Mythical Creature Resurrected in the Fight against the Coronavirus
A manga artist has inspired people across Japan to draw the long-forgotten bird-like sea creature called amabie to ward off COVID-19, and it seems to be working.
It has now been about a year since the ill-fated Diamond Princess dominated the headlines in Japan. The British-registered cruise ship left the Port of Yokohama on January 20, 2020 with 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew members on what was supposed to have been a tour of Southeast Asia during the Chinese Lunar New Year.
An 80 year-old passenger from Hong Kong who had embarked in Yokohama with everyone else developed a persistent cough the day before the planned departure but, apparently, figured that he would get over it soon. Thus, this passenger got on board in Yokohama along with everyone else. This gentleman got off when the ship docked in Hong Kong on January 25, but he left something unseen behind.
The ship continued to travel to Taiwan and then reached Okinawa on February 1. This was the same day when that 80 year-old former passenger who subsequently developed a fever was diagnosed with the coronavirus at a hospital in Hong Kong. The rest of the passengers on the Diamond Princess were not notified of this development until February 3. That was the day that the ship anchored just offshore from its home port back in Yokohama to begin quarantine. Test results positive for the coronavirus began to surface the following day. Until all passengers and crew were finally allowed to disembark almost a month later, there were daily reports about increasing numbers of infections. By late March, it was confirmed that a total of 712 passengers and crew members, or almost 20% of the total number on board, ended up becoming infected.
Japanese public health authorities were widely criticized for how they handled the situation. Their apparent lack of precautions, delays, and withholding of information had effectively turned the Diamond Princess into a giant petri dish for COVID-19. While the ship became a harbinger of what was to come, both in Japan and around the world, “hindsight is 20/20” and at the time nobody really understood the challenges of the coronavirus. To this day the Japanese government remains, though, hyper-sensitive about this incident. Official numbers of infections in the country often exclude the case numbers from the Diamond Princess. It seems like a tactic for evading responsibility for this particular cohort of cases.
Not long after the last person was finally able to escape the Diamond Princess, a manga artist tapped into a long-forgotten legend also related to the sea to encourage his fellow countrymen to ward off the unseen, elusive coronavirus. The artist’s work ended up leading to a national drawing campaign which, at the very least, helped to spread awareness about the coronavirus. Even as Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare finally gets ready to begin a national vaccination effort later this week, the drawing campaign is still going strong.
What Is the Legend?
The manga artist brought back to life a long-forgotten creature from the ocean. Although stories of this mythical creature probably date from ancient times, there are “historical accounts” from the early 1840s from the southwestern island of Kyushu of a supernatural creature from the sea called an amabie (“ah mah bee ay” = アマビエ). The amabie is supposed to look sort of like the image of a mermaid in Western mythology, but it is not necessarily exclusively female. Its gender is, in fact, somewhat of a mystery. Unlike the voluptuous mermaids of the West who tempted sailors to pursue them into the sea and, ultimately, cause their death, amabie do not have such deceptive intentions.
They appear like a composite of several different animals. The most distinguishable features include a mouth like a bird’s beak and three legs or tail fins.
Early descriptions indicate that amabie emerge out of the South China Sea at sunset to declare to fishermen or other people on the shore that either the annual harvest will be bountiful or there will be a famine and illness—most likely dystentery--that would last six years. There was, apparently, no middle ground, but amabie did suggest a potential solution if the projection was not good. It involved drawing! Amabie were, it seems, somewhat narcissistic, as they instructed people to make copies of their image to guard against poor health. After making this proclamation, the amabie were said to return to the sea.
