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Moomin-1

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"Geijutsu Shincho"(芸術新潮-art specialty magazin in Japan) featured about Tove Jansson on May issue.
In Japan, she is known as the author of Moomin.
Moomin was made into anime series some times. The first was 1969 and 2nd was 1972. In 1990, another studio produced another series of Moomin--"Tanoshii Moomin ikka"(Moomine family). Each series got hit and Moomin became a popular character in Japan. Still now it is rebroadcasted again and again.
Tove Jansson was born in Finland in 1914 August 9th---just the WW1 began--. Her mother was a Swedish and her literary works were written in Swedish.
I don't know if Moomin is popular in many countries except Finland and Japan. How about in your country?

Official site in Finland is here.

In Japanese official site, you can get wallpapers here.

above: Kagoshima bank is a local bank near my place. It adopts Moomin as its mascot character. Kagoshima bank gives away Moomin calender every year ti its customers. This is one of the page of it---April page.

right upper: Geijutsu Shincho cover page.

right lower : Tove Jansson drew herself and her Moomin characters.

kappa-2

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pic above : I found a nice picture of kappa girl on the web.
He paints much better than me. This kappa girl has a fishing rod. Kappa's most favorite food is cucumber. So cucumber sushi is called "kappa maki"

pic right: kappa maki----cucumber roll--




There are many folktales, novels, manga and movies about kappa.
"Kappa no Coo and to natsuyasumi"(the summer vacation with Coo the kappa --河童のクーと夏休み--) is a recent animation.
You can see the trailer here.
pic right: Kappa of Coo













A famous sake manufacturer "Kizakura" makes kappa a mascot of its brand.
pic right: Kizakura




Kappa

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There are many kind of imaginary creatures in Japanese lore or folktale. The three major of them are oni, tengu and kappa.
Kappa live in rivers. You can see the detail of kappa on wikipedia.

The other day, I visited Ukiha in Fukuoka pref. It's the river area of Chikugo river. Japanese wikipedia says, once there might have lived some troops of kappa around the river area. So there are many lores and report of sightings of kappa here still now. I believe it's a joke of the writer though...

There are many old folk dwelling in Ukiha. I saw some lime plaster relief of kappa on the exterior wall of houses there. People there seem to love kappa very much.

avobe: lime plaster relief
upper: the kappa relief is on this old house
middle: a barber shop has a plaster relief of barbering kappa

lower: this is a typical style of kappa. Kappa usually has bamboo rod though, I changed it to a harpoon. Kappa dwell in the river and is good at diving. I think harpoon is more suitable than fishing rod. Kappa has a saucer on its head. Kappa always keeps water in it. If the saucer is dried, he loses power or dies. The thing on his back is tortoiseshell.

HACHI-2

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We had a dog more than 10 years ago.
Its name was HACHI, as you can see in my previous post.
Checkng old videos I took in those days, I found a funny clip.
My daughter, 7 years old then, was playing with my silver salt SLR camera PENTAX.
She took HACHI with it and caught a nice shot. Enjoy it.

Silver salt camera have quickly become old-fashioned in this short period.
At the same time, the small girl quickly grew up adult.

swallow nest

A brace of swallow built a nest at my office.
There are 4 or 5 babies in the nest.
The parents fly around and catch insects all day.
When the patents return to the nest, as soon as they feed the babies, they leave. So it's not easy to take picture of both parents and babies at a time. Anyway swallows are very industrious.

HACHI


In this summer, American movie "HACHI" is released in Japan. It's a story of a faithful dog HACHI and his master staring Richard Gere. This story was once filmed in Japan in 1987--Hachi-ko monogatari--

HACHI really exsisted in Tokyo about 80 years ago.
HACHI was kept by a Tokyo University Prof, Ueno who lived at Shibuya. HACHI went to Shibuya station to meet his master every evening. One day Ueno suddenly died but HACHI didn't understand it and kept going to the station every evening after that. Seeing it, people felt sorry for his devotion. They collected contributions and built a bronze statue of HACHI in front of Shibuya station in 1934.
Still now, the stature is a very popular meeting spot around Shibuya station.


