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dailydemonspotlight · 1 month

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Mizuchi - Day 22

Race: Snake

Alignment: Neutral

April 19th, 2024

Serpentine monsters are a common sight in mythology; whether it be the great Dragons of yore, the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, the aboriginal Rainbow Serpent Yurlungur, or even the classical Ouroboros. However, Japan loves snakes in mythology. We've already covered one in Yamata-No-Orochi, but there are so many more, whether it be the adorable and hilarious Yokai Tsuchinoko, or, in the case of the demon we're covering today, the legendary water serpent, Mizuchi.

Mizuchi is rarely seen throughout the tremendous amounts of tales that make up Japanese mythology, only mentioned in the Nihon Shoki (the oldest still-remaining text of Japan's history, dating all the way back to the Yōrō era) as well as appearing in a single Man'yōshū poem. In spite of this, Mizuchi has been the topic of many scholarly debates, eventually being bastardized through history into everyone's favorite root-chakra destroying turtle, the Kappa.

Mizuchi, however, is not originally from Japan- its name is actually a transliteration from several Chinese glyphs, particularly several glyphs describing different dragons, serpents, and monsters of Chinese mythology. Admittedly, I don't know much about Japanese, but one of the kanji used to spell the name Mizuchi implies that it's a snake, but it first-and-foremost means "Water spirit." The word, in English, can be broken down into "Spirit-of-Water," as Mi- means water, -tsu- (the way that it is pronounced) effectively means 'of,' and -chi is a suffix that describes a spirit. Due to this, Mizuchi's origin as a Chinese myth makes it very, very hard to track down much of a solid origin for it, given that it originates from what was effectively a way to match how it sounds to how it's spelled.

Now, in terms of mythology, Mizuchi was first referenced in the Nihon Shoki- as the story goes, under the reign of Emperor Nintoku, there was a fork at a river that contained a great water serpent that would be a very deadly nuisance- it attacked random passersby, spat venom at anybody who came near, broke apart caravans, and was generally just a prick. Eventually, fed up with this, a man named Agatamori approached the spirit with a challenge- he tossed three Calabashes into the water and challenged the spirit to see if it could sink them. If not? Mizuchi would face a swift death. The dragon, perturbed, obliged, yet was unsuccessful, meeting a demise by the hands of the man.

Later on, Agatamori found his way to the fellows of the mischievous snake, and in a move as genocidal as it was unwarranted, slaughtered the entire clan of Mizuchi. The lake below was filled with their blood, later becoming the noted "Pool of Agatamori." However, in spite of how apocalyptic this may seem, it turns out that there are more recollections of Mizuchi in the mix, and this tale was but one of many.

The god of the river recorded in Nintoku 11 is also commonly seen as a Mizuchi. A dam being built along Yodo River was subject to an attack from an unknown force, completely breached. Confused, the Emperor commanded a rebuild of it, only for it to be breached yet again. This happened time and time again, and eventually, the Emperor saw a solution to his problem through a prophetic dream. Bringing two men to the riverfront, he offered them up to the River God, but one refused. Likely recognizing the circumstances, the man demanded to see the divinity of the snake by trying the age-old calabash trick, tossing a set into the river and daring the god to sink them. Unsurprisingly, the Mizuchi failed, and likely grew to resent calabashes for the rest of its life.

The last example of a Mizuchi in classical Japanese mythology comes from the Man'yōshū, a collection of ancient poems that have been passed down from generation to generation. In one of them, a poem composed by Prince Sakaibe, he describes a short and intriguing tale regarding a Mizuchi. In quote, "I could ride a tiger to leap over the Old Shack, to the green pool, to take down the mizuchi dragon there, if only I had a sword capable of doing just that." The story regards a mizuchi dragon as being almost common knowledge, bringing up as many questions as it does answers- however, the way it regards it in such a casual manner may play into why Mizuchi are so scarcely mentioned.

