Uchouten Kazoku: Nidaime No Kichou

And this is the more interesting thing I mentioned.


The Eccentric Family: The Nidaime’s Homecoming (Uchouten Kazoku: Nidaime no Kichou) by Morimi TomihikoChapter 1 (part 1/3)
The Nidaime’s Homecoming

There is nothing to do except to live an amusing life.

First, how about setting to do just that.

I’m what you would call a tanuki living in the modern Kyoto, but too proud to be a mere tanuki, I admire tengu from afar and love imitating humans. There is no doubt this trouble-inviting disposition is something that has been pa.s.sed down from our distant ancestors through generations, and my late father referred to it as our ‘idiot blood’.

My father, Shimogamo Souichirou, was known far and wide in the city of Kyoto and its surroundings as the Nise-emon [*1], that is, the head of Kyoto’s tanuki society, and even tengu respected him. If Souichirou had been a tanuki possessing just a little more good sense, he wouldn’t have ended up in humans’ tanuki hot pot as a result of picking a fight with the Kurama tengu. However, he was able to leave numerous legends behind precisely because he was a phenomenal idiot who danced on the brink of a pot.

“My idiot blood’s doing,” he used to say.

I came into this world as the third son of said Nise-emon, Shimogamo Souichorou, in the Tadasu forest.

A genius shows from childhood, they say, and I showed myself as a perfectly healthy and furry problem child of the tanuki world even before being able to stand steadily on my four paws. Starting with my attempt to smoke out Hesoishi-sama[*2] of Rokkakudou with pine needles, I bizarrely changed into anything and everything, from a bottle opener to mounted peacekeepers[*3], and meddled into tengu and humans’ affairs alike, having bought a lot of displeasure as Yasaburou the reckless lad. However, as a tanuki in whose veins the idiot blood inherited from my father flows, how else could I live? There is no path for me other than that of a fool.

In other words, an amusing thing is a good thing.

And thus, I begin this furry tale that started on a certain day in May when spring was in full bloom in Kyoto, spreading fresh smiling greenery to all the 36 peaks of Mt.Higashiyama where I, a tanuki, lived an amusing life, as always.

〇

Ever since being a baby tanuki, I’d always loved May that never failed to get my idiot blood bubbling with excitement.

The forest puffing out with vibrant new leaves resembles a tanuki, don’t you think?

On that day, I exited the Tadasu forest, humming to myself as I walked along the riverside of the Kamogawa river with the spring breeze streaming around me. Having shapeshifted into a gorgeous woman with blond hair and blue eyes, I took no small pride in my skin-deep beauty, parading myself along the Kamogawa river and bewitching the living daylights out of some idiot students pa.s.sing by.

My destination was a certain apartment in the apartment building Masugata just behind the Demachi shopping district.

Despite the refreshing spring breeze sweeping through every back alley and street of Kyoto, that shabby apartment stayed gloomy like a stale permanently laid-out bedding never left out to air.

In that apartment lived a life of alternating lulls and explosions of rage Akadamsensei, an elderly semi-retired tengu. Having an imposing name of Nyoigadake Yakushibou[*4], he used to be a great tengu ruling over the whole Mt.Nyoigadake in the past. However, having suffered defeat in the turf war against the Kurama tengu, he was exiled to behind the Demachi shopping arcade, becoming a shadow of his former self, his dignity as a tengu vanishing like mist.

“h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, sensei, it is I, Yasaburou, and I humbly came to call on you.”

When I called out to the back of the four and a half tatami mat room, “Oh, it’s you, Yasaburou,” an answer came in a displeased voice.

“Oh, sensei, are you in ill humor today, too?”
“I never once have been in good humor since taking my first bath as a baby.”
“Here you go again saying such things… better take a look here: a beautiful girl is here for you. Please behold this hair, golden like the finest Miwa soumen[*5].”
“Don’t flaunt your cheap shapeshifting tricks before me, they make me sick!!

