Cool Inuyasha Background Trivia

[ranuel]

Well, I think it's cool.

According to Martin Schumaucher in his entry about tanuki over at Gods of Japan, A tanuki figure commonly appears in front of restaurants in Japan in the same way that the lucky cat is used by shops. These ceramic figures show the tanuki holding a sake bottle in one hand and an IOU promising to pay for it later in the other. Tradition says that the IOU is never redeemed.

For the last several hundred years most of these have been made in Shingaraki and on these the sake bottle often has the emblem of the Nagoya clan who ruled that area in the feudal era.

          It's the character for eight referring to the eight districts they ruled and eight in Japanese is hachi!

And for my readers who've made it this far in the entry without being IY fans (Hi, Christina) Hachi is also the nickname of Hachiemon, Miroku's tanuki friend.

Comments

[christinam33.livejournal.com]

Hi! Thank you for attempting to explain. I have no idea who Miroku is or what a tanuki is but the statue and history are right up my alley.

[christinam33.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! The tanuki are cute. They remind me a little bit of red pandas but with pointier noses. And The Girl's online name is Kitsune. Now I know what that means.

[fenikkusuken.livejournal.com]

*snickergigglesnort* C'mon... don't leave out the tanuki's testicles, and their role in folklore! Every time I see the InuCru riding on Inflated!Hachi I nearly die laughing!

[scribefigaro.livejournal.com]

I was looking for a topical post.

I had the itch to write up some vague Inuyasha resources. So I have a post I wrote just a few weeks after I left for Japan and another I started on a few weeks after I returned from Japan. Please take a look if you're interested.

http://scribefigaro.livejournal.com/26919.html