#warashi

[posthumanwanderings]

[smbhax]

Triggerheart Exelica (Dreamcast)

[valerianodrawsthings]

25th Mythical March creature was a Zashiki-warashi!

[ahaha-fvckjjj]

I am once again here to remind you that this abomination of a man is a loving father/dilf

[dharmafox]

Found while rummaging around on my phone. The more I think about their dynamic the more I love it.

Official DVD cover art.

[youkaigakkou-tl]

(sorry in advance for the long ask) i feel silly for not noticing earlier but i realized that "Sano Mikoto" follows the same "__ no mikoto" name pattern that several japanese gods have. but that also made me wonder: if the 佐 from sano's name means "help" then his whole name sounds like "the god of help/assistance". but based on how that doesn't align with his yakubyougami nature and how ebisu reacts to hearing the name in ch 53 (his reaction is a bit more clear in the jpn raws) (1/2)

佐 doesn't really mean "help" on its own, it only somewhat means that when it's part of the word 補佐 "hosa" , which means "assistant" (in an organizational structure to a chief or leader) rather than like "helping people". Most of the time 佐 is just used as a kanji to represent the sound "sa", which is somewhat frequently the case for the on-readings (similar to chinese pronunciation) of kanji.

This is particularly prevalent when it comes to ancient literature like the creation myths and stories around gods, where the stories originally only existed in verbal form, and when japan adopted the chinese writing system some 1500 years ago, they applied certain chinese characters to the sounds that existed in japanese (the 50 or so hiragana that exist now) in order to put the stories into writing.

(and then over time 50 or so kanji got simplified into hiragana for normal use but thats neither here nor there. but names got to keep their kanji, which is why creation myth gods often have stupid long names that are 1 kanji per syllable, and the kanji used dont mean much of anything by themselves)

(theres also that often the kanji chosen will have been positive words, stuff like "fast" or "wise" or "powerful", in addition to the chinese word sounding like the japanese syllable (which was the more important part). Its unclear whether all these attributes were all applicable to the god named, its just as possible people afterwards applied those attributes to them in future retellings of the stories because the kanji was in the name. sort of a chicken and egg problem. and anyway, does it really matter what the one "true" interpretation of a story is, if one exists at all? it's a very modern sensibility to demand one, when for much of history stories only existed in the air between a storyteller and a listener. im getting off track here)

this is a lot of words to say, what is significant about the 佐 in "sano", is that it's the same one as in susanoo-no-mikoto. susanoo, notable for being associated with storms and disaster, for being exiled from heaven after causing some sort of destruction, and for being a child of izanagi and izanami and born after their first child hiruko (or rather, ebisu).

the thing about the yakubyougami thing, as with every other youkai and everything about folklore, is that at the end of the day, it's a story. youkai are just a set of attributes and circumstances that are wrapped up as a story, and in turn given a name and a face. a kamaitachi is just the occurrence of "wind whipping up suddenly and dust and leaves cutting someone" wrapped up as a story of "what if an imperceptibly fast weasel with knives did it?!"

it's why there can be so many different versions of stories for the same youkai, with behaviors and appearance differing from place to place, or the same "story" being given a different "name" in different places

(relevant to the latest chapter, i sort of suspect this is why theres like 10 different monkey youkai whose lore is just "this monkey is a FREAK")

what im getting at is, this isnt really like scientific taxonomy classifications, where theres genes you can sequence or criteria you can check to see if something is the right species. (and even then, there's birds stranded on isolated islands, fish sealed in caves, microorganisms in general, etc etc) there's not like a "youkai auditor" that goes around auditing if you're Really the youkai you say you are.

nor is it like you intrinsically know what youkai you are and all the lore about it and what behaviors youre supposed to have and what powers you have etc. you're told that by your parents, and in cases where that isnt possible, you figure it out somehow. like with beniko (popped out of a house and raised by humans), they looked it up and people have come up with a name for the phenomenon, which was called "zashiki warashi". or in cases like odawara where you really do just come to life alone, i imagine you either make a name for yourself, or humans who come across you will make a name for you.

which is a lot of words to say, sano can call himself whatever the hell he wants to make his life easier and not have to explain his backstory or have classmates make guesses at his backstory, as long as his traits somewhat fit. especially since recently he's often in the same scenes as kurahashi, who is now confirmed to straight up not be who or what he says he is.

[amf-studios]

Day 3: Goblin!

I'm doing Halloween evolutions of select yokai! When fused with a new item called the trickster's treat!

First on the list, when given a trickster's treat, Gnomey's inner goblin boils to the surface! Now Gnoblin, he enjoys nothing more than playing pranks and getting dirty, a stark contrast to his normal behavior.

Gnoblin is a C rank, drain attribute of the shady tribe. His soultimate is "stick or treat" he just straight up stabs his enemies.

Hope you guys enjoy!

[newscarsting]

doodl

[pluckingstarsoffmoontrees]

It will never cease to amaze me how many people simp for the wet cat known as Kimihiro Watanuki.

[dailybigbro]

Today’s Big Bro (figure) is Hoozuki from Hoozuki no Reitetsu! He loves his little sisters!

[shiro-kitsuna]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!🎃

I like that there is not much color ^^

Of course I had to turn Sess into a human the urge was just to strong xD

What do you think? 🫣

[posthumanwanderings]

Gatchaman: The Shooting (Warashi / Bandai - PS1 - 2002)

[tetraharmonic]

So, I'm working on those ocs again, and it's wild how you can tell how different they are based on just their signatures alone.

I present you, a soldier, a poet, and a king. I'll let you figure out who is who :p

[kvass2128506]

Dad

[spear-gsun]

This zashiki-warashi from LE has been on my mind a lot lately for some reason

[dharmafox]

Okay, I have a new batshit crazy theory: The Ōoku in the movie is a metaphor for the womb.

Fair warning:

Here's my reasoning:*

Many of us seem to suspect that movie Medicine Seller is younger than the Medicine Seller we've previously seen. But the Medicine Seller also seems fairly inexperienced with humans in the beginning. If we're (metaphorically) moving back to an earlier stage of his development, we could be at a time before the Medicine Seller was "born" (metaphorically) into the human world.

The Ōoku is an enclosed space, a space for women. Its being dominated by the feminine and also isolated from the outside world makes it a perfect metaphor for the womb.

The Medicine Seller drinking water in the trailer is the first time we have ever seen him consume anything (unless you count pipe tobacco). The water could be a reference to the environment of the womb, where babies live in and swallow amniotic fluid.

This also fits as an extension of my other theory that the Medicine Seller is "born" (metaphorically) in Mononoke.

---

*I use the term loosely.