Mo No No Ke: face, pants, shoes... sword!

[kaigou]

NOTE: some images missing, lost in journal-transfer

A note about Kabuki makeup, from Kabuki Story:

The colours used in kumadori are of great significance, and it is these that highlight the emotion and temperament of the character.

beni (deep red) — anger, indignation, forcefulness, obstinacy
beni (red) — activeness, eagerness, passion, vigour
usuaka (pink or pale red) — cheerfulness, youthfulness, gaiety
asagi (light blue) — calmness, coolness, composure
ai (indigo) — melancholy, gloominess
midori (very light green) — tranquillity
murasaki (purple) — sublimity, nobility, loftiness
taisha (brown or burnt sienna) — selfishness, egotism, dejection
usuzumii (grey on chin) — dreariness, cheerlessness
sumi (black) — fear, terror, fright, gloom

note to branchandroot: how do these line up with the research you've done on colors? is there a correlation?

deep red on white face — most common; expresses, anger, indignation, or rage mixed with cruelty; can also represent characters with forceful personalities who have good qualities
Pink — restricted to a small number of roles, eg the charming or amorous fox
Indigo — second to deep red in usage; used for villains and ghosts
Brown — worn by villains among court nobles, and by gods
Purple, gold, light green — rare; few uses include Shakkyo lion, Ryuuko golden tiger

Also, addendum to this post: a bit more about dōfuku (alt: dōbuku), one of the possible sources for Kusuri-uri's robe, from the men's clothing page of sengokudaimyo.com:

The dōfuku comes in two varieties: there is a knee-length version (distinguished by the term ko-dōfuku), and the ankle-length garment that looks surprisingly like a modern Western dressing gown except for the large, full sleeves. Two sets of ties, one inside and one outside the garment at the waist, secure it closed. The skirt section is cut rather full and actually tapers out in a vague bell shape. It was a Momoyama development based on a monastic garment called jikkitotsu.

The dōfuku was the leisure garment of lay monastics and other men who have functionally retired from worldly cares to devote themselves to spiritual or artistic matters. Sometimes, those in orders would wear a kesa over it.

Hmm, actually, that would fit, especially with the skirt-styling. I just can't find any pictures of someone actually wearing one, to get an idea of how it'd hang.

What I really want sometimes is for people to start posting patterns on the web. Pictures of fabric on flat are all well & good but they don't tell me much about construction. Sigh.

Here, the monk on pilgrimage wears motsuke-koromo; that's a the outer robe, from what I can tell, and motsuke-koromo no ran appears to be the attached skirt. Under that is a white kosode, with habaki covering the legs.



Well. Isn't that fascinating because there's no decent, thorough explanation I can find online for this stuff, and naturally the texts I have are all about women's clothes and two pages at most for men's. Grrrrr. So, uh, whatever those words mean? Beats me. I'm just going by the general shape of the garment.

Also, a peddler from the Muromachi era, which was some point between Heian and Edo? Uh. I'm too lazy to go look it up. The cap is a yawarakai eboshi; the jacket-kimono type is tsutsusode-no koromo; the hakama are kukuri-bakama (more below on those), and the gaiters are habaki or kyahan. See comments above for general attitude when reciting words out loud.



PEDDLER'S PACK (kusuri dansu or gyosho bako)

There's the historical item itself.



At some point (earlier in the history, from what I can tell), peddler's packs were made from a tight-woven wicker. The examples here are made from pawlonia (kiri) wood, which is incredibly strong considering it's a very lightweight wood. (There is no way on this earth that I would carry around a pack made from oak on my back, believe me -- and the lighter-weight woods I'm used to, like mahogany and pine, are far too soft to handle the beating they'd get on the road.)

I've seen references that suggest some of these boxes were made from cedar. I have trouble getting behind that, unless Japanese cedar is a completely different creature from Western Cedar, because the Western Cedar I've played with is so freaking soft it makes Southern Pine look like a hardwood. Sheesh. Plus, the oils in cedar (that make it impervious to water) are part of the reason cedar also bruises/darkens unevenly when it's dinged and/or exposed to heat/light/wet. Although it would keep any bugs at bay, there is that. Fleas bad.

An enchanting memory from the author of The Folk Art of Japanese Cooking:

When I was a child many different kinds of peddlers came to my home, sometimes only once a year. I remember the herb and medicine peddler best. She would bring a box to the house that had a small inventory of medicines individually packaged inside. When she returned the next year she would count what medicines had been used and mark a tally sheet on the side of the box. We were charged only for the medicines we had used. I remember the medicine peddler well because she gave all the kids paper balloons after making a sale.

I am not even going to point out the episode that nodded to this history. I'll get around to that eventually and be all gleeful then.

OBI

from japaneselifestyle.com: "The high quality brocade produced by the Nishijin artisans is known as “nishiki”, which literally means "beautiful colour combination". Nishiki is characterised by the lavish use of gold and silver threads to make patterns of flowers, birds and traditional geometric designs. Another style of obi produced in Nishijin is “tsuzure” or tapestry. Both brocade and tapestry obis are the most ornate and expensive of all obis."

It'd be hard to create that in a cell-based animation for a massive number of frames, unless CGI now does all kinds of fancy things I dunno about -- but as I understand it, the inbetweeners (who do coloring, connection frames, etc) are cheaper than the folks with the computer skills to really go fancy, so... Anyway. A bit of official artwork implies Kusuri-uri's obi does have some kind of gold-ish effect to its brocade.



Which leads me to ask, what the hell would a peddler be doing, wearing that? ...on the other hand, if he's a walking bundle of kabuki-influenced visuals, then all bets are off. The theater has never been known for its accuracy in colors or fabrics, and when you get into the more elaborate theatrical events like Kabuki, or Opera, then... the more glamorous and over-the-top you can get, the better to be seen from beyond the footlights.

That aside, maybe good to compare obi-placement. A photograph of two geisha, from around the 1880s or so, if I recall correctly:



More comparison images (the group shot shows each at slightly varying heights, ahah!)



Not being one to really go around staring at the height of obi-placement (and most of the time that's because it might hurt to do so, given how some Americans so freely mangle a lot of foreign dress) -- I have to say I was rather surprised to take a good look and realize just how high those obi are wrapped. Is that standard? Or is it more noticeable because theirs are tied rather tighter than I'm used to seeing? Maybe wearing the obi a little lower is a modern shift in styles?

Regardless, that's most definitely higher-up than Kusuri-uri wears his. Ignoring the fact that he's definitely wearing an obi/sash long enough for an over-the-top (hello, theatre!) sized-bow and trailing ends... he's still got it placed closer to natural waistline, at least. And maybe the width isn't quite that outrageous, either. Hmm. Here's two images of Ryukyuan dress. On the left is an actor in one of the Ryukyuan comedies (you can't tell from this size, but he's the looniest grin on his face); on the right is a Ryukyuan dancer. Both male, both with fairly wide sashes, and sitting at natural waist, not at the hips.



Then there's the Kabuki archetype of "the young buck", because every culture must have its young characters who strut around like they freaking invented peanut butter and the older generations are just clueless about the real coolness of it all. Ahem. But, again, notice the obi's width, although this one is closer to sitting directly just below the natural waist instead of exactly on it, or considerably above it (per the geisha).



There are other instances of men wearing obi or obi-like materials, and maybe it's anyone's guess what the illustrators/character-designer were twigging on, referencing, or trying to allude. The following two images are by Miyagawa Issho, who did a series of works on kagima, the young male prostitutes, and their samurai-lovers. But, if you look at the second image, the boy's obi is tied in the back, just like a nice girl's (as opposed to prostitutes who tied it in the front). If I stop and think about it...sheesh. It's a wrongful assumption, that any young male who cross-dresses and has a male lover must automatically be a prostitute; it isn't true now, and I really doubt it was then, too. There had to be young men who took on women's dress as part of their role and were also devoted to a single lover.



The second image is my favorite. I keep thinking, there's a story in there, somewhere, because the young lover looks just a little too peeved about the letter/document in his hand, and his older lover looks just a little too amused.

This next image is of Qiu Chang Chun, a Taoist monk who travelled from Shandong, China to Persia to meet with Genghis Khan. The round-trip journey took three years, and was diaried by one of his attendants in Travels to the West of Qiu Chang Chun (长春真人西游记). More Taoism.

Then again, Taoism seems to show up in everything. It's like Shinto. No, it's like Worcestershire sauce. It goes with everything.



What is he actually wearing? I haven't the foggiest. But as long as I keep reminding myself that artist brains are like ten-pound blenders, then it pretty much means the sky is the limit. What did the original character designer get told, prior to coming up with a design? I always wonder about that, and I often get irritated with publicity interviews -- of the director, the actors, maybe someone who does fancy computer stuff -- but never the character designer. Why not? I want one of the illustrators who does character design to show up at a con so I can ASK, damn it.

*cough*

More images that culturally are (as I understand it) as "vaguely familiar" to Japanese eyes as the Plains Indian and Southwestern Indians are to American eyes. No, the average person probably can't tell the difference between Apache and Navajo and Dakota, but that iconographic image of Geronimo? Pretty much instantly recognizable, and just about any history book has pictures of the Cherokee leaving Georgia, Sitting Bull, and maybe a picture or two of Pocahantas (for no real reason I can tell) or Sacajawea (now there's an amazing person).

The Ainu are pretty much kissing cousins to the American Native, the Saami, and any other indigenous people and I don't mean in terms of blood relationship. I just mean in the sense that they've permeated the dominant culture but as icons, with the 'real thing' generally ignored and marginalized. That, I think, is the key: marginalized.

...which I shall take a raincheck on and come back to that, because this post is just to catalogue the visuals I think got thrown in the blender. Mostly. Suggestions of additions welcome, post in comments, etc. Before that, back to the Apache! the Ainu!

See the amazing embroidery! (It's supposed ot keep away evil spirits.) See the... whatever that kid is wearing. I don't know; it does look like an obi, but the image is from someone's collection of a local Ainu festival, no explanation given. Maybe the kid himself was blendering own-culture and Japanese-culture to come up with his own idea of fancy dress. Who knows, I include it because it amused me.

The caps the group is wearing are (in the larger version I had to scale down) very much like the girl's, in the upper picture. Btw, I think that portrait is awesome. She has such a pleased smile on her face, that I find myself grinning back at her.



I know a lot of you reading are US/EU, and unless you've gone digging then your exposure to Buddhism is like most folks, via the Dalai Lama. His saffron robes are traditional, but that's not to say all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are always in red/orange robes over one arm with the other arm bare (though there is a dogmatic/religious reason for that design, if you've ever wondered). Sometimes Buddhas can get pretty durned fancy, and they do clean up real nice. This is Buddha Amithaba, and I included it just to show that if -- if -- we were to posit that Kusuri-uri is an avatar in some way of a Buddha, that this does not automatically mean wearing all black, foregoing fashion, and being all worker-like looking.



On the other hand, who says you have to be human to be Buddhist?



Yes, that's an Oni, dressed as a Buddhist monk. No, it's not an Oni intending to play tricks on people; it's supposed to be an Oni who is genuinely a Buddhist. According to some Buddhist traditions, some priests -- upon their death -- chose to become Oni in order to remain at the temple and protect it. The same page also notes that Tengu could be converted to Buddhism, to be guides for monks in understanding the Dharma tenets and sacred rites; like Oni, Tengu would also protect Buddhist shrines. (Elsewhere I read that in some folklore, Tengu were originally Buddhist monks who'd been cursed by another monk. Hunh.)

UNDERGARB

PANTS & GAITERS

Kukuri-bakama according to the Japanese Men's Garb page...

