The Kojiki is a super fascinating
It describes gods created Japan,
and the lineage of Emperors descended from those gods
This is the mythology of our nation,
and really intriguing stories,
but most of us haven't read it.
Why is that?
Well, the reason is in our history
"Don't forgive Izanagi" she screamed,
"Run after them!" and then comes the army of the dead.
What? All of a sudden?
Hi, Atsuhiko Nakata here! Something most entertaining is in the store today
Let's begin!
Extreme Japanese History!
The Kojiki Series!
The origin! Thank you very much!
We can say this is the origin of Japan.
I am not exaggerating.
Kojiki
I just said that this is the Extreme Japanese History, but
It's also an Extreme Literature, if you will.
Seriously, the Kojiki is super interesting.
To compare… let's see,
It's like the Bible for the Jewish.
The Kojiki is in a similar position.
It tells us how Japan was created
See this. It starts from the creation of the world,
and ends at the establishment of the lineage of the Emperor.
It's just like the Hebrew Bible for Judaism
or the Old Testament for the Catholic church
It's a story that begins with the creation of the world and how we became who we are.
So we can say this is the Bible for Japanese.
Have you ever read it?
You haven't, You haven't. Nobody has.
Nobody has.
This is really intriguing mythology of our nation,
but most of us haven't read it.
Why? Well, we can find the reason in our history.
What!? How come we don't know
the most iconic mythology
that we all know of from our earliest history lessons
Kojiki, Kojiki, Kojiki we heard.
But nobody really reads it.
The reason has something to do with our modern history.
We should definitely learn about it
because it's extremely exciting.
What's the story of Kojiki really like?
I think a lot of people don't even know that.
Put it simply, the story is separated into three volumes.
"Hmm, I see…" You didn't know that, did you?
"Oh, okay, I didn't know it has three volumes."
Well, for most of us that's about all the Kojiki is.
But if you get to know it, you'd recognize
"Oh, I know of this bit!"
"Yeah, I've heard of this part."
There are small bits and pieces that we do know of.
This book contains all of them.
Actually, the first volume is mythology
It explains how the gods created this country, which is Japan, right?
It explains how Japan came about.
Huh!? So, how was Japan made in the first place?
The mythology contains this process.
When we think mythology, we might think of Greek mythology,
Christian, or Jewish. Do you remember Moses?
I’ve talked about those in my videos.
Islam, Christianity, and Judaism; they all have something in common.
God said "Let there be light!" and made light,
then Moses received the stone tablets,
then David threw a stone and everybody is like "Whoa!"
Their shrine got destroyed and they went, "Oh, no!"
"All of you, Jews get out!" and they freaked out, "What's going on?!"
Then Jesus Christ appeared, "wow!"
I've explained all these in my lecture, remember?
The people and the land they live
always have their own special stories
God said to them, "I will give you the Land of Cannan"
Abraham was so excited, "seriously!?"
"Then this land belongs to us!"
This led to the conflict with Palestine that continues to this day.
The land that becomes a part of the Jewish Identity is
Jerusalem, their Holy land in Palestine in the Middle East
This place is so special for them because of the stories
Muslims pray facing Mecca every day,
There are some Muslims in Japan now.
They always pray facing Mecca.
Why is Mecca so important?
There's a story that has been passed down
through generations.
Why do we live in this country called Japan?
We don’t think about it that much.
But we also have some kind of a bible.
That is Kojiki.
The first volume is about the gods.
The first volume is super long.
Basically, all it describes is gods, just gods.
When the gods came down to Japan,
which is called, "Tenson Kourin," the first volume ends.
Then, the first Emperor is a descendant of the god.
This is the beginning of the second volume.
The story tells about 15 Emperors
who conquered and unified Japan.
The third volume
focuses on Yamato regime after the unification.
Within the regime
they had the fierce battles and disagreements
for imperial succession.
This is when the Empress Suiko appeared
You all know Empress Suiko, right?
Haven't you heard the Empress Suiko?
Shotoku Taishi (Prince Shotoku),
or the Soga Clan, right?
All these happened the time of Empress Suiko.
The Kojiki ends with Empress Suiko, who we learned in the history class.
I see.
We learned about Empress Suiko in the history class.
It starts with gods and ends with Suiko.
They make up volumes one, two and three.
It includes the first Emperors to the 33rd.
That's the story. It's epic, right?
In summary,
the gods made Japan and the descendants of those gods
are the lineage of our imperial family.
Haven't you heard something similar?
The Jews are the children of God,
and the Jews established
the country of Israel.
Both are very similar.
But their's is a monotheistic religion.
Yahweh is invisible the one and only god.
In Christianity, they call it "God".
In English it's "God." In Hebrew it's "Yahweh."
In Arabic,
It'll be "Allah" in Islam, right?
They believe in the one and only invisible God.
Although the structure of Kojiki is similar to the Jewish Bible,
it's polytheistic.
It's similar to Greek mythology.
In Greek myths, there is a supreme god, Zeus
and loads of other gods after him.
There is a god of the underworld,
a god of the Sun,
and a goddess of something.
They fall in love and break up;
these kinds of stories of gods.
Egypt is also like this.
Greek and Egyptian; they're polytheists religions.
Thoth, Khufu, and other gods,
this god and that god have conflicts.
A polytheism has many gods,
therefore, the Kojiki is a polytheism model.
So you'll meet a loads of gods in this book.
Honestly, too many gods to remember;
a couple of hundreds of them,
but many of them appear only once
So the gods you want to remember are,
these are my choices;
We see a different protagonist in each section.
1,????4,???????? 8 gods.
I narrowed them down a lot.
A lot
Just think of the 8 sections and each with one protagonist,
and it' doesn't seem too hard to remember.
Well, if you read it, you'll meet hundreds,
and all gods have super long names.
Like 7 Kanji letters long.
It's like the back of a biker gang jacket, filled with Kanji.
It's hard to remember,
so I squeezed those names shorter.
I shortened their names,
and I call his final name when a god changes his name.
I dropped a lot; that's my Extreme Kojiki.
In this series,
we're taking the Kojiki; very long, a lot of characters, and complex,
in an extreme way; simplified.
You'll find it very exciting.
I'd like you to enjoy.
We start with creation.
Monotheists and Polytheists have different views of creation stories.
This is intriguing.
In monotheism, first there is a God.
The God declares, "Let there be light,"
then the world is born.
Then God completes the world in 7 days.
He created it in 6 days and rested on the 7th day,
and this is the start of our weekly system.
This is the story of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
On the contrary
in Polytheism, the world exist first, then, gods were born.
Later there will be hierarchies among these gods
The world was full of chaos.
Out of the chaos,
five gods were born. Woosh!
All of a sudden, 5 gods.
First, three higher gods come out,
and after that, the other two come out.
Anyway, five gods appear.
The names of the five gods are too hard,
so you don't need to remember.
These five were neither male nor female;
man nor woman.
They have no gender.
Even their shapes are indistinct,
but 5 gods appear.
After they appear magically,
5 pairs of male and female gods appear.
Strange, isn't it?
There was the world, then,
the 5 hashira (Pillars) of gods appear
Do you know
we count humans, 1 person or 2 people.
We count birds, Ichi-wa, Ni-wa (1 wing, 2 wings).
It's fascinating how we count different things in different ways.
In Japan, unit for gods is hashira (pillars).
This is so fascinating.
In monotheism they would never 'count' the number of a god
because there is only one God.
We have many gods, so we need a unit.
For us, the unit of a god is hashira (pillar).
In one theory,
gods dwell in nature, such as a tree.
For example, we have 'Sacred' Trees.
And when gods dwell in something,
they manifest in the shape of a pillar.
This is one theory.
So the 5 hashira of gods appear first,
Then 5 pairs of male and female gods appear next.
The last couple among them,
they are our first protagonists.
Izanagi and Izanami.
I bet you've heard of them
Izanagi and Izanami;
I'm sure you've heard of them somewhere.
Izanagi and Izanami appear
as the fifth and final pair.
