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rynlingOn a related note, it amuses me that the lore of so many Japanese fantasy stories boils down to:
1. There is an evil sealed underground.
2. Having discovered this site,
3. you could fuck around and find out,
4. but you really shouldn't.
Something I found out recently (in relation to a real estate scandal surrounding the 2021 Tokyo Olympics) is that there are actually hundreds of calamity-sealing underground shrines in Tokyo.
Back when Tokyo was a colossal "early modern" city called Edo (prior to the nineteenth century), what would happen when there was a major fire is that the local community would (a) dig a pit, (b) dig a well in the pit, (c) enshrine the human remains in the well, and then (d) seal the pit. When Tokyo started building modern infrastructure in the twentieth century, people apparently found these old shrines...
...and didn't fuck with them. To this day, private property owners apparently pay massive amounts of money to maintain underground calamity-sealing shrines according to contemporary safety standards (with emergency exits, code-standard electric wiring and ventilation, etc). This work is handled by specialty contractors with ties to local religious institutions, who are paid separately to perform annual purification rituals.
From what I understand, this is more or less an opportunity to double-check underground infrastructure for compliance with earthquake safety regulations, which change from year to year as architectural technology evolves. Still, it's wild to think that there might be a real-life Calamity Ganon under many of the major skyscrapers and train stations in Tokyo.
1. There is an evil sealed underground.
2. Having discovered this site,
3. you could fuck around and find out,
4. but you really shouldn't.
Something I found out recently (in relation to a real estate scandal surrounding the 2021 Tokyo Olympics) is that there are actually hundreds of calamity-sealing underground shrines in Tokyo.
Back when Tokyo was a colossal "early modern" city called Edo (prior to the nineteenth century), what would happen when there was a major fire is that the local community would (a) dig a pit, (b) dig a well in the pit, (c) enshrine the human remains in the well, and then (d) seal the pit. When Tokyo started building modern infrastructure in the twentieth century, people apparently found these old shrines...
...and didn't fuck with them. To this day, private property owners apparently pay massive amounts of money to maintain underground calamity-sealing shrines according to contemporary safety standards (with emergency exits, code-standard electric wiring and ventilation, etc). This work is handled by specialty contractors with ties to local religious institutions, who are paid separately to perform annual purification rituals.
From what I understand, this is more or less an opportunity to double-check underground infrastructure for compliance with earthquake safety regulations, which change from year to year as architectural technology evolves. Still, it's wild to think that there might be a real-life Calamity Ganon under many of the major skyscrapers and train stations in Tokyo.
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Date: 2026-01-04 11:03 pm (UTC)This is fascinating, though.
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Date: 2026-01-05 07:59 pm (UTC)This isn't really a "trope," per se, but I love the narrative convention when something is a profound and multivalent metaphor, but then also it's very literal.
So Jenova is indicative of how the military development of technology brings out humanity's worst self-destructive tendencies... but also it's a literal shape-shifting alien that devours planets. 👍💯
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Date: 2026-01-05 05:46 pm (UTC)actually wasn't there a Thing where there was a demon fox sealed in/under a rock, but then in 2020/2021 the rock broke? but of course it was Plague Times so the demon fox curse would've been really fighting for its life in the attention stakes.
(*okay so my partner pointed out that this could be read as implying that Ganon, uh, does sexual crimes with sheep, so I just want to clarify that I meant sheep-murdering here.)
no subject
Date: 2026-01-05 07:45 pm (UTC)https://archive.is/20250211025823/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/world/asia/killing-stone-japan.html
I hope that fox is currently living her best life. I hope she's having fun.
I didn't know that about Ireland, but I suppose one has to be respectful of the fair folk. I'm not superstitious, but I totally get it. If people have been saying "don't build a road here" for a thousand years, then it stands to reason that you probably shouldn't build a road there!
Meanwhile in Philadelphia, I keep seeing news reports of people doing home renovations only to find 100yo+ human bones in their basements. Apparently contractors during the city's 1960s housing boom did not give a single fuck what they were building on top of. 🙃