The earliest records are from the Kingdom of Higo which is present-day Kumamoto, a prefecture on the southwestern main island of Kyushu. Kumamoto has a long history of enduring natural disasters. It is along the annual path that many typhoons take as they traverse Japan while dumping huge quantities of rain. Just last summer Kumamoto suffered a “once-in-hundred-years flood” which is still being cleaned up. Kumamoto is also a center of seismic activity, having most recently experienced a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2016. Thus, the people of the Kingdom of Higo and modern day Kumamoto are used to dealing with periodic hardships caused by Mother Nature. Accounts of amabie may have evolved as a means to make sense of these events by someone with a great deal of creativity.
In the midst of the current, ongoing pandemic it is its desire to be drawn by people which has caused the amabie to reemerge from the annals of forgotten history.
Reemergence in the Fight against COVID-19
Approximately one year ago, soon after the coronavirus started to spread throughout Japan, the practice of drawing amabie was resurrected to fend off the unseen virus. This campaign, called the “Amabie Challenge,” originated in the northern island of Hokkaido which was one of the first places in Japan to get hammered by the coronavirus.
Example from #amabiechallenge (image sourced from Twitter)
It soon gained momentum on Twitter where people were encouraged to share their original impressions of amabie under the hashtag #amabiechallenge.
On March 6, 2020, popular manga artist Seiichi Tokiwa published his interpretation of how the amabie would be coming soon to help fight against the coronavirus. His post went viral and captured the attention of the whole nation. While grounded in history, Tokiwa added some modern elements to the story.
“Amabie Is Coming” by Seiichi Tokiwa (image sourced from Twitter)
The amabie declares that it comes from the sea and tells the man on the beach that either “a plague will continue for the next six years or you will become free of ‘the pestilence’ if you draw my picture.” The incredulous man questions whether the virus could continue for so long.
As the amabie turns around to head back into the sea, the man tries to stop it by yelling, “Wait! Wait!” He says, “What an absurd instruction. I have not drawn a picture since I was a child.” The man then mutters under his breath while using his mobile telephone to take a picture of the departing amabie, “A photo should do; It would be much faster!”
The amabie does not, however, want its picture taken. It covers its eyes while pleading with the man to draw its image and then show it to others. The frustrated man exclaims, “I don’t have a pen and paper. How can I draw you?” Suddenly a boy emerges on his way home from school which, he explains, has just been canceled due to the coronavirus. Because the boy has a pen and paper, and lends them to the man on the beach, the man is able to draw the amabie after all. The man then barks orders for the amabie to look sideways so that he can draw in silhouette to highlight the amabie’s beak-like nose. The amabie eventually complies, and all is well.
These drawings on Twitter often feature the Japanese phrase “ekibyo taisan” (疫病退散) which means “dispersal of infectious disease.”
Amabie pictured along with other mythological legends from the sea under the heading “ekibyo taisan” (image sourced from Twitter)
It did not take long for this movement to spur a whole new cottage industry of amabie-themed clothing and assorted gifts.
Some of these items are even printed in English. Now you can even get your very own amabie-themed hoodie.
The crisis that developed in Yokohama on board the Diamond Princess shocked people in Japan into realizing that the coronavirus was, in fact, a real and present danger. It was not just a problem for mainland China to handle. The disease had arrived as a stowaway on the Diamond Princess to reach the shores of Japan, and it was spreading quickly. This stealthy, unseen enemy would affect everyone.
Now a year has passed since that ill-fated voyage, and more than 7,000 Japanese people have died from the disease. Even in a country which is accustomed to suffering through more than its fair share of natural disasters, both the physiological and psychological dangers of COVID-19 have exacted a severe mental toll.
Even though everyone knows that it is just a legend, the long-forgotten amabie has offered a much-needed release of stress for many. Its job is far from over. The Japanese will have to keep drawing pictures of amabie at least until late summer when the national vaccination campaign is expected to have been concluded. Considering the uncertainty caused by the new variants of the coronavirus, it may be in everyone’s best interest simply to keep drawing amabie indefinitely into the future.
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What a great story!!
This is an absolutely delightful story! The myths of Japan are so intriguing. I implore Mark Kennedy to write about more of them!
Pam Baran