Leaving the foodstuff in the kitchen, I entered the four-and-half-tatami mat room and found sensei sitting cross-legged on the laid-out futon in stains from Akadama port wine and scowling at a stone on a zabuton of gold brocade. It was a pebble about as big as a human clenched fist, gray and completely ordinary.

"Ohh, isn’t it the keystone of the tengu hot pot!” I said.
“As long as they have this, even a complete fool like you can make a hot pot.”
“…What a mean thing to say.”

To make a tengu hot pot you fill a pot with water, add tofu, kujo green onions, Chinese cabbage and some chicken meat, then throw in that stone that sensei had and let it all boil. It’s delicious if you eat it with seasoned ponzu, but without the keystone, you won’t get the flavor of the authentic tengu hot pot even if you use the same ingredients. That keystone was truly a priced possession and a seasoned veteran that wandered from one hot pot to another in j.a.panese cuisine restaurants of Kyoto for a long time, and each time it was thrown into a hot pot, it would ooze the umami of countless hot pots. Another stone was entrusted to a traditional j.a.panese restaurant near the Koudaiji temple and was currently in the process of ripening.

Although, in Akadamsensei’s opinion, since the tengu hot pot was a recipe that implied cooking in deep mountain valleys, making the authentic tengu hot pot without letting the clear air of mountains dissolve into it was impossible in the first place. Making it in this apartment where the only things that could dissolve into it were dust and tanuki hair would only result in a poor imitation no matter how you sliced it. Though if served said result, sensei would still eat it with appet.i.te - tengu really were troublesome creatures like that.

“I humbly thank you,” I said, accepting the keystone with appropriate reverence and heading to the kitchen to start preparations for a hot pot.
“Yasaburou, tell me, are you still into hunting the likes of tsuchinoko?”
“Would you like to come along, too, sensei? I plan to head to Nyoigadake tomorrow.”

When I suggested that, sensei only snorted from his small four-and-half-tatami mat room, “What foolishness. You take after Souichirou in all the silly ways.”

〇

By the time we’d almost finished eating the hot pot, the sun outside had already set.

I patted my full tummy, while Akadamsensei puffed on his tengu tobacco, looking quite satisfied. The ascending trail of purple smoke drifted around the conical shade of the lamp like a tiny dragon.

“Days sure have gotten longer, wouldn’t you say, sir?”
“Another tedious day I’ve lived through.”
“By the way, sir, have you received any letters from Benten-sama?” I asked, and sensei threw a suspicious sidelong glance my way.
“And why would you want to know that?”
“Why won’t you tell me, sir?”
“What a persistent little scrub. How is my correspondence with Benten any business of yours?”

Benten was Akadamsensei’s beloved disciple whom he had educated in the ways of tengu with utmost care.

With her tengu-like raw power Benten overwhelmed authentic tengu, with her beautiful face she bewitched humans, and with her repulsive habit of eating tanuki hot pots she made Kyoto’s tanuki shudder in fear of her. Who could have imagined back when Akadamsensei had abducted her as she trotted along the bank of Lake Biwa that she would come to the fore so rapidly?

The one who incited me to help her trap Akadamsensei and subsequently made him fall, ultimately causing his ruin, was also Benten. And not only that: she also made my father into a tanuki hot pot and ate him, and she never left attempts to do the same to me at every opportunity. Despite all of that, she was my first love, so it was complicated. “Is it that bad that I’m a tanuki?” I asked her. “Of course. I am a human, after all,” she replied. Every time I recalled that conversation, the fur on my b.u.t.t felt itchy.

It was dazzling April when Benten declared that she would cross the ocean.

I heard of that on one early morning when I was taking a stroll along the Kamogawa riverside together with Benten who leaped from one sakura tree in full bloom on the bank to another, indulging in a cruel game of shaking off all the petals from them without leaving a single one. “Why? What brought this on so suddenly?” I asked as I chased her in the storm of sakura petals. Seated on the top branch of a sakura tree that was left completely naked, she gazed with amus.e.m.e.nt at the petals dancing in the air and falling to the bank. “Well, I’m bored,” was all she said.