On the other hand, there is another story about HACHI, which questions its devotion. At the station, there was a food stall of Yakitori--skewered grilled chicken, sort of like shish kebab--. The customers of the shop sometimes gave yakitori to HACHI. He got a taste of it and went to the station every evening...... After death, he was dissected and stuffed. Some skewers were found in his stomach....

right: Stature of HACHI at Shibuya



Once my family kept a dog. My son named it HACHI.---picture right: HACHI
I didn't know why he named HACHI. Maybe he knew about the faithful dog HACHI. Hachi means "eight" or "bee".


Junkers G-38


I once posted, on March 18, about Junkers G-38 that Miyazaki Hayao depicted. Miyazaki mentioned about it in his Zassou Note published in 1992.
Now he is serializing a manga "Kaze tachinu" in Model Graphix. It's a story about Horikoshi Jiro who was a airplane designer around WW2. We can see Yunkers G-38 in it again.

above: Japanese army got licencing-in and converted it into bomber.

below: Imaginary bombers of imaginary war. They look like Junkers G-38. The design of the tail is a bit different from G-38.

Ponyo Playing Card

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LAWSON announced that the ones who make reservation of Ponyo DVD can get Ponyo playing cards. The DVD will be released on July 3rd.
Each face side has different picture. We can follow the story with these cards.
If you want this card, look at LAWSON site.
Compared to the price of Disney Japan official site--4725yen---, the LAWSON's price is cheaper about 500 yen ---4230yen---

Catholic church in Kitsuki


upper : Kitsuki castle can be seen on the hill top.
------continued from previous post---------
After Japan established diplomatic relations with Europe and America in the latter half of the nineteenth century, propagation of Christian faith again began to flourish. Anti-Christian Edicts was unrepealed in 1873.
Catholic, Protestant and Russian Orthodox became actively involved in missionary work.
However it wasn't as successful as the missionary in 16th century.
About 150 years passed since then though, the ratio of the believers to the total population has been not over 1 %.
Each sect of them might be less active than Jehovah's Witnesses.
Still, there are many missionary schools of Catholic and Protestant all over Japan.
No doubt, those missionary schools don't show any successful results in propagandism.

photo right: When I visited Kitsuki(杵築), I saw a Catholic church which had Japanese style gate and church.
Kitsuki is an old castle town. This church is in the historic district. This church is also collaborating to preserve the appearance of the streets.

lower: historic district. There are some old houses of samurai in Edo era.



Oura Cathedral

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When I went to Nagasaki, I visited Oura Cathedral. It is one of the main sightseeing spot in Nagasaki.
It was first built in 1864. It was built in memory of "Japan's Twenty-Six Martyrs" -- 26 secret Christians who were killed in Nagasaki in 1597. So the official name of it is "Twenty-Six Martyrs church".
photo upper: Oura Cathedral.
photo lower: Uragami cathedal

-------history of Christianity in Japan---
Christianity first reached Japan in 1549 with the arrival at Kagoshima of Francis Xavier, a Catholic missionary belonging to the Society of Jesus.
At its peak, in the early seventeenth century, it is estimated that there were about 750 thousand Christians in Japan.
Later, though, it came to be considered a danger to the feudal order and was eventually repressed and banned.
Christians were persecuted, and in 1613 foreign missionaries were banished from the country.
Even after Christianity was prohibited, quite a few believers carried on practicing their faith in secret.
After Japan established diplomatic relations with Europe and America in the latter half of the nineteenth century, propagation of Christian faith again began to flourish.
--------quoted from Space ALC---------

photo right: fumie
photo lowest: people are tramping fumie. officers are monitoring.


When this church was built by French priests in 1864--it was the church for foreign resident--, some Japanese came to see them and confessed that they were hidden Christians. The priests were much surprised. They had kept their religious faith for 250 years under relentless repression.
After Anti-Christian Edicts was lifted, those Christians built their own church in Uragami. It was destroyed by atomic bomb in 1945 and rebuilt in 1958. It is also one of the main sightseeing spot in Nagasaki.

Oura Cathedral has a exhibit room that shows the history of propagandism and repression in Nagasaki.
"Fumie" is one of it. Fumie means image trampling.
In Edo period, to seek Christians, Edo goverment made people tramp a board on that image of Jesus or Virgin Mary was carved. Those who couldn't tramp it were arrested and punished.
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