This is a type of hakama that has ties at the hem of each leg to allow it to be secured to the leg. Sashinuki are therefore, by definition, a type of kukuri-bakama. Most times when the term “kukuri-bakama” is used, however, it refers to just a short or ankle-length hakama of indeterminate bulk (typically two panels per leg) that are worn by lower classes and menials such as hakuchō and zōshikinin. For such folk, the kukuri-bakama are of simple make, and hemp or linen cloth (although silk is not out of the question).

Hakama worn by commoners and laborers in Heian were two panel, and typically only reached to the mid-calf or a bit lower. During the sixteenth century, low-class warriors often wore a knee-length two- or three-panel hakama which were sometimes called kobakama, a terminology problem as regular hakama were also called kobakama in the Edo period owing to the formal nagabakama being the “formal” norm.

Kyahan are leggings that cover from the knee down, roughly. The fellow on the left is wearing momohiki -- some kind of culotte-type pants, I guess -- and kyahan. On the right are kukuri-bakama. Uh, I think.



SOCK (tabi)

from wiki entry on tabi:

Tabi (足袋) are traditional Japanese socks. Ankle high and with a separation between the big toe and other toes, they are worn by both men and women with zori, geta, and other traditional thonged footwear. Tabi are also essential with traditional clothing—kimono and other wafuku. The most common colour is white, and white tabi are worn in formal situations such as at tea ceremonies. Men sometimes wear blue or black tabi for travelling.

The article also notes, "though slowly being replaced by steel-toed rigid-sole construction shoes in some industries, many workers prefer them for the softness of their soles. This gives wearers tactile contact with the ground and also lets them use their feet more agilely than rigid-soled shoes allow ... craft practitioners such as carpenters and gardeners additionally use their feet as if they were an extra pair of hands, for example to hold objects in place." I wear sneakers in the workshop because I don't want chemicals spilling on my feet, or to step on a screw or nail or piece of wood -- but there are plenty of times when I'm putting stuff together and end up on the garage floor to do it, so I can brace a foot here and another foot there. Unfortunately, I suspect the tabi-form of Doc Martins is probably a long long time away when it comes to imports.

Eh, well, save it for my next life.

CLOGS (geta)



from wiki entry on geta:

The most familiar style in the West consists of an unfinished wooden board called a dai (台, stand) that the foot is set upon, with a cloth thong (鼻緒, hanao) that passes between the big toe and second toe. The dai may vary in shape: oval ("more feminine") to rectangular ("more masculine") and color (natural, lacquered, or stained).

Geta called ashida are for rain and mud, and probably snow. Often worn by travellers, peddlers, anyone who had to go any distance in inclement weather on a regular basis.



a geta-afficiando on the web commented, "takai geta/ashida (the high ones) require more skill. The front of the sole doesn't necessairly hit the ground so steps don't quite feel "complete." And they're higher so that any unevenness in the ground is magnified and more likely to promote a fall or twisted ankle. You have to pay attention to where you're going."

Another page noted that bankara geta are tall geta, with thick ha (teeth), and unlike asida, bankara are made in three pieces so the teeth can be replaced when they get worn down. Incidentally, the wiki page claims the hanao/thong sits between the two first toes because having the thong of rectangular geta anywhere but the middle would result in the inner back corners of the geta colliding when walking.

I have been trying to wrap my head around that one. If the thongs are in the middle, then your toes are going to be forced outwards and your heel inwards. To keep feet moving, your toes end up pointed outwards and you feel like your feet are walking in two different directions. If, though, the thong-hole were positioned more closely to the natural point between big-toe and the little-toes, then your toes could be pointed forward parallel with the geta. That is to say, I think the wiki page is full of it, for at least that line.

Seems more reasonable to me that geta were much like European shoes were, for a long long time -- maybe until about the point that someone came up with pret-a-porter shoes, perhaps. Until then, cordwainers used lasts (a kind of mold around which the new shoe was shaped while being made), and since every shoe had to be hand-made, having right and left lasts would've doubled the work. On top of that, cutting the leather (or fabric) for creation is also streamlined, since the pattern only varies by size, not by left/right. Given that most geta were a single block of wood, and that pretty much everyone wore them, shoe-makers were probably kept as busy as their European counterparts... so you make X in Y size, and A in B size, and not stress about whether this one is left and that right.