“Yasaburou, make sure you take care of sensei for me. I might write a letter if I feel like it.”

After spectacularly scattering sakura petals in Kyoto, she proceeded to use her charm on a tyc.o.o.n in the port of Kobe to board a luxury liner, embarking on a round-the-world cruise. Akadamsensei was only informed of Benten’s departure after the ship had already set sail and when it was already too late to chase after her even if he tried.

Since having departed on her voyage impressively without any money she had yet to come back.

Occasional letters from Benten were the only consolation to sensei’s heart. The very fact that Benten, of all people, took troubles to write letters being already a reason enough for deep grat.i.tude notwithstanding, those letters clearly lacked in effort so much that it was plain to see coldheartedness oozing from between their lines: even if she wrote something, it was but a couple of lines at best and simply the symbols of 〇 or X at worst. Despite that, Akadamsensei, always sincerely looking forward to such letters, would read the few lines with meticulous attention, as if licking each of them, then carefully store the letter in a Chinese jewel-box and cherish it as if it were an imperial treasure from the Shousouin treasure house[*6]. One of the reasons why I made a habit of duly visiting sensei’s apartment on a regular basis was because I hoped to s.n.a.t.c.h an opportunity when sensei would be drunk off his gourd to read Benten’s letters.

Staring into the now empty pot, Akadamsensei groaned, “Benten, plague take her, appears to be in England at the moment. Curse her for going to such a remote place.”

Sensei fished out the Earth’s globe out of a pile of junk, spun it and found England. “What, it’s this tiny little thing?” he commented. “A world pleasure tour, my foot, she’s just wasting her talent, much to my chagrin! Even though what she should be doing is devoting all her energy to walking the path of sorcery and someday succeeding her mighty master, that is I.”
“I wonder what she is doing there right about now.”
“Hmph. Probably eating some English tanuki, I would bet. Wouldn’t you?”

When asked that, I recalled the words of my lovely natural enemy, 'Because I love you so much that I would eat you.’ My idiot blood that made me look forward to the return of my natural enemy who betrayed her teacher, devoured my father and tried to eat me was frankly too much of a nuisance even to myself.

“You look lonely, Yasaburou.” Sensei stared intensely at me. “All because Benten’s not around. Bull’s eye, right?”
“Ahaha. I have no idea what you are talking about, sir.”
“You never learn your place, do you. Don’t think she’d show any mercy to the likes of tanuki,” sensei said, plucking at his nose hair. “…But if you want to jump into a pot of your own volition, I won’t stop you.”

〇

That spring, I was obsessed with hunting tsuchinoko.

In the world of humans, there is a saying 'An idle brain of a small man is the devil’s workshop’. It means that if a fool has more time on his hands than he knows what to do with, nothing good will come out of it. In the world of tanuki, there is a similar proverb, 'An idle brain of a small tanuki is the devil’s workshop’. So let’s just say that according to worldly wisdom, even the world itself would be better off if I searched for tsuchinoko rather than cooked up the devil’s work. Originally, I started my tsuchinoko hunt because of my late father’s influence, but there is no doubt that said father of mine was so in frenzy to search for tsuchinoko in his youth because he had trouble finding outlets for his buzzing idiot blood.

The term 'tsuchinoko’ refers to a strange very short but wide type of serpent, a UMA with an ancient and honorable origin that was featured in the Ill.u.s.trated Sino-j.a.panese Encyclopedia[*7] under the name of 'Nozuchi snake’. Even long before I was born, the fever of trying to find this cryptid had invaded the tanuki world. The rumor has it that in the times of my father’s Sturm und Drang youth, 80% of his ventures was spent on tsuchinoko-related adventuring. The root of that pa.s.sion for the romanticized dream was, without a doubt, the idiot blood flowing in our veins, and there were even tanuki in our family who ruined themselves over tsuchinoko.

However, my mother couldn’t be farther from understanding the appeal of the nigh unattainable dream that tsuchinoko represented.

