Over the last two weeks we have written about Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, and Susanoo, the god of storms and the seas. Time has come for the last of the “Big Three” in Shinto: Tsukuyomi – the God of the Moon.

Tsukuyomi (月読) is a compound of “tsuku” 月 (meaning “moon, month” and is today read as “tsuki”), and “yomi” 読 (meaning “to read”). However there are sources that gives another spelling of his name, like the Nihon Shoki. There it is written 月弓 “tsukiyumi”. However, it is thought that the reading “tsukiyumi” is only a variation of the pronunciation, which has led to this alternate spelling.
Another interpretation is that it might be “tsukiyo” 月夜 (“moonlit night”), and “mi” 見 (“seeing, watching”).

Tsukuyomi differs a little from the moon-gods of ancient Greece and Rome in that he is a male. This is seen in the old sources such as the Kojiki and Man’yôshû, where he is sometimes mentioned with the suffix “-otoko” 〜士 (“man, gentleman”).

As mentioned before, Tsukuyomi is the brother and husband of Amaterasu, and brother to Susanoo. They were born when their father Izanagi was purifying himself after having been through the underworld. Tsukuyomi was born out of Izanagi’s right eye. Tsukuyomi was the second god to appear, following his sister Amaterasu, and before Susanoo.

“Wait, the god of the moon, and the goddess of the sun are married? Why are they not together in the skies then?” you might be thinking. Well, one day Amaterasu was invited to a feast, but could not attend. So she sent her husband instead. The feast was presented by the goddess of food: Uke Mochi. When everyone had arrived, and the feast started, Uke Mochi turned to the sea and spat out fishes. Then she turned to the forest she spewed out wild game. And finally, she turned to the rice fields and coughed up rice. Tsukuyomi thought the food looked delicious, but he was so disgusted with how Uke Mochi had produced the food that he killed her. When Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, found out about this, she was so angry that she never wanted to see him again. So she is forever making sure to move to the other side of the sky, separating day from night.

And this ends our series on the “Big Three”. Whenever you look up in the sky and see the sun, or the moon, or feel the breeze on your skin, you know that the ancient Japanese were thinking about these gods and goddess. And they are fickle, and wild gods, with short tempers, and full of “human” flaws. Much like the mythology of Greece, or the Norse gods. However, they give us great stories even to this day. ^_^

 

P.S. The Japanese aren’t to fond of depicting the God of the Night, so it was hard to find pictures that wasn’t from a game, anime, manga, or Amaterasu or Susanoo.

Last week we talked about Amaterasu – the godess of the Sun, and the main diety of the Shinto religion. In that text we also mentioned her brother and husband Tsukiyomi (the God of Moon and Night). Today we take a closer look at her other brother: Susanoo.

Susanoo (須佐之男) is the Shinto god of seas and storms. He is also known as “the Powerful Storm of Summer”. As we mentioned in the post about Amaterasu, she and her brothers were born when their father Izanagi purified and washed himself after having gone through the underworld. Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi were born out of Izanagi’s left and right eye respectively, and Susanoo was born from the nose. Susanoo also had a famous sword known as Totsuka-no-Tsurugi (十拳剣 “Sword with a length ten times it’s handle”), or also called Orochi-no-Aramasa (蛇之麁正).

As with most of he stories about the Shinto gods, the oldest sources are the Kojiki (古事記) and the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀). These two chronicles speak of a long-standing rivalry between Susanoo, and his sister Amaterasu (like with most brother-sister relationships, perhaps?). One day, Susanoo was told to leave heaven, and before leaving he went to bid his sister farewell. She was suspicious of Susanoo’s motives, and in order to convince her about his sincerity, Susanoo challenged her to a bet. They each took one thing from the other, and from that object they summoned new gods and goddesses. Amaterasu created 3 goddesses out of Susanoo’s sword, and Susanoo created 5 gods from Amaterasu’s neckless. Amaterasu then claimed that the 5 gods were hers, because they come from her neckless, she thought she had won, but Susanoo then claimed himself the winner as his sword had created goddesses.