And then the other people, no, not people, gods.
This book is almost all about gods.
These gods say,
"Alright, you two, Izanagi and Izanami,
we entrust you to create a country."
Then they give a big spear.
Respectfully the couple receives the spear.
"Can we do it?" says Izanagi.
"Can we do it?" adds Izanami.
"Yes, you can. Please go forth!"
These gods encourage them.
They are the great gods, the top of all gods.
Among the first 5,
one stands in the center of the top three.
He is comparable to Zeus.
He is the source of the universe itself,
and on each side of him,
stand two pairs of gods who can create everything.
Then there are more gods,
and it's already confusing,
but they are all so godly, supreme, and great.
These great gods tell them,"You can do it."
So Izanagi and Izanami, holding the spear, "we will go."
Then, from the heavens,
they stir the world like this.
They stir the world in circle
with unique sound
"kolong, kolong" or something like that.
They stir the chaos up, "kolong, kolong."
From that stirring, there comes a tiny island.
Still this small island is not yet Japan.
It's Onogoro Island.
"Oh look, we made Onogoro Island."
Where is Onogoro island in our current map?
It's not entirely clear,
but apparently it's around Osaka Bay.
Isn't it realistic? It's so familiar all of a sudden.
Yes! This is not just a myth.
This is the myth of the creation of Japan.
We don't often think about Japan in relation to gods, do we?
But this story is about that!
So the Onogoro Island forms somewhere close to Osaka Bay.
"Alright!" They land on the island.
Then a pillar reaching to the heaven appears there, Voom!
in the Onogoro Island,
they say, "Let's create a lot of things here!"
"Yes! Let's create things
between us, man and woman."
Let's create between Man and Woman.
"Well, how do we do that?"
They have the description,
right off the bat, of giving birth.
And the way they say is funny.
The female god, Izanami,
"I've matured physically, but I am missing a part,"
she says.
Then the male god, Izanagi,
"I've matured physically, and I have an excess part,"
he says.
"Okay, so with my excess part,
I can fill in your missing section, and we create various things from it.
Well, that's what they say.
Isn't it amazing how they described it?
"Let's fill in the missing part with the extra thing,"
"and let's create a lot of stuff."
"Yes, let's." That's how it started.
Then they say, "We might as well meet each other properly,"
and they walk around the pillar.
So, they began walking from behind and meet at the front of the pillar.
Well, you already met each other! That's what we want to say.
You guys already talked to each other! Why do you have to meet again?
"Well it's a ceremony of sorts," they say.
"Shall we?" They walk around the pillar.
"Oh, hi." "Hello!" or something like that.
Izanami says,
"You are very attractive."
"You too," he replies.
"Okay, let us begin." Then they began.
He fills in. He does the act of filling in,
but nothing is born.
"Oh? It didn't seem to work."
"One more time! Let's do it again."
Come out from behind one more time."
"Oh, hi." "Hello."
Izanami starts, "You are very attractive."
"And you are too."
"Then, let us start." They begin again.
But they still don't succeed.
"Nothing is born! Why?" they wondered.
"Alright, let's go ask the gods in the heaven!
They go and ask them for help.
"We met, we filled in, but we couldn't create anything."
Then the gods in the heavens say,
"Yes, we saw."
"What? You saw?"
"You were watching us."
"But you've got something wrong."
"Izanami initiated things, right?"
"Yes. I approached him first telling him that he was attractive."
"That's where you were wrong."
"Oh, that's it?"
"Izanagi should be the one! The man must be the one to initiate!"
The first criticism they received was this.
A man should take the lead.
That's the start of the Kojiki.
"Ah, I get it. The man must lead the woman."
"Then, we'll go back down again."
Blooooop… Tap!
"Let us meet again!"
"This is the 3rd time already."
"Oh, you are one beautiful woman," he said.
"Well, thank you."
"Then, let's start!" So this time, they create something,
and that is Awaji Island.
This is so abrupt!
And it's Awaji Island, is it?
From there they create many islands within Japan.
The very first was Awaji Island.
You didn't know that, did you?
Yes, Awaji Island is the very first island that Izanagi and Izanami created.
After Awaji Island, what is the next?
"Look, Awaji Island is born!"
"Oh, the next one is coming!"
The next island is Shikoku.
That's big!
All of a sudden it's a big island, Shikoku!
Then next,
they give birth to another small island,
which was Iki Island, in the north of Nagasaki.
Then, I think, Tsushima island is next.
This is not the exact order they have appeared, but
these are the big ones;
Shikoku first,
then Kyushu,
and lastly, Honshu.
Isn't it amazing? They're like, "It's coming!"
giving birth to eight different islands.
Okino Island and Sadoga Island are included among them.
The last one was Honshu.
In the middle came Kyushu.
These islands were created in this kind of order.
We call this, the "Birth of Country (Land)".
Izanagi and Izanami give birth to countries.
Whooaa!! "It's coming out!" "It's born!"
"We've got Awaji Island!"
This is the story.
Isn't it fascinating; this creation story?
It's just so over the top and exciting, right? Don't you want to tell someone?
"Hey, did you know the first island to be born was Awaji Island?"
"You can say Awaji's younger brother is Shikoku."
The big brother would be Awaji Island.
It is the first one to be born.
Well, I guess it could be a big sister or a big brother.
So they give birth to these countries, and
they were called, 'Oyashimanokuni.'
It means eight big islands.
The 8th and the last was Honshu.
'Oyashimanokuni (The Land of Eight Big Islands) is the origin of Japan.
That's what they said.
Of course, in this world,
Hokkaido and Okinawa weren't included yet.
They were not yet a part of Japan.
That's another intriguing part.
First, "We've given birth to a country."
Then, they decide, "Let's give birth to some gods."
Then they start what we call the "giving birth to gods."
"The god of Wind!" and "The god of Earth!"
They keep giving birth.
Izanami just keeps giving birth to these gods.
So Izanagi is like a Big Daddy.
He encourages her to keep giving birth, "Keep going! Keep going!"
Then, the last one to be born is the god of Fire.
The god of Fire.
When the god of Fire is born, Izanami screams, "It's Hot!!"
and she dies.
"Oh, no!"
"What the heck are you doing,God of Fire!"The god of Fire is on fire.
"I won't let this be!" Izanagi kills the god of Fire immediately upon its birth.
What a shocking story!
Well, Kojiki quite often shocks you, "why?"
or, "That's too cruel!"
or, "Oh, that's gross!"
There's a lot of things in here.
The story takes surprising and shocking turns.
This is shocking.
They keep being born.
So Izanami is dead giving birth to the god of Fire,
and that moment, he weeps.
Izanagi is in deep sorrow.
"Why did this happen? We were just getting started."
"I want to see Izanami."
But Izanami is already in the Land of the Yomi (the Dead).
Now, we've seen the heavens, the earth, and the land of the dead.
Let me explain the situation.
We have the heaven on top,
then we have the earth under that,
then we have the Land of the Yomi (Dead).
It's made up of three layers.
Basically, they move up and down between the three layers throughout.
"She's gone to the land of the dead."
"I can't stand! I miss her too much!" says Izanagi.
"I want to see Izanami!" and makes his way to the land of the dead.
Here, the new chapter begins: Land of the Dead.
The first part is giving birth to gods.
Then, "I'm going down to the land of the dead," thus he starts the Land of Dead chapter.
He somehow gets there.
He knocks on the entrance of the land of the dead.
"Izanami!" "I'm here!"
Izanami is there.
"You came for me?�?
"Let's go home. It's time to go home!" He says.
"Let's just go back to the land of the living, to the earth!"
"No, I can't come back because I have eaten something that belongs here."
Apparently, that's the rule there.
"I'm dirty now because I ate something from the land of the dead."
"So I can't go back."
"But I miss you so much. Let's go home!"
"Please ask someone in charge here, and you might be able to come back. Please try."
"Fine, I got it. I'll ask."
"It'll be difficult but I try."
"While I do that, though,"
"Don't look this way, okay?"