“That tsuchinoko of yours, is it anything like takenoko[*8]?” she asked.
“Not in the least, mother.”
“But it’s edible, at least?”

When I showed her a drawing of how tsuchinoko was supposed to look, “Oh, so it’s just a weird little snake. I bet its meat is all tough,” she declared. My mother was insistent on seeing tsuchinoko only as food. “Not tasty. Not tasty at all!”
“I keep telling you I’m not going to eat it.”
“If you’re not going to eat it, then why search for it?”
“I guess the romance of hunting for a dream goes beyond your understanding, mother.”
“Come to think of it, I seem to remember that Sou-san also searched for that thing when he was young. It’s so exasperating, really. Weird little tanuki do get fixated on weird little things!”

With that, my mother shapeshifted into a handsome young man and headed off to the Takarazuka Revue[*9].

As to me, I tried inviting my second elder brother dwelling on the bottom of a water well in the Rokudo-chinouji temple to join my tsuchinoko hunt. But my brother said, “Even supposing we did find tsuchinoko, I’d wind up getting swallowed whole. Because, you know, it’s a snake, and I’m a frog.” I couldn’t argue with that.

At the time, my eldest brother was very busy, often going to the Nanzenji temple. All because he was moving behind the scene to revive the Nanzenji Temple Tanuki Shogi Tournament that the previous head of the temple and our father had collaborated to hold in the past. Shogi was our father’s hobby, but then again, so was tsuchinoko. My eldest brother, however, had a tendency to place more cultural importance on shogi than on tsuchinoko hunting. “Stop chasing around something as dubious as tsuchinoko,” he started lecturing, which made inviting him out of question.

In the end, I organized the Tsuchinoko Expedition Team with my not exactly eager younger brother Yashirou as its other member. The founding leader was our father, I was the second generation leader, and team member number 1 became my younger brother. We were on the lookout for a team member number 2 in and around the city of Kyoto.

〇

The next day after my paying a visit to Akadamsensei, our Tsuchinoko Expedition Team set out, infiltrating the forest from the Shishigatani valley and proceeding to wander around the foot of Mt.Nyoigadake. The forest wearing fresh green swelled like a sponge that absorbed clear water, with the wind, nice and cool at its core, rustling between the numerous pillars of light shining through new leaves.

“Nii-chan, it smells like spring, right?”
“Hey, keep your eyes peeled. We have no idea where it might be hiding.”
“But, nii-chan, I have to wonder if tsuchinoko really exists.”
“It’s precisely because we don’t know for sure if it exists or not that it makes this dream-hunting worthwhile.”

Since tsuchinoko is a UMA steeped in mysteries, for its capture one must employ equally mysterious techniques, or so my pet theory went. Going about it the normal way wouldn’t work, as there could be no doubt that all the obvious methods had already been tried by someone. The approach that looked to me like it could be useful was summed up by 'If you do this, what would happen?’ So we set a trap of a gourd filled with cheap sake and a hard-boiled egg sprinkled with some Ajinomoto salt[*10] in the shade of a tree. We also doc.u.mented in a field notebook any suspicious traces we had found in the forest.

Although I hatched a plan to teach my younger brother the beauty of tsuchinoko hunting and eventually raise him into a proper member our my team, all he did was going on and on on the bothersome subject of electromagnetism, not showing the least bit of interest in the dream adventure that tsuchinoko represented and that was happening right at the moment. As the last straw, he finally took out a reference book from his clasp-adorned pouch-like backpack and started reading it while walking, for all the world like a veritable Ninomiya Sontoku[*11]. If only he spared just one percent of that enthusiasm and directed it toward tsuchinoko hunting… Seemingly completely oblivious to that earnest wish of mine, my kid brother, “Nii-chan, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration,” had the gull to throw Edison’s famous quote at me.

