Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
Speaker 3: and we're back with part two of our series on Yurukiara,
Speaker 3: the lovable wobbly mascot characters of Japan. Now, if you
Speaker 3: haven't heard part one yet, you should go back and
Speaker 3: listen to that episode first. In that one, we talked
Speaker 3: about the origins of the Urukira concept. Rob shared some
Speaker 3: of his experiences with these characters on a recent trip
Speaker 3: to Japan, and we talked about a couple of our
Speaker 3: favorite examples, including the Kuma Moto mascot, a real megastar
Speaker 3: called Kuma Man, which looks like a bear but apparently
Speaker 3: is not a bear. You'll listen to the episode you'll understand,
Speaker 3: and then the more obscure park associated mascot Hako Geo.
Speaker 3: And we're back today to talk about some more.
Speaker 2: That's right. Okay, So my last selection was more emotional
Speaker 2: than I guess substantially interesting to everybody. But this next
Speaker 2: one I think is even more fascinating because it does
Speaker 2: include ties into mythology and architecture. So this is one
Speaker 2: that I definitely got to observe in the wild. So
Speaker 2: me and my family were big Studio Ghibli fans. Of course,
Speaker 2: we made our way to visit Ghibli Park during our
Speaker 2: trip to Japan, so we spent two nights in Nagoya
Speaker 2: to do so, and while traveling on the Nagoya Municipal Subway,
Speaker 2: we frequently encountered helpful signs that featured its mascot, its
Speaker 2: official mascot, Hatchi Hatchi is well, I would say to
Speaker 2: the uninformed guidjin I Hatshi is a humanoid uniform Nagoya
Speaker 2: City subway employee, but his head is a golden fish
Speaker 2: with a human cartoon face, complete with fins on the
Speaker 2: side and an upward cresting tail on the back of
Speaker 2: the head.
Speaker 3: So when you say he has a fish head, you
Speaker 3: were not saying his head is the head of a fish.
Speaker 3: You're saying his head is an entire fish.
Speaker 2: Right, But like, you know, kind of like a flat
Speaker 2: face fish with like a cartoon human nose. So there's
Speaker 2: there's something interesting going on here. But at the very least,
Speaker 2: you can say a subway employee with a fish for
Speaker 2: a head.
Speaker 3: A human bodied subway employee with a fish for a head,
Speaker 3: but the fish for a head has a human face.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, so already I'm on board, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's cute, he's a bit weird. He's shown up and
Speaker 2: given me helpful advice. You know. He often brings him
Speaker 2: attention to important signage or in particular the glass. It's
Speaker 2: like kind of like glass pane doors in between subway cars.
Speaker 2: I found that they had stickers on there. I guess
Speaker 2: to keep people from bonking into them if they were
Speaker 2: you know too, if they were free of smudges and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 3: As someone who has more than once in my life
Speaker 3: walks straight into a glass door, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: But this is where things get even cooler. So it's
Speaker 2: not merely a fish that is serving as his head.
Speaker 2: Hatschi has a shachi hoko or shachi for a head.
Speaker 2: So what is this? Well, in Japanese mythology, this is
Speaker 2: a fearsome sea monster, often described as a great fish
Speaker 2: with either the head of a tiger or of a dragon.
Speaker 2: It's also sometimes compared to a dolphin or an orca,
Speaker 2: and shachi actually apparently means orca in Japanese. Now, the
Speaker 2: origins of this mythical creature ex seemingly extend back through
Speaker 2: Chinese and Vedic influences, namely connecting to the chai Win
Speaker 2: and the Makara in those different mythologies, both creatures that
Speaker 2: were often used as rooftop guardian sculptures, so comparable in
Speaker 2: some ways to like a gargoyle in the West. Okay,
Speaker 2: though some sources still when talking about the shatshi, go
Speaker 2: with more of a literal. This was modeled after a
Speaker 2: killer whale, but, as we often discussed in The show Man,
Speaker 2: are generally born of like multiple reference points, there can
Speaker 2: be a lot of different things going on when a
Speaker 2: monaster has created wholesale or when it you know, makes
Speaker 2: the journey from one culture into another, and then add
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred two hundred years or more on
Speaker 2: top of that, uh huh. So the sashi joko, this
Speaker 2: golden fish with upturned tail is frequently found as a
Speaker 2: traditional Japanese architectural flourish, so great golden fish upward tail,
Speaker 2: generally gleaming gold in appearance, and traditionally employed as a
Speaker 2: means of supernatural fire prevention. Because the mythical fish here
Speaker 2: was said to hold water in its belly and it
Speaker 2: could control the rain, So you know, you can think
Speaker 2: of this as an invocation of a protective spirit while
Speaker 2: you're doing other things as well, of course, to try
Speaker 2: and keep fires from getting out of hand and burning
Speaker 2: down buildings or districts.
Speaker 3: Almost like a symbolic sprinkler system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but why on the subway, you might ask. Well,
Speaker 2: the main reason is because Nagoya's historic Nigoya Castle, originally
Speaker 2: built in sixteen ten, partially destroyed in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: and sort of continually restored since nineteen fifty seven, prominently
Speaker 2: features a golden sachi on the roof, and I included
Speaker 2: a picture of one here for you, Joe and everyone
Speaker 2: out there. You can look these up as well. The
Speaker 2: English for this word is shachi.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So am I understanding this image correctly? If
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it right. The fish's face is not
Speaker 3: facing out from the roof, It's turned inward along the roofline,
Speaker 3: and the fish is sort of waving its tail out
Speaker 3: toward the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: That's correct, Yes, and pretty much I think all the
Speaker 2: times that I saw it utilized while I was over
Speaker 2: there and just looking around at various pictures, that seems
Speaker 2: to be the standard.
Speaker 3: Interesting, I guess when I imagine artistic conventions of representing
Speaker 3: like an animal or a creature on the outside of
Speaker 3: a building, I would always have thought of it as
Speaker 3: having the face facing out, But there's no reason it
Speaker 3: has to be that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the front half of the creature is very impressive.
