Episode 287 - The Drunken Demon

History of Japan

Isaac Meyer

Japan, History, Japanese

4.8 • 744 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2019

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we're taking a look at a specific oni tale, and probably the most famous one; the story of the Demon King of Mt. Oe, Shuten Doji. What's his story? How did he get punked by five of Japan's most famous warriors? And why are we still talking about him so many years later?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.
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0:12.2	For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial membership, complete with credit for a free audiobook of your choice.
0:19.2	You can cancel any time and keep the free book,
0:21.9	or keep going with one of Audible subscription offers. Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim
0:27.8	your offer. This week I'm going to recommend Jade City by Fonda Lee. I cannot say enough how
0:34.5	much I love this novel, which is essentially a fantasy version of a Hong Kong gangster action story.
0:41.2	There's cool fight scenes, fun political machinations, and just all kinds of other great stuff.
0:46.6	Seriously, check it out, and when you do, go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your offer. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast. At the History of Japan podcast, episode 287, The Drunken Demon.
1:19.2	Okay, so this week we're going to take what we talked about in terms of Oni and Japanese culture last week and apply it to one specific story, that of the famous
1:29.4	Oni lord Shuten Doji, or The Drunken Demon.
1:33.1	Don't worry, you'll find out why that's his name in a little bit.
1:36.7	There are a couple of different versions of this story.
1:39.7	I'm going to tell the most common one related by Noriko Raider in her book Japanese demon
1:45.8	lore, and then we're going to talk a bit about the significance of the story and how it
1:50.2	has been adapted and changed over time.
1:54.2	Dr. Raider's version is based on the oldest known text of this story, the Oe Yamai
1:58.4	E Kotoba, or Tale of Mount Owe in words and pictures, which is from
2:02.5	the 1300s. The story also appears in another text from right around that time period,
2:08.9	the military epic, Heke Monogatari, for reasons that I will explain later. The story itself
2:15.2	is set during the reign of Emperor Ichijo right around the turn of the millennium.
2:19.4	His renal dates are 96 to 1011.
	...

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