Thread by @EmmaCandon

Here by popular demand, it’s time to talk Japanese folklore and ghosts in #StarWarsVisions RONIN! I’m going to keep it spoiler-lite, but there will be some vague references to characters, world, and themes. 1/

One of the first things I did upon being offered this project was to sit down and start listing folkloric entities and concepts that I wanted to see translated into Star Wars. 2/

For example, my eternal favorite, Yamamba/Yama-uba the mountain hag, a ravenous old ogre woman known for devouring travelers and their wagons alike. 3/

Conversely, she’s also the doting adoptive mother of Kintarou, the golden boy, a child of the forest who grows up wrestling animals and eventually becomes Sakata no Kintoki, a loyal retainer to Minamoto no Yorimitsu. 4/

Kintarou exists in a kind of historical-folkloric gray space, similar to Benkei, a warrior monk who I also deeply wanted to use but couldn’t ultimately find room for. 5/

Benkei is famous for taking issue with samurai—these jerks and their swords, forever betraying their moral responsibilities! He vowed to duel and overcome 1,000 samurai, taking their swords as his trophies. 6/

He reached 999 before he met Minamoto no Yoshitsune and (you guessed it), became his loyal retainer, having been awed by his martial prowess and moral resilience. 7/

You can see how Benkei’s whole deal kind of shows up in one of the RONIN cast members, though I idly headcanon that there’s a Benkei equivalent out there in the RONIN universe, beating up Jedi and Sith alike… 8/

Now for an entity that DID show up: kitsune. Fox spirits in China and Korea are more consistently wicked and untrustworthy, but they’re more likely to be ambiguous or even straight-up benevolent in Japanese tales. 9/

Notably, kitsune may still possess a person and drive them cuckoo bananas, or maliciously trick them, but they’re also associated with Inari, a Shinto deity of harvest and good fortune. 10/

As masters of illusion and shapeshifting, they can also be somewhat gender ambiguous. A kitsune may appear as a man, a woman, or…? Which is to say that I knew right off the bat that a kitsune character would be either nb or genderfluid. 11/

Another one I wanted to bring in but couldn’t find room for: GASHADOKURO. Giant skeletons! “Gashadokuro mech” is somewhere in my notes and I’m still sad that I couldn’t figure it out. Gotta wait until The Archive Undying for giant bone mecha I guess. 12/

There’s a famous triptych of Takiyasha, a rebel princess, summoning a gashadokuro in an act of girlboss witchcraft to come eat the emperor’s loyal vassals, who are begging her to stop rebelling, please. 13/

Speaking of women becoming ungovernable, onryo, vengeful spirits, are kind of curse-like in their existence. The J-Horror “The Grudge” is just “Onryo” in JP, if that gives you a sense of how sticky these hauntings can get. 14/

Onryo are usually women, and they often share some visual features—think of that omnipresent Japanese ghost hair, long and wild, creeping everywhere… (or ask my wife what it’s like to share a living space w/me when my hair’s long) 15/

Probably the most famous onryo in classic literature is Oiwa of Yotsuya Kaidan, a kabuki play about a woman wronged by a samurai, whose yearning for vengeance haunts him until his dying day… 16/

Ghosts aren’t solely vicious, frightening entities, however! Obon is the yearly ghost festival where we welcome the dead back to our homes, rejoice in their arrival, and strive to send them back on their way. 17/

There’s dancing, festival foods, and lots and lots of light—lanterns, bonfires, the works—all to help guide the spirits of the beloved lost on their way to where they belong. 18/

As for where else spirits and so forth belong…mountains. Strange things happen in the mountains, you know! As a mountainous archipelago you’d think that means strange things happen EVERYWHERE, but, well. 19/

There is the village, and there’s what lies beyond the boundary. Look for the points of transition. Torii shrine gates, stairs, bridges… 20/

That’s all for now. Enjoy digging through Ronin’s secrets—and if you need more folklore, check out Tono Monogatari, Hyakki Yagyo, and Bakemono no e! 21/21

Extra: I just remembered that I thought about the cross-section of tsukumogami and droids. Household items that have been around for one hundred years may become tsukumogami—a sort of animate inanimate object. Frequently depicted as umbrellas or sandals or lanterns, etc. Hmmm...