Speaker 2: Again in these statues, it's very much of like a
Speaker 2: dragonoid sort of head, you know, even again see the
Speaker 2: tiger associations. And also you can sort of see roughly, okay,
Speaker 2: I can imagine an orca or dolphin standing in for
Speaker 2: this creature. Now on top of that, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess we can also acknowledge that subway fires are certainly
Speaker 2: always a possibility. So I imagine you could also make a
Speaker 2: case for employing a mythological creature associated with fire prevention
Speaker 2: against subway fires or maybe more generally, against unwanted safety
Speaker 2: related scenarios in general. You know, like it's employed on
Speaker 2: buildings as a protective spirit to help protect against like
Speaker 2: sort of worst case scenarios. And likewise, in the subway,
Speaker 2: our friend here than the mascot hot sheet, is here
Speaker 2: to help.
Speaker 3: Just looking at this fellow, I cannot help but feel assured.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's very lovable. I highly recommend if you're interested
Speaker 2: looking at it's generally spelled h Atchii in English, or
Speaker 2: just look for Nagoya Municipal Subway mascot and you'll find him.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're ready to talk about my next selection?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, here you got a very interesting choice. Is
Speaker 2: not one that was that I was familiar with?
Speaker 3: Well, so, I think the most interesting thing about the
Speaker 3: uukiara I'm about to talk about is that it is
Speaker 3: the only one I'm aware of. There may be others
Speaker 3: that have escaped to my attention. That is a successful
Speaker 3: usurper king so I mentioned in the last episode coming
Speaker 3: across a mascot who was said to be a big
Speaker 3: fan of heavy metal music, which it seems incongruous with
Speaker 3: the vibe of most of these mascots. Like, what soft
Speaker 3: toddling character of this kind could be a metal head?
Speaker 3: The answer is it's Funasi, the unofficial mascot of Funabashi Chiba. Now,
Speaker 3: you might wonder, unofficial, how does a city end up
Speaker 3: with an unofficial mascot? So I was reading about in
Speaker 3: a couple of blog posts, one on a Kawhi culture
Speaker 3: site called you May Twins and also on the Mondo
Speaker 3: Mascots blog, Rob, I think you name dropped this one
Speaker 3: in the last episode in you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great resource, especially if you just want
Speaker 2: to overload on images of various mascots and eventually like
Speaker 2: learn what they represent. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so the short story is that in the year
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, Funabashi City decided to get in on the
Speaker 3: mascot hype and created its own official character. This character
Speaker 3: was called Funeimon, who was widely considered by locals to
Speaker 3: be excruciatingly bland and boring. Rob, I will let you
Speaker 3: judge for yourself. Here I've included a picture. This is
Speaker 3: a Funeimon on the right. He is described in most
Speaker 3: of the sources I could find as an Edo period
Speaker 3: salaryman or Edo period merchant. He's wearing typical clothing for
Speaker 3: the period and glasses. And I have to agree it
Speaker 3: is It is not a thrilling design. It's also not
Speaker 3: even super cute. It's just like an adult guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just looks like somebody's dad. Who's you know,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty cool dad. But as a mascot for the city,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, in Rebellion against this uninspiring official mascot the
Speaker 3: people of Funabashi City elevated I think a pre existing character.
Speaker 3: This character is a hyperactive sentient pair named Funasi who
Speaker 3: was born in a pair orchard and loves headbanging to
Speaker 3: Ozzy Osbourne. Funasi seems to have an appetite for extreme
Speaker 3: experiences and thrill seeking, and also allegedly sustained an injury
Speaker 3: while participating in a luchador exhibition in Mexico in twenty sixteen. Now,
Speaker 3: for whoever's writing this character's sort of backstory, As we
Speaker 3: mentioned in the last episode, a lot of these mascot
Speaker 3: characters have more extensive personal histories and backstory reason sort
Speaker 3: of storylines then you might expect. You know, we talked
Speaker 3: last time about the ones that were falling in love
Speaker 3: with each other and all that stuff. We uh, But
Speaker 3: but so this one really likes getting into extreme experiences
Speaker 3: and you know, the loud headbanging and all that. And
Speaker 3: I wonder if that is in fact a reaction to
Speaker 3: the fact that this character filled the void of a
Speaker 3: character who was perceived to be too boring.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, I can see that being the case. Maybe
Speaker 2: combine that with some of this sort of attention seeking,
Speaker 2: arguably at times out of control enthusiasm for for these
Speaker 2: various mascots. You know, I was reading about about one
Speaker 2: the other day. In fact, it was the one that
Speaker 2: was prominently featured on John Oliver. How that particular mascot
Speaker 2: kind of got into a little bit of trouble based
Speaker 2: on just sort of being a little bit too aggressive
Speaker 2: and a bit too extreme and it stunts.
Speaker 3: Wait, sure that's not the same one, is it that
Speaker 3: it was different fun Oh?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, different one. But I'm saying it seems
Speaker 2: like there's there is a line somewhere in there where
Speaker 2: you could go too far. But I guess Funasi's doing
Speaker 2: it right. I looked up Funasi and wrestling to see, okay,
Speaker 2: well what is he doing? Where has he been engaging
Speaker 2: with like Lucha Libre or whatever? And I couldn't find
Speaker 2: many immediate answers, but I did see some clips of
Speaker 2: him being like thrown and flung around by some pretty
Speaker 2: big name Japanese professional wrestlers, So you know, he's getting
Speaker 2: out there. I mean, I don't think he's having official matches,
Speaker 2: he's getting out there.
Speaker 3: Carpe DM.
Speaker 2: All right, The next one I want to cover Here
Speaker 2: is terreb Tosin Aka Father Television, Akaido Prefecture. This guy,
Speaker 2: I've included a picture of him before you here, Joe,
Speaker 2: tell me what you get off of just an initial
Speaker 2: look here at Terrebe Tosin. Say, what do you think
Speaker 2: he is?