I get the logic in the historic, I really do, and I can also see that if people are used to walking with their toes out, that to have rectangular geta match up with the toes that, sure as taxes, the back inner corners are going to knock with each step. However! Not all cultures walk pigeon-toed. Europeans and Japanese tend to, which was once because of the way one walked in shoes that weren't left/right sized (though that shouldn't really be true of Anglo/Europeans anymore).

Maybe it's a cultural thing. I dunno. I do remember learning as a very young child that when Anglos first came to this country, their footprints were easily divisible from native prints, because the Anglos turned their toes out, and the natives didn't.

(Naturally, being the kind of kid I was, I set about learning to walk with my toes pointed straight ahead. It's not hard. It just takes getting used to, along with compensating some, because a lot of European-styled shoes expect you to walk with your toes out, and if you point your toes forward, the soles will clack/scrape each other sometimes. On the other hand, this meant when I did spend a day wearing geta, my feet and legs really hurt like a mofo, beyond all reason -- because I wasn't just getting used to walking with my toes kinda hanging off the edge, but also turning my toes outwards in a way I never do. Ow, ow, ow.)

SWORD

More taoism! It's starting to be a trend.



On the left is the series' version; on the right is the Taoist version. According to the site,

The Seven Stars Peach Wood Sword is considered to be compulsory for Taoist Exorcism. This sword being the most premium in quality is trustworthy in exorcism. It is made from genuine peach wood from "Long Hu Mountain" in Jiangxi province, China. The presence of this sword is trusted by all Masters to be able to keep any place free from spirits including the fierce ones. The sword is commissioned to be carved with strong symbols of the dragon and lion heads to empower it further in fighting against any evil force and in return draw auspicious energy. This sword is normally carried by Feng Shui masters when they conduct their feng shui audits in order for them to be protected against evil spells in premises and dirty lands so that they do not fall sick or followed by spirits. It is also best to be kept in places that are eerie, dark, scary, nocturnal places or even in bedrooms where kids complain they are scared of staying in.

And I'll let that stand without comment, because... well... yeah.

I got the clue from comments on one of Iwa ni Hana's posts about Mononoke, identifying the creature on the sword-head as a xie zhe. However, the mythology and classification of this beast is at best a murky thing.



According to several sites, the haetae is the Korean version of the xie zhe, and that in fact they're both fire-breathing dogs. No indication of horns on the haetae (sometimes haitai), at all. Then there's the bei zhe, which is a type of zhe, but a one-horned version -- and apparently zhe by definition should have cloven-hooves, like goats. But the best visual fit I see is what one site identified as a cha yu (which is also a creature that loves to eat people!) and another site called the exact same image a type of xhi zhe. I'm willing to bet the Chinese texts aren't much clearer on the exacts, but hey. The best summary I found is probably at the Chinese Unicorn page.

Regardless, the legend about the xie zhe is a nice fit. The page mentioned above says, "The early unicorn was considered as an aggressive beast, and it was said that it ate fire in its ravenous fury, but it was specially praised for being able to discriminate between good and evil, and that it would gore the wicked whenever it meets them." The xie zhi is a kind of supernatural goat that can distinguish right/wrong, good/evil. If this goat-like (two-horned, incidentally) creature saw someone fighting, the xie zhi woudl reach out to touch horn against the side in the wrong, and it would never ever lie about its conclusion, either. So upright it'd even accuse the emperor, or so the stories claim.

Anyway, more taoism, yeah, and a kind of taoist goat-unicorn... thing. Alright!

More coming as my brain resolidifies. Two more days of no dishwasher, but I'm not even going to go there, not tonight. Sigh.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm, personally for the obi on the geisha, I think that's just the way someone dressed them up. I've seen some photos from the 1880's with geisha wearing slightly lower obi(more like what you see on the streets now, right under the bust), and vice-versa, where I've seen modern geisha wearing a higher obi. As for the medicine seller, his obi is still tied lower either way so it really is probably just theatrics at work there. On a different note, I would love for the creators of Mononoke to make a concept book for it, kind of how Miyazaki compiles art books for his films, showing us how he and his crew came up with the designs and what inspired them. Unless something like this has already been made and I'm not aware....

Thank you for this really insightful post by the by. This and the last couple.

~Tori

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I would be more than happy to actually beat my head against figuring out Japanese (well more like "translate the hanzi and then harangue CP to translate the kana for me") if they did an artbook + actual text with more than just "and these are his shoes". MORE than happy. DELIRIOUS.

My urban-fantasy modern-genre brain goes crazy with stories stuffed so full to the brim, like this one.

Thanks for tip on obi height -- I'm never quite sure sometimes whether three people doing it this way just means these are three pictures similar and not that everyone did it that way. And I'm too lazy to trot my duff downtown to do really heavy-duty research on this at the university libraries (at least the ones open to the public), so... I'm stuck with what literature I do have, other than what's on the net. Bleah.

But mostly I stick with the blender theory. When you tap archetypes, the idea is to catch a small, single detail that will make a person say, "oh, that just seems so familiar", and (hopefully) not really place it right away. It just seems... boy, doesn't that remind you of something? Dunno what... and off you go, new archetype now punchholed into your brain. Glee.

Unless you're me, in which case deconstructing that archetype is just hours upon hours of fun, and besides, it beats installing drawers in kitchen cabinets. (Or doing laundry, but everything beats doing laundry.)

Glad you've enjoyed -- probably going to be tossing various posts out over the next month or so as I work through the series, see what other folks have for input as well.

[joisbishmyoga.livejournal.com]

The picture of the geisha might be maiko, whose outfits can be arranged to look even more youthful than usual -- most notably with shoulder hems taken in, like children who're a few inches shorter (and therefore have arms not quite long enough) than their kimonos are designed for -- though how low the obijime argues against that.

I found a few other pictures of Meiji women, labeled geisha, on vintage postcards for sale. The postcards show both styles, but from what I can tell the obi are worn lower for more formal/sedate/mature looks. http://www.yamatoku.jp/classic/description.asp?tno=80655534

The smiling Ainu woman... her necklaces look awfully like Kusuri-uri's. Other than that, the only thing I know about Ainu is that the women wear girdles that men are never allowed to see, embroidered with signs passed down through the family line. I would presume they're also magical in nature, like the embroidery on the outerwear.

The sword head looks like a shishi (Okinawan shisa, Chinese rui shi, fu dogs, etc.), aka koma-inu, which wiki says is common across the Far East and was imported from China. But the horns and color seem to point more at oni... in fact, he doesn't look all that different from the picture of the Buddhist oni you've got, or the Yu Yu Hakusho oni I started out in fandom with.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I went through & snagged a few more images for comparison. Thing is, modern images are usually for special events, and finding the "we wear this everyday" really means going back to about 1930s or earlier... but yeah, I think what throws me are the proportions of the body length. (I'm used to longer bodies, too, and taller people, which might be part of it.)

I had figured I'd skip married-women pictures, since I doubted they'd be an analogue for an unmarried man... dressing as a woman... man, sometimes this makes my head hurt. Regardless, judging from the kabuki image and the okinawan image, it's not unheard of for a man to wear (at least on stage) an obi/sash that broad. Still, no sign anywhere of men with a big freaking BOW in their obi. Ahem.

Heh, the xiezhi looks kind of like a shishi but the shishi have rounder faces, not so pointy a nose. (Aren't shishi called lion-dogs -- actually, are they supposed to be Chows? I've never thought to ask that before. Hrm.) Anyway, given the connection of the goat with the xiezhi, and the "able to identify truth and indicate falsehood" that matches almost perfectly with the storyline.

