Blog powered by Typepad

Fun places to visit

The Kappa In Japanese Folklore

  • Kappas are legendary creatures that inhabit the rivers and waterways of Japan. They have beaked noses, shells on their back and a depression on their heads that holds water. Kappa are mischievous troublemakers. Their pranks range from the relatively innocent, such as loudly passing gas or looking up women's kimonos, to the more troublesome such as drowning swimmers and eating children. They feed on their victims by sucking their liver though their anus. They love cucumbers and if you write your name on a cucumber and throw it in the river, the kappa may be appeased by your gift and allow you to swim in peace.

« As You Are Now So Once Was I | Main | Ciel Phantomhive Cosplay Tutorial--Transforming a Prom Dress »

August 27, 2011

Oyuugikai no fuku

We drove down to Columbus back at the beginning of August. It's only a couple of hours away but with gas so expensive we don't go very often. One of my favorite places to visit is Hana Gifts, a Japanese gift shop with a large selection of used books, most under five dollars.

DSCF0090

ISBN 483472185X

I almost didn't buy this because it looked like Disney princess dresses, and Ivy's not too fond of princess stuff. But then I started looking through it and the costumes were wonderful. About half were from Western fairytales, and the other half are from Japanese folktales.

DSCF0091

Cinderella and Belle from Beauty and the Beast

DSCF0092

Snow White, Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid, and Jasmine from Arabian Nights (although I think the description just says Arabian Princess

DSCF0094

Alice in Wonderland and Heidi--I love that dress!

DSCF0095
The Beast, and some princes, I'm not sure what fairytale they are from. DSCF0098

I'm not sure what fairytale these characters are from either. It just says King and Grandma

DSCF0093

These animal pajamas are called Kigurumi and are very popular in Japan

DSCF0096

These characters are from the folktale Momotarou

DSCF0097

This is the folktale Urashimatarou.

I'm a little unclear as to what title of the book means, oyuugikai seems to be some sort of School Art Festival and fuku is clothes, so I guess these are just costumes for the festival, which appears to be fairly elaborate from what I found online.

Posted at 08:10 AM |

Comments

Hatsuho

What a lucky find! We went to Hana Gifts yesterday and didn't find anything we wanted. I would have snatched this book up too!

Posted by: Hatsuho | August 30, 2011 at 08:29 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.