cut Sparrow,” “The Battle of the Ape and the Crab” and “The Prince and the Badger.”

Many of these will already be familiar to those who have read some Japanese folklore, but it is fascinating to read Mitford’s commentary and the first English translation and interpretation. Mitford also commissioned a Japanese woodblock artist, Odake, to create images to go along with the stories. These beautiful prints are included in the Dover publication of “Tales of Old Japan,” reproduced in black and white.

Also included are indexes describing in detail four important aspects of Japanese life, “The Marriage Ceremony,” “One the Birth and Raising of Children” and “Funeral Rights.” All of these are windows to the past, first hand accounts of what happened then. Another index talks of the ceremony of seppuku, known more commonly in English as hara-kiri. Mitford translates the laws and customs of hara-kiri, including how it varies for persons of rank, the difference between execution for an illegal but honorable killing as opposed to a passion slaying, and what to do with the head and body afterwards. Those who only know movie-style versions of the act will be surprised by the real thing, as I was.

Mitford also transcribes his own eye-witness account of a hara-kiri execution, one of seven foreigners invited to attend. While Mitford tries to stay a dispassionate observer, he is eventually forced to break from his professional voice in order to write “It was horrible.”

Posted in Japanese History, Japanese Literature, Japanese Religion. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »
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