They came from China. Thanks for reading!
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
Commentaries on Genshin Impact and MiHoYo
Ok seriously yesterday when Kichiboushi said tanuki that don't know how to play while they train will explode I did a double take just like Paimon and Aether.
So of course I had to look it up and no they don't explode. Kapow!
BUT the stuff he says after where these tanuki will lose their powers and become common weasels is totally legit and here's how:
It all starts with the picture of that weird looking cat at the top. That is a 狸 or Chinese Leopard Cat and that is what the word used to mean. But just like with oni Chinese people used to use that word as a short hand to mean pretty much anything of a similar size and shape to that leopard cat.
So when the first Japanese arrived in Honshu - 本土 meaning homeland in both languages - they used that word to refer to the local fauna too which includes the tanuki you guys are probably more used to.
This guy
Or if you aren't a weeaboo like the rest of us otaku you might have only seen the tanuki of this game so maybe something more like this-
-would make more sense to you. Like why did I put up a picture of a raccoon before right? [emoji]
So with all that said what was Kichiboushi talking about? Well the lore about these magical tanuki and kitsune (and other animals) was big for a long time in Japan and they were revered as kami through that Taoism/Ainu/Okinawan influenced Shintoism. Skip to Tang China though and Buddhism works its way into the culture. Buddhism is founded on the ideal that humanity is the closest on the path to nirvana so everything should desire to be reincarnated as a human. Any other method like the transformation magic of tanukis is evil and therefore the creatures that use them are monsters.
In other words tanuki could either continue to use their magic and be monsters or they could live their normal animal lives like good little Buddhist creatures. And one of those creatures that Japan applied the 狸 to is a weasel.
It's awesome how a throwaway line about an exploding tanuki can lead us to learning about how Japan adapted their religious ideologies towards how they viewed their local wildlife.
Also if you guys didn't know why the tanuki are treated like "they dumb" it's also because of this naming thing. I pointed out in my Genshin Japan that the kitsune tanuki war was probably because fox in Chinese is 狐狸 and in Japanese they took the 狐 part for foxes and 狸 part for tanuki and other small creatures like weasels. If you guys watch Inuyasha these kinds of creatures all seem to share the same powers right? Transformation and pranks and stuff. Well when Buddhism rolled in kitsune were still elevated because of Inari but tanuki weren't. So because of that and the whole monsters thing tanuki were portrayed in fiction as stupid compared to the cunning and regal kitsune. Mythological favoritism ftw!
So what do you guy's think about all this? Isn't learning about other cultures fun?
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
Commentaries on Genshin Impact and MiHoYo
