question about juuzou and dayuu...

[alpha red]

ok, i've just finished watching shinkenger, and i have a question confused about fuwa juuzou and usukawa daiyuu.. from the show, we all know that both juuzou and dayuu were originally human who fall into gedou, thus becoming one of the gedoushuu..but why juuzou stil has his human form, while dayuu does not have a human form? is there any difference between dayuu and juuzou?

another thing, in the show, we know there were three worlds, namely the human world, hell and also the sanzu river.. according to wikipedia explanation, the sanzu river is the land of the dead.. what are the difference between sanzu river and hell? is it both of those worlds are for the dead? who are those gedoushuu actually? is all those gedoushuu thing a true folklore legend or tales in japan?

 

[musashi03]

To answer your question regarding the Sanzu River, if you're familiar with Greek Mythology, there is an equivalent called the "River Styx", a passageway connecting the world to the afterlife.

In Japanese Buddhism, the Sanzu River is the place where one's judgment is carried out through crossing one of the 3 paths, a bridge, a shallow area, and the deepest point.

It is believed that the river is infested with monstrosities, and if one did good in his life, then that person is able to cross the Sanzu River via the bridge to the afterlife, a person with equal amount of good and evil in his life gets to cross the shallow area, but if one did great evil in his life, that person will cross the deepest part of the river, then sink to the bottom of the Sanzu River and be feasted upon by the serpents living in it.

I believe the Japanese Buddhism belief doesn't have an equivalent to "hell", though they have a term for it which is "Jigoku" and is present in the Chinese belief in which was also passed down to most Japanese.

Same as most belief or mythos, the "afterlife" doesn't always equate to hell or heaven (ie Greek Mythology), it is the resting place of all dead souls, so "Jigoku" or "hell" that you are talking about must have meant the place in which all evil comes from and not necessarily the final resting place of evil souls as believed in some religions like Christianity.

 

[musashi03]

Oh, I missed one of your questions, you were asking what the Gedoushu are? Well, they are just a fictional race of demons that resides in the Sanzu River which were just created for the show.

Given my explanation on what the Sanzu River represents in Japanese Buddhism, the writers obviously wrote the Gedoushu based on the Youkai (Demonic Spirits in Japanese Folklore) to be the creatures that live on the river even though I don't think the demons living in the Sanzu River according to Japanese Buddhism were called anything as a group or race at all.

The Youkai are just demonic spirits in Japanese folklore which has a lot of categories (Kitsune, Kappa, Oni, etc.), but in the folklore, they don't have any particular place where they reside, not just in the Sanzu River as presented in Shinkengers.

The Gedoushu were written to be the demons living in the Sanzu River which were created because of the sins collected in the river itself (since sinners are said to drown in the deepest part of the river where the serpents live in Japanese Buddhism), hence the Gedoushu always wanting the humans in the human world to suffer and live in negative emotions to raise the level of water in the Sanzu River, giving them more life force and to allow the river to raise enough that it spills from the crevices in the human world so that the Gedoushu can easily live in there without fear of running out of water from the river.

To my analogy, the Sanzu River in Shinkengers isn't exactly the Sanzu River in Japanese Buddhism, for one, in the show there isn't anything resembling the 3 paths. Another point is the existence of a race of demons called the Gedoushu which live off on the sins of man in the river (I don't recall that part about the demons in Japanese Buddhism). And lastly, they didn't emphasize the idea that the Sanzu River is just a passageway to the afterlife and made it seem that the river was already the land of the dead where evil lives and the souls of sinners go to (Dayu, Juuzo, etc.) even though the sinners according to Japanese Buddhism are just devoured in the Sanzu River but the righteous get to cross the river safely and reach the afterlife. So it seems they combined all the ideas of "hell" in past and modern Japanese beliefs to create the "Sanzu River" in Shinkengers.

So let's put it this way, there are 2 types of Sanzu Rivers now:

a. Japanese Buddhism Sanzu River - 3 paths, just a passageway, random demons reside on.

b. Shinkenger Sanzu River - 1 path, seems to be the equivalent of hell, fictional race of demons called the "Gedoushu" resides on.

And regarding the difference with Dayu and Juuzo, it has been talked about in the Goseiger Talk-Up thread: http://henshinjustice.net/forums/showthread.php?t=48254&page=234
Theories are that Toei wanted to show-off the suit technology with Dayu hence using her costume much more than Juzo's Gedou mode, and mixed it up with the idea that Romi Park had other commitments that's why she can't always be in the set to shoot her human form in the show. So I guess Dayu and Juuzo are just the same, though Dayu stayed with Doukoku since he obviously likes her, and Juuzo is really just a loner. It really that isn't big of a deal, it is just what it is.

Hope it helps.