Speaker 3: He is a red thing almost maybe like an upturned
Speaker 3: flower pot for a head, a sort of slightly you know,
Speaker 3: like a upside down flower pot with a little bit
Speaker 3: of soft corners on it, with a face. The face
Speaker 3: looks very jolly hit you know, a big, big smile
Speaker 3: in the face. It has the best kind of mustache,
Speaker 3: which is just four hairs, and then has a sort
Speaker 3: of I don't know, a black spike reaching up from
Speaker 3: the top of his head, which almost suggests a piece
Speaker 3: of fruit, you know, like an apple has a stem.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a piece of fruit with a stem poking off.
Speaker 3: And then oh, also so if his head and body
Speaker 3: is an upturned clay flower flower pot, he has two
Speaker 3: legs underneath that are right side up clay flower pots
Speaker 3: of a smaller size, and then sort of a green
Speaker 3: loin cloth. That that's what I get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I looked at him and I instantly thought, like,
Speaker 2: may the pepper like maybe he's a hot pepper or
Speaker 2: other kind of a vegetable or fruit. I showed a
Speaker 2: picture of him to my wife and she was like,
Speaker 2: I think he's a traffic cone. Also I think a
Speaker 2: valid guest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's good.
Speaker 2: But the reality here, and this makes sense once you
Speaker 2: see the images side by side, is he's designed to
Speaker 2: resemble the Supporo TV tower, and once once you see it,
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, I can see it now with the
Speaker 2: like he's very vaguely tower shaped. The tower in question
Speaker 2: has this kind of like green band structure around the
Speaker 2: lower portion of it that has been transformed into a
Speaker 2: belt in his mascot form. And then that black apparatus
Speaker 2: on the top of his head, well, that's those are
Speaker 2: the upper extremes of the the television tower itself.
Speaker 3: I see, yes now, So I like that.
Speaker 2: You know, there's like a journey to for at least
Speaker 2: for someone like me to figure out what he is.
Speaker 2: But I was looking into it more, and I think
Speaker 2: part of the appeal of this guy is that his
Speaker 2: name in Japanese also has there's like a pun involved here,
Speaker 2: like mister television tower, which does not translate all that well.
Speaker 2: But I was instantly amused as well, because someone's for
Speaker 2: me ideas of TV as this kind of like stand
Speaker 2: in parent or teacher, you know, father television. And it
Speaker 2: also reminds me of that old Simpson's line from Treehouse
Speaker 2: of Horror Television teacher mother, secret lover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you kids hugging the TV?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean it's father television. He just has the
Speaker 2: best of intentions for us. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like this one. He seems sage and redolent with pleasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's not a lot to him, I admit,
Speaker 2: But it's another example of what they can be born on.
Speaker 2: They can be born of local landmarks, you know, architecturalal
Speaker 2: touches and so forth. But the next one I want
Speaker 2: to mention is interesting because it seems to be very
Speaker 2: mission orient like this is a yurikiyara that was dreamt up,
Speaker 2: that was designed in order to fulfill a particular objective
Speaker 2: in reaching the masses and conveying some very important safety ideas.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm intrigued, who is it?
Speaker 2: All right? This one is Sukimi moriy So this is
Speaker 2: another one. I'm fairly certain that I got to see
Speaker 2: this one in the wild, because we were in Osaka.
Speaker 2: That's where this one is utilized. Osaka is a really
Speaker 2: fun city, though, but we had a little harder time
Speaker 2: navigating ourselves on the public transportation, so I wasn't as
Speaker 2: on the ball about like getting pictures and chronicling him.
Speaker 2: But basically, this is a large, slightly scary, purple and
Speaker 2: pink creature with a single glowing eye with a yellow pupil,
Speaker 2: and he lives in the gap in the subway stations.
Speaker 3: Oh my lord, rob, I was trying to think, what
Speaker 3: does he reminded me of? And he looks like a
Speaker 3: purple version of the monsters from the Green Slime.
Speaker 2: He really does. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a sense of
Speaker 2: the Green Slime to him. If we were to see
Speaker 2: him animated, I bet he would have some very Miyazaki
Speaker 2: esque elements. He kind of reminds me of cat Bus
Speaker 2: a few times, but like a darkness cat bus. And
Speaker 2: so his mission here is. And there are a lot
Speaker 2: of I think objectively cute signs warning people of all ages,
Speaker 2: but especially children, about the dangers of closing doors and
Speaker 2: the gap on Japanese trains and subways, So Gaijen may
Speaker 2: be more used to you know, mere mind the gap
Speaker 2: and watch for the closing doors announcements, but Japanese subway
Speaker 2: and train systems are generally more proactive on this. Oftentimes
Speaker 2: there are automatic gates in front of the gap that
Speaker 2: help you know, that help make sure that people are
Speaker 2: not getting too close, And then you have initiatives like this,
Speaker 2: And yeah, I love him because Sukima Morey isn't just
Speaker 2: a cute lax fellow to make you feel chill about
Speaker 2: public transportation. He is very cute, but he could also
Speaker 2: be mistaken for one of the darker Pokemon. Perhaps you
Speaker 2: know some of the ghost types. But again, his whole
Speaker 2: deal is about reminding you of the dangers of the gap,
Speaker 2: so he needs to be a little bit scary, even
Speaker 2: if he is not malicious. Like, I want to be clear,
Speaker 2: Sukima Moury is not here to grab your children and
Speaker 2: pull them into the gap.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, it looks like that in some of
Speaker 3: the pictures you've supplied below, Like he's peeking out below
Speaker 3: the train with his like fingers ready as a child
Speaker 3: is wandering by. It looks like he's going to snatch
Speaker 3: the child.