“That’s wrong, Yashirou. Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% foolishness.”
“Then when do you work hard?”
“…You just wait for your destiny.”
“But, nii-chan, I don’t think that’s the way to live.”
“You cheeky little Edison!” I started saying, when the forest’s trees suddenly stirred, as if jolted by an invisible giant.

And then, the whooshing sound as if the very air was being rent asunder started getting closer.

“Something’s flying our way, it’s dangerous!”

The moment I hugged my brother’s head and bent over, covering him, something came flying in from the sky, tearing through the canopy of fresh leaves and crossing over above us. Sunlight filtering through the trees swayed furiously, and torn off leaves rained all around us. Then, with a sharp thud reverberating in the pit of my stomach, everything went quiet.

We cautiously lifted our heads.

Right above us, in the top branches of a large tree covered with new green, there was stuck a velvet-covered chaise. Its red velvet sparked most bewitchingly in the light streaming through the leaves.

“Nii-chan, could it be a tengu stone?” my little brother murmured.

〇

Tanuki called the phenomenon of unlikely things falling from the sky 'tengu throwing stones’.

Be it tengu’s prank or simply them accidentally dropping their possessions, among all kinds of things that rained from the sky in the past were, for example, fuda talismans, small gold koban coins, wine casks and colored carps. My mother said that when she was still little, cotton candy fell from the sky near the Sajoukobashi bridge, and near Mt.Funaokayama there resided a tanuki collector of tengu stones who even eventually opened a private museum for exhibiting them. Back when Akadamsensei was still active and flying through the sky, there was a time when he rounded up all of his tanuki apprentices and sent them on a search for something he had dropped.

Since a few days ago, the topic of some modern-looking tengu stones falling from the sky became a hotly discussed subject, and I was aware of it.

Said stones were all diverse and truly gorgeous articles, like silver tableware polished to a shine, a seasoned violin fit for a maitre musician, a bathtub with metal legs and Persian carpets that looked ready to fly through the sky, among others. A custom tracing back to the Edo period stated that so long as tengu didn’t come out and claim ownership, a tengu stone would come into the possession of the one who picked it up, so you could see why Kyoto’s tanuki were so excited about the recent fallings.

In accordance with tanuki’s finders keepers rule, this velvet chaise was to become the Shimogamo family’s possession.

My brother and I went through quite a bit of trouble getting said chaise off the tree.

When I tried sitting down on its red velvet, my behind experienced such fluffiness that I had this majestic feeling as if I was a guest of honor in an ancient and honorable Western-style house. Even the faint moldy waft in the air smelled cla.s.sy to me. That was enough to make even us sons of a distinguished family ourselves let loose a sigh of admiration.

“The level of comfort is too high, so high, in fact, that it feels like my b.u.t.t’s disappeared on me,” opined my little brother with seriousness.
“This is amazing. It’s probably what antique is.”
“Mother will be pleased if we bring this home.”
“Very well. Starting now, the Tsuchinoko Expedition Team will proceed to carry this chaise home. Team member number 1, take the chaise by the rear end at once.”
“Roger!”

We lined on the both sides of the chaise with it held between us and, with a great deal of effort, proceeded along the foot of Nyoigadake. The grand chaise clearly boasting historical weight was just as grandly weighty physically, proving to be a heavy load for the slender arms of modern tanuki kids lacking in strength. “Nii-chan, my arms are all tingling,” voiced a feeble complaint my kid brother. “They’re tingling because this is a tingling mountain,” said I. “That’s lies, this is Mt.Nyoigadake,” he rebuked, and I laughed.

After a while, my brother murmured uneasily, “Nii-chan, won’t we get yelled at for coming all the way here to search for tsuchinoko?”
“And who’s gonna yell at us?”
“Isn’t this the Kurama tengu-samas’s turf?”
“As if we could search for tsuchinoko if we were worried about some guys like the Kurama tengu! Besides, the whole area around Mt.Nyoigadake is our Akadamsensei’s turf to begin with. Although he was ousted from here in a tengu turf war, sensei’s still greater than the Kurama lot. Those Kurama tengu are just small timers compared to Akadamsensei.”
“'Small timers’, huh?”

