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GHOSTS, MONSTERS, AND DEITIES 137 + .+2 JIPPENSHA IKKU Illustrated by Katsukawa Shun’ei Z The Monster Takes a Bride (Bakemono no Yomeiri, 1807) is an illustrated comic tale in which traditional marriage customs are reinvented in the context of a monster world. During the Edo period, weddings were often elaborate rituals marking the union of two families. Picture books from the eighteenth century used personified animals such as mice or foxes to act out the various stages in the marriage process. These stories followed a set format. First the matchmaker introduces the two parties and arranges a meeting for the prospective bride and groom. Next come the exchange of betrothal presents and the assembling of the dowry. The actual wedding consists of the bridal procession by palanquin to the groom’s house, and the subsequent ceremony and banquet. In the days after the wedding, friends and relatives pay their respects to the new bride. The stories end with the birth of the first child and traditional shrine visit. Apart from their entertainment value, such picture books may have served as manuals for young girls approaching marriageable age. While The Monster Takes a Bride remains faithful to the framework of these “marriage manuals,” the grotesque nature of the monsters themselves lends a comic twist to the pattern. Monster stories were a popular genre in the earliest illustrated books (kusazōshi). Supernatural creatures of all varieties (collectively known as bakemono or yōkai) abound in Japanese myth and legend, and these early books written mainly for children were often an illustrated retelling of traditional tales. Many of the stories centered on the stalwart warriors who were dispatched to conquer these menacing creatures. With the advent of “yellow books” (kibyōshi) in the late 1770s, monsters took on a new identity as part of a sophisticated urban culture. Monsters appearing in books, plays, woodblock prints, children’s toys, and sideshow attractions were seen more as objects of entertainment than as genuinely scary. In addition to creatures found in legend, new monsters were being artificially created specifically as commodities for the urban audience. The humor in the “yellow book” monster stories is multifaceted. First, there are the monsters themselves—a motley assortment of one-eyed or long-necked creatures; beings part human, part animal; grotesque parodies of sexual organs; or personified household objects busily performing 138 GHOSTS, MONSTERS, AND DEITIES their daily tasks. These monsters were no longer intent on scaring humans. Following a popular saying of the time that only country bumpkins and monsters live beyond the Edo borders, monsters had become synonymous with uncouth boors. But rather than accept their fate, these creatures would try to imitate the ways of the true Edo sophisticate. Their efforts, of course, always ended in disaster, with the inevitable comic results. In The Monster Takes a Bride, there are no human characters. Here the monster world exists parallel to the human world, and the humor pivots on the reversal of traditional human values. For example, the prospective groom is excited to hear that his bride-to-be is unusually ugly. As for the bride, she is delighted by her future husband’s scraggly whiskers and scummy teeth. A brewing storm is perfect weather for the wedding day. During the reception banquet, the guests indulge themselves on such delicacies as human bones, while the chef throws away the meat. Although the work tells us much about wedding customs specific to Edo Japan, this kind of humor is both universal and timeless. The Monster Takes a Bride was published in the transitional year of 1807, when the humor-centered “yellow books” were replaced by the longer and more romance-oriented “combined volumes” (gōkan). Although this work technically belongs to the latter category, it is a typical “yellow book” in terms of its length, subject matter, and humor. Jippensha Ikku (1765–1831), often dubbed Japan’s first professional writer (that is, the first writer to make a living solely from the income of his books), was born in Suruga Province (now Shizuoka Prefecture) and spent several years in Osaka as an apprentice jōruri playwright before moving to Edo in 1793. He is best known as the author of the Tōkaidō series Along the Tōkaidō Highway on Foot (volume one published in 1802, translated as Shank’s Mare), a comic novel recounting the rambunctious antics of two incorrigible Edoites on their journey by foot down the Tōkaidō road to Osaka . The work was an instant...

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