Commonalities Between Princess Kaguya's Entrance and the Opening of That Manga (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter)

Let's recall the scene where Princess Kaguya first appears.

In this series, I plan to write freely about various topics related to classical literature.
The first thing I will introduce is the opening scene of "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter," familiar to everyone as the folktale of Princess Kaguya.

—Long ago, there was an old bamboo cutter. (Omitted) Inside that bamboo, there was one stalk that shone. Wondering at this, he approached and looked, and the inside of the tube was glowing. When he looked at it, there sat a person about three sun (approx. 9 cm) tall, very beautiful.—

Looking at the original text, it is written quite concisely, and the description of the old man cutting the bamboo is completely omitted. Nevertheless, he must have cut it because he couldn't see inside without doing so.

The problem is the fact that Princess Kaguya was inside the bamboo tube. When she returns, she leaves grandly in a flying vehicle, so it makes me think she was quite quiet when she arrived. Moreover, a bamboo tube is a sealed space with no gaps. I imagine some people have wondered, "Where did Princess Kaguya enter from?"

In fact, there are multiple stories remaining that feature Princess Kaguya and the old bamboo cutter. They exist hidden away in works like the "Kaidoki," "Konjaku Monogatarishu," and the "Man'yoshu," and they are short and simple in their writing. Among them, there is even a story that Princess Kaguya was born from a warbler's egg.

The commonality between a warbler's egg and a bamboo tube is, after all, that they are sealed spaces with neither an entrance nor an exit. And they are quite cramped. In the case of Princess Kaguya, who is about three sun—or 9 centimeters—tall, it is dangerous to stand up. When the bamboo is cut with a single stroke, there is a possibility that her head could be cut off as well. Sitting down was also for her own safety.

In the story of Momotaro, which was mocked in a certain commercial as being "connected by the 'pakkan' (cracking) sound," there is a somewhat strained setting where Momotaro is inside a peach. Since there is a danger of cutting off his head there too, it is set up so that it splits on its own. In the first place, I wonder if there was ever a peach that was hollow inside. According to information from a program I watched in the past called "Trivia no Izumi," there seems to be a backstory that Momotaro was a child born normally to an old man and woman who had rejuvenated by eating a peach. Peaches have an image of fairyland, and the flow of the story where they rejuvenate by eating one is smoother.

The meaning of a cramped space

How should we think about this kind of cramped, sealed space? There is a possibility that it is an image of the mother's womb. Warbler eggs and peaches feel somewhat similar. However, only bamboo is hollow and doesn't look like one at all. If it were a womb, I feel it should be at least a little moist.

A professor from my university days once spoke about this, saying, "Isn't it like a warp device?" I see, in science fiction novels and the like, when warping objects or people, I feel like there were scenes where they were put into something like a narrow capsule and a switch was pressed. And it is the image of being transferred to a space of similar size and shape.

The opening scene of a national manga that I suddenly remember

Thinking about it that way, the opening scene of a nationally popular manga came to mind. It is "
Doraemon." In the first episode, Doraemon has a large and heavy-looking body, and the scene where he pops out of a desk drawer is something that could be traumatic if handled poorly. If the drawer is closed, it is close to a sealed space, and it overlaps with the image of a warp device. After all, a time machine can be called a warp device that jumps through space-time.

Also, I remembered that when the baby Son Goku came to Earth in "Dragon Ball Z," he was laid in a round spaceship. That spaceship is close to the image of a warbler's egg. That was high-speed travel, not teleportation, though.

This is something I would like to grab the authors and ask about, but unfortunately, the authors of both works have passed away. It is frustrating, even just thinking about how it might be related to the two great manga I was obsessed with in my boyhood, which is exciting.

And so, Princess Kaguya came to the human world from the moon in a very small form. It is said that she grew to the size of an adult in just three months. This growth speed is also linked to the speed at which bamboo grows. And after much ado, she returns to the moon. Since her body grew large, warping must have become difficult, so messengers from the moon come to pick her up. And so, she rides in a flying vehicle and heads back, slowly but surely.