Because I’m standing on the cusp of returning to work after an extended leave-of-absence, I thought I’d take today to write about one of my favorite pieces of media in order to soften the blow a bit. Many years ago, I happened upon a series called Ayakashi – Samurai Horror Tales (or Ayakashi Japanese Classic Horror depending on who’s translating the title). The anthology series adapts three horror tales from Japanese literature and theater. Or, more accurately, adapts a story and a play, and then spends three episodes on an original tale drawn from Japanese myth. It’s that original story, called “Bakeneko,” (“Demon Cat”) I’m writing about today.
I originally wrote about “Bakeneko” as part of my occasional “Anime Book Club” series, so if you’re interested in a take on it that’s a little over 5(!) years old, feel free to check it out. I don’t think my feelings on it have changed much since that time, but because it (and its follow-up, Mononoke) is one of my favorite pieces of animated media, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit it again.
The central character of the story is the Medicine Seller, a traveling exorcist with a special sword that can only be unsheathed against mononoke, a type of malevolent spirit in Japanese mythology. Additionally, the sword may only be used once the details surrounding the mononoke’s origins are known. This means that the Medicine Seller, through spiritual sleuthing and other such detective work, must deduce the honest truth of the situation before exorcising the mononoke. Discovering these truths make up the bulk of the story, since the details are rarely as cut-and-dry as they may seem at first.
In “Bakeneko,” the Medicine Seller arrives at the house of the Sakai clan on the day that their daughter Mao is to be married off to clear the family’s debts. Before this can take place, however, Mao dies mysteriously and the Medicine Seller is blamed. It’s soon apparent that the house is being attacked by a demon, and while the Medicine Seller can ward it off temporarily, he can only fully dispel it if the circumstances of its origin – the monster’s form, truth, and regret – are known.
The form is obvious early on – the demon takes the shape of a “Bakeneko,” or demon cat. The family seems reticent to provide any further details, but once the demon manifests it takes the form of a woman named Tamaki, known to the family. It’s revealed by the Lord of the family that 25 years ago he kidnapped this woman and kept her as a willing mistress. However, when this “truth” doesn’t fully satisfy the Medicine Seller’s sword’s conditions, a vision reveals that she was not a willing mistress, but an unwilling prisoner. Once this is confirmed, the Medicine Seller is able to unsheathe the sword and put the demon to rest.
Much more than just the story of a classic demon, this story (and subsequently the additional stories in the follow up, Mononoke) uses mythology to speak about the injustices that are (more often) committed against women. Typically, a respected lord such as the individual in this story would be taken at his word, no questions asked. Yet the manifestation of the mononoke finally allows the voice of the victim, Tamaki, to be heard unfiltered by any “he-said, she-said” lines of questioning. The evil is not, as some might interpret, the vengeance of a woman wronged, but instead the heinous acts committed against her.
The follow up to this story, Mononoke tackles the concept of the bakeneko again in its final few episodes, and it’s an interesting (and somewhat frustrating) exercise to see the same sorts of things happening several hundred years in the series’ future (perhaps someday I’ll get around to finishing my analysis of the series and talk about it more at that time). For now, though, this three episode story arc is a good way to get a feel for the series as a whole.
Ayakashi Samurai Horror Tales is licensed in the US by Discotek Media.