Oh, almost forgot: the xiezhi's equivalent in Japan is called a kaira, I think it is, but I couldn't find a thing on it. Well, outside comments on forums & whatnot -- nothing with citations of any sort, or any hints on where else to look. (And I am way way too unmotivated right now to find the energy to go digging through the house-library for that book on Asian mythological beasties. All the stacks have been thrashed badly when I reorganized the living room & moved the books into the guest bedroom, and now I can't find ANYTHING without a four-hour commitment. Bleah!)

The entire notion of the Buddhist Oni just cracks me up. Other religions (*cough*judeoxtian*cough*) turn the local spirits into devils to be vanquished. Buddhism says, "oh, no! they're one of us, they're the good guys!" Talk about a turn-around on the usual. Heh.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

One of the niftier things re Buddhism is that pretty much *everything* is ultimately capable of redemption (even if it takes a huge amount of reincarinations to do so). :3

I'm not a Buddhist (I like meat too much ;_;) but I can definitely see the appeal there. :3

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

COW.

*cough*

Uhm, yeah.

I still think it's hilarious that tengu are reputed to be former priests cursed by other priests: what for? how? where did the priests learn that trick, and what happens to non-priests that they curse? do those turn into kappa?

*ponderponder*

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

...cow is yummy. And so are piggies. And sheep. And goats. And bison. And deer. And bunnies. And birds and fish and... :D

(Seriously, goat *is* yummy, as is Western KY style mutton barbecue. And now I'm craving Moonlite BBQ and/or goat paneer, damnit)

...seriously, I'd never make it as a Buddhist if I had to keep vegan :D

And yes, one wonders what happens to non-priests they curse...Agreed, kappa are a possibility, lol

[joisbishmyoga.livejournal.com]

That's why I went for Meiji-era postcards rather than modern images to check obi placement.

Other religions try and mostly succeed at turning the local spirits into devils. Don't see too many evil dwarves around. Elves, yeah, Tolkien made them noble and then D&D made some evil (and racist, oi). Then again, you definitely don't see elves and dwarves as historical monks, though you do find gargoyles aplenty protecting churches...

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Well, in Northern Europe, historically giants were something like EIGHTY FEET TALL (the usual over-the-top stuff), and ogres were THIRTY FEET TALL omg tall as a ship or a building blah blah blah and elves (or elf-like creatures) were tall as humans & most even passed for humans, and gnomes were the height of teenage-children.

Apparently once the christians moved in, the non-humans all shrank.

Which I thought was amusing until I started reading up on Spanish & Italian folklore and something similar happened there as xtianity finally made headway in the remoter regions. Not quite so much shrinkage in the British Isles, but still some.

But as for evilness, actually... I dunno about the specifics (or maybe reasserting your gnomish-sympathies is a modern thing?) but what I've seen/read/discussed of northern Europe, ogres and their kind were already evulll! and the helpful spirits like gnomes etc never really went away. They just got very very short.

Well, that's one way of living your life under the radar, I suppose.

[tomoeish.livejournal.com]

Very informative post, thanks for sharing :) I love how Mononoke is just a mix of so many things and yet a complete mystery at the same time.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

It's a good excuse to educate myself about areas of a culture that I don't normally get a chance to be exposed to, really.

Makes me wonder what stories/works come out of our culture that would be as opaque as this, to other cultures.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

Ah, and now we get into the very interesting stuff :D (And good on you for pointing out the stories re oni becoming temple guardians :D)

Re haetae/xie zhe: If you want to get into Buddhist context in this, too, komainu (and here I am referring to solely the Japanese version of fu-lions, etc.) would also match--traditionally one of the pair are male and horned. (This is probably where Japan mixed shishi (fu-lions) and xiezhe--not at all unlikely, seeing as haetae (the Korean version of xiezhe) are also pretty much used where shishi and komainu are used in Japan, and stories of the origin of "komainu" claim the term derived from "Korean dog" (aka, haetae).)

(Yes, I've done a lot of research on this for another fandom. LOL)

But yes, lots and lots of very nifty and interesting stuff as always.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Are komainu = kaira? Because I saw somewhere that kaira = xiezhi, yet I couldn't find "kaira" referenced anywhere else, and was wondering if it might be a mistransliteration or something.

