Utsukagura: a tale of feelings
« Utsukagura » is the name of the story that was created under the advice and direction of Hayao Miyazaki. He was heavily inspired by the Minami Shinshuu area, where a great number of Gods reside. This area is also one of the three main inspirations behind Spirited Away. This story was performed for the first time during the first edition of the Hirugami Yokagura festival.
Once upon a time, a young Goddess inhabited a forest of peace. The forest’s role was to help relieve humans of the bad feelings inside them, by gathering and purifying their anguish, their sadness…
One day, the negative energy gathered by the forest became overwhelming and could not be purified anymore. After witnessing this, Gaïa decided to rid the Earth of this forest contaminated by dark energy.
However, erasing the forest meant erasing the Goddess.
Because a Goddess can never disappear completely and her power was a hurdle in Gaïa’s plans, she got turned into a white Utsuo that keeps her hidden inside him by consuming the dark energy balls now scattered throughout the forest.
One day, the white Utsuo met a little girl who wandered into the forest. They spent some time together, played together, and started to become friends, but because Gaïa had already given up on humans, a dark voice came from the depths of the forest and told the white Utsuo to eat the little girl. After consuming her, the Utsuo turned black and was tortured by this evil act.
When the purity of the little girl touched the purity of the young Goddess locked inside the Utsuo, a new Goddess was born to protect the forest of peace once again. After seeing that, Gaïa decided to give humans one more chance and stopped erasing the forest.
It is however impossible for someone to completely get rid of negative feelings, and there may come a day when the forest gets overwhelmed by darkness again. This is why, as a reminder, you can see a dark ball on the Goddess’ shoulder.