We have a 'don't look' story starting.
"You must not look this way! I will try to negotiate."
"Meanwhile, you must not look at me."
"Please do not come to this side."
It's dark in the land of the dead.
"What?"
He can't see her yet, how Izanami looks like.
He can't see.
"Okay, I won't look!" he says.
"You must not look at me!"
Izanagi waits for quite a while.
"It's been a long time."
"Maybe the negotiation is not going well. When will she be back? I want to look…"
"Let's just look!" and he looks in the end.
These stories always end up this way.
Also in the story of 'The Grateful Crane,' the man hesitates but looks in the end.
So, he lights a fire,
"Izanami? Izanami?"
Poof! He sees what Izanami looks like.
There stands Izanami, completely changed.
She looks
as if she has rotten.
Seeing how hideous Izanami looks,
he screams, WAAAH!
"Izanami, you've changed in the land of the dead!"
"You looked…" That's what happens.
"It's too damn scary!" Izanagi runs away.
Then, Izanami who were so in love until now,
decides to send pursuers after Izanagi.
"Never forgive Izanagi!" she says,
"Run after him!" and then comes the army of the dead.
All of a sudden?
WAAAH! She releases an army to catch him.
"No No No! I made a big mistake."
"Izanami isn't the same person as she once was!"
"This is bad! Oh, no, here they are!"
He keeps running away.
These pursuers keep coming closer to him in large numbers.
"Oh, no, I don't know what to do! This is it!"
At this moment, he grabs wild grapes nearby and throws at them.
"Throw 'em some grapes!"
I guess those dead soldiers must've been hungry.
They start eating the grapes."Oh, these are good grapes."
"Oh jeez, they're eating!" "It worked!"
"How about some bamboo shoots!"
Will this work this time? Again, they eat them.
"Wow, you must be really hungry!"
But there are still some running after him,
so he finds some peaches and throws at them.
This one is really effective, and they stop running after him.
"Wow, peaches are powerful! Peaches saved me!"
So, why does the peach has magical power?
It's because
The Kojiki was compiled around the Nara period.
At the time, from China
a lot of new information was brought in.
and in China the peach was considered holy.
It was seen as a sacred fruit.
For us now, it's simply a good fruit, sweet and a little expensive.
The word, 'Togenkyo' (Peach blossom paradise) includes the kanji character of 'Peach'.
The peach was sacred fruit.
This concept was brought from China.
That was the latest information back then.
So he throws the sacred fruit in this story.
Woooosh!
"Wow, the peaches are powerful!"
"They are not following me anymore!
"Damn! The army of the dead is no joke!"
"I was really lucky to find some grapes, bamboo shoots, and peaches."
But that moment he hears the footsteps.
"Wait, there's someone still coming after me! Who is it?"
It was Izanami herself. "You're tough!"
"Girl, you are one tough woman!"
"Give me a break!" He grabs a large rock and boom!
closes the opening of the corridor with it.
"Izanami, don't come closer!" He shuts it.
Izanagi closes the corridor between the world of the living and the dead with a rock.
"You!"
"You betrayed me!"
"Please forgive me!"
"You betrayed me! You betrayed my trust"
"I'll never forgive you! I'll never forgive you!"
"I can't forgive you! So from now on,
"I'll kill the gods in the living world!"
"I'll kill one thousand gods every day!"
"I'll kill them!" She curses.
Hearing that she will kill a thousand every day,
what do you think Izanagi did?
"A thousand? A thousand pillars?"
"You're going to kill a thousand gods?"
"Fine! I get it!"
"In that case, I'll give birth to 1,500!"
Wow, he will create a surplus.
"I'll give birth to 1,500!"
And so, in this world
there are 1000 deaths and 1500 births in one day.
That is what became fundamental.
In one day, a lot of people die, but a lot of babies are born.
As long as more births than deaths, a country will prosper.
That kind of idea is indicated.
"I'll give birth to 1,500!"
"Oh, my, that was horrible," Izanagi says.
"I'll never go to the land of the dead again."
"It was so scary, damp, and gross. Izanami's turned horrible."
"Let's purify myself." He decides to take a bath.
"I'll purify myself with water."
This is the beginning of Misogi (purification with water).
Well, it's just amazing really.
This story of Izanagi and Izanami had quite a surprising turn, right?
At first, they were like, "you're beautiful." and then,
"I'll never forgive you!"
"I'll kill 1,000!"
The story took an unbelievable turn, so he says,
"I'll purify myself."
He takes a shower.
And then, because he's a great god,
from the purified body of Izanagi, a lot of different gods come into existence.
"Ah yeah, here they are, here they are."
"They're coming out, these different gods are coming out."
From there, poof! Somebody special appears.
"Oh! A Special One! A Special One!"
It was like a winning lottery ticket.
"Here's something great! It's a rare one this time!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
They are the three Precious Children.
The 'Sankishi' (three Precious Children) come out, Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!
"Oh, you look special kind, aren't you? Very special."
"We are special indeed."
"Of course."
"We are special."
The Sankishi appear.
"So who are you guys?"
They are Amaterasu, the god of the Sun,
Tsukuyoshi, the god of the Moon,
and Susanoo, the god of the Wild.
Now we have Amaterasu and Susanoo.
Here, we leave the Izanagi-Izanami part,
and we move on to the Amaterasu-Susanoo part.
Amaterasu is, honestly,
The top of the tops from here on out.
Yes, she is the top of the top, the Goddess of the Sun.
Amaterasu is a symbol of the Sun.
In fact, the famous Ise Jingu (Ise Shrine),
the highest shrine of all enshrines Amaterasu.
And so, the big main character is Amaterasu.
"I'm Amaterasu."
"I'm Tsukuyomi."
"It's me, Susanoo."
This Susanoo, he's a rough guy. He is the third child, the little brother.
The big sister. "I'm Amaterasu."
As for "Tsukuyomi," he doesn't appear anymore after this.
although he is one of the Three Precious Children.
Yes, Three Precious Children
is Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo.
Tsukuyomi, he won't appear at all.
"I'm Tsukuyomi."
"Okay, cut! That's it, Mr. Tsukuyomi, very good job!"
"Oh, that's it? That's all for me?"
"Well, after this, we focus on the face off between Amaterasu and Susanoo,
so please understand."
"Oh, okay. I'll watch it on TV,"
something like that.
Back to Amaterasu and Susanoo,
"Okay, I got it" Izanagi decides to entrust them.
"You are the Sun. You are the god of the Sun,
so the heaven is for you. You govern the heavens."
"I'll leave the heavens up to you."
"Tsukuyomi, you control the land of the night."
"Oh, I do have a part."
"I'll leave the land of the night to you."
That's why he won't appear anymore.
Then,
"Susanoo! I'll leave the oceans up to you. You govern the sea."
He is assigned to the oceans.
"I understand." "I understand." "Alright."
"Oh, he probably won't do it."
You can tell he's not dependable.
As we expected, Susanoo doesn't bother governing the oceans.
"I don't like the sea."
"Hey, what's wrong? The ocean is going wild!"
"The sea is going crazy! What's going on? Susanoo, are you keeping it under control?"
"I don't want to govern!" Susanoo replies.
"I don't really want to be in control of the sea."
"Then what do you want to do?"
"I want to see my mother," he says.
"Izanami?"
"You can't see Izanami. She's gone to the land of the dead"
"Fine, I want to go there then!"
"No! You don't know anything!"
"You have no idea what had happened to me there!"
"Just check my backstory!"
"I had to throw grapes at crazy armies."
"You don't understand anything. You're banished!"
And so, Susanoo is banished.
He was really stubborn.
"I want to see my mother, Izanami."
"I want to go to the land of the dead and see her."
"Ok then, that's fine!" With that he gets banished.
"Damn it!"
The reason why the ocean gets rough is that no one governs it.
That's what they indicate.
No god governs there.
So he leaves. What does he do?
"I have nowhere to go."
"Guess I'll go where big sis is," he says,
and heads to Amaterasu's place.
He arrives in heaven.
"Hey, big sister!"
"Excuse me, Miss Amaterasu?"
"Yes?"
"Your brother is here"
"Huh? He was assigned to control the sea, but he didn't do it."
"He ended up being banished by my father."
"I know he's here to take over the heavens."
"I don't like that! I must take up the arms!" And so she does.
"I'm sure he is here to take over this place."
"What do you want?"
"Sister, let me stay here."
"No! You're too aggressive."
You're here to mess around the heavens!"
"I won't! I won't! Susanoo swears it!"
"Really?"
So they do the 'Ukei' (Pledge) ceremony.
It's a ceremony to make a pledge to each other.
"I'll test you to see whether you're lying or not."
"Ok! That's fine by me, sis!"
"Alright."
This ceremony is very strange.
She says, "Give me your sword."
"Okay."
"I'll crunch up your sword and create a god from it."
"Okay."
"You take my magatama (necklace) and juzu (beads), crunch through them and create a god."
"I'll create a Female god, so you create a Male one."
"If this actually happens, it means that the gods approved of you."
"If not, it means you're lying."
There was some kind of ceremony like this.
"Okay, I got it."
She crunches and
breathes out, and a god is born.
"Ah, as I said, a female god is born."
"My turn then." Crunch crunch crunch…He breathes out.
"Oh! He's here! A male god is born! I told you!"
"I told you, Big sister."
"See! I'm not lying, ok?"
"I'm not here to take over your heavens. You are paranoid."
"You'll let me stay here, right?"
"Hmm… I can't say no." She lets him stay.
But after all Susanoo is an aggressive boy.
"Sigh…"
"My brother is staying here, but I wonder if he is behaving?"
"Miss Amaterasu! Miss Amaterasu!"
"Yes?" One of her staff comes.
"Miss, It's about Susanoo."
"Again!? What' did he do this time?"
Well, he's filling up the path in between the rice fields."
"What? That's so annoying! Really annoying! "
"Is that it?"
"No no, that's not all."
"He's throwing feces all around the important buildings."
"What's up with that? It's almost a terrorist attack! What's wrong with him?"
"We should punish him."
"Yes, but we made a pledge."
"I don't know, but maybe he has some kind of plan."
"The thing with the rice paddy path,"
"maybe he's telling us that it's not a great spot for a rice paddy."
"The fecal stuff… I have no idea."
"Anyway, please let him off the hook for now." she says.
She was protecting him.
However, he does something she couldn't protect him anymore.
There was a shed for weaving, and that place was important.
The gods are making sacred clothing in this shed.
He tore the roof open.
"Whoa, what the hell are you doing there?"
"It's Susanoo."
"What are you doing, Mr. Susanoo!?"
"You spread shit around and filled up our rice paddy paths. You're crazy!"
"We're weaving here so please don't do anything, okay?"
"I have a delivery for you!" he says,
and he throws in a dead cow into the shed, Boom!
Oh, no!
Then one of the weaver
get stabbed by the broken piece of the weaving machine
and dies from a massive injury. It's a disaster.
"What is this!? Why are you doing this?"
"Miss Amaterasu! Human life is lost!" Actually they are gods, but
"The Lives of gods are at stake!"
"Geez!" Amaterasu had it."That's it!"
"This is all my fault," she is in despair.
Here comes the famous story of 'Ama no Iwado Kakure'; Amaterasu hides behind the stone door,
and she doesn't come out. "I'm going to stay here."
She hides herself in a stone cave.
The god of the Sun
is inside a cave.
She's hidden from everyone.
Therefore, heavens and the earth lose light
Pitch dark
In one theory, this was an eclipse.
This is a metaphor for the eclipse.
The god of the Sun is hidden, and it's dark, "We've lost the sun!"
"Amaterasu has hidden away! Oh no, what do we do?"
"What should we do?"
The gods consult each other,
"What should we do? Amaterasu is upset."
"she's gone and it's so dark."
"We can't tell if it's night or day! What can we do?"
"Yes, what do we do?"
"Oh, I know!"
There is the god of wisdom, 'Omoikane',.
"Hmmm… Let's dance," he says.
"We're dancing, are we? Mr. Omoikane?"
"Well, If Omoikane says so, it's going to work."
"He's really smart. He's the god of wisdom."
"If he says dance, let's dance!"
"Are there any dancers here?"
Then the god of Dance, Ama-no-Uzume, comes forward, "Yes, I can dance."
"Oh, really!" "Can you dance for us?"
"Yes, of course."
"I’m strong, so when Amaterasu comes out from the cave,
"I'll pull her out, okay?"
"Then I'll fetch the tools for that."
Together, they devise a plan to get Amaterasu out of the cave.
"We'd like to start the let's-get-Amaterasu-out-of-the-cave festival."
"Here's Mr. Omoikane who came up with this plan."
"Hi, I am Omoikane."
"Well, my plan here is to dance and have fun. We will have a good time."
"She'll want to see what's happening. We'll pull her out. That's the gist of it."
"Ah, we couldn't have come up with that, Mr. Omoikane. That's an amazing plan."
"You think she'll come out if we were having fun?"
"Yes, so let's get it going."
"OK, Miss Ama-no-Uzume, it's show-time!"
Then Ama-no-Uzume starts to dance.
I don't know what kind of dance she performed,
but apparently it was quite a wild dance.
She dances like crazy and wild.
She's a female god by the way.
She was almost naked and her breasts were exposed.
When they see Ama-no-Uzume dancing almost naked,
the gods explore in laughter.
"Ha ha ha, you're almost naked!"
They're laughing so hard,
that Amaterasu finds it strange.
"How come? I'm gone and it's dark everywhere. They should be sad."
"What? What's happening out there?"
"I can hear you all laughing, what's going on?" she asks.
"Great! We've got her attention."
The gods reply, "Listen, there's this incredible god, so much more than you, Amaterasu."
"We're just having so much fun!"
"What? Greater than me?"
"Huh? Greater than the god of the Sun? The Greatest of the Greats who is in charge of Heaven?"
"Yes! Don't you wanna see? Don't you want to see her face?"
"Well, I'm a bit interested in her face," she thinks. "Maybe I'll peek just a little bit."
She opened the rock just a little, and then.
"Hey, bring out that thing we had ready!"
"Okay!"
There's the mirror that will later become one of the Three Sacred Artifact.
It's called 'Yatano Kagami'
One of the gods had a prayer juzu necklace,
the magatama stones, in hand as well.
The mirror, the magatama stone, the sword; they are the famous Three Sacred Artifacts.
One of them is a mirror, and they take it out.
"We got it!" And they hold the mirror.
And then,
"Let's see who it is." She looks out, and the mirror is in front of her face.
"Wait, It's me!"
"This is me! It's me, isn't it? What's going on?"
"What are guys you doing?" while she is puzzled,
the powerful god pulls her quickly.
"What, what, what?" and she is out of the cave.
Then another god gets out a rope,
and stretch it behind her and declare that she cannot go back inside.
Blip, goes the rope, and "You can't go back now!"
"What? What's up with this plan?"
"Miss Amaterasu, this is Omoikane's idea."
"Yes, it was my idea."
"Please give us a break. You did nothing wrong, Miss Amaterasu."
"Oh, look, the light is back!"
"Good, good! Hahaha!"
This is the famous story, 'Amano Iwatogakure.'
"But, it's really Susanoo's fault."
"Yeah, not Amaterasu!"
"You need to punish Susanoo."
"I guess so."
Susanoo is finally gotten rid of.
He is now banished from the heavens too.
"You must go down to earth!"
"You are a god, and I've let you stay here, but you must go back down."
So he does.
Here starts the volume of Susanoo, the god of the Wild, on earth.
The timeline here is all crazy.
Susanoo and his descendant of a few generations down meet each other.
"Oh, no! snakes! Gyaah!" and he remembers.
"If something happens, my father is a little crazy, so…"
"Fire Time Start!"
"Daddy! Don't start a fire like that!"
"What? I'm just having fun."
"You, really, really…."
It describes gods created Japan,
and the lineage of Emperors descended from those gods
This is the mythology of our nation,
and really intriguing stories,
but most of us haven't read it.
Why is that?
Well, the reason is in our history
"Don't forgive Izanagi" she screamed,
"Run after them!" and then comes the army of the dead.
What? All of a sudden?
Hi, Atsuhiko Nakata here! Something most entertaining is in the store today
Let's begin!
Extreme Japanese History!
The Kojiki Series!
The origin! Thank you very much!
We can say this is the origin of Japan.
I am not exaggerating.
Kojiki
I just said that this is the Extreme Japanese History, but
It's also an Extreme Literature, if you will.
Seriously, the Kojiki is super interesting.
To compare… let's see,
It's like the Bible for the Jewish.
The Kojiki is in a similar position.
It tells us how Japan was created
See this. It starts from the creation of the world,
and ends at the establishment of the lineage of the Emperor.
It's just like the Hebrew Bible for Judaism
or the Old Testament for the Catholic church
It's a story that begins with the creation of the world and how we became who we are.
So we can say this is the Bible for Japanese.
Have you ever read it?
You haven't, You haven't. Nobody has.
Nobody has.
This is really intriguing mythology of our nation,
but most of us haven't read it.
Why? Well, we can find the reason in our history.
What!? How come we don't know
the most iconic mythology
that we all know of from our earliest history lessons
Kojiki, Kojiki, Kojiki we heard.
But nobody really reads it.
The reason has something to do with our modern history.
We should definitely learn about it
because it's extremely exciting.
What's the story of Kojiki really like?
I think a lot of people don't even know that.
Put it simply, the story is separated into three volumes.
"Hmm, I see…" You didn't know that, did you?
"Oh, okay, I didn't know it has three volumes."
Well, for most of us that's about all the Kojiki is.
But if you get to know it, you'd recognize
"Oh, I know of this bit!"
"Yeah, I've heard of this part."
There are small bits and pieces that we do know of.
This book contains all of them.
Actually, the first volume is mythology
It explains how the gods created this country, which is Japan, right?
It explains how Japan came about.
Huh!? So, how was Japan made in the first place?
The mythology contains this process.
When we think mythology, we might think of Greek mythology,
Christian, or Jewish. Do you remember Moses?
I’ve talked about those in my videos.
Islam, Christianity, and Judaism; they all have something in common.
God said "Let there be light!" and made light,
then Moses received the stone tablets,
then David threw a stone and everybody is like "Whoa!"
Their shrine got destroyed and they went, "Oh, no!"
"All of you, Jews get out!" and they freaked out, "What's going on?!"
Then Jesus Christ appeared, "wow!"
I've explained all these in my lecture, remember?
The people and the land they live
always have their own special stories
God said to them, "I will give you the Land of Cannan"
Abraham was so excited, "seriously!?"
"Then this land belongs to us!"
This led to the conflict with Palestine that continues to this day.
The land that becomes a part of the Jewish Identity is
Jerusalem, their Holy land in Palestine in the Middle East
This place is so special for them because of the stories
Muslims pray facing Mecca every day,
There are some Muslims in Japan now.
They always pray facing Mecca.
Why is Mecca so important?
There's a story that has been passed down
through generations.
Why do we live in this country called Japan?
We don’t think about it that much.
But we also have some kind of a bible.
That is Kojiki.
The first volume is about the gods.
The first volume is super long.
Basically, all it describes is gods, just gods.
When the gods came down to Japan,
which is called, "Tenson Kourin," the first volume ends.
Then, the first Emperor is a descendant of the god.
This is the beginning of the second volume.
The story tells about 15 Emperors
who conquered and unified Japan.
The third volume
focuses on Yamato regime after the unification.
Within the regime
they had the fierce battles and disagreements
for imperial succession.
This is when the Empress Suiko appeared
You all know Empress Suiko, right?
Haven't you heard the Empress Suiko?
Shotoku Taishi (Prince Shotoku),
or the Soga Clan, right?
All these happened the time of Empress Suiko.
The Kojiki ends with Empress Suiko, who we learned in the history class.
I see.
We learned about Empress Suiko in the history class.
It starts with gods and ends with Suiko.
They make up volumes one, two and three.
It includes the first Emperors to the 33rd.
That's the story. It's epic, right?
In summary,
the gods made Japan and the descendants of those gods
are the lineage of our imperial family.
Haven't you heard something similar?
The Jews are the children of God,
and the Jews established
the country of Israel.
Both are very similar.
But their's is a monotheistic religion.
Yahweh is invisible the one and only god.
In Christianity, they call it "God".
In English it's "God." In Hebrew it's "Yahweh."
In Arabic,
It'll be "Allah" in Islam, right?
They believe in the one and only invisible God.
Although the structure of Kojiki is similar to the Jewish Bible,
it's polytheistic.
It's similar to Greek mythology.
In Greek myths, there is a supreme god, Zeus
and loads of other gods after him.
There is a god of the underworld,
a god of the Sun,
and a goddess of something.
They fall in love and break up;
these kinds of stories of gods.
Egypt is also like this.
Greek and Egyptian; they're polytheists religions.
Thoth, Khufu, and other gods,
this god and that god have conflicts.
A polytheism has many gods,
therefore, the Kojiki is a polytheism model.
So you'll meet a loads of gods in this book.
Honestly, too many gods to remember;
a couple of hundreds of them,
but many of them appear only once
So the gods you want to remember are,
these are my choices;
We see a different protagonist in each section.
1,????4,???????? 8 gods.
I narrowed them down a lot.
A lot
Just think of the 8 sections and each with one protagonist,
and it' doesn't seem too hard to remember.
Well, if you read it, you'll meet hundreds,
and all gods have super long names.
Like 7 Kanji letters long.
It's like the back of a biker gang jacket, filled with Kanji.
It's hard to remember,
so I squeezed those names shorter.
I shortened their names,
and I call his final name when a god changes his name.
I dropped a lot; that's my Extreme Kojiki.
In this series,
we're taking the Kojiki; very long, a lot of characters, and complex,
in an extreme way; simplified.
You'll find it very exciting.
I'd like you to enjoy.
We start with creation.
Monotheists and Polytheists have different views of creation stories.
This is intriguing.
In monotheism, first there is a God.
The God declares, "Let there be light,"
then the world is born.
Then God completes the world in 7 days.
He created it in 6 days and rested on the 7th day,
and this is the start of our weekly system.
This is the story of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
On the contrary
in Polytheism, the world exist first, then, gods were born.
Later there will be hierarchies among these gods
The world was full of chaos.
Out of the chaos,
five gods were born. Woosh!
All of a sudden, 5 gods.
First, three higher gods come out,
and after that, the other two come out.
Anyway, five gods appear.
The names of the five gods are too hard,
so you don't need to remember.
These five were neither male nor female;
man nor woman.
They have no gender.
Even their shapes are indistinct,
but 5 gods appear.
After they appear magically,
5 pairs of male and female gods appear.
Strange, isn't it?
There was the world, then,
the 5 hashira (Pillars) of gods appear
Do you know
we count humans, 1 person or 2 people.
We count birds, Ichi-wa, Ni-wa (1 wing, 2 wings).
It's fascinating how we count different things in different ways.
In Japan, unit for gods is hashira (pillars).
This is so fascinating.
In monotheism they would never 'count' the number of a god
because there is only one God.
We have many gods, so we need a unit.
For us, the unit of a god is hashira (pillar).
In one theory,
gods dwell in nature, such as a tree.
For example, we have 'Sacred' Trees.
And when gods dwell in something,
they manifest in the shape of a pillar.
This is one theory.
So the 5 hashira of gods appear first,
Then 5 pairs of male and female gods appear next.
The last couple among them,
they are our first protagonists.
Izanagi and Izanami.
I bet you've heard of them
Izanagi and Izanami;
I'm sure you've heard of them somewhere.
Izanagi and Izanami appear
as the fifth and final pair.
