Urashima Tarō (浦島 太郎?) is a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin, the Dragon God, under the sea. He stays there for three days and, upon his return to his village, finds himself 300 years in the future.
History[]
The name Urashima Tarō first appears in the 15th century (the Muromachi Period), in a genre of illustrated popular fiction known as Otogizōshi; however, the story itself is much older, dating back to the 8th century (the Nara Period). Older sources such as Nihon Shoki, Man'yōshū and Tango no Kuni Fudoki (丹後国風土記) refer to Urashima Tarō as Urashimako. The change from Urashimako to Urashima Tarō reflects a shift in Japanese naming customs; while the suffix -ko ("child") was originally used in both male and female names, in medieval times it was largely restricted to female names, and replaced by -tarō ("great youth") in male names. The story bears a striking similarity to folktales from other cultures, including the Irish legend of Oisín and the earlier Chinese legend of Ranka.
Story[]
One day a young fisherman named Urashima Tarō is fishing when he notices a group of children torturing a small turtle. Tarō saves it and lets it to go back to the sea. The next day, a huge turtle approaches him and tells him that the small turtle he had saved is the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, Ryūjin, who wants to see him to thank him. The turtle magically gives Tarō gills and brings him to the bottom of the sea, to the Palace of the Dragon God (Ryūgū-jō). There he meets the Emperor and the small turtle, who was now a lovely princess, Otohime.
Tarō stays there with her for a few days, but soon wants to go back to his village and see his aging mother, so he requests Otohime's permission to leave. The princess says she is sorry to see him go, but wishes him well and gives him a mysterious box called tamatebako which will protect him from harm but which she tells him never to open. Tarō grabs the box, jumps on the back of the same turtle that had brought him there, and soon is at the seashore.
When he goes home, everything has changed. His home is gone, his mother has vanished, and the people he knew are nowhere to be seen. He asks if anybody knows a man called Urashima Tarō. They answer that they had heard someone of that name had vanished at sea long ago. He discovers that 300 years have passed since the day he left for the bottom of the sea. Struck by grief, he absent-mindedly opens the box the princess had given him, from which bursts forth a cloud of white smoke. He is suddenly aged, his beard long and white, and his back bent. From the sea comes the sad, sweet voice of the princess: "I told you not to open that box. In it was your old age ..."
Variations[]
As always with folklore, there are many different versions of this extremely famous story. In one, for example, there were three drawers in the box. After he turned into an old man he found a mirror, then took the body of a crane when touched by a crane feather from the last box, in another he ate a magic pill that gave him the ability to breathe underwater. In another version, he is swept away by a storm before he can rescue the turtle. Also, there is a version in which he dies in the process of aging (his body turns into dust), as no one can live 300 years.
Commemoration[]
A shrine on the western coast of the Tango Peninsula in northern Kyoto Prefecture, named Urashima Jinja, contains an old document describing a man, Urashimako, who left his land in 478 A.D. and visited a land where people never die. He returned in 825 A.D. with a Tamatebako. Ten days later he opened the box, and a cloud of white smoke was released, turning Urashimako into an old man.
Later that year, after hearing the story, Emperor Junna ordered Ono no Takamura to build a shrine to commemorate Urashimako's strange voyage, and to house the Tamatebako and the spirit of Urashimako.
In Popular Culture[]
The story influenced various works of fiction and a number of films. Among them are manga and anime such as Dragonball Z, Clannad, Detective Conan, YuYu Hakusho, Urusei Yatsura, Love Hina (whose lead male character is called Urashima Keitaro, and with a girl named Otohime Mutsumi), Doraemon, Gintama, Kamen Rider Den-O (the namesake of the Imagin Urataros, given by Naomi), Cowboy Bebop, Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi, Ghost Sweeper Mikami and RahXephon. It is retold in and used as the basis for the short story “Another Story” by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in her story collection A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, named for the character of this story. The story is also used to explain an aspect of Relativity in The Manga Guide to Relativity
Urashima Tarō is often referenced in Hideo Kojima's adventure video game Policenauts, and much of the game's plot elements were also inspired by the tale. In Clover Studio's action-adventure video game Okami, the protagonist Amaterasu chases away a group of children bullying a fisherman named Urashima, setting up a major sub-plot in the game very similar to the tale of Urashima Tarō.
The oldest known animated adaptation Urashima Tarō of the tale premiered in 1918.