Speaker 2: Right. This has led to some comparisons in the West
Speaker 2: to Pennywise, the dancing clown, you know, the lurking and
Speaker 2: the sewer to pull children down. That is not what
Speaker 2: Sukima Moury is about. Okay, he is here. He's friendly,
Speaker 2: but he is scary because he is scaring you away
Speaker 2: from the dangerous part of the train, or one of
Speaker 2: the dangerous parts, because again, remember he is a creature
Speaker 2: of the gap. His name quite literally means the gap,
Speaker 2: get go. And he was created by j R. West Railways,
Speaker 2: again largely a serve as a reminder for children and
Speaker 2: adults and parents, kind of a nursery bogie, you know,
Speaker 2: to scare kids away from the danger zone. And this
Speaker 2: was in response to apparently troubling stats at the time
Speaker 2: about gap related accidents with kids. So you know, there
Speaker 2: was a real reason to roll out this mascot. It
Speaker 2: wasn't just a situation where wouldn't it be cool if
Speaker 2: we had a cute mascot. This again seemed to have
Speaker 2: been a very mission first scenario.
Speaker 3: We need a Jenny Green Teeth of the subways exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's also really down on cell phone use on
Speaker 2: the train and on the move, especially among parents who
Speaker 2: should be helping their kids navigate that gap, and you know,
Speaker 2: not get a footstuck or anything. We're told that he
Speaker 2: does love to dance, and I love this detail. He
Speaker 2: sleeps amone the many lost things in the gap, so
Speaker 2: there are various images of him like sleeping around like
Speaker 2: lost shoes and lost cell phones and so forth, like
Speaker 2: sort of sleeping in the junk down there, his own
Speaker 2: treasure trove. He loves declaires, So you know, you do
Speaker 2: have some just sort of like neutral information about him,
Speaker 2: and we can we can relate to that.
Speaker 3: I guess, huh, is that like a thing people drop
Speaker 3: a Claire's through the gap? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe one person dropped in a Claire and
Speaker 2: he was like, this is good. I'm a fan. Now
Speaker 2: I wait other Eclaires to be dropped into the gap.
Speaker 2: So again, it would be unfair to Classifyzukimamori as a
Speaker 2: malevolent force, but he's at least adjacent to dangerous realities
Speaker 2: and as such, you know, he reminds me a bit
Speaker 2: of past discussions of things like Jenny Green Teeth and indeed,
Speaker 2: like the Kappa, you know, a superstitious supernatural monster to
Speaker 2: warn people away from water related dangers, and in this case,
Speaker 2: it's it's subway oriented.
Speaker 3: Yes, but though as soon as I said Jenny green
Speaker 3: Teeth a few moments ago, I did realize, no, that's
Speaker 3: still not quite right, because Jenny green Teeth does want
Speaker 3: to snatch the children and Sukima Mouri does not.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, The the energy here seems to be
Speaker 2: to amuse, to entertain, but also to be a little
Speaker 2: bit scary, because he is a scary but cute creature
Speaker 2: that comes from a place that you should be moral,
Speaker 2: weirre of and you should have a little more uncertainty about,
Speaker 2: because it is like a dangerous in between zone when
Speaker 2: boarding the train. So look him up. This one's There
Speaker 2: are a lot of interesting posters and images of this
Speaker 2: guy and some interesting reactions to him. But he's doing
Speaker 2: good work, so I applaud him.
Speaker 3: So say we all.
Speaker 2: All right, Now this brings us to some more cultural
Speaker 2: connections that we can make about our euro Kiara. So
Speaker 2: most cultures have their various mythological and folkloric creatures. Obviously
Speaker 2: we talk about a lot of them on the show.
Speaker 2: We're always trying to drag him in from different parts
Speaker 2: of the world, and it is, but it is often
Speaker 2: observed that Japanese culture offers a particularly powerful trifecta of
Speaker 2: cultural influences that may help us understand some of the
Speaker 2: energy underlying the appeal of their mascots, of their hero
Speaker 2: ki era. You know, why are they such a big
Speaker 2: deal compared to other parts of the world that also
Speaker 2: have cute, you know, imaginary beings that may be invoked
Speaker 2: in various ad campaigns and public awareness and typical mascot
Speaker 2: work and so forth. And on one hand, there is
Speaker 2: certainly and this is you know, sit in a lot
Speaker 2: a lot of sources we're looking at. There is the
Speaker 2: polytheistic nature of Japan's Shinto religion and the presence of
Speaker 2: supernatural kami in all things in Shintoism. So this absolutely
Speaker 2: can't be overlooked. You know. It's it's a traditional worldview
Speaker 2: in which there are multiple supernatural agents of power that
Speaker 2: can reside in pretty much anything that's very sort of
Speaker 2: like fast and loose. There's a lot more to Shintoism
Speaker 2: than that, but basically, like in terms of like the
Speaker 2: key points we might reference in understanding something as far
Speaker 2: far more simple as Japanese mascots. Essentially, you can look
Speaker 2: at that Shintoism as one possible leg of understanding them culturally. Now,
Speaker 2: I think we do have to also be careful here
Speaker 2: not to other the situation too much, because while there
Speaker 2: does seem to be a uniquely Japanese emphasis in play here,
Speaker 2: we can of course point to the coexistence of various mythic, folkloric,
Speaker 2: and otherwise at least supernatural adjacent beings in various cultures,
Speaker 2: regardless of the dominant religion or religions in that culture,
Speaker 2: and beings from outside traditions have a way of working
Speaker 2: their way into even those religions, at least into the periphery. Okay,
Speaker 2: So there's Shintoism, and then, as we we've already referred
Speaker 2: to several examples of this, but they're also the yokai,
Speaker 2: which we've discussed in greater detail on the show before,
Speaker 2: a catch all for various monsters, supernatural phenomenon and ghosts.
Speaker 2: Though yuri, which are more in line with the haunting
Speaker 2: ghosts of Western tradition, are kind of their own separate category.
Speaker 2: Yokai ghosts are kind of they're more in line with
Speaker 2: this idea of kami and that they're they're everywhere, and
Speaker 2: they might be just completely neutral to humans, or they
Speaker 2: might be a little bit mischievous. It just depends. So
Speaker 2: you know, we've talked about them before. They occur in
Speaker 2: various places throughout one's daily life, according to the traditions,
Speaker 2: often associated with things such as bathrooms, restaurant, kitchens, alleys,
Speaker 2: and so forth. And there's a very strong case to
Speaker 2: be made that the Pokemon as well owe a lot
Speaker 2: of their popularity to these traditions. And various Pokemon are
Speaker 2: directly based on yokai, and some yokai and some Pokemon
Speaker 2: are also uukiara, so you know, it's all kind of interconnected.
Speaker 2: I should also know that we've discussed sukumogami on the
Speaker 2: show before, household objects that are thought to become animant
Speaker 2: through age and Japanese traditions. There seems to be this
Speaker 2: slide towards personification, which of course ties into the very
Speaker 2: basic human tendency to identify human like qualities and animals, plants,
Speaker 2: and various inanimate or even non corporeal things. I think
Speaker 2: sometimes examples like this from another culture just give us
Speaker 2: the distance to recognize the larger global phenomena. Uh huh. Also,
Speaker 2: kind I'm going to present as kind of like the
Speaker 2: third leg of the tripod here potentially to understand eurokiara
Speaker 2: as and this also ties into just sort of cuteness
Speaker 2: in general in kawai. But as Eddie yl Chang points
Speaker 2: out in the twenty eighteen article, let the Eurokiara do
Speaker 2: the job, there's also this long standing popularity of small
Speaker 2: things in Japanese culture, particularly the small sculpture art form
Speaker 2: of netsuki, combined with long standing appreciation for animal forms
Speaker 2: and cute things in general.
Speaker 3: All Right, so you've got this sort of pyramid of
Speaker 3: different influences that could be feeding into the EUROQR phenomena.
Speaker 3: On one hand, the traditional Shinto beliefs about the spirits
Speaker 3: or entities all throughout nature. On the other hand, you've
Speaker 3: got the sort of yokai, the various sort of like
Speaker 3: monsters or beings that we've talked about on the show.
Speaker 3: And then also this tradition of making these cute small
Speaker 3: sculptures like netsuki. Specifically regarding the one leg of the
Speaker 3: tripod here of yokai, I wanted to come back to
Speaker 3: something from an essay that I mentioned in part one.
Speaker 3: So and the last time I talked about the essay
Speaker 3: about Kumaman the bear or not Bear Yurukyara of the
Speaker 3: Kumamoto Prefecture. This essay was called Kumaman, Japan's surprisingly cheeky mascot.
Speaker 3: That was in a book called Introducing Japanese Popular Culture
Speaker 3: three from Rutledge, edited by Elisa Friedman. The essay was
Speaker 3: by Deborah j Ochi, and this part that I'm about
Speaker 3: to mention was in the context of a paragraph talking
Speaker 3: about how urukia are sometimes deployed by authorities after large,
Speaker 3: frightening public events. One big example is the March twenty
Speaker 3: eleven earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear incident at Fukushima, after
Speaker 3: which Ochi says that the number of mascots in Japan increased,
Speaker 3: as did the perception of their healing power for the people.
Speaker 3: And I've also read that the figure of Kumaman specifically
Speaker 3: was widely used to comfort the public after the devastating
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen Kumamoto earthquakes. So there's a sense that part
Speaker 3: of the role, part of the cultural role of these
Speaker 3: like these sort of cute, positive informal characters, is that
Speaker 3: they help people feel better after a tragic event. On
Speaker 3: the topic of linking kumaman to pre existing yokai, here's
Speaker 3: the quote I wanted to discuss Ochi writes quote. During
Speaker 3: the COVID nineteen pandemic, yurukiara were again mobilized across the
Speaker 3: linguistic landscape, appearing on public notices and backdrops for televised
Speaker 3: official announcements. Kumaman occasionally appeared along with his Kumamoto ancestor Amabi,
Speaker 3: a folkloric yokai spirit associated with pandemic relief who was
Speaker 3: also widely used. So I had to learn more about
Speaker 3: this Amabi, and I did so by consulting the Book
Speaker 3: of Yokai by the folklorist Michael Dylan Foster. I've talked
Speaker 3: about this book before on the show. He is a
Speaker 3: scholar currently affiliated with UC Davis, and the section on
Speaker 3: the Amabi, I think it's from the expanded recent edition
Speaker 3: of the book. So, according to Foster, the earliest image
Speaker 3: we have of this yokai is printed on a kawaraban
Speaker 3: broadsheet from the year eighteen forty six. Now, kooraban means
Speaker 3: tile block printing, and it was a type of media
Speaker 3: similar to a newspaper or a tabloid, considered very ephemeral,
Speaker 3: so printed roughly on cheap paper, with the idea that
Speaker 3: it would be read once and then tossed away, and
Speaker 3: it was used in the Edo period for reporting major
Speaker 3: news events and for reporting official announcements, but also on scandals, rumors,
Speaker 3: and gossip, including things of a supernatural character. So you
Speaker 3: might read about the effects of a recent typhoon, you
Speaker 3: might read about the siege of a castle or a
Speaker 3: murder in the city. But also you might read about
Speaker 3: a ghost woman who turned into a giant spider.
Speaker 2: Why not, I mean, it's basically just an extension of
Speaker 2: your your rumor mill and your gossip columns, right, I
Speaker 2: don't want to know what the ghost women are up
Speaker 2: to around town.
Speaker 3: Yes, So there is a particular eighteen forty six Korabon
Speaker 3: prison deserved in the library of Kyoto University that includes
Speaker 3: both a narrative and an illustration about a Kumamoto official's
Speaker 3: encounter with a spirit from the ocean. So the text
Speaker 3: reads as follows in translation, every night, something brightly lit
Speaker 3: would appear in the sea of he Go, and that's
Speaker 3: off of a present day Kumamoto Prefecture. When a local
Speaker 3: official went out to take a look, something like what
Speaker 3: is in the picture here appeared and said, I live
Speaker 3: in the sea and am called Amabi. For the next
Speaker 3: six years, there will be abundant harvests throughout the provinces,
Speaker 3: but disease will spread. So make haste to copy an
Speaker 3: image of me and show it to the people. So
Speaker 3: saying it returned back into the sea. And Rob, I've
Speaker 3: included here a photograph of this broadsheet, including the illustration.
Speaker 3: So this is the first representation of the Amabi and
Speaker 3: the text that showed up next to it. Now, I
Speaker 3: was thinking, man, the face really reminds me of something,
Speaker 3: but I was not able to figure out what it was.
Speaker 3: Robin the notes you figured out what it was it
Speaker 3: was reminding me of. But the Amabi is a three
Speaker 3: legged Avian mermaid. So it's got a bird's beak, a
Speaker 3: diamond diamond shaped eyes, though we can usually only see
Speaker 3: one of its eyes because its head is turned in profile.
Speaker 3: It's got long hair reaching down to her feet, and
Speaker 3: of which there are three by the way. She has
Speaker 3: three feet, three toes on each foot, and a body
Speaker 3: covered in shingled rounded scales like a fish. But I
Speaker 3: was trying to think, what does the face remind me of?
Speaker 3: And you got it exactly what is it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man? I thought it was just me. But I
Speaker 2: look at this creature and monstrous aspects of the creature aside,
Speaker 2: I get strong Kathy vite Kathy from your caemical newspaper
Speaker 2: cartoon section.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's Kathy. It's the combination of like the hair
Speaker 3: and something about the eye.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, like Kathy has like her eyes are depicted
Speaker 2: like so close to each other they're touching. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: the long hair and sort of the general shape of
Speaker 2: Kathy is also present in this creature from the sea.
Speaker 3: So the Amabi in this illustration is not fearsome, I
Speaker 3: will say it. Instead, it looks strange, and I think
Speaker 3: it is supposed to look strange, but it's closer to
Speaker 3: cute than scary. Yes, I would agree, but again the
Speaker 3: details of the narrative. So off the coast of what
Speaker 3: is now Kumamoto, people would see a bright light in
Speaker 3: the darkness at night. An official goes out there to
Speaker 3: figure out what it is. I guess he goes out
Speaker 3: in a boat, though it doesn't say how he investigated.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming I'm picturing a boat trip sees this three
Speaker 3: legged avan mermaid with a beak. It says, I live
Speaker 3: in the sea. I'm called a mobbi. You're gonna have
Speaker 3: six years of good harvests, but you are also going
Speaker 3: to have an epidemic of deadly disease. Share my picture
Speaker 3: with people and the implicate that I read into it here,
Speaker 3: and I think what it is meant is that sharing
Speaker 3: the image will prevent the disease from spreading. And then
Speaker 3: finally the yokai goes back underneath the waves. Now, Foster
Speaker 3: writes that this is the first written record we have
Speaker 3: of belief in the Amabi, but there is a very
Speaker 3: similar being that slightly precedes it, called the Amabiko or
Speaker 3: sometimes Amahiko, which appears in at least eleven documents from
Speaker 3: the eighteen forties through the eighteen eighties, and Foster cites
Speaker 3: a folklore scholar named Yumoto Koichi who argues that these
Speaker 3: are actually the same creature and that Amabi is simply
Speaker 3: a transcription error of the word amabiko that caught on
Speaker 3: and then got copied done the line. So possibly the same,
Speaker 3: possibly different, but in either case they're very similar creatures.
Speaker 3: What's the deal with the amabiko? Some are said to
Speaker 3: rise out of the sea, others appear in the mountains,
Speaker 3: but they tend to give similar predictions and warnings to
Speaker 3: what we heard in the first story. For example, there's
Speaker 3: an eighteen forty four story of an amabiko that appears
Speaker 3: in the Bay of Echigo and says disease is gonna
Speaker 3: spread and seven out of ten people in Japan are
Speaker 3: going to die. But if you look at a picture
Speaker 3: of me, you will be spared. And then rob I've
Speaker 3: attached a picture of what the amabiko looks like in
Speaker 3: this eighteen forty four document. Different kind of look more
Speaker 3: like a three legged black octopus dolphin.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's an accurate description. Yeah, totally different characters. Still,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say hmm, I wouldn't say fearsome, but I
Speaker 2: get a far more more of a I get far
Speaker 2: more of a neutral vibe off of this guy. I
Speaker 2: don't know for sure if he leans more benevolent or benevolent. Yeah, different,
Speaker 2: different sort of creature, but definitely three legs. You know.
Speaker 2: The sort of snout is still there, so I can
Speaker 2: see I can see the lineage between these two designs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ambiguous, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I mean by according to the story, clearly wants
Speaker 2: to help or wants to exploit an upcoming disaster or
Speaker 2: fear of disaster into getting people to look at pictures
Speaker 2: of him.
Speaker 3: Right, So a pattern emerges between these stories. There will
Speaker 3: be an epidemic, many will die, but if you see
Speaker 3: a picture of me, you will live. So spread this
Speaker 3: illustration far and wide. And it's funny because this reminds
Speaker 3: me of stuff in the modern era, like those email
Speaker 3: forwards you would get in the early two thousands that
Speaker 3: are like, you know, you will see a ghost in
Speaker 3: the mirror and die three days from now unless you
Speaker 3: send this email to ten of your friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because as far as I'm understanding, there's nothing really
Speaker 2: informational in this image. It's not like study this, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not like various big pieces of religious art, you know,
Speaker 2: particularly I'm thinking like Tibetan Buddhism where or also you
Speaker 2: see the examples of this in Buddhism in Japan, where
Speaker 2: like a very complex piece has a number of messages
Speaker 2: to convey to you about, say, how to reach meditative
Speaker 2: states and so forth. This is just a picture of
Speaker 2: their very simple drawing of a strange creature. And it's
Speaker 2: just it's more like, know that I exist, see what
Speaker 2: I look like, and that will give you an advantage
Speaker 2: against disease.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't think there's a lesson in how it looks.