All of a sudden, the chaise got heavier, unbearably so. It didn’t so much as budge when I pulled. “Yashirou, are you holding it up properly on your end?” I asked and when I tried to take a look over my shoulder a voice resembling a owl’s hooting at night said near my ear, “Hoou hou”. The moment a cold breath trickling against the side of my head sent a chill down my spine, I got seized by the neck.

“You’ve got quite the mouth on you, little punk. What parts are you tanuki from?”

A man in a blackish business suit swooped down on the chaise’s armrest and grabbed me by the neck.

I ducked my head before saying, “Oh my, oh my, if it isn’t a Kurama tengu-sama. How are you doing this fine day?”

〇

I and my little brother were escorted by that Kurama tengu to the site of bonfire lighting taking place during the Daimonji festival[*12]. The transformation of my brother whose b.a.l.l.s shrunk up literally and figuratively got undone, and he reverted back to his tanuki form, then got seized by the scruff like a cat.

Back when Akadamsensei ruled over Nyoigadake and its surroundings like he owned them, he used to parade his tanuki apprentices around calling it 'practical drills’. Sometimes he took us as far as Mt.Iwayasan or Lake Takaragaike, but generally we would wander around Nyoigadake that was sensei’s own backyard. On this site of Daimonju bonfire lighting, the tanuki would shapeshift into the Genji and Heike clans and wage an imitation Genpei war [*13], so it brought back memories.

“This way, follow me.”

Like the Kurama tengu arrogantly ordered, I began climbing the slop dotted with fire pits for lighting the bonfires that formed the 大 'dai’ character.

Looking back as I trod on the young green gra.s.s, I saw the brightly-colored townscape of the Kyoto city expanding below against the backdrop of the mist-covered sky. This canvas was truly a worthy sight for a tengu to behold.

On the slope halfway up the mountain, there stood a red and white stripped parasol like what you’d find at an ice-cream stand by the poolside, and under it 4 Kurama tengu, encircling a round table, were engrossed in playing hanafuda [*14]. Among them were those who wore a business suit complete with a tie in a proper and neat fashion, as well as those who popped a vein in their temples and rolled up their sleeves. Every time they threw the cards on the table, a jingling sound could be heard as if small coins were being scattered. After all, tengu were hot-tempered creatures, and when they got into a game too much, they would end up tearing or biting hanafuda more often than not. For that reason, the tengu hanafuda cards were made of steel.

The tengu that brought us called out to one of his companions, “Hoou hou, Reizanbou.”

The one to answer him was a tengu in a white dress shirt and sungla.s.ses.

“Hoou hou, Tamonbou. Why did you bring the likes of tanuki here?”
“They were saying insulting things about us, and I thought it can’t be allowed to pa.s.s.”
“I see. Indeed, it’s our job to educate tanuki, after all. So, what kind of insults were they throwing?”
“'The Kurama tengu are just small timers’, according to them.”

The Kurama tengu, seated at the round table, burst out laughing, still clutching the hanafuda in hand. That tengu laughter ma.s.sed together like an ominous dark cloud and took flight, riding the wind blowing across the slope.

These Kurama tengu were the same ones who once upon a time ousted Akadamsensei and occupied Nyoigadake, that is, five out of the ten retainers under direct command of Kuramayama Soujoubou. They were Reizanbou, Tamonbou, Teikinbou, Getsurinbou and Nichirinbou [*15], but they all were so alike like acorns from the same tree that it was impossible to tell which is which by looking. It was no wonder that during the meetings on Mt.Atagoyama, Akadamsensei never pa.s.sed up an opportunity to ridicule them by saying 'Look at 'em mountain acorns putting on airs’.

Groveling on the firebed as the spring breeze swept over me, I said, “I humbly stand before you sirs as the third son of Shimogamo Souichirou, Yasaburou. And this is my little brother Yashirou.”
“Famous! Famous!” the Kurama tengu cheered, their hanafuda jingling.

“So you’re Yasaburou, of the Shimogamos, huh!” “He’s Benten-san’s favorite, apparently,” “Wait, wait, wasn’t there a fool of a tanuki by the name Souichirou who fell into a pot?” “Oh, I remember that tanuki!” “He was a tanuki who never knew his place. All because Yakushibou spoiled him rotten,” “That senile old fool was always like that. All pleased and self-satisfied with being worshiped by the likes of tanuki,” the Kurama tengu were saying audaciously one over another.

The sungla.s.ses guy, Reizanbou, bit on his paper-roll cigarette and sneered, “Yakushibou sure is a lucky fool. No matter how low he falls, tanuki still keep taking care of him. We’ll look after Nyoigadake and the area around it, so tell him to bite the dust with an easy heart for me.”

“With all due respect, please allow me to humbly explain.”

With this, I got up and started spouting sophistry in a rapid fire torrent.

“I will not deny that I called the Kurama tengu-samas 'small timers’. But it seems the Kurama tengu-samas, living the lofty life of rightful kings of the skies, are not aware of the finer nuances of lowly tanuki’s speech. The thing is, our tanuki language tends to adapt to keep up with the times and words change their meanings accordingly. So the term 'small timer’, formerly one of slight used to refer to someone unimportant or petty and small like an acorn, nowadays means pretty much the opposite, that is, 'great’, 'mature in style’ and 'gentlemanly’, thus having turned into a wonderful compliment. So as you see by no means tanuki mock you sirs, the esteemed Kurama tengu-samas.”

The Kurama tengu kept their silence, too dumbfounded for words, only their hanafuda jiggled quietly. When Reizanbou pulled down his sungla.s.ses, his upturned eyes were laughing.

“I see, that’s one curious tanuki all right.”
“A too d.a.m.n talkative tanuki, for sure, never knowing when to shut up, and I don’t like that,” said Tamonbou, grabbed my furry little brother by the neck and hoisted him up high in the air. “Well then, well then, I wonder just how far will this one fly if we throw him?”

Suddenly, the Kurama tengu looked energetic and pumped up, the hanafuda plinking and c.h.i.n.king.

“Let’s make bets on whether he’ll make it over the Kamogawa river or not!”
“This is much more fun than playing hanafuda!”
“What should we bet? A mountain? A valley?”

In the past, my father, Nise-emon Shimogamo Shoichirou, shapeshifted into Mt.Nyoigadake itself and gave the Kurama tengu, who were picking on our master, the scare of their lives. It became known as the scandal of fake Nyoigadake - a glorious example of recklessness deserving place not only in the chronicles of the Shimogamo family but also in history of the whole tanuki world. However, what was a historic triumph to our household, to the Kurama tengu was none other than a historic stain on their name, and it was partly for defying Kurama that my father ended up falling into the Friday Fellows Club’s pot.

A wise tanuki would learn from this anecdote and get through their skull that defying tengu would bring nothing but harm upon them. After all, tengu were made to bully tanuki. And bullying was what made them tengu.

“What’s the matter, Yasaburou?” asked Reizanbou. “Got anything to say?”
“With all due respect, sir, when my kid brother is bullied, my seizures start acting up…”
“Seizures? What is a seizure?”
“Uuugh, it’s no use. Kurama tengu-sama, please watch out!”

I got on all fours, groaning all the while, and inflated my body. Tightening your b.u.t.thole and psyching yourself up was the secret to shapeshifting into something big. In a blink of an eye, my four feet became ma.s.sive like the columns of the Parthenon, and my swelling back turned white as if smeared with mortar coating. My nose grew in length, rapidly extending toward the blue sky above. I had shapeshifted into a white elephant.

The Kurama tengu had to have some bitter memories about white elephants after being chased about by one in the past when my father tempted them into coming to Nyoigadake. While their attention was distracted by the resurfacing humiliating memories, my kid brother took advantage of their momentary confusion and, by twisting and turning, slipped out of Tamonbou’s hold, then proceeded to make his escape by rolling down the slope like a true tsuchinoko.