Another story about the relationship between the two sibling gods is one where Susanoo grows restless, and in a fit of rage goes berserk. While wrecking havoc upon everything around him, he destroys Amaterasu’s rice fields, and killes her servants, among other things. This causes Amaterasu to go and hide in a cave for some time, and there is no sun. In the end she is persuaded to come back out, and Susanoo is banished from heaven, and he traveled to the province of Izumo, in the east part of today’s Shimane Prefecture.

Here he meets a family, headed by an old man by the name of Ashinazuchi, who tells Susanoo about the eight-headed, and eight-tailed, snake called Yamata-no-Orochi (八岐の大蛇). The family used to have 8 daughters, but the snake had eaten all but one, and he was soon coming back for her. Susanoo decided to help the family, if he was allowed to marry the last daughter: Kushinada-Hime. They married, and Susanoo turned her into a comb, to be able to have her close to him while battling the giant snake.

He built a huge fence, with eight gates in it. Behind each gate he placed a huge barrel of sake. When the snake came, he put one head through each of the gates, and drank the sake, and fell asleep. While being knocked out, Susanoo could easily cut of the heads of the snake, and its tails. And in the forth tail, he found a sword, that he would later give to Amaterasu as a reconciliation gift, and be allowed back into heaven. This sword later became known as the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (草薙の剣), and is one of the Japanese Imperial Regalia.

In popular culture, Susanoo can be found in many different games, mangas, and animes: In “Naruto”, the Uchiha family can use their strongest ocular power, the Mangekyo Sharingan, to summon a powerful diety named Susanoo; in the video game “Puzzle & Dragons”, Susanoo is a collectible god; in the video game “Okami” he is one of the protagonists; he showed up in the card game “Android: Netrunner” from Fantasy Flight Games; and he appears in the tabletop roleplaying game “Scion”.

As you can see, Susanoo is a rough, wild character, who isn’t even afraid of his sisters wrath, and who carries out both great deeds of heroism, as well as acts of vandalism. A great warrior, well worthy the title God of Seas and Storms.

Last week we talked about Kaiju (怪獣) movies, or Monster movies, with monsters like Godzilla, Rodan, and Gamera. We also mentioned in that post that the Kaiju genre is a form of Tokusatsu movies. Tokusatsu (特撮) means “special photography”, and the name refers to movies with a lot of special effects in them. This week we return to this type of movies, to look at a different genre: the Super Sentai Series!

Super Sentai Series (スーパー戦隊シリーズ) got it’s name from the Mechas, or Super Robots, that the heroes commonly use, and from the Sentai (戦隊) which means “task force”, or “fighting squadron”. There are two more genres in Tokusatsu, which are related to the Super Sentai in style, and they are the Ultraman Series, and the Kamen Rider Series. We will come back to these in the future.

The typical format of a Super Sentai Series is the illustration of the fight between good and evil. The good side usually consists of 5 people, but sometimes less than that. These heroic main characters receive super powers, in one way or another, which can be magical or technological in nature. And they are easily recognised by their characteristic colour-coded uniforms, with red, blue, black, yellow, and pink as the most common colours. They usually fight with advanced weapons, martial arts skills, and with robots/mechs against the forces of evil.

Speaking of which, the forces of evil are usually threatening to conquer or destroying the world. Every week the heroes will have to fight through an army of underlings, and a “monster of the week”. This monster fight is usually not an easy task, and usually ends up in the monster transforming into a giant version, forcing the heroes to assemble/transform their robots into an equally big version, and the fight continues, until our heroes win.

The many different Super Sentai Series have been somewhat distributed outside of japan, with France, Spain, Portugal and Brazil airing a few of the earlier series in the 70’s and 80’s. Hawaii has seen a long tradition of airing the series’ on Hawaiian television, in its original Japanese, with English subtitles. Sacramento, Los Angeles and the California area has also had a few series shown on local television.

