Momotaro as Read by Kenshi Yonezu

I can't even remember what I had for dinner yesterday, so I don't really remember when this story took place, but there was an old couple living in some rural countryside.

One day, the old woman went to the laundry—well, in this village it was a river—to do the washing as part of her daily routine, and a huge peach came floating down the river... I'm pretty sure the sound it made was something like 'donburako, donburako'.

A river is a public space, right? So, I think the old woman must have felt conflicted, as if taking home a peach that had floated there was a terribly greedy act. But then she reconsidered that it wouldn't be beautiful to waste such a rare blessing, and she felt she had no choice but to take it home...

I don't really like the expression 'a song just comes down to me,' but it seems that for this old woman, a song that went '♪ The water over there is bitter, the water over here is sweet ♪' just suddenly came to her. And then, the peach floated right into her hands... How grateful, truly grateful.

She took it home as discreetly as possible, and when she and the old man, who had returned from gathering firewood, looked at the peach, it split open with a 'pop,' and they were like, 'Oh, that's blinding.' And then a baby boy came out... I mean, does that kind of thing really happen?

In short, it can only be called a miracle. The baby was huge, probably about 4500g, and I wonder if he would cry once he eventually learned about his origins of being born from a peach... So, they decided to name him Momotaro, a simple name that anyone could read, at the very least. Wouldn't that have the opposite effect?

Momotaro, whose only standout parameter was his immense strength, learned that wicked ogres were guarding treasures they had stolen from various countries on Ogre Island. He apparently decided to go and defeat the ogres, saying he absolutely hated that kind of selfish behavior where people only care about themselves.

So, the old woman made a lot of kibi dango—wait, are kibi dango radishes? Well, whatever. She made a lot of them. Even though Momotaro didn't care much about food, I thought it was a bit much to only give him kibi dango, but maybe the old woman was secretly thinking it was a bit of a hassle, too.

On the way, a dog came up barking 'woof, woof, woof' and said he'd accompany him if he gave him a kibi dango, so he gave him one. How should I put this... this is basically a conditional exchange, isn't it? I thought it was pretty cutthroat. But, no matter how you look at it, he couldn't fight the ogres alone, so he had no choice.

As he kept walking, a monkey appeared and asked for a kibi dango too. Since I have a bit of a contrarian streak in my own personality, I sarcastically asked, 'Will you follow me!?' and it actually followed me. Hmph, that's a vulgar desire, isn't it?

The next one to appear was a pheasant, and while I was thinking to myself, 'Isn't that a flamingo?', I didn't want to hurt the pheasant needlessly... Well, I felt like the final piece clicked into place by cherishing this encounter and making the pheasant a companion.

I think Momotaro must have become quite serious because this was an unprecedented ogre-slaying mission. I suspect he felt that when he, who was lacking in many ways, faced the ogres, the companions within a five-meter radius were important.

While they were on the boat heading for Ogre Island, Momotaro might have looked at himself from a bird's-eye view and, even with the self-consciousness of thinking 'I'm not that kind of person,' his strongest, most intense wish might have been, 'I don't want to lose a single person from this boat.'

Upon arriving at Ogre Island and seeing the dog, monkey, and pheasant punishing the ogres with glee, Momotaro began to wonder if this was really the right thing to do. I don't know, maybe he had come this far just to pander to the villagers...

He should have also accepted the voices of the ogres on the other side... He wondered what he should do, but since he was born this way, it couldn't be helped. If that's the case, there was no choice but to do it...

He decided that if he was going to do it, he had to do it to the point where people would say, 'Is this guy an idiot?', so he unleashed massive, excessive violence until the ogres cried and surrendered. It seems his physical range of motion had expanded more than expected... he really went for it...

Basing his actions on the truly universal anger that theft is unforgivable, he radically destroyed the ogres' way of life, which in turn becomes pop. That said, he might have been enslaved by a narrow sense of justice, and something important might have been crumbling away.

The fact that they brought back all the treasures the ogres had stolen and gave them to the villagers, who lacked abundant economic and cultural capital, was a kind of misappropriation, and it's ridiculous to call this justice.

In the first place, the birds and beasts that approached him for kibi dango were vulgar, dangerous characters, and the egoism of the villagers who rejoiced over stolen goods isn't beautiful either. If Momotaro were to raise his perspective and re-examine the meaning of his own existence, it would take on a kind of irony.

It's a bit uncomfortable, but perhaps it's precisely because they depict this kind of irony, or rather, the complex ambiguity of fragile human beings, that folktales have such high resolution and the intensity to be immersive.

I want to continue sincerely creating songs that reach even people who are the complete opposite of me, songs that are universal, like something that might become anonymous hundreds of years from now.

*This story is a work of fiction.

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