Book review, from Tokyo – Bringing up my children in Japan, I learned about kuizome, which literally means the first bite. Usually held around the 100-day mark, when babies start to drool over everything before actually teething, a celebration is held to give the child the first bite of solid food. More of a symbolic gesture than a real bite, this ritual seems to have been adopted also by the oni, or ogres, as depicted in 『鬼の首引き』(Oni no kubihiki, lit. Ogre’s neck tug-of-war) by Norie Iwaki.

The story begins with a young man starting out for the capital in search of work. As he enters the woods, dark clouds gather, and the wind picks up. And lo and behold, an ogre appears out of nowhere. Caught and about to become lunch, the young man asks to be devoured by a princess. It happens that this ogre has a young daughter, who has yet to have her kuizome, or her first bite of a human. Delighted at this offer, the ogre tells his daughter, the demon princess, to get her first bite on her own.

The princess comes near gingerly. After all, it is her first bite of a human. “How shall I eat him? Shall I start from the hand? The leg? Or from the top of the head?” she sings. As she approaches from behind, the young man bats her head with his fan, as if swatting a bug. When she finds the courage to return for his leg, he coughs so loud that she flees, petrified.

Now ogres are a principled kind, and proud of that they are. Both times, the young man gave scarcely believable explanations, and both times the ogre gave him the benefit of doubt. Seeing that the ogre was a critter of its word, the young man takes the opportunity to ask to be eaten only if he loses a contest of strength with who else but his eater. And so he and the tiny princess lock arms, and then legs, to wrestle. Of course, he wins easily both times.

Seeing his beloved princess bawling and her pride hurt, the angry father calls on all his brethren to put the young man up to a real contest –  a neck tug-of-war. They loop ropes around their necks and start tugging away. The young man holds on as well as he can, but even he is no match for a whole tribe of ogres. As his feet slip and slide, he hangs on until the very last moment before removing the rope suddenly to send the ogres tumbling, which leaves him with time to escape.

In the story, time and again, the young man came up with something outrageous to outwit the ogres. Time and again, the ogre’s fatherly disposition and respectful demeanor sat awkwardly well, until the neck tug-of-war and the final escape. These comedic elements come from the story’s roots in kyougen, a form of Japanese traditional theater, as Iwaki describes in the book’s backmatter. He also reminds readers that the sport neck tug-of-war can be found in the choujuugiga picture scroll, famously considered by some as the world’s oldest work of manga.

On the final page of the book, Yousuke Inoue offers a warm father-daughter portrait of the ogre father standing firm with a smile on its face while his daughter is sat on one arm. That grin shines with a father’s pride. Who knows what lessons they learned, but my hunch is that she got that first bite, with some help from a fine demon of a dad.

Title: 『鬼の首引き』(Oni no kubihiki, lit. Ogre’s neck tug-of-war)
Story by Norie Iwaki, illustrations by Yousuke Inoue
Publisher: Fukuinkan Shoten, 2006