If everyone knew about mizuchi, then they wouldn't feel the need to record it, right? The casual cadence of the poem seems to give light to the idea that mizuchi were a common sight or concept in ancient Japan, and it may have to do with their later bastardization into Kappa. In some areas, kappa are given a name incredibly similar to a mizuchi, such as "Mizushi," "Medochi," or "Mintsuchi." Past this, a common trait in Kappa stories lies in their hatred of calabashes, something which is similar to the distaste Mizuchi have for calabashes in both stories they appear in. Some historians speculate that mizuchi and kappa were in the same general 'clique' of water dwelling monsters.

God, that was a lot. Mizuchi are confusing. However, in terms of the SMT series, there's a lot less to comment on; their appearance as a water spirit in the form of a snake is faithful, and their design is as simple as it is elegant. They appear to be made of clear water, almost like a rushing river in the form of a snake. Throughout the series, Mizuchi are a common sight in the early-mid game, even appearing as a boss in Nocturne. Their specialty in ice skills, the closest thing SMT has to water skills, is almost obvious. However, overall, there's elegance in simplicity, and Mizuchi is just that.

#shin megami tensei #smt #megaten #persona #daily #mizuchi #this thing was a HEADACHE.#probably the hardest demon so far to research #a lot of my stuff was taken directly from wikipedia #albeit reworded #and i feel a bit bad about it #but i can't read japanese!!#and almost all the primary and secondary sources are #lo and behold #in japanese.#however i do appreciate the challenge and i love looking into weird and obscure folklore!!#its just that this guy was way too much of a doozy.#never again. jesus h jimminy cricket.

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fly-the-pattern · 21 days

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The dino benches are super cute. The angle is a little weird, though. And there's other seating if you're scared of dinosaurs. Looks like there's non-dino flat benches in the back on the right and a raised stone bench / retaining wall area on the left with grass and trees. I'm a little worried that there's no arm rests on any of the seating areas, though. It might be difficult for people with mobility issues to stand back up. Super cute for in front of a dino museum, though! And I totally want one.

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pjharvey · 3 months

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making fun of americans is pretty much always ok if youre not doing it in an edgelord “you guys have so many school shootings” way or acting like we’re the only country that has racism. but like posts about americans and hamburger get me every time

#or like that japanese guy on a group chat pretending to be an american and ending every sentence with ‘am i right fellas’

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coffinwoodx · 6 months

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ok so for those of you who don’t know, there’s this twitter account of a japanese local hero mascot named dentman who went viral recently due to this tweet

but yeah he saw the tweet. and his response went viral as well (which is how i found his account)

and he just has like. hourly posts reminding you to brush your teeth

oh and his rival? his name is mr. mutans. whenever dentman posts he makes a post of his own, ofc

but THAT’S NOT ALL. literally while making this post i found a THIRD ACCOUNT that’s all about taking your meds

safe to say i’m losing my mind

anyway the point of all this was that people are ALREADY beginning to draw them ship art 😭

and the reactions are everything

I CANT ADD ANY MORE IMAGES BUT TRUST ME THIS IS SO FUNNY

toxic one-sided dentman yaoi wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card but it DEFINITELY IS NOW!

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tariah23 · 17 days

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White people are miserable, racist losers period. They’ve even been getting mad at Japanese people for correcting them about Yasuke as well.

#rambling #seen wp go ‘they’re mismembering their history is all-‘#as if they’d know more than the actual Japanese people #comments on ever post about yasuke are full of racist wp arguing with Japanese ppl and telling them that yasuke was a ‘nobody slave’#while Japanese ppl are just like ‘well anyway-‘ on their asses it’s kind of embarrassing #the guy is literally an historical figure bro #how are you mad that everyone from a country that you have such an unhealthy interest in isn’t as racist as you are??? that’s what it’s #giving #I’m sure there are lots of Japanese ppl being racist af too #since antiblackness is global and everyone has a problem with black people simply existing but #they hate us too but 😭#it’s just #expect full blown kkk bullshit as soon as a black character pokes their head out from around the curtain #antiblackness #I see white ppl cry about yasuke every other month man #or at least once a year on Twitter

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bixels · 6 months

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Baffled.

#personal #not art #like how do you arrive at this conclusion #what beliefs?#the man may be a total grouch but if there’s one thing he HATES it’s Japanese nationalism #Japanese nationalists famously HATE his work especially the wind rises which criticizes imperial Japan and calls out the invasion of China #don’t ask for context on the first part of the tag I’m not answering

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adobe-outdesign · 2 months

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recently I discovered that Kawayoo, one of my all-time favorite Pokemon TCG artists, has some art of Loudred floating around and it's the best thing I've ever seen

#pokemon #pkmn #pokemon cards #pokemon tcg #loudred #meloetta #outdesign posts things #unfortunately I can't find the exact source because it's presumably in Japanese #I think it might've been posted to twitter by kawayoo originally but I don't have a twitter to verify that #it's def his art though I know that much #UPDATE: source link has been added

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sleepiercreature · 2 months

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I couldn't find an English version so I put the fan translation of the sketch on top of the Dungeon Meshi: Adventurers Bible Complete Edition pages of this comic

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #mickbell #kuro #holm #daya #I don't speak japanese not my translation work I just mashed two images together

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penicillinsteve · 4 months

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The Ace Attorney translation is so funny because if it were translated today it would probably just be normal but since it was the 2000s and American brains couldn't comprehend Japan there's randomly an insular village that strictly practices Shinto divination in Southern California

#i also like that Maya randomly still has a Japanese name 😭#ace attorney #maya fey #phoenix wright #aa #apollo justice

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exilley · 5 months

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I do sort of wish western anime fans would analyze anime and manga from a framework of japanese historical and cultural context. Specifically a lot of works from the 90s being influenced by the general aimlessness and ennui that a lot of people were experiencing due to the burst in the bubble economy and the national trauma caused by the sarin terrorist attack. I think in interacting with media that’s not local to our sociocultural/sociopolitical sphere it’s easy to forget that it’s influenced and shaped by the same kinds of factors that influence media within our own cultural dome and there ends up being this baseline misalignment of perception between the causative elements of a narrative and viewer interpretation of those elements. It’s a form of death of the author that i think, in some measure, hinders our ability to fully understand/come to terms with creator intent and the full scope of a work’s merits

#exilley's diary #this is about utena btw like. yeah its feminist and a coming of age horror story but also #it was in part ikuhara’s response to the changes he observed in the corporate anime industry and an attempt to subvert those trends #it doesnt really help that i feel certain aspects of the show are filtered through translation and certain cultural emphasises are lost #like for instance. the blood type symbolism. or wakaba’s gestures with making packed lunches #theyre incredibly japanese expressions of conventional gender roles that non-japanese audiences might not fully resonate with

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nando161mando · 1 month

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miamaimania · 2 months

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Basking in the Surreal Summer of '01 ¥ - from Egg Magazine

#pop art #surreal #painting #2000s #contemporary #egg #summer #japanese art

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savagegood · 9 months

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his best running gag

#he’s just like me fr though……#the japanese condition….#the comic is by french artist bouletcorp and linked in the source #hayao miyazaki #the boy and the heron #studio ghibli #twitter #anime

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baradragon · 5 months

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give me the state if you're comfy and what languages were offered

#i got curious cause i went to a big international studies HS #we had 5 languages #spanish french german japanese and latin #this was in central florida btw

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zegalba · 3 months

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The Kei Truck Garden Contest (2018)

The Japan Federation of Landscape Contractors organizes an annual landscaping contest, where landscaping contractors from around Japan arrive on site with their mini pickup trucks and then spending several hours transforming the cargo bed into a small garden.

#The Kei Truck Garden Contest #kei truck #art #nature #garden #japanese garden #japan #landscape #minitures #2018

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tanuki-kimono · 9 months

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Mind blowing craftmanship by tatami artist Kenzie Yamada.

The soaring crane design comes in jigsaw puzzle like pieces, and mats are in fact monocolor. Dark/light areas appear thanks to how each tatami straw mat is woven, beautifully catching the light.

You can see below the different weave directions depending on the tatami parts:

and in this video how those pieces react to light with a mesmerizing shimmer:

#japan #art #craft #tatami #Kenzie Yamada #japanese artist #crane #tsuru

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