And here is your daily almanac for Friday the tenth of February 2023. Ok, not so much daily. It's been a while since I've done this series. Sorry. Too many things to write about on Hive and I want to limit myself to only one post per day. Anyway, there is one big anniversary today that jumped out at me when I was looking down the list, so I want to cover it.
Today in 1988 Dragon Quest III was released in Japan.
This was just huge. Huger than huge. For many years this was absolutely the most popular video game series in Japan and even today is very popular. The game overture is extremely well-known and pops up everywhere and at least one of the characters (the slime) also shows up everywhere in Japan.
The game sold over 1.1 million copies just on the first day. The lines extended around the block, and around the next block, and the next. There were over 300 students arrested for truancy as they decided to skip school to get the game. There is an urban legend that this led to the Japanese government demanding that Epic not release any more Dragon Quest games on weekdays. The truth seems to be that Epic did this voluntarily themselves, but there may be more that happened behind the scenes that we don't know.
This impressive sales figure went up to 3 million by the end of the week. By the end of the month it had grossed ¥20 billion yen (adjusted for inflation). This is unbelievable in an era when there were no pre-sales nor reservations; people just went to the store and waited in one of the massive lines.
The game got great reviews and became even more popular than the prior games. It led to a long-running manga series and eventually an anime movie.
It eventually was localized into English as Dragon Warrior III and released in the US in 1992. That's when I first played it as a young boy. It didn't have nearly the impact in the US, where Final Fantasy was long the preferred RPG series, but it did get a lot of coverage in all the local video game magazines.
Over the years it has been updated and rereleased countless times, most recently for the Nintendo Switch in 2019. My oldest son recently started to become interested in RPG games, so I wouldn't be surprised if he makes his way to this one eventually. At the local game center there is a Dragon Quest game that plays the DQ Overture loudly and constantly, so my son is well acquainted with the music already.
Whew. Man, that music gives me chills no matter how many times I hear it.
If you want to give it a try, looks like several websites have versions of the game you can play online. Here's one
Today is Tomobiki (友引), one of the rokuyō, the Buddhist horoscope. Whew... one of the more unlucky days here. Your friends may be drawn-in towards bad things. As such, funerals are almost universally avoided on this day (the superstition is a funeral might drawn your friends towards the same fate as the deceased) and all crematoriums are closed. (Read more about the rokuyō here)
On the old calendar, today would have been the twentieth day of the first month. It is Japanese Nightingales Start Singing (uguisu naku, 黄鶯睍睆), the second microseason of Risshun which itself is the first miniseason of the Japanese almanac.
Uguisu and Plum Blossoms by Nakayama Sūgakudō
It would be hard to find a more beloved bird than the Uguisu, which you might see translated into English as the Japanese Nightingale, as I used above, or the Bush Warbler. Many people these days actually haven't seen one and don't know what it looks like, but everyone knows its call, represented as "hohokekyo" in Japanese.
When you hear the Uguisu calling, you know warmer weather is right around the corner. So everyone is always glad when they hear it.
Here's a haiku from Onitsura:
uguisu no nakeba naniyara natsukashiu
it fills me with
a vague nostalgia
Uguisu and Red Plum Blossoms by Ohara Koson
Onitsura choose his words well in this haiku. In Japanese the entire poem flows very well with the repeated "na" syllables as well as even more "a" vowels. It gives it a sing-song quality that evokes the feeling of the bird's cry.
It is indeed a very nostalgic sound. It not only tells us that spring is here but it reminds us of all the past springs in which we have heard its cry, of the springs themselves, and of our own past.
That's about all. If you want some more, go read about the riots that took place during the Taisho Political Crisis. The seeds of this crisis contributed to the military takeover of Japan in the 1930s and 40s. Maybe I'll cover it next year.
Enjoy your Friday. If you are the superstitious type, avoid doing things that might drawn your friends towards bad ends.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
❦
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |