Compared to Roman and Greek gods and goddess, I am having an extremely hard time trying to keep all of the gods in this story straight. I do like that their names have a literal meaning when translated to English. One story that I really liked in the beginning was "The Heaven Descended". It was one of those stories where karma comes to bite you in the butt.
I like how throughout the stories, there are poems or short ballads about what is going on. The break in reading kind of helps me get an idea of what all I just read and the poems do a good job of summarizing what just happened.
The description and detail in the Fortunate Fish Hook really made the scene come to life. Especially in the feasting scene, the description of the luxurious place settings and food were so detailed I could picture it. I also like how in this story, the Princess mutually consented to become Prince Fine-Fades wife. Usually, the male requests the princess's hand and the father consents to give her away, but I like that the Prince and Princess decided to get married and then got the fathers blessing. It was a lot more modern than how earlier in the story the marriage between Izanagi and Izanmi where they had to redo their marriage because the woman spoke to the man first.
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| Izanagi and Izanmi |
The story of the "Rescue of the Princess" sounded like a reverse little mermaid! Instead of the mermaid seeking out the human it was the other way around. He waited for her on the rocks of the shore hoping she would come back just like Ariel waited for Eric too see her. It was also very clever of the Priestess to disguise Yamato as a maiden so that he could sneak behind enemy lines and destroy them. It makes me think of a reverse Mulan with the male pretending to be a women instead of a female dressing like a man to be warrior.
Bibliography: Japanese Mythology unit
Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legendby E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).
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