Speaker 3: I think it's just apotropeic magic. It's like seeing me
Speaker 3: gives you magical protection against the disease that's coming.
Speaker 2: And you know that's this good news for the viewer. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like, what do I have to do to give
Speaker 2: this retection? Look at a picture I'm in. Yeah, don't
Speaker 2: even have to read anything. It's easy to do. But also,
Speaker 2: if you want to help your friends, you better make
Speaker 2: a copy of this picture or buy another copy of
Speaker 2: the broadsheet and show it to them. So it has
Speaker 2: great mimetic power because it includes its own intrinsic motivation
Speaker 2: to spread the meme. Interesting now, according to.
Speaker 3: Foster, the amabi and the Amabiko are not even the
Speaker 3: only yokai that give these types of warnings and offer
Speaker 3: protection through replication and spreading of the image. He also
Speaker 3: cites a creature called the kudabe, which does pretty much
Speaker 3: the same thing. There's the Jingjahime, which has the body
Speaker 3: of a fish and the head of a woman, but
Speaker 3: with two horns. She predicts both seven years of plenty,
Speaker 3: but also the spread of a deadly disease, a named
Speaker 3: disease in this case called koori, and if you draw
Speaker 3: her picture and share it with everyone you know, they
Speaker 3: will be spared. There's another one called the hime Uo,
Speaker 3: which is said in an Edo based tale to have
Speaker 3: emerged off the coast of the island of Hirado. And
Speaker 3: interesting detail here, Foster writes, quote Hirado might have been
Speaker 3: selected as the location for the hime Uo because it
Speaker 3: was a distant, marginal location and also a region historically
Speaker 3: associated with foreign ships and traders, and thus a gateway
Speaker 3: for both prosperity and potential disease.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting that in the Edo period there are
Speaker 3: lots of yokai with the power of prophecy. They're predicting
Speaker 3: the future, often predicting disease, epidemics and plague, often predicting
Speaker 3: bounty or both at the same time. And the image
Speaker 3: of this creature can provide apotropaic immunity to anyone who
Speaker 3: lays eyes on it, So you better copy it quickly
Speaker 3: and show it to everyone you know. And these are
Speaker 3: categorized by some scholars such as Eumoto Koichi as yoginju
Speaker 3: or prophecy beasts, and Foster talks about the many different
Speaker 3: kinds of motivations somebody might have to spread a story
Speaker 3: like this. On one hand, it could just be a
Speaker 3: desire to excite and entertain the reader, you know, it's
Speaker 3: kind of like an interesting, entertaining story. In some cases,
Speaker 3: it could be a simple desire to sell broad sheets.
Speaker 3: In some cases, it could be a genuine desire to
Speaker 3: give people the hope of protection in the face of frightening,
Speaker 3: uncontrollable forces like infectious disease.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great point, and it ties into what
Speaker 2: we've been talking about too. Like a golden fish on
Speaker 2: your roof is not going to actually protect you against fire,
Speaker 2: but it gives you that sense of hope. It gives
Speaker 2: you like this additional layer on top of knowledge of
Speaker 2: preparation or statistics and so forth. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: I can see how that would apply to our Eurokiara
Speaker 2: as well. You know, here's one of these cute creatures
Speaker 2: giving me information, giving me helpful advice. But there is
Speaker 2: an optimism to it. There's a hope intrinsic in the
Speaker 2: design of the creature that is giving me this information.
Speaker 3: Exactly right, and that in fact brings us back to
Speaker 3: the Amabi's appearance during the COVID pandemic. So before twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: the amabi was a relatively obscure okai foster it says,
Speaker 3: you know, it probably would have only been known to
Speaker 3: like certain types of historians or you know, like real
Speaker 3: hobbyists or obsessives, though it did appear in some work
Speaker 3: by the manga artist Mazuki Shigeru in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: But after news of COVID nineteen first began to spread
Speaker 3: in early twenty twenty, the image of the amabi surged
Speaker 3: in popularity on the Internet. Foster mentions several posts on
Speaker 3: Twitter from February and even one at the end of
Speaker 3: January twenty twenty that included renderings of the amabi communicated
Speaker 3: the lore that we've just talked about, and I think
Speaker 3: jokingly encouraged the proliferation of its image as a protective
Speaker 3: measure against infection. And while it's pretty clear to me
Speaker 3: that most of these posts had a spirit of irony
Speaker 3: about them, like the use of the amabi was sort
Speaker 3: of meant as kidding, the amabi really caught on as
Speaker 3: a symbol of defense and vigilance against the virus both
Speaker 3: virtually and in physical media and consumer culture. So there
Speaker 3: was like a viral Twitter hashtag called Amabi Challenge where
Speaker 3: people posted alongside they posted the hashtag along with like
Speaker 3: images of homemade renderings of the merd bird, and the
Speaker 3: Amabi imagery was also used on all kinds of products,
Speaker 3: from like keychains, t shirts, tote bags, to rice crackers
Speaker 3: and beer. There were actual invocations of the Amabi in
Speaker 3: public religious rituals and prayer, and then eventually the Japanese
Speaker 3: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare officially produced an Amabi
Speaker 3: logo warning people that they could spread COVID nineteen without
Speaker 3: realizing it and advising people to take measures to limit exposure.
