#MANITOU | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

randomkposts · 1 year ago

Text

With Persona 3 and Nocturne being remastered, It would be absolutely fantastic if Digital Devil Saga and Raidou Kuzunoha came out again too. I enjoyed watching the movies, and think I would really enjoy playing them, particularly the former. The Later, however, is part of a lore I am really enjoying learning about, and that is Devil Summoners.

The series as we know it started with the invention of the COMP, by Akemi Nakajima- a Bishōnen programer and amature magician- back in Digital Devil Megami Tensei story, a game based on novels by Aya Nishitani. Check out Marsh if you want to learn more about them.

youtube

But back to devil summoners, the most known is Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th, of the Kuzunoha clan, and the protagonist of the Raidou Kuzunoha games. The Kuzunoha clan is a clan of devil summoners based on the legend of Kuzunoha in Japan.

"Kuzunoha is the name of a popular fox spirit of Japanese folklore, and is closely connected to the legends surrounding famed Onmyōdō Abe no Seimei. In the legend, the father of Seimei, Abe no Yasuno was visiting a shrine in Shinoda when he came across a hunter who had trapped a white fox in order to take its liver to sell as medicine. Abe no Yasuno fought off the hunter and saved the white fox, but not before sustaining serious injuries to himself. In the aftermath, he is saved by a mysterious, enchanting woman named Kuzunoha and the two eventually fall in love and get married.

Later, Kuzunoha gave birth to Abe no Seimei, who was born with strange powers, and by the age of five, he was said to be able to to see and command lesser Oni. One day, when Abe no Seimei was still a child, he noticed his mother possessed a fox's tail under her kimono. Realizing her disguise had been found out, she fled her home and returned to Shinoda; her husband and son pursued her and she revealed she was the very same white fox that Abe no Yasuno had saved many years ago. Kuzunoha gives her son a special book that will allow him to speak with beasts, and bids farewell to her family, never to be seen again. Her famous farewell poem can be found on a silk parchment in the Inari Shrine in Izumi."

So in the Megami Tensei overall lore, naturally that forms the basis of a clan of devil summoners who exist long before COMPS become a thing. This is also a history where the Taisho era lasted longer than IRL.

Also Hirasaki City area was once part of a small country that fought the Yamato dynasty off with magic and demons, had ties to China, and defeated the Yamato army, but lost in the long run, whereupon the queens only daughter was captured, tortured, and executed in a cruel manor, and her spirit was so angry it needed to be sealed for safety.

And then there's whatever is going on with Sumaru that has students in school during July, but the rumors coming true isn't new (I'd guess ten years but an exact timeline is hard to pin), and that's before the city was retconned by rumors to have a history involving things like a local princess, as of The EP timeline from which the other persona games follow.

It's also a reality where SMT 1 was averted, and instead If timeline events happened. So there are people who are born naturally capable of using magic (such as law and chaos hero), and a highschool student brought his school into an alternate dimension, filled with demons, true death was canceled, and he became ruler. Two students then proceeded to fight their way through said world and defeat him to get back to the human world.

The history students are screaming. The devil summoner games have connections to the persona games, and the crossover brings me joy. The tech tree evolution is hilariously wack.

So that all said, let's talk about Summoners, facts, extrapolation, and headcanons. Starting with Showing up in multiple games. (Soul hackers 2 not included as I have not yet interacted)

Madame Ginko:- the overseer of the Kuzunoha clan, and the most respectfully treated trans person in the series, the owner of Club Cretaceous (understandably has a lot of summoners), and has preference for Dragon Demons, according to Demikids.

In spite of her showing up the most of anyone on this list, I don't really have a lot of headcanons for her really. I heard she was a bodyswapper, and according to her bio her hobby is moon watching, and favorite food is Oden. Her blood type is Type A, which in Japan does give personality indication.

Maybe later I'll do a post on blood types and Megaten universe characters who share that blood type.

Has a bodyguard in the form of Utsumi Kunihiko, blood type AB, who likes pizza and breeding tropical fish.

Kinap:- first showing up in Devil Summoners as a user of the DDS-Net who gives you hints and hacks into a museum sincerity system for you.

In Soul Hackers, Kinap is probably not the same being as last time, but who knows, as he is never shown on screen. Spoilers ahead for plot points in Devil summoner soul hackers.

In mythology:- "In Mi'kmaq folklore, a Kinap is a mortal human gifted with uncanny physical strength and other powers. In many legends, a Kinap's power manifests as a child, and he either becomes a child-hero or dies young by using too much of his strength too early. In other legends, an adult Kinap features as a mortal hero slaying a terrible monster or leading the other Micmac men into battle. ."

He sends the protagonist on vision quests throughout the game. Apparently Kinap was once a Shaman who tamed Manitou, and proceeded to use him in battles to be Victorious in wars, and used the slain foes as sacrifices, to grow Manitou stronger.

