Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

[pendell]

Notably, horns have some important connotations in Japanese folklore as well. Horns on Japanese creatures are an indication of ties to anger, aggression and hostility, usually alongside a healthy helping of the supernatural. Anything with horns is, almost without exception, Bad News among Japanese creatures. Oni are the most prevalent and widespread, but there are others as well. And from what I've seen of the Demons in Frieren, they draw a lot of parallels with Oni, particularly the man-eating and the general unwillingness to cooperate with each other unless forced by a great power. Frieren's demons seem to be less 'angry ball of hatred and sadism' and more 'amoral asocial carnivore', though.


While I'm not an expert on Japanese folklore, I can maybe help a bit with this. The word Ma- root of Mazoku, Maou, Majin and what have you, came to Japan ... Mara, the great demon of ... who seeks to obstruct all humans from reaching Nirvana, was introduced to Japan .... It was something Japanese folklore didn't really have up until that point, a great inhuman supernatural evil which represented a more insidious threat than the rapacity of Oni. While ... kept using the term Mara, the general population eventually wound up referring to the same concept as Maou (usually translated Demon King or Devil, but probably more accurately Archdemon), which is a bit more natural to pronounce for a Japanese speaker. Mazoku refer to all creatures connected to the Maou, usually lesser demons (and not always evil - as the servants of Mara are often converted ... in ... tradition). It makes a lot of sense that Frieren uses these words, with a Demon King (Maou) and his subjects (Mazoku) fitting well with the origins of those terms.

Akuma is simply an alternative to Maou, literally translated as 'Evil demon'. It's another term that mutated from Buddhist teachings, and was probably a more official attempt by Buddhist monks to translate their teachings into Japanese. The use of Akuma to mean anything other than Mara (or the Devil in [western] tradition) seems to be a pretty modern thing, and I think was mostly the result of Japanese writers deciding it sounds cool, in much the same way D&D writers appropriated entities like Tiamat and Balor in name only.

Majin is a totally modern word. I'm reasonably certain it was coined by Toriyama, as a combination of 'Maou' and 'Jinn', IE 'Demon Genie'. Considering Buu's Djinn-like attributes and all. I'm fairly sure every other instance stems from this. I've certainly never heard of it being used prior to Dragon Ball, though I could be wrong.

Yokai are, indeed, nature spirits, and have a lot in common with Little Folk or Fae from European traditions. They long predate the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, being along with Kami the core of Shinto animism. Oni function as the 'demons' of Shinto, along with harmful or antagonistic Kami. Yokai can be benevolent or malevolent, but are usually portrayed as inhuman rather than evil.

One thing you might be mistaking in your investigations is that Ma (魔), is not 'Magic'. It's 'Demon', or maybe 'Demonic'. Mahou would be Magic. Which, yes, is totally based on the word for Demon, because that kind of magic was deeply associated with evil in Japanese tradition. In modern times, much as with the Western tradition, the inherently negative perception of Mahou has largely disappeared, but it very much meant something along the lines of 'Evil magic' in the past, in the same way a Christian might use 'Witchcraft'. 'Good magic' was pretty much synonymous with 'priest' for most of Japanese history, in one form or another (usually Onmyoji, but there are other traditions as well). Mazoku doesn't mean 'Magical family', it would be better understood as 'Demon kin'.

Very cool! I will consider this.

ETA: The fact that "maou" has connotations of both demon and magic shows the inflluence in Frieren, where most magic is demonic in origin before being learned and repurposed by humans; most notably by the legendary mage Flamme, Frieren's teacher, who convinced the the human governments to allow the study and research of magic when it was previously outlawed as "demonic". Even in current-era, most human magic is demon magic that has been copied and repurposed; the flying spell Frieren and Fern use are originally demon magic, as is Fern's Zoltraak spell. It was originally designed by demons for killing humans, since repurposed and adapted for killing demons instead. It seems as if demons do most of the original research into magic in Frieren's world, often spending centuries in pursuit of perfecting one single spell, and humans copy/adapt them.

And of course the Demon King is absolutely a thing that exists in this world, before Team Hero killed it. Is this equal to the Mara or Maou?

This relationship between the majou and magic flows directly from this view that you mention. So that's one layer of deeper understanding of the show.

E Again to add: What a wonderful thing is the modern world where we have so many different influences in our entertainment product. Where else would we have a Galadriel-expy (with heavy, heavy roots in western thoughts) take on the Demon King (the Source Of All Evil in Indian/Japanese traditional views)?

You'll notice, by the way, I'm trying to move away from specific real-world religions in order to prevent the wrath of mod. A pity ,really, since this is a discussion of mythology, but the rules are what they are for a reason.


Respectfully,

Brian P.