Speaker 2: Ah, and you included this this this poster art for
Speaker 2: me here in our outline, and I believe I did,
Speaker 2: in fact see this during my travels in Japan. So
Speaker 2: either they're still putting them up, or there's still you know,
Speaker 2: there's still some out there that haven't been digging down,
Speaker 2: or people keep putting them up. Yeah, because again that's
Speaker 2: kind of the that's what you're encouraged to do with
Speaker 2: the Amabi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think it's interesting connecting this back to
Speaker 3: the urukiara we were talking about, because both the Amabi
Speaker 3: and kumaman were in some cases used in top down
Speaker 3: public health messaging and in bottom up cultural processing of
Speaker 3: events during the COVID pandemic. And I wonder if this
Speaker 3: tells us anything about the broader role filled by urukiara
Speaker 3: and how that relates to this yokai. I want to
Speaker 3: read a passage from Foster here. Foster writes, quote the
Speaker 3: Amabi's sudden rise exemplifies the eloquent adaptability of yokai, with
Speaker 3: perfect ease and no contradiction. The Amabi straddles life and
Speaker 3: death concerns like COVID nineteen and lighthearted fun t shirts
Speaker 3: and beer, vernacular creativity, individuals circulating their own versions and
Speaker 3: institutional promotion a government icon, heartfelt belief in religious ceremonies,
Speaker 3: and rampant commodification in charms and key chains. So he
Speaker 3: notes that this kind of goes along with the fact
Speaker 3: that beliefs about yokai seem to thrive in the context
Speaker 3: of uncertainty, as like a way of coping with mysterious
Speaker 3: threats and questions that can't be answered or can't yet
Speaker 3: be answered. I think we can all recall those like
Speaker 3: early months of the pandemic when there was just like
Speaker 3: so much uncertainty and we just didn't you know, there's
Speaker 3: just like so much not knowing what to do, and
Speaker 3: so the beliefs of this kind sort of provide people
Speaker 3: a sense of control in some way. And while the
Speaker 3: traditional apotropaic use of the amabi image may have been
Speaker 3: interpreted as like literally efficacious in protecting against disease back
Speaker 3: in the day, the way I'm reading it is that
Speaker 3: I think the majority of the use in the early
Speaker 3: months of twenty twenty was more playful and symbolic. Not
Speaker 3: that most people sharing it thought that it would literally
Speaker 3: mechanistically prevent the virus from entering and infecting their tissues,
Speaker 3: but that it actually would do something, because of course,
Speaker 3: on one hand, would provide a type of psychological comfort
Speaker 3: and that feeling of control over an uncontrollable situation, but
Speaker 3: also that by spreading the image of the okai you
Speaker 3: were increasing front of mind public consciousness of the virus,
Speaker 3: which meant people would be more likely to take actual
Speaker 3: direct steps to limit contagion. And it strikes me that
Speaker 3: apart from messaging about the pandemic, you're a kiara like
Speaker 3: kumaman have a similar dual function. There's like, on one hand
Speaker 3: you have emotional comfort, and then on the other hand
Speaker 3: you have information consciousness, and that could mean either spreading
Speaker 3: information directly, like telling you something you don't know, or
Speaker 3: increasing the salience of information you already have, making you
Speaker 3: think about what you do know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's enough to if you wanted to
Speaker 2: go all ancient astronauts on this, you could say that
Speaker 2: Amabe was an actual visitor from space and or the
Speaker 2: ocean did realize that that information is one of the
Speaker 2: key tools you can use against pandemics, and was like, hey,
Speaker 2: start spreading images of me in response to illness. It's
Speaker 2: not going to really pay off right away, but there
Speaker 2: will come a time where this could make some small difference.
Speaker 2: But anyway, obviously I love this idea that you know,
Speaker 2: these various euroka ara much like these older forms. You
Speaker 2: know that again they have the information, they also have
Speaker 2: this emotional comfort like you've been discussing that brings with it,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of cuteness and hope all sort of
Speaker 2: tied together in a package. And I wish there was
Speaker 2: more of this in the world, you know, because aside
Speaker 2: from messaging aim directly at children, I feel like so
Speaker 2: much of the more serious messaging out there, at least
Speaker 2: in the US, is it's just purely fear based, or
Speaker 2: at least that's how it often feels to me. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes there's this layer of hope to it, or an
Speaker 2: image of like a smiling adult where it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is what happiness looks like, this is what this
Speaker 2: is what protection looks like, or so forth, or you know,
Speaker 2: the hope is wrapped up in the purchase of something
Speaker 2: that's going to protect you from the scary thing. And
Speaker 2: I don't know, I would rather live in a culture
Speaker 2: of cuteness and hope than a culture of fear. I
Speaker 2: feel like we could overall, we could all push things
Speaker 2: a little more towards hope and cuteness from just the
Speaker 2: pure fear. I mean, the fear is always going to
Speaker 2: be there. The cuteness and the hope doesn't erase that fear.
Speaker 2: But you know, if it makes it feel a little
Speaker 2: like if your experience going to the subway is is
Speaker 2: less like, don't you dare get near the gap because
Speaker 2: you'll be torn in half, you know, less shake hands
Speaker 2: with danger and more Urukiara. Sorry, it's a bit of
Speaker 2: a rant there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's a difference between taking proper precautions and
Speaker 3: wallowing in fear.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and realizing that that kind of messaging, that
Speaker 2: sort of leveling of the message can apply to everybody
Speaker 2: and not just children, you know, and you can do
Speaker 2: it in a way that's also not you know, sugarcoating anything.
Speaker 2: Or maybe you are sugarcoating it a little bit, but
Speaker 2: they're still medicine in the middle. Yeah, all right, we're
Speaker 2: gonna go ahead and close out this episode, but we'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from everyone out there. What are your
Speaker 2: experiences with Urukiara, with the lax mascots, what are your
Speaker 2: favorites right in because we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder, This Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on
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Speaker 2: On Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. You can get
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Speaker 3: Huge, thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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