Then one day he realized "oh snap. Feeding it all these souls might make it too strong and I will lose control one day." So he took preventive action and sealed Manitou away. He also created Nemissa out of a fragment of his soul, but for her to be effective, she would need to understand humans. Rather than introduce her to some humans he knew then, he sealed her and abandoned his mortal form to watch over them. And possibly Devil Summoners Protagonist IDK. Obviously that goes super well, lol.

Let's deffine Manitou :- " Manitou is the belief of Algonquians meaning “mysterious being,” or simply “mystery”. It is an Algonquian word that represents the unknown power of life and the universe. Common among the indigenous peoples of North America, it is related to the concept of mana, a personal supernatural force, and connected to the worship of the sun. A supernatural force that according to an Algonquian belief permeates the natural world.

Manitou is universal and manifests everywhere: the environment, events, organisms, etc. When the world was created, Aashaa monetoo meaning the “good spirit” or “great spirit”, gave the land to the indigenous peoples, specifically to Algonquian-speaking ethnic group indigenous Shawnee. In some Algonquian traditions, it was also called Gitche Manitou.

Native Americans acknowledge traditional healers and spiritual leaders who used manitou to see the future, heal illness, and change the weather. Ojibwe traditional healers used their spiritual connection to cure patients since the illness was believed to be caused by spirits and magic. To communicate with spirits and influence manitou, a healer would sing, dance, and drum beats to enter a trance. They sometimes also used hallucinogens to make a connection. For non-healers, they interacted with spirits by embarking upon a “vision quest,” by means of hallucinogens, fasting, praying, and by isolating themselves from society. A person who underwent vision quests would see objects or animals and also heard voices that would become later on as his or her guardian spirit.

In tribes that practice shamanistic rituals, manitous are connected to an inanimate object or animals to achieve the desired effect. A buffalo manitous for a successful hunt or plant manitous may be connected for healing. It involved the belief that shamans had the power to communicate with spirits, heal the sick, and help bring souls of the dead to the afterlife.

The early Native Americans in Illinois believed that each person has his own god, which they call their Manitou. It could come in a form of a bird, serpent, or other similar things, of which they have dreamed while sleeping. These manitous were considered as a lucky token. For war, manitous came in the form of species of birds, including falcons, crows, ducks, swallows, and parakeets. Representations such as skin or feathers of their manitous were displayed on their homes to ask for guidance and power when they went for fishing, hunting, or war.

As soon as adolescents became aware, it was expected that young adults start their vision quest in the wilderness. To trigger a manitou in a dream, the young adults went fasting without food and water for up to seven days. A manitou could take the form of a bear, wolf, bison, mountain lion, deer, bobcat, bird, or some other animal. "

What does the megaten wiki say about Manitou?

"Originally Manitou was a great spirit of the land found in North America, but Kinap utilized Manitou as a weapon in ancient times. Contact with mankind and their souls threatened to turn the peaceful mindless force into an entity of destruction. Kinap then sealed Manitou away and created Nemissa from Manitou to bring death to it should it ever be awakened and become a force of destruction.

The Phantom Society and Kadokura find the entity, and make their own plans to give it the souls of mankind for their own agendas. Manitou is also capable of feeding on the souls of demons, as shown by the slain Godly soul that it gains power from. "

It kind of sounds like Manitou should have been the one sending you on Vision quests, and generally working with Kinap. They have just sort of used Manitou as a buzzword. Nemissa Is a legend of a star goddess who seduces a hunter.

But yeah, they are more used as cool names, not particularly respectfully researched or portrayed use of legends from native people. I like Nemissa as a character, but as far as mythology goes, she's an OC with a legend based name.

If they wanted a native legend that actually ate souls, they could go for Nalusa Chito, assuming they did their research with cultural consultants of the mythology they are inspired from and portray it respectfully.

" Nalusa Chito, also known as a Impa Shilup, was the soul-eater, a great black beingIf individuals allowed evil thoughts or depression to enter their minds, Impa Shilup would creep inside them and eat their souls. "

Don't speak their names.

For more info, go to

As an antagonist, it could probably suit the cyberpunk setting of the time pretty well.

"Cyberpunk narratives often incorporate a sense of hopelessness or nihilism, typically featuring a gritty and violent backdrop, with crime, artificial intelligence, class uprising, governmental and corporate corruption, anarchy, gang warfare, and transhumanism all being central themes. The range is broad but the combination of these themes in the cyberpunk aesthetic is often used to convey deeper meanings and commentate on modern society and sometimes predictions of future society."

Soul hackers was first published in 1997, during Japan's lost decade, the name for its economic crisis.

For more information on what caused that, check here

For more information on how that impacts the people socially and culturally, check this video by Lady Virgilia

youtube

I think ending the game by defeating a soul eating depression monster , especially during Japan's lost decade would have been a hopeful ending to the game. A way of saying "maybe it does suck now, but we can turn it around"

Oh wow, I've wandered pretty off topic. I'll end this one here, and come back and talk about Rei, and other characters later.

13 notes · View notes