There have been 38 different Super Sentai Series’, and I won’t list them all here. I will mention a few that usually stands out in each decade:

• Battle Fever J (70’s)
• Choudenshi Bioman (80’s)
• Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman (90’s)
• Kyôryû Sentai Zyuranger (90’s) (which became Power Rangers under Saban Entertainment)

The list can be made much longer, and there are tonnes of movies, OVAs, and other productions besides the series. And since the Super Sentai phenomenon has been around since the 70’s, it has shown up in many other places, such as video games, game shows, and other television shows. There has also been a lot of parodies and spoofs (one funny one in particular you find Here!).

So why not grab your colour-coded jump-suit and helmet, and head into this fascinating part of Japanese culture? Who needs anime, when you can fight guys in rubber suits? ^_-

With the premiere of the new Godzilla (or rather ゴジラ) movie in recent memory, and the popularity of Pacific Rim the other year, we take a look at the “giant monster” genre, that is starting to become more and more popular in western cinema. But what is a Kaiju actually?

The Japanese word “怪獣 (kaijû)” is translated to “giant beast” in English, but has also been defined as “strange monster”, and refers to a whole genre known as Tokusatsu (特撮). Kaiju films usually show monsters of different forms, usually attacking a major Japanese city or engaging another monster, or sometimes several other monsters, in battle.

Normally, the Kaiju monsters are based on normal animals or insects, but sometimes also on mythological creatures. However, there are also cases where inanimate objects such as traffic lights, tomatoes, and umbrellas have inspired Kaijus. In English the term Kaiju is usually used to refer to Japanese monsters in Japanese folklore, and in the Tokusatsu movies. However, the Japanese use of the word actually also include vampires, ware wolfs, and other “western” monsters/creatures as well.

Kaijus have been portrayed in many different ways: as minions or side-kicks to the main antagonist, a pure force of nature, as helpers to the hero, or as heroes themselves. For example, the most famous, and widely known Kaiju is unarguably Godzilla, or Gojira (ゴジラ). Godzilla has been playing almost every role possible, and have those around him react accordingly depending on how he was presented in the film.

Other notable Kijus are Mothra, Rodan, Gamera, King Ghidorah, and Daimajin (a humanoid kaiju, or kaijin “怪人”)

Today we take a closer look at two concepts that is very Japanese. Let’s learn about Japanese “service”, and how the Japanese are split between what they want, and what is expected.

“Omotenashi”

The word ‘Omotenashi’ in Japanese comes from omote (面 “surface”) and nashi (無し “less”), which means “single-hearted”, and also mote (持て “carry”) and nashi (為し “accomplish”), which means “to achieve”. Therefore, Omotenashi has two meanings, which include offering a service without expectation of any returned favour, and the ability to actualise that idea into an action.

Interestingly, the Japanese language makes no distinction between ‘guest’ and ‘customer.’ In English, the concept of ‘service’ suggests a hierarchy between the ‘server’ and the ‘customer.’ The Japanese Omotenashi, however, is based on a non-dominant relationship between equals – between the person offering the service (the host) and the person receiving it (the guest or customer).

 

“Honne” vs “Tatemae”

Honne and tatemae are Japanese words that describe the contrast between a person’s true feelings and desires (本音 “honne”) and the behavior and opinions one displays in public (建前 “tatemae”, “façade”).

Honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one’s position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one’s position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one’s Honne.

The notion of Honne and Tatemae is seen by some as a cultural necessity resulting from a large number of people living in a comparatively small island nation. Close-knit co-operation and the avoidance of conflict are considered to be of vital importance in everyday life.

Even though there might not be direct single word translations for honne and tatemae in some languages they do have two word descriptions. For example in English “private mind” and “public mind.” Some researchers suggest that the need for explicit words for Tatemae and Honne in Japanese culture is evidence that the concept is relatively new to Japan, where as the unspoken understanding in many other cultures indicates a deeper internalization of the concepts.

The conflict between Honne and Giri (“social obligations”) is one of the main topics of Japanese drama throughout the ages. For example, the main character would have to choose between carrying out his obligations to his family or his feudal lord, or pursuing a stealthy love affair.