Seisouhen could've been great if they'd actually done a good job with Jinchuu and then maybe picked up on some of the sequel ideas that Watsuki had been kicking around-- Soujirou or Anji on Hokkaido, the Yahiko/Tsubame/Yuutarou love triangle, the rivalry between Yahiko's son and Kenji-- instead, we got... what we got :b
Lessee, the Religion section of Poitras' page of RK OVA annotations (http://www.koyagi.com/ACPages/rurounikenshin.html) identifies the pilgrims as kaihougyou, which The Anime Companion 2 elucidates as Tendai Buddhist monks who run around Mt. Hiei on one of three set routes which may take 100, 700, or 1000 days (the longer routes are broken up into 100-day chunks with rest periods in between). These used to be compulsory for all Tendai monks/nuns as part of their training. Wikipedia sez that since 1885, only 46 men have managed to complete the full 1000-day version, which can take seven *years* when all of the intervening periods of meditation etc. are factored in. There's even more info about kaihougyouhere (http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/holly.html) and about two-thirds of the way down the page at this site (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/fudo.html), which also pins the Tendai sect's primary allegiance to Myou-Ou, which iirc is the same title that Anji chose for himself after "falling".
(My memory seems to've blurred this with various other pilgrimages I'd previously looked up for other purposes, so perhaps these guys are definitely monks after all, rather than just random civilian pilgrims-- I can't imagine anyone else having the time or voluntary inclination for this, but then I don't understand what drives people to run normal marathons either.)
The traditional outfit for these pilgrimages is white cotton clothing and a special hat, although they're only allowed to wear the hat if they have a lifetime total of at least 300 days; otherwise, they have to carry the hats in their hands (Poitras points out in the book that the guys in RK are all wearing their hats). There doesn't seem to be a set time of year for starting/stopping. Every night they hit the road around 1:30 am; the shorter runs can be over by midmorning, which must be a relief because while there are short prayer breaks as they reach certain shrines, they never sit down except "at a bench under a larger cedar (suugi), on which they sit facing the old imperial palace in Kyoto and offer a prayer for peace." (Based on this page (http://www.hieizan.or.jp/enryakuji/econt/access/harmony1.html), there really is just the one bench, not several benches that're all underneath cedars facing the palace.)
It's stuff like this that makes me despair of ever really understanding all of the cultural nuances of the RK OVA-- this one brief glimpse of guys with hats turns out to be a grueling ascetic ritual that's in honor of a god of war but dedicated to prayers for piece; presumably anyone who'd been brought up in Japan would instantly recognize that, as well as whatever nearly subliminal connotations are associated with the recurring flora (bellflowers, irises, white plum, lantern-flowers).
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ninetydegrees
Re: KenshinxTomoe
on 2007-09-25 01:03 am (UTC)Lessee, the Religion section of Poitras' page of RK OVA annotations (http://www.koyagi.com/ACPages/rurounikenshin.html) identifies the pilgrims as kaihougyou, which The Anime Companion 2 elucidates as Tendai Buddhist monks who run around Mt. Hiei on one of three set routes which may take 100, 700, or 1000 days (the longer routes are broken up into 100-day chunks with rest periods in between). These used to be compulsory for all Tendai monks/nuns as part of their training. Wikipedia sez that since 1885, only 46 men have managed to complete the full 1000-day version, which can take seven *years* when all of the intervening periods of meditation etc. are factored in. There's even more info about kaihougyou here (http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/holly.html) and about two-thirds of the way down the page at this site (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/fudo.html), which also pins the Tendai sect's primary allegiance to Myou-Ou, which iirc is the same title that Anji chose for himself after "falling".
(My memory seems to've blurred this with various other pilgrimages I'd previously looked up for other purposes, so perhaps these guys are definitely monks after all, rather than just random civilian pilgrims-- I can't imagine anyone else having the time or voluntary inclination for this, but then I don't understand what drives people to run normal marathons either.)
The traditional outfit for these pilgrimages is white cotton clothing and a special hat, although they're only allowed to wear the hat if they have a lifetime total of at least 300 days; otherwise, they have to carry the hats in their hands (Poitras points out in the book that the guys in RK are all wearing their hats). There doesn't seem to be a set time of year for starting/stopping. Every night they hit the road around 1:30 am; the shorter runs can be over by midmorning, which must be a relief because while there are short prayer breaks as they reach certain shrines, they never sit down except "at a bench under a larger cedar (suugi), on which they sit facing the old imperial palace in Kyoto and offer a prayer for peace." (Based on this page (http://www.hieizan.or.jp/enryakuji/econt/access/harmony1.html), there really is just the one bench, not several benches that're all underneath cedars facing the palace.)
It's stuff like this that makes me despair of ever really understanding all of the cultural nuances of the RK OVA-- this one brief glimpse of guys with hats turns out to be a grueling ascetic ritual that's in honor of a god of war but dedicated to prayers for piece; presumably anyone who'd been brought up in Japan would instantly recognize that, as well as whatever nearly subliminal connotations are associated with the recurring flora (bellflowers, irises, white plum, lantern-flowers).