Tomoki Imai said he was having fun with stones as a kid when he encountered a famous animal that includes individuals’s “respect and fear” for nature.
The legendary snake is called “tsuchinoko,” which actually suggests “child of hammer,” and is the primary style of the latest documentary of Imai, an acclaimed movie director.
The documentary is entitled “Oraga Mura no Tsuchinoko Sodoki” (Our towns’ commotional tales about tsuchinoko) and is anticipated to be finished in summertime.
It is based upon Imai’s trip of mountainous locations throughout Japan where he backtracked sightings of the animal and discovered ecological damage, depopulation and other problems in rural zones.
“Some people bluntly deny the presence of tsuchinoko, saying they ‘can never exist’ or ‘are just superstition,’” said Imai, 43, a citizen of Kawasaki’s Asao Ward. “But there are many mysterious daily-life stories about the creatures shared among people living in mountains.”
EVASIVE ANIMAL
Hailing from Higashi-Shirakawa in the deeply forested eastern part of Gifu Prefecture, Imai said he was a grade school sixth-grader when he identified an odd animal on a slope along a mountainous roadway.
“It was black and shiny and had a short and thick snake-like body,” he remembered. “It had no limbs.”
Imai said he poked the animal with a stick. It moved a little and after that huddled to roll away.
“A shrine in my hometown honors tsuchinoko, with a lot of legends and sightings passed down,” Imai said. “What I discovered may have been a tsuchinoko.”
After finishing from a high school in Gifu Prefecture, Imai studied at the predecessor of the Japan Institute of the Moving Image in Asao Ward.
He finished a course at the institute and worked as an assistant for creative instructions and other procedures at the Center for Ethnological Visual Documentation in Tokyo.
The business is well-known for its documentaries in farming zones, mountainous locations and fishing towns.
Imai left the center at age 31 to go independent.
His “Tori no Michi o Koete” (Bird Time), portraying life and mist net hunting on a mountain, received a quality reward from the Agency for Cultural Affairs for culture-themed documentaries in financial 2014.
DOZENS OF SIGHTINGS
Imai started the documentary about tsuchinoko in 2015, and explored Niigata, Gunma, Tokyo, Gifu, Kyoto, Nara, Hyogo, Okayama, Hiroshima and Tokushima prefectures.
He said carrying out interviews was tough throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, however he might still acquire important reports about the snake from more than 20 tsuchinoko-spotters.
One explained in front of the video camera that a tsuchinoko “suddenly jumped nearly 2 meters.” Another chose not “to speak about it until now to prevent others from making fun of me.”
Imai approximates tsuchinoko step 30 centimeters to 80 cm long.
Its thick body looks like a beer bottle, its head is triangular, and its tail is brief and thin. The snake highly dislikes direct exposure to direct sunshine, according to Imai.
Tsuchinoko is referred to as “nozuchi hebi” in the Edo Period (1603-1867) dictionary “Wakan Sansai Zue” (Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia). The dictionary recommends individuals to “run upward in case you encounter the creature because it is extremely slow on ascending slopes but as fast as blazes on the way down.”
Tsuchinoko is likewise called “bachi hebi” or “tenkoro,” and sightings and episodes connected with the snake have actually been bied far throughout the country.
The animal was brought into the spotlight in the 1970s with the releases of Seiko Tanabe’s unique “Subette Koronde” (Slip and fall) and Takao Yaguchi’s manga “Maboroshi no Kaija Bachi Hebi” (Mysterious phantom snake: bachi hebi).
“Tsuchinoko embody people’s respect and fear for nature,” Imai said. “I checked out mountain towns, and saw that they were all dealing with issues of ecological damage and depopulation.
“Another objective of the film is presenting the harsh conditions of farming regions and mountainous areas.”
The film is anticipated to strike movie theaters in winter season or next spring.
Imai has actually begun a crowdfunding drive to help cover the movie’s advancement and ad costs. For queries and information, check out filmmaker Studio Garret Inc.’s website (https://studio-garret.com).