Friends who are interested in Japanese culture, in addition to looking at some history, you can also read some ancient myths and stories
Mythological stories can also reflect the culture of a country and get some inspiration that can be taken when writing.
Sorted out a few short stories, let's take a look at it
Yamata no Rochi
The Great Snake of Hachi is a demon with eyes like a red lantern, eight heads and tails, and a body length of more than eight valleys.
The Kojiki chronicles the story of Susanoo's slaying of the Yachi serpent. Susanoo was demoted to mortals for offending the god Amaterasu, and on Mount Funai in Izumo Kingdom, he learned that there was an eight-headed snake demon, Hachigo Ōsaka, who had been sacrificing a maiden from a local village every year for the previous seven years. Susanoo fell in love with the girl who had been chosen as a sacrifice this year, so he decided to eliminate harm for the people.
He transformed into the girl and prepared eight jars of fine wine at the altar in the village. When the Great Snake of The Eight Qis came, he was attracted by the taste of the wine, so he put his eight heads into the wine altar and drank bitterly. When all eight heads were drunk, Susanoo decapitated eight of its heads with ten swords and found a sharp sword at the tail of the great snake, which was one of the three artifacts of Japan, the "Kusanagi Sword". Susanoo offered his sword to his sister Amaterasu, and was pardoned badly.
Bone Woman (Honeona)
"Bone Girl" was originally found in Koizumi Yakumo's work: a man named Shiro, who could not stand a poor life, divorced his wife, married a rich and powerful lady and became an official. But the new life is getting more and more tired of Shi Lang, and he misses his virtuous wife who weaves cloth at home all day. A year later, Shiro returned home one night, and his wife didn't blame him in the slightest. The next morning, Shiro woke up to find a black-haired skeleton lying next to him.
Although he is long dead, he carries a certain obsession with the world; Although the body has long since decayed, the soul is attached to the skeleton. The woman who was insulted, bullied, and ravaged by people in her life, after she died of resentment, drove her skeleton back to the world with that obsession, and turned into a powerful ghost to ask for her life. Because there is only a pile of bones left, he disguises himself with human skin. Most of her revenge is male, and most of them are bad character.
Hannya
The "pranayama" here does not mean wisdom in Buddhism, but refers to the face of a female ghost, indicating "angry phase", which is actually the "jealousy" of women. More precisely, Prajnaparamita is a kind of evil spirit formed by women's strong jealousy and resentment. She lives in the mountains, snatches children for food in the middle of the night, and makes creepy and terrible laughter.
There is a story in the Tale of Genji called "Aoi Shang" about Prajna. The heroine of "Aoi Shang" is called "Rokujo Imperial Residence", and she once had a luxurious life as the Crown Princess, but later she abandoned her husband and fell in love with the Hikari clan. However, soon the Hikari clan became cold to him, so she was very upset and began to be jealous of Hikari's wife, Aoi. Under the long-term repression and resentment, the Rokujō Imperial Rest House became Prajna, and opposed Aoi shang at every turn.
Yukionna
The Snow Girl who lives in the deep mountains is a traditional Japanese yokai with a beautiful appearance similar to that of humans, wearing a white kimono, skin like snow, a long light blue hair, and a cold nature, which often appears when the snow closes the mountain. She is a subordinate of the mountain god and rules over the snow in winter.
The ancient legend of the Snow Girl was first recorded in the japanese classic monster novel "The Strange Talk of Koizumi Yakumo": the cold-tempered snow girl fell in love with a human man and gave birth to a child, but the man never expected that the pillow man was the dream he was most afraid of in the middle of the night. When the secret of being a snow girl is discovered by her husband, the snow girl kills her husband mercilessly and sadly returns to the ice and snow with her child.
It is also said that in Japan, as long as someone gets lost in the harsh environment of a snowstorm, they will inevitably encounter a snow girl who sucks on popularity for a living. The unpredictable snow girl will deliberately hold a baby in her hand and beg the passerby to hold the child for her, and once the passerby holds the child, she will not be able to let go of her hand, nor can she move half a step until she is frozen to death.
In addition, the Snow Maiden often draws men who enter the snowy mountains to no-man's places, kisses him, and at the same time completely freezes them and takes away their souls to eat. Men who meet the Snow Girl are easily seduced by the Beauty of the Snow Girl, and then frozen by the ice gas blowing out of her mouth. The only way to crack it is to pretend not to know the Snow Girl before you can escape the disaster.
Japanese myths and legends are still very interesting, and today I have simply written a few.
I recommend interested friends to see a Japanese movie called "Strange Talk Hundred Things", which is about the strange talk and legends that are well-known in Japan. A total of eleven stories, the strange talk and legends have been adapted to varying degrees, and the cast is also very strong, which is worth watching