“Stop it, stop it, Yasaburou. What foolishness.” Reizanbou grimaced in displeasure. “We’re not fond of elephants. Return to your former form at once. Or else…”

It was at that moment that a travel suitcase that came flying in at a terrifying speed from the direction of the far away western sky crashed right into Reizanbou’s face. Truly a blow from the Heavens. As if dragged along by Reizanbou who got knocked over without another word, the rest of the Kurama tengu fell to the ground one after another, their parasol blown away, hanafuda jingling uselessly.

“Baon baon, what happened?”

Raising my long trunk, I gazed toward the western sky.

The one who came flying down as if smoothly gliding from the spring sky was an English gentleman.

T/N:

[*1] Nise-emon (偽右衛門): the 2nd season subs translated the t.i.tle as the Trick Magister. 'Nise’ means imitation, fake, phony, in other words has to do with tricking people which is what tanuki are good at.
[*2] Hesoishi of Rokkakudou (六角堂のへそ石): the 2st season subs translated Hesoishi (lit. Bellyb.u.t.ton Stone) as the Center Stone because that hexagonal stone is supposed to represent the very center of Kyoto and the temple where it’s located is called the Chouhouji or Rokkakudou (lit. Hexagonal temple)
[*3] Mounted peacekeepers (平安騎馬隊): a mounted unit of Kyoto Prefectural Police that was established in 1994 to commemorate 1200 years since the relocation of the capital (jp wiki)
[*4] Nyoigadake Yakushibou (如意ヶ嶽薬師坊): Nyoigadake (alternative reading is Nyoigatake, but the novel specifically gives the reading 'Nyoigadake’) is a mountain that’s part of the Higashiyama mountain range. Mt.Daimonji (that’s part of the Gozan no Okuribi festival shown in the anime) is part of Nyoigadake. Yakushibou is a given name ('yakushi’ is archaic 'doctor’ and -bou you’d be seeing again as it’s a suffix for male tengu names)
[*5] Miwa soumen (三輪素麺): fine white noodles, a local specialty produced in the Miwa region, said to be the birthplace of soumen noodles, of Nara prefecture with the center in the Sakurai city. (jp wiki)
[*6] Imperial treasures of the Shousouin (正倉院御物): wiki
[*7] Ill.u.s.trated Sino-j.a.panese Encyclopedia aka Wakan Sansai Zue (和漢三才図会): is the first j.a.panese ill.u.s.trated encyclopedia published in 1712 in Edo (wiki)
[*8] Tsuchiko and takenoko (bamboo shot) share the same word-building pattern, namely take-no-ko (lit.a child of bamboo) and tsuchi-no-ko (lit.a child of soil)
[*9] Takarazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団): a theater troupe based near Kyoto and famous for women playing all roles, including male ones, and flamboyant costumes and such (wiki) We saw Tousen imitate them as the 'Prince in Black’ in the 1st season.
[*10] Ajinomoto (味の素): a food corporation most famous for its so-called Chinese salt (wiki)
[*11] Ninomiya Sontoku (二宮尊徳): a 19th century reformer and economic thinker who is typically depicted as a boy walking with a bundle of firewood on his back while reading a book. You can frequently find his statues at j.a.panese elementary schools as an exemplar of diligence and studiousness.
[*12] Daimonji festival (大文字) or Gozan no Okuribi (五山送り火): depicted twice in the anime (wiki)
[*13] Genpei War (源平合戦): a 12th century national civil war (wiki)
[*14] Hanafuda (花札): lit. 'flower cards’ (wiki)
[*15] Reizanbou, Tamonbou, Teikinbou, Getsurinbou, Nichirinbou (霊山坊、多聞坊、帝金坊、月輪坊、日輪坊): -bou is a tengu male name suffix and the rest of their names mean literally 'spiritual or sacred mountain’, 'all hearing’, 'imperial gold’, 'round moon’ and 'round sun’ respectively.