Matt: A darkened chamber.
Laboured breathing.
A scream.
A cry.
Blazing light,
then silence.
[Cue intro song~]
It should have been a great day.
An exalted day!
A new child was to be welcomed into the family of the gods.
The youngest of the deities,
Izanagi and Izanami,
were to have another child.
But this child would be Kagutsuchi, the incarnation of fire.
And his birth burned his mother, Izanami, and from that fire, she died.
Enraged, Izanagi drew his sword and sliced the child into 8 pieces!
And the eight pieces became the eight great volcanoes of Japan.
The blood that dripped from his sword
became gods in their own right
and, thus, the god of the sea and the god of the rain came to be.
Before this act, death was unknown to the world
and now it had become a reality.
But Izanagi would not accept the death of his consort.
He decided he would find her.
So he descended into the realm of the dead!
There, everything was shadows.
Dim lit and insubstantial.
A dark reflection of the world above.
Stumbling about in the darkness, he searched and searched
until, at last, he found Izanami!
But, he couldn't make out her face
because she was hidden in the shadows.
Knowing it was her, though, he asked her to join him
once again in the realm of the brightness and light.
She refused, saying she could not
for she had already eaten food prepared
on the Hearth of the Land of the Dead.
Izanagi was insistent, though.
He would not return without her!
Finally, she agreed,
though she said she needed some time to rest.
And there was one condition to her agreement:
he could not look upon her while she slept.
Izanagi accepted
and Izanami retired to her chamber to sleep.
Time passed, and Izanagi began to worry.
And, at last, overwhelmed by curiosity and concern,
he entered the room where Izanami slept.
In the darkness, he was blind.
So he took out the comb he wore in his hair
and set it alight so that he might see.
She was not her.
She was meat!
Rotting, hanging off the bone!
A pile of entrails and flesh,
crawling with insects and worms!
Her skull could be seen through her putrefying flesh!
In horror, Izanagi ran out of the room
but the light and sound woke Izanami
and she started to wail and shriek!
She let out a piercing cry
and began to chase her faithless consort,
who only loved while she had the grace and beauty of
the lighted world.
She called on the Shikome,
demon woman of the underworld,
to seize Izanagi!
Then,
everybody decided
It was slapstick time~!
[cue 'Benny Hill theme']
The demon woman chases Izanagi,
but Izanagi does what any right-minded person
clearly in possession of his wits would do:
he throws his headdress at her
which, of course, turned into grapes!
So the demon woman gets beamed off the face with grapes
and, being an insatiable demon of the Underworld,
stops to eat them.
But, grapes done, the Benny Hill music starts up again
and the Shikome is hot on the heels of Izanagi!
This time, he throws the teeth of his comb at her
because, somehow, he burnt his comb but, I guess, kept the teeth?
Sure.
These are bamboo shoots and they stick into the Shikome
so, of course,
she pulls them out and eats them.
Next, master tactician Izanagi sees a tree and does the only reasonable thing:
he pees a 'literal' river on it.
Yeah,
this slows down the Shikome
but she's still closing in on him
so he whips out:
some peaches!
Where did he goes those? I... I don't understand what...?
He tosses the peaches her way
and... and that apparently does the trick?
Am I hearing...? Okay. Good. Good peaches.
At last, he reaches the entrance to the Underworld.
He strains all of his godly might
and rolls a giant boulder in front of the mouth of the Land of the Dead.
But just as the boulder is sealing the dark lands for good,
he hears the voice of Izanami shriek
that, because he deserted her,
she will kill a thousand people a day.
Izanagi responds maturely, saying,
"[cockily] Oh yeah? Then I'll give life to fifteen hundred! "
Mic drop, I guess?
And thus, with that last bon mau,
he goes off to purify himself.
As the water pours down from his body,
gods spring from the drops!
With Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun,
coming from the water streaming from his right eye
and Tsukuyomi, god of the moon, coming from his left.
Lastly, Susanoo, the god of the storms,
comes from the water dripping off his nose.
Izanagi then splits the living world between them
with Amaterasu ruling over the day,
Tsukuyomi ruling over the night,
and Susanoo to possess the rolling seas.
But their stories are for another time.
Red: And speaking of stories for another time
Matt: Whoa! Where did you people come from?
Red: Talk about a dysfunctional relationship, right?
If only Izanami had found a man who would love her
no matter what she looked like,
like that one Japanese myth where a woodcutter falls in love
with a giant spider!
Blue: Ah, relationship goals
Matt: wai, wai, wai, wai, wait a second!
You guys seem familiar. Are you...?
Red: I'm Red.
Blue: And I'm Blue.
Red: And if that story sounds interesting maybe you
should check out our video on it over at
'Overly Sarcastic Productions.' [points to link]
Matt: Huh! Well that... does sound... pretty sweet but...
Wait a minute! What did you do with Ally and James?!
Blue: Eeeh, they're already probably watching the video.
Red: [alluringly] Come on. We'll take you there.
Matt: Well, eh, this wouldn't be the first time I've been
lured into the woods by strangers with promises
of sweet mythological content. So, uh, sure!
Blue: This happens a lot around here?
Matt: Oh, ho, ho ho! Waaaay too much!
Can I, uh,
bring my cat?
[Cue outro song~]