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Tish-n-Tori — Futakuchi Onna
Published: 2009-12-27 00:22:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 1340; Favourites: 24; Downloads: 14
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"all I can say is I love this one. Super awesome happy love.
She's a yokai...a Futakuchi onna. The multiple origin stories all present really fascinating stories and avenues for exploration in female independence in ancient Japanese culture. "
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Comments: 14
I really love your style, it's simple, clear and very smooth 
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The brush-strokes you used really accentuated the entire image. I love the kimono she's wearing and idea behind it intrigues me.
The hair tangled around the grape paintings nags me a little for some reason, might just be a bit messy compared to the rest of the image.
None-the-less, very nice
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Thank ya!
I can definitely see where there's a disjoint between the two parts of the image.
I'm not sure if you know the yokai's story, but the hair put like that was sort of a play on it. (I was gonna write another comment on the story, but this seems easy enough to reply and enlighten everyone else who reads through at the same time).
Basically, the woman grows a second mouth on the back of her head (different origins have different reasons, some is because the woman never speaks her mind, others have it being revenge for step children she starved to death) and her hair becomes alive. This mouth on the back of her head constantly speaks anything that surfaces to her mind spitting out expletives and contrary opinions--it's said it can never tell a lie. The living hair does its biddings as it has an insatiable hunger and must forever keep eating, being fed by the tendrils of hair even when the woman is sleeping.
The story goes that no food is safe, as soon as it is put in front of her, the hair snatches it away and the mouth on the back of her head eats it.
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No, I didn't know about the Yokai. Thanks for the info, the image makes sense to me now 
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It is such an interesting story and seems so mild on the surface until you start thinking of the implications that she can't actually ever eat anything or keep anything to herself, but if it holds that it's because she held her tongue too long...maybe it's a freeing experience to finally be able to express herself fully? Either way, a lot of the female yokai have really fun stories behind them.
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Mmm, most people these days would probably give it just a passing glance, but not realise what could be going on in her head or what it might mean. Personally, I would be in a lot of trouble if the demon was borne unto me. But thankyou, I must research these Yokai women more so
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It's a lot of fun...my speciality is in Celtic mythology and poetic cyphers...but I often do comparitive pieces with Japanese mythos--which are strangely compatible.
If you're up for find a rather good--albeit silly--book on yokai, there's one called "Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide" by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt that is a lot of fun to read and has illustrations to accompany each yokai it talks about.
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Sounds like a good book
Strangely compatible, huh. Well we all come from the same origins so why not our mythology and legends be the same? I'm more into the history, unfortunately. I want to look into some myths at some point. Might have a motivation from this
Many thanks.
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Historically, Ireland and Japan have some interesting parallels as well, especially in the development of their literature and when (and how) major changes happen to it.
I enjoy history a great deal as well, myth sorta combines my love of literature (I'm a literature and language major) with more history than other studies...but speaking of origins all being the same, especially since you like history, you may also want to check out Robert Graves's "The White Goddess" which is largely based in historical clues and relates that all religious dieties and mythical heroes are reiterations of one proto goddess (the white goddess). It's a little hard to read...definitely a good deal of mind blowing information (and he doesn't generally cite where the information is coming from...which is part of what I've been researching, tracing what he researched in order to come to the conclusions), but if you can get through it, it's rather amazing.
(Sorry I've been blabbering on so long...I'd say it shows my passion for the subject, but it may also be I don't really want to start packing for a trip
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(Go pack!
The White Goddess? I'll look it up then. Read it if I get the chance.
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Perhaps the best example of the absurdity in his book is that he relates Jesus as being Hercules/Heracles...and he makes a rather good argument about it.
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