Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales Part B

I will continue on with reading Japanese Fairy Tales.

The story of the Ogre of Rashoman is the classic playground example of "I double dog dare you". It is one warrior calling another warrior a liar and then is goaded into proving his point by doing whatever dangerous thing the other warrior warned him about. These types of stories usually end the same way with the warning of the first person being true and being foolishly denied by the other person. This reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas movies growing up called "A Christmas Story" where Flick gets his tongue stuck to a flag pole because he doesn't believe that it will stick. Of course in this instance he is sadly mistaken and he has to wait for the fire department to come and unstick his tongue from the flag pole. One parallel between this story and the story previous about the priest and the goblin cannibal is that both incorporated a deceitful old woman. Both were able to trick the men in the stories into believing they were old and innocent and meant them no harm. Just like in all the old Disney movies where the old woman or witch is the villain, you can't underestimate someone just based on their appearance. This could make for a fun story to write but maybe instead of the villain being an old woman whom everyone believes is fragile and innocent maybe the villain could be another type of unsuspecting person.

Ogre of Rashomon

In the story of Hase-Hime, it very much mirrors that of Snow White and a majority of other princess movie produced by Disney. The wicked stepmother is jealous of or does not like the step daughter for her beauty, success and the adoration of the people so she sets forth a plan to destroy her. What I like about this story that makes it different though is that the stepmother is struck down by karma with either her plans failing or her son dying. It is a more justified story that those other Disney ones where the step mother gets away with her evil plan right off the bat. This would be a fun concept to play with.

Bibliography: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).