And then the other people, no, not people, gods.
This book is almost all about gods.
These gods say,
"Alright, you two, Izanagi and Izanami,
we entrust you to create a country."
Then they give a big spear.
Respectfully the couple receives the spear.
"Can we do it?" says Izanagi.
"Can we do it?" adds Izanami.
"Yes, you can. Please go forth!"
These gods encourage them.
They are the great gods, the top of all gods.
Among the first 5,
one stands in the center of the top three.
He is comparable to Zeus.
He is the source of the universe itself,
and on each side of him,
stand two pairs of gods who can create everything.
Then there are more gods,
and it's already confusing,
but they are all so godly, supreme, and great.
These great gods tell them,"You can do it."
So Izanagi and Izanami, holding the spear, "we will go."
Then, from the heavens,
they stir the world like this.
They stir the world in circle
with unique sound
"kolong, kolong" or something like that.
They stir the chaos up, "kolong, kolong."
From that stirring, there comes a tiny island.
Still this small island is not yet Japan.
It's Onogoro Island.
"Oh look, we made Onogoro Island."
Where is Onogoro island in our current map?
It's not entirely clear,
but apparently it's around Osaka Bay.
Isn't it realistic? It's so familiar all of a sudden.
Yes! This is not just a myth.
This is the myth of the creation of Japan.
We don't often think about Japan in relation to gods, do we?
But this story is about that!
So the Onogoro Island forms somewhere close to Osaka Bay.
"Alright!" They land on the island.
Then a pillar reaching to the heaven appears there, Voom!
in the Onogoro Island,
they say, "Let's create a lot of things here!"
"Yes! Let's create things
between us, man and woman."
Let's create between Man and Woman.
"Well, how do we do that?"
They have the description,
right off the bat, of giving birth.
And the way they say is funny.
The female god, Izanami,
"I've matured physically, but I am missing a part,"
she says.
Then the male god, Izanagi,
"I've matured physically, and I have an excess part,"
he says.
"Okay, so with my excess part,
I can fill in your missing section, and we create various things from it.
Well, that's what they say.
Isn't it amazing how they described it?
"Let's fill in the missing part with the extra thing,"
"and let's create a lot of stuff."
"Yes, let's." That's how it started.
Then they say, "We might as well meet each other properly,"
and they walk around the pillar.
So, they began walking from behind and meet at the front of the pillar.
Well, you already met each other! That's what we want to say.
You guys already talked to each other! Why do you have to meet again?
"Well it's a ceremony of sorts," they say.
"Shall we?" They walk around the pillar.
"Oh, hi." "Hello!" or something like that.
Izanami says,
"You are very attractive."
"You too," he replies.
"Okay, let us begin." Then they began.
He fills in. He does the act of filling in,
but nothing is born.
"Oh? It didn't seem to work."
"One more time! Let's do it again."
Come out from behind one more time."
"Oh, hi." "Hello."
Izanami starts, "You are very attractive."
"And you are too."
"Then, let us start." They begin again.
But they still don't succeed.
"Nothing is born! Why?" they wondered.
"Alright, let's go ask the gods in the heaven!
They go and ask them for help.
"We met, we filled in, but we couldn't create anything."
Then the gods in the heavens say,
"Yes, we saw."
"What? You saw?"
"You were watching us."
"But you've got something wrong."
"Izanami initiated things, right?"
"Yes. I approached him first telling him that he was attractive."
"That's where you were wrong."
"Oh, that's it?"
"Izanagi should be the one! The man must be the one to initiate!"
The first criticism they received was this.
A man should take the lead.
That's the start of the Kojiki.
"Ah, I get it. The man must lead the woman."
"Then, we'll go back down again."
Blooooop… Tap!
"Let us meet again!"
"This is the 3rd time already."
"Oh, you are one beautiful woman," he said.
"Well, thank you."
"Then, let's start!" So this time, they create something,
and that is Awaji Island.
This is so abrupt!
And it's Awaji Island, is it?
From there they create many islands within Japan.
The very first was Awaji Island.
You didn't know that, did you?
Yes, Awaji Island is the very first island that Izanagi and Izanami created.
After Awaji Island, what is the next?
"Look, Awaji Island is born!"
"Oh, the next one is coming!"
The next island is Shikoku.
That's big!
All of a sudden it's a big island, Shikoku!
Then next,
they give birth to another small island,
which was Iki Island, in the north of Nagasaki.
Then, I think, Tsushima island is next.
This is not the exact order they have appeared, but
these are the big ones;
Shikoku first,
then Kyushu,
and lastly, Honshu.
Isn't it amazing? They're like, "It's coming!"
giving birth to eight different islands.
Okino Island and Sadoga Island are included among them.
The last one was Honshu.
In the middle came Kyushu.
These islands were created in this kind of order.
We call this, the "Birth of Country (Land)".
Izanagi and Izanami give birth to countries.
Whooaa!! "It's coming out!" "It's born!"
"We've got Awaji Island!"
This is the story.
Isn't it fascinating; this creation story?
It's just so over the top and exciting, right? Don't you want to tell someone?
"Hey, did you know the first island to be born was Awaji Island?"
"You can say Awaji's younger brother is Shikoku."
The big brother would be Awaji Island.
It is the first one to be born.
Well, I guess it could be a big sister or a big brother.
So they give birth to these countries, and
they were called, 'Oyashimanokuni.'
It means eight big islands.
The 8th and the last was Honshu.
'Oyashimanokuni (The Land of Eight Big Islands) is the origin of Japan.
That's what they said.
Of course, in this world,
Hokkaido and Okinawa weren't included yet.
They were not yet a part of Japan.
That's another intriguing part.
First, "We've given birth to a country."
Then, they decide, "Let's give birth to some gods."
Then they start what we call the "giving birth to gods."
"The god of Wind!" and "The god of Earth!"
They keep giving birth.
Izanami just keeps giving birth to these gods.
So Izanagi is like a Big Daddy.
He encourages her to keep giving birth, "Keep going! Keep going!"
Then, the last one to be born is the god of Fire.
The god of Fire.
When the god of Fire is born, Izanami screams, "It's Hot!!"
and she dies.
"Oh, no!"
"What the heck are you doing,God of Fire!"The god of Fire is on fire.
"I won't let this be!" Izanagi kills the god of Fire immediately upon its birth.
What a shocking story!
Well, Kojiki quite often shocks you, "why?"
or, "That's too cruel!"
or, "Oh, that's gross!"
There's a lot of things in here.
The story takes surprising and shocking turns.
This is shocking.
They keep being born.
So Izanami is dead giving birth to the god of Fire,
and that moment, he weeps.
Izanagi is in deep sorrow.
"Why did this happen? We were just getting started."
"I want to see Izanami."
But Izanami is already in the Land of the Yomi (the Dead).
Now, we've seen the heavens, the earth, and the land of the dead.
Let me explain the situation.
We have the heaven on top,
then we have the earth under that,
then we have the Land of the Yomi (Dead).
It's made up of three layers.
Basically, they move up and down between the three layers throughout.
"She's gone to the land of the dead."
"I can't stand! I miss her too much!" says Izanagi.
"I want to see Izanami!" and makes his way to the land of the dead.
Here, the new chapter begins: Land of the Dead.
The first part is giving birth to gods.
Then, "I'm going down to the land of the dead," thus he starts the Land of Dead chapter.
He somehow gets there.
He knocks on the entrance of the land of the dead.
"Izanami!" "I'm here!"
Izanami is there.
"You came for me?�?
"Let's go home. It's time to go home!" He says.
"Let's just go back to the land of the living, to the earth!"
"No, I can't come back because I have eaten something that belongs here."
Apparently, that's the rule there.
"I'm dirty now because I ate something from the land of the dead."
"So I can't go back."
"But I miss you so much. Let's go home!"
"Please ask someone in charge here, and you might be able to come back. Please try."
"Fine, I got it. I'll ask."
"It'll be difficult but I try."
"While I do that, though,"
"Don't look this way, okay?"
