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