Good People Do Not Eat Others?! Moral Ambiguity in Japanese Fairytales from the Late Nineteenth Century

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Excellent work! It's rare one reads something for peer review but has few if any substantive criticisms to make, yet that is the situation here. Instead, let me offer a few suggestions:

To enhance the impact of your article, I think you should develop the comparative dimension (the link to the sanitization of Western fairytales) a bit more, and also discuss the Meiji-era sanitization of Japanese tales in more depth. In particular, you note that it was the arrival of the concept of "childhood" as a psychologically protected state which triggered these changes, but elsewhere you claim Kachikachiyama itself wasn't sanitized until the 1930s. Why didn't this tale suffer the same sanitized fate somewhat earlier, in the Meiji era?

And here is a list of minor corrections:
You occasionally use italics (presumably for emphasis) but in its current form this is quite odd and not necessarily having the effect you want (see, e.g., lines 105-107).

"Unknown" is misspelled in Table 1.

Note 26 contains a misspelling of Atherton's name.

The caption for Figure 19 misspells 'museum'

For Figure 25, I think the blue box should be moved slightly to the right (so as fully to include one of the bowls)

Your contention as to the illegality of eating animal flesh (note 52) might be somewhat overstated, as certain kinds of animals, especially birds, were known to have been consumed in early modern Japan, at the very least by those practicing falconry (leaving open the possibility of more widespread consumption of, e.g., ducks and other waterfowl by plenty of others who didn't leave behind diaries detailing their falcon's exploits and the feasts that followed). 

A general note: you use Americanized spellings of, e.g., sanitized, but British spelling of colour. I think it would be better to choose one or the other and maintain consistency throughout.

Overall, this is a very impressively written and argued article which needs hardly any adjustment--congratulations!

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is very entertaining paper. The author is to be congratulated on the novel re-reading of kachikachiyama and problematising who is the hero and who is the villain.

See below for a number of suggestions.

 

Line 20 ‘Japanese racoon dog’ – in AU and UK English I would say racoon is unnecessary here. US English might be standard to keep it.

Line 23-24 sentence starting ‘when he was out …’ rephrase for clarity. Consider ‘While the old man was out, the tanuki tricked the old man’s wife into setting it free. The tanuki then proceeded to beat the old woman senseless before making its escape.’

Line 25 instead of ‘through three tricks’ rephrase for clarity – A certain rabbit, who was a good friend of the old couple, agreed to punish the tanuki by tricking it three times.

Line 27/28 instead of ‘rubbing spices into the wounds’ the English phrase is to ‘rub salt into the wounds’ which might work better here.

Line 37 including kanji words – is this standard for this publication? Check with editor.

Line 44 sentence starting ‘it condemns the tanuki’s benefitting ….’ Consider rephrasing for clarity

Line 48 instead of ‘today’s law’ perhaps ‘a modern court of law’

Line 51 not sure about exclamation mark use here. Same in 55

Line 100 nice comparison to Victorian morals and Red Riding Hood.

Line 105-108 use of italics seems odd?

Line 128-136 solid justification for looking at this time period

Line 138 mamehon – again check kanji usage for this journal. Perhaps explain that ‘mame’ is used for ‘small’ things (mameshiba etc) unless there is a more concrete reason for the use of ‘bean’ here (was the paper made from beanstalks?)

Line 164 is the tanuki’s beating of the old woman depicted as revenge in modern tellings? Or is it presented as a selfish/thoughtless/violent act, after all, she does rescue him? This could further the case for the rabbit’s violent retribution.

Line 175 is it worth mentioning that medetashi medetashi is the equivalent of the English stock phrase ‘and they all lived happily ever after’?

Line 180 – lethal vendetta – this is fascinating

Line 204 – is this the best translation? I wonder how to capture the archaic nature of the original in an English translation …

Line 206 – do you mention that the ‘crackling mountain’ comes from the sound of the hill on fire? (presumably).

Line 229/230 perhaps you could describe the samurai rabbit as a knight errant, a romantic figure looking to do good deeds as part of his code?

Lines 286 – does the biting and ripping by the tanuki emphasise the creature’s animal/beast nature vs the anthropomorphic depictions? (and perhaps in contrast to the rabbit figure?)

Line 311 onwards – if this version of the story is geared towards children, the humorous depiction of the tanuki smothering someone with its scrotum could also be a moment of levity and to lesson the horror for a young audience? A precursor to changing the murder to a beating in modern versions? (never mind – I see you mention this in line 350)

Line 491 sentence staring ‘furthermore in other versions’ consider: In other versions, after the firewood incident, the rabbit takes miso paste to the tanuki’s house with the intention to use it to hurt the tanuki further by pretending that it could heal the other creature’s burns’.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some of the italics used for emphasis, and the use of exclamation marks are a little odd. review and consider changing or omitting.

Discuss with the editor if kanji should be included. Kanji for key terms could be of merit, but may not be necessary for era names or for common words.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf