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Delegates from Planet C have made landfall in Japan! As part of a cultural exchange between our two worlds, each year, we send an official out to the people in order to receive the latest reports on the idol industry, and this year is no different, with your ambassador spending a great deal amongst the masses in basement venues amidst the flashing lights and the glow of light sticks. In between such activities, and when not sitting in family restaurants trying to convince friends of the cultural significance of 1993’s Toei Fushigi Comedy entry, Yuugen Jikkou Sisters Shushutorian, I often attempt to prove myself as also capable of being moved by other forms of art.
Since 2016, I have been quietly in love with the coastal island of Enoshima. Mostly commonly known internationally in recent years as the host of sailing events during the much beleaguered 2020 Summer Olympics, there is also a rich narrative involving the Dharmapala, Benzaiten.
When a monstrous five headed dragon was stirring up unrest in the mountains of Fukusawa, Kamakura, shaking the world violently with its fury, Benzaiten descended and cleared a space in the turbulent seas, raising up an island from below and calling it Enoshima. Upon witnessing her grace, the dragon instantly fell in love with her and attempted to woo her, only to meet with rejection until he renounced his wicked ways, which he did instantly, such was his great love for her. Together, the two were married on Enoshima, and on the hill where the ceremony was said to have taken place, there now stands a bell that couples may ring together in order to pray for continued happiness, just like Benzaiten and her suitor, Ryukomyojin.
The dragon is no stranger to those with an interest in folklore, and for some time now, I have been thinking of this story from Enoshima in the context of the broader Urashima Taro narrative, itself comparative with European fairy stories in which a traveller is rewarded for a good deed, but is found oddly out of step with time later—King Herla and countless others amongst them. Upon returning to the hotel after a day’s walking around the coast, daydreaming, I found myself consumed with a desire to begin again watching Toei’s Utau! Dai Ryugujo.
The predecessor to the aforementioned Shushutorian, Utau! Dai Ryugujo aired between January and December of 1992. Stop now, careless reader, if you have not already seen it, for the Toei Tokusatsu World channel has the first episode available to you with English subtitles outside of Japan, and this is very much a show I wish for you to experience by yourself at first!
Helmed by frequent Fushigi Comedy Series writer, Urasawa Yoshio—possibly more commonly known to Western audiences as the man responsible for 1997’s Gekisou Sentai Carranger—the idea of creating a musical was apparently that of producer Ishihara Takashi, a notion that Urasawa approached with full gusto. Roughly framed as an absurdist retelling of the Urashima Taro myth, in which Taro (Ohno Shuhei) impulsively rescues taxi driver, Kameyama (played by Saito Satoru, who also appeared as Professor Kubota in Denji Sentai Megaranger) from an altercation with nosy reporter, Maekawa (guest star, Yamazaki Daisuke). As a reward, he is introduced to Otohime, who reveals herself to be the ruler of Ryugujo, an undersea land of song and frivolity now marred by the pollution of the sea.
As Taro’s parents take off for a dream holiday in Fiji, Otohime is invited to move in with Taro on the pretext of looking after him and, from there, various other characters soon come to fill both the house and Taro’s life, an absurd gathering of all singing, all dancing friends and foes.
Perhaps you have encountered the character of Otohime in tokusatsu before! Quite possibly, for the myth of Urashima Taro is widely known. Off the top of my head, two notable recommendations from me would be Ultra Q episode #6, in which Otohime is played by child actress, Tateishi Aiko, and episode #4 of Ultraseven: The Final Chapters, in which the character’s younger sister is played by Tanaka Noriko, also notable for her starring role in Shushutorian.
If we consider, Utau! Dai Ryugujo to be a magical girl show as implied by Otohime’s magical flute and the transition she enacts between her casual clothing and her regal attire, what makes Nakayama Hiroko’s turn in the role special is the boyishness of her presentation, a firmness befitting a monarch, something that touches upon the broad tropes employed in Takarazuka Revue productions and yuri as a genre.
Handsome to a fault, Nakayama is notable as being a member of the lower ranks of idol themed variety show, Sakurakko Club’s own in house group, Sakurakko Club Sakuragumi, in which she appeared alongside Nakatani Miki, who would later go on to play Takano Mai in Nakata Hideo’s adaptation of Ring, and also many peers who would join her as cast members in the original Sailor Moon musical production, Gaiden Dark Kingdom Fukkatsu Hen, in August of the year after Utau! Dai Ryugujo wrapped up.
It makes perfect sense to your ambassador that Nakayama would go from playing Otohime to playing Sailor Mars. That’s clever casting.
On the island of Enoshima, amongst the flowers, and in view of the shrines dedicated to Benzaiten and the gentle sea moving against the coast, I found myself joining the dots between these two stories despite the lack of explicit connective tissue. In a place like Enoshima, not only is it easy to believe that dragons might fall in love with goddesses, but also that the princess of a foreign land might move into the home of a wayward boy with a great dispassion for studying.
What have I been waxing lyrical about for a thousand words, friends? Maybe it’s that, by being in a place, by falling in love with an island and its stray cats and blooming flowers, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of the tapestry from which a far broader collection of stories are made.
Are you planning on visiting Japan soon? Will you be visiting Enoshima and potentially marrying a dragon prince? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