Also, I've noticed the Japanese like to pair things off while the Chinese seem to have the same position performed (like guard or attendant) not in sets of two but sets of seven, nine, stuff like that. On the other hand, I guess if you've got to populate the entire 900-level pantheon of the jade emperor's system, you'd have to featherbed the structure, too. Heh.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

Komainu are most closely related to shishi, but there *are* differences--in part because part of the concept was imported from Korea (and merged with some native influences), and Koreans pretty much combined shishi and xiezhi (yes, haetae pretty much serve both functions).

And there really *is* no bureaucracy quite like Chinese imperial bureaucracy, especially when you get the Jade Emperor involved :D

[branchandroot]

*nodnod* Those colors definitely line up with my observations on anime eye/hair colors. The pale blue, red and pink especially.

I think part of the high-looking obi is just how wide it is. And, too, geisha and maiko often wear what would otherwise be mixed signals. Normally, the highness of the obi and the obi-jime (cord) go together: higher equals younger/more virginal, lower equals older/more experienced. The high obi and low cord would be a strange combination for a 'civilian'.

Kusuri-uri's obi is not too very wide, but I do find it interesting that it's on the waist low. That would be an "experienced" level on a woman. But his obi-jime is perfectly centered, which is a slightly ambiguous place to put it.

Supposing the artists are taking that much trouble with their symbolism.

If they are, the bloused scarf at the top of the obi is also a young signal. It gets tucked in more as a good/modest woman gets older.

Mind, this is all for the past hundred, maybe two hundred years. Before that things were, from what I can tell, a lot more fluid and changed frequently. For example, courtesan's obis were not always tied in front. They trailed after 'respectable' women's for a few centuries, while the respectable women kept changing back to front to indicate they were respectable, damn it, not like those hussies. Kind of keeping up with the Jonses sort of thing.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeeyahhh... I was thinking while posting that gee, just how many indigo-eyed characters do we share in our mutual fandom(s) who could also be easily classified as melancholy, eh? *whistles nonchalantly*

Supposing the artists are taking that much trouble with their symbolism.

I think it's more likely that the originating artist (who, I must note, was also one of the conceptual developers, which is different from "draw us this, okay?") came up with a few things... and the rest of the artists followed along with general instructions or with just basic, "uh, okay, boss, whatever." Thing is, you don't have to be thinking about symbolism to tweak it, so much as just know enough of it to know how to flip a few things around, here and there.

Which means the obi part? I can totally see someone saying, "okay, and we'll put an obi on him--" (makes me think the western equivalent might be, "and we'll have his fingernails painted") -- "but situate it like a married woman's... wait, then people'd think he's, hrm, okay! yeah! RAISE THE CORD. *snicker* That'll confuse 'em. Alright! What else?" (which might be like saying "but not black fingernail polish... hrmm, orange! yeah, because it's almost girly but not exactly. YEAH. That'll throw 'em.")

The fact that the artists stuck to their cultural basis (as opposed to, say, using Russian styles or referencing Yoruban or something else alien to them) means even if they didn't plan out the symbolism, they were most likely aware what they were drawing. Cultural assumptions are like drawing a character with left and right shoes -- if you're asked to draw a fellow who wears his shoes opposite, you can't not notice it...

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

That Taoist Monk's robe does look a bit weird. At first glance he seems to be wearing a normal waist skirt (like the one in this female outfit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ruqun.png), though it's seen in male outfits as well) but the different color above the waist tie is...weird. It can't be the lining because the lining is pink. Could it be a pieced upper part to the waist skirt? Or a different article of garment altogether? I'll have to poke a few people about this.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I would guess that either a) it's an upper part of the skirt, or b) was drawn by an artist who had no idea. Possibly even from an original that was inked only, no color (in which case depending on the culture's fashion sense, the artist might assume those must be different parts/layers). OR, of course, that it is something different. OR maybe that the taoist priest just had absolutely no fashion sense.

But if you find anything out, do let me know!