(日本語版はこちら）

Once upon a time in a faraway land, nestled between the mountains and surrounded by cherry blossom trees, there stood a small village named Kamiki-mura¹. There was a wolf that would often visit there, and with its mysterious powers of the Celestial Brush, defeat the yōkai² that would beset the villagers. It was pure white, and so the villagers named it Shiranui³.

At that time, the village was under a detestable curse. Every year the great demon king Yamata-no Orochi would demand a human sacrifice. The night before Nīname-sai⁴, an arrow of pure evil would shoot from hell and pierce the roof of one of the houses in the village; that house's eldest daughter would have to be offered as a sacrifice, or the village would surely be destroyed.

One year, the village hero, Izanagi, learned that the the girl he loved was to become this sacrifice, and so he decided to destroy Orochi once and for all. With the wolf Shiranui at his side, he pressed onto Orochi's lair.

That a mere human and a wolf were no match for the great demon king, there was no doubt. He thrashed with his eight great necks, delivering blow after crushing blow, and biting at the heroes. But, just as it seemed that all hope was lost, Shiranui suddenly let out a howl, and the clouds covering the moon parted: Izanagi raised his sword and let it bathe in the moonlight, and the moon god lent his power to him. Like a great wave lifted by the influence of the moon, Izanagi rushed forward and clove one of Orochi's necks clean in two, and the other necks swifly followed. Izanagi named his sword Tsukuyomi⁵, and used it to seal Orochi away. Tired but victorious, the two heroes headed home.

To honour the heroes, the villagers created stone statues of the pair. It is said that even 100 years later, they are still protecting Kamiki-mura to this day...

It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? In reality, it's a cutscene from a video game called Ōkami. It was released originally on the PlayStation 2, so it's quite old these days! But it's illustrated in a Japanese watercolour style, so I think it still looks amazing. The game contains many real Japanese folklore tales, but also a lot of fake ones. It's hard to tell as a foreigner which are which sometimes. Of course, I have an interest in Japanese folk stories. This game is one of the main reasons I wanted to learn more about Japanese culture, so I'm glad that I'm able to play it in its original language. The main character is Amaterasu⁶ but she possesses the statue of Shiranui, so to humans she appears to be just a plain white wolf. She's a great god (ōgami) but she takes the form of a wolf (ōkami). Even though I recognised the joke quickly after I started learning Japanese, I still find it funny. Amaterasu makes friends with a bug-like travelling painter named Issun⁷. He calls her Ama-kou in the Japanese version, and Ammy in the English translation. In university I had a friend who called me Ammy. We were able to bond over our mutual love of this game.

It seems Amaterasu is closely related to Nīname-sai. I only just heard about Nīname-sai today (I wrote the original post on the 23rd of November), so me writing this post and playing this game were a complete coincidence. Maybe it's Amaterasu's influence.

¹ 神木村 Literally "god-tree village"

² 妖怪 Evil spirits/ghosts/monsters of Japanese folklore

³ 白野威 Literally "white wild force"

⁴ 新嘗祭 The Japanese harvest festival held on November 23rd

⁵ 月読 The Japanese god of the moon

⁶ 天照 The Japanese goddess of the sun

⁷ 一寸 Literally "one sun". A sun is a traditional Japanese measurement, close to an inch