We have a 'don't look' story starting.
"You must not look this way! I will try to negotiate."
"Meanwhile, you must not look at me."
"Please do not come to this side."
It's dark in the land of the dead.
"What?"
He can't see her yet, how Izanami looks like.
He can't see.
"Okay, I won't look!" he says.
"You must not look at me!"
Izanagi waits for quite a while.
"It's been a long time."
"Maybe the negotiation is not going well. When will she be back? I want to look…"
"Let's just look!" and he looks in the end.
These stories always end up this way.
Also in the story of 'The Grateful Crane,' the man hesitates but looks in the end.
So, he lights a fire,
"Izanami? Izanami?"
Poof! He sees what Izanami looks like.
There stands Izanami, completely changed.
She looks
as if she has rotten.
Seeing how hideous Izanami looks,
he screams, WAAAH!
"Izanami, you've changed in the land of the dead!"
"You looked…" That's what happens.
"It's too damn scary!" Izanagi runs away.
Then, Izanami who were so in love until now,
decides to send pursuers after Izanagi.
"Never forgive Izanagi!" she says,
"Run after him!" and then comes the army of the dead.
All of a sudden?
WAAAH! She releases an army to catch him.
"No No No! I made a big mistake."
"Izanami isn't the same person as she once was!"
"This is bad! Oh, no, here they are!"
He keeps running away.
These pursuers keep coming closer to him in large numbers.
"Oh, no, I don't know what to do! This is it!"
At this moment, he grabs wild grapes nearby and throws at them.
"Throw 'em some grapes!"
I guess those dead soldiers must've been hungry.
They start eating the grapes."Oh, these are good grapes."
"Oh jeez, they're eating!" "It worked!"
"How about some bamboo shoots!"
Will this work this time? Again, they eat them.
"Wow, you must be really hungry!"
But there are still some running after him,
so he finds some peaches and throws at them.
This one is really effective, and they stop running after him.
"Wow, peaches are powerful! Peaches saved me!"
So, why does the peach has magical power?
It's because
The Kojiki was compiled around the Nara period.
At the time, from China
a lot of new information was brought in.
and in China the peach was considered holy.
It was seen as a sacred fruit.
For us now, it's simply a good fruit, sweet and a little expensive.
The word, 'Togenkyo' (Peach blossom paradise) includes the kanji character of 'Peach'.
The peach was sacred fruit.
This concept was brought from China.
That was the latest information back then.
So he throws the sacred fruit in this story.
Woooosh!
"Wow, the peaches are powerful!"
"They are not following me anymore!
"Damn! The army of the dead is no joke!"
"I was really lucky to find some grapes, bamboo shoots, and peaches."
But that moment he hears the footsteps.
"Wait, there's someone still coming after me! Who is it?"
It was Izanami herself. "You're tough!"
"Girl, you are one tough woman!"
"Give me a break!" He grabs a large rock and boom!
closes the opening of the corridor with it.
"Izanami, don't come closer!" He shuts it.
Izanagi closes the corridor between the world of the living and the dead with a rock.
"You!"
"You betrayed me!"
"Please forgive me!"
"You betrayed me! You betrayed my trust"
"I'll never forgive you! I'll never forgive you!"
"I can't forgive you! So from now on,
"I'll kill the gods in the living world!"
"I'll kill one thousand gods every day!"
"I'll kill them!" She curses.
Hearing that she will kill a thousand every day,
what do you think Izanagi did?
"A thousand? A thousand pillars?"
"You're going to kill a thousand gods?"
"Fine! I get it!"
"In that case, I'll give birth to 1,500!"
Wow, he will create a surplus.
"I'll give birth to 1,500!"
And so, in this world
there are 1000 deaths and 1500 births in one day.
That is what became fundamental.
In one day, a lot of people die, but a lot of babies are born.
As long as more births than deaths, a country will prosper.
That kind of idea is indicated.
"I'll give birth to 1,500!"
"Oh, my, that was horrible," Izanagi says.
"I'll never go to the land of the dead again."
"It was so scary, damp, and gross. Izanami's turned horrible."
"Let's purify myself." He decides to take a bath.
"I'll purify myself with water."
This is the beginning of Misogi (purification with water).
Well, it's just amazing really.
This story of Izanagi and Izanami had quite a surprising turn, right?
At first, they were like, "you're beautiful." and then,
"I'll never forgive you!"
"I'll kill 1,000!"
The story took an unbelievable turn, so he says,
"I'll purify myself."
He takes a shower.
And then, because he's a great god,
from the purified body of Izanagi, a lot of different gods come into existence.
"Ah yeah, here they are, here they are."
"They're coming out, these different gods are coming out."
From there, poof! Somebody special appears.
"Oh! A Special One! A Special One!"
It was like a winning lottery ticket.
"Here's something great! It's a rare one this time!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
They are the three Precious Children.
The 'Sankishi' (three Precious Children) come out, Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!
"Oh, you look special kind, aren't you? Very special."
"We are special indeed."
"Of course."
"We are special."
The Sankishi appear.
"So who are you guys?"
They are Amaterasu, the god of the Sun,
Tsukuyoshi, the god of the Moon,
and Susanoo, the god of the Wild.
Now we have Amaterasu and Susanoo.
Here, we leave the Izanagi-Izanami part,
and we move on to the Amaterasu-Susanoo part.
Amaterasu is, honestly,
The top of the tops from here on out.
Yes, she is the top of the top, the Goddess of the Sun.
Amaterasu is a symbol of the Sun.
In fact, the famous Ise Jingu (Ise Shrine),
the highest shrine of all enshrines Amaterasu.
And so, the big main character is Amaterasu.
"I'm Amaterasu."
"I'm Tsukuyomi."
"It's me, Susanoo."
This Susanoo, he's a rough guy. He is the third child, the little brother.
The big sister. "I'm Amaterasu."
As for "Tsukuyomi," he doesn't appear anymore after this.
although he is one of the Three Precious Children.
Yes, Three Precious Children
is Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo.
Tsukuyomi, he won't appear at all.
"I'm Tsukuyomi."
"Okay, cut! That's it, Mr. Tsukuyomi, very good job!"
"Oh, that's it? That's all for me?"
"Well, after this, we focus on the face off between Amaterasu and Susanoo,
so please understand."
"Oh, okay. I'll watch it on TV,"
something like that.
Back to Amaterasu and Susanoo,
"Okay, I got it" Izanagi decides to entrust them.
"You are the Sun. You are the god of the Sun,
so the heaven is for you. You govern the heavens."
"I'll leave the heavens up to you."
"Tsukuyomi, you control the land of the night."
"Oh, I do have a part."
"I'll leave the land of the night to you."
That's why he won't appear anymore.
Then,
"Susanoo! I'll leave the oceans up to you. You govern the sea."
He is assigned to the oceans.
"I understand." "I understand." "Alright."
"Oh, he probably won't do it."
You can tell he's not dependable.
As we expected, Susanoo doesn't bother governing the oceans.
"I don't like the sea."
"Hey, what's wrong? The ocean is going wild!"
"The sea is going crazy! What's going on? Susanoo, are you keeping it under control?"
"I don't want to govern!" Susanoo replies.
"I don't really want to be in control of the sea."
"Then what do you want to do?"
"I want to see my mother," he says.
"Izanami?"
"You can't see Izanami. She's gone to the land of the dead"
"Fine, I want to go there then!"
"No! You don't know anything!"
"You have no idea what had happened to me there!"
"Just check my backstory!"
"I had to throw grapes at crazy armies."
"You don't understand anything. You're banished!"
And so, Susanoo is banished.
He was really stubborn.
"I want to see my mother, Izanami."
"I want to go to the land of the dead and see her."
"Ok then, that's fine!" With that he gets banished.
"Damn it!"
The reason why the ocean gets rough is that no one governs it.
That's what they indicate.
No god governs there.
So he leaves. What does he do?
"I have nowhere to go."
"Guess I'll go where big sis is," he says,
and heads to Amaterasu's place.
He arrives in heaven.
