Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki), Part A

· His name is “My Lord Bag of Rice.” What if I told a story where he has a very similarly strange name, with some different back-story?

· For some reason, it stands out to me that the Dragon King is more concerned that he may eventually be carried off than that his children are being carried off.

· He said he would grant the King’s request if he could before he heard what it was. That’s a big no-no in quests.

· What if actually the Dragon King is evil and the centipede is good, but Hidesato blindly trusts the King? Could I write a story to that effect?

· I liked how well described the centipede was. He sounded genuinely terrifying and awful.

· I also like how he needed to find a trick (the human saliva thing) rather than just being able to kill it by brute force.

· What if I write a story where Hidesato doesn’t like fish? That would make everything less pleasant.

· So the way I would change his name would be by, I suppose, giving him different gifts. What if I wrote about the aftermath of his deeds, except he got super weird and inconvenient gifts and now he’s not sure what to do with them? Like a pot that always turned out desserts, but only totally gross desserts, like garlic ice cream or something?

· Or again, what if I told stories about Kintaro, but with very different animal friends?

· Also, it doesn’t seem fair for a bear to wrestle a hare.

· I feel like the wrestling matches sound like they would potentially leave hard feelings between various members of the group.

· It’s weird that the man just went into the cottage, and I want him to be Kintaro’s dad, even though Kintaro’s dad is dead.

· What if I change the animals and have them pit against each other at a game of chess or something, instead of wrestling?

(illustration from the book)

Bibliography:  Japanese Fairy Tales, retold by Yei Theodora Ozaki