![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