"Hey, big sister!"
"Excuse me, Miss Amaterasu?"
"Yes?"
"Your brother is here"
"Huh? He was assigned to control the sea, but he didn't do it."
"He ended up being banished by my father."
"I know he's here to take over the heavens."
"I don't like that! I must take up the arms!" And so she does.
"I'm sure he is here to take over this place."
"What do you want?"
"Sister, let me stay here."
"No! You're too aggressive."
You're here to mess around the heavens!"
"I won't! I won't! Susanoo swears it!"
"Really?"
So they do the 'Ukei' (Pledge) ceremony.
It's a ceremony to make a pledge to each other.
"I'll test you to see whether you're lying or not."
"Ok! That's fine by me, sis!"
"Alright."
This ceremony is very strange.
She says, "Give me your sword."
"Okay."
"I'll crunch up your sword and create a god from it."
"Okay."
"You take my magatama (necklace) and juzu (beads), crunch through them and create a god."
"I'll create a Female god, so you create a Male one."
"If this actually happens, it means that the gods approved of you."
"If not, it means you're lying."
There was some kind of ceremony like this.
"Okay, I got it."
She crunches and
breathes out, and a god is born.
"Ah, as I said, a female god is born."
"My turn then." Crunch crunch crunch…He breathes out.
"Oh! He's here! A male god is born! I told you!"
"I told you, Big sister."
"See! I'm not lying, ok?"
"I'm not here to take over your heavens. You are paranoid."
"You'll let me stay here, right?"
"Hmm… I can't say no." She lets him stay.
But after all Susanoo is an aggressive boy.
"Sigh…"
"My brother is staying here, but I wonder if he is behaving?"
"Miss Amaterasu! Miss Amaterasu!"
"Yes?" One of her staff comes.
"Miss, It's about Susanoo."
"Again!? What' did he do this time?"
Well, he's filling up the path in between the rice fields."
"What? That's so annoying! Really annoying! "
"Is that it?"
"No no, that's not all."
"He's throwing feces all around the important buildings."
"What's up with that? It's almost a terrorist attack! What's wrong with him?"
"We should punish him."
"Yes, but we made a pledge."
"I don't know, but maybe he has some kind of plan."
"The thing with the rice paddy path,"
"maybe he's telling us that it's not a great spot for a rice paddy."
"The fecal stuff… I have no idea."
"Anyway, please let him off the hook for now." she says.
She was protecting him.
However, he does something she couldn't protect him anymore.
There was a shed for weaving, and that place was important.
The gods are making sacred clothing in this shed.
He tore the roof open.
"Whoa, what the hell are you doing there?"
"It's Susanoo."
"What are you doing, Mr. Susanoo!?"
"You spread shit around and filled up our rice paddy paths. You're crazy!"
"We're weaving here so please don't do anything, okay?"
"I have a delivery for you!" he says,
and he throws in a dead cow into the shed, Boom!
Oh, no!
Then one of the weaver
get stabbed by the broken piece of the weaving machine
and dies from a massive injury. It's a disaster.
"What is this!? Why are you doing this?"
"Miss Amaterasu! Human life is lost!" Actually they are gods, but
"The Lives of gods are at stake!"
"Geez!" Amaterasu had it."That's it!"
"This is all my fault," she is in despair.
Here comes the famous story of 'Ama no Iwado Kakure'; Amaterasu hides behind the stone door,
and she doesn't come out. "I'm going to stay here."
She hides herself in a stone cave.
The god of the Sun
is inside a cave.
She's hidden from everyone.
Therefore, heavens and the earth lose light
Pitch dark
In one theory, this was an eclipse.
This is a metaphor for the eclipse.
The god of the Sun is hidden, and it's dark, "We've lost the sun!"
"Amaterasu has hidden away! Oh no, what do we do?"
"What should we do?"
The gods consult each other,
"What should we do? Amaterasu is upset."
"she's gone and it's so dark."
"We can't tell if it's night or day! What can we do?"
"Yes, what do we do?"
"Oh, I know!"
There is the god of wisdom, 'Omoikane',.
"Hmmm… Let's dance," he says.
"We're dancing, are we? Mr. Omoikane?"
"Well, If Omoikane says so, it's going to work."
"He's really smart. He's the god of wisdom."
"If he says dance, let's dance!"
"Are there any dancers here?"
Then the god of Dance, Ama-no-Uzume, comes forward, "Yes, I can dance."
"Oh, really!" "Can you dance for us?"
"Yes, of course."
"I’m strong, so when Amaterasu comes out from the cave,
"I'll pull her out, okay?"
"Then I'll fetch the tools for that."
Together, they devise a plan to get Amaterasu out of the cave.
"We'd like to start the let's-get-Amaterasu-out-of-the-cave festival."
"Here's Mr. Omoikane who came up with this plan."
"Hi, I am Omoikane."
"Well, my plan here is to dance and have fun. We will have a good time."
"She'll want to see what's happening. We'll pull her out. That's the gist of it."
"Ah, we couldn't have come up with that, Mr. Omoikane. That's an amazing plan."
"You think she'll come out if we were having fun?"
"Yes, so let's get it going."
"OK, Miss Ama-no-Uzume, it's show-time!"
Then Ama-no-Uzume starts to dance.
I don't know what kind of dance she performed,
but apparently it was quite a wild dance.
She dances like crazy and wild.
She's a female god by the way.
She was almost naked and her breasts were exposed.
When they see Ama-no-Uzume dancing almost naked,
the gods explore in laughter.
"Ha ha ha, you're almost naked!"
They're laughing so hard,
that Amaterasu finds it strange.
"How come? I'm gone and it's dark everywhere. They should be sad."
"What? What's happening out there?"
"I can hear you all laughing, what's going on?" she asks.
"Great! We've got her attention."
The gods reply, "Listen, there's this incredible god, so much more than you, Amaterasu."
"We're just having so much fun!"
"What? Greater than me?"
"Huh? Greater than the god of the Sun? The Greatest of the Greats who is in charge of Heaven?"
"Yes! Don't you wanna see? Don't you want to see her face?"
"Well, I'm a bit interested in her face," she thinks. "Maybe I'll peek just a little bit."
She opened the rock just a little, and then.
"Hey, bring out that thing we had ready!"
"Okay!"
There's the mirror that will later become one of the Three Sacred Artifact.
It's called 'Yatano Kagami'
One of the gods had a prayer juzu necklace,
the magatama stones, in hand as well.
The mirror, the magatama stone, the sword; they are the famous Three Sacred Artifacts.
One of them is a mirror, and they take it out.
"We got it!" And they hold the mirror.
And then,
"Let's see who it is." She looks out, and the mirror is in front of her face.
"Wait, It's me!"
"This is me! It's me, isn't it? What's going on?"
"What are guys you doing?" while she is puzzled,
the powerful god pulls her quickly.
"What, what, what?" and she is out of the cave.
Then another god gets out a rope,
and stretch it behind her and declare that she cannot go back inside.
Blip, goes the rope, and "You can't go back now!"
"What? What's up with this plan?"
"Miss Amaterasu, this is Omoikane's idea."
"Yes, it was my idea."
"Please give us a break. You did nothing wrong, Miss Amaterasu."
"Oh, look, the light is back!"
"Good, good! Hahaha!"
This is the famous story, 'Amano Iwatogakure.'
"But, it's really Susanoo's fault."
"Yeah, not Amaterasu!"
"You need to punish Susanoo."
"I guess so."
Susanoo is finally gotten rid of.
He is now banished from the heavens too.
"You must go down to earth!"
"You are a god, and I've let you stay here, but you must go back down."
So he does.
Here starts the volume of Susanoo, the god of the Wild, on earth.
The timeline here is all crazy.
Susanoo and his descendant of a few generations down meet each other.
"Oh, no! snakes! Gyaah!" and he remembers.
"If something happens, my father is a little crazy, so…"
"Fire Time Start!"
"Daddy! Don't start a fire like that!"
"What? I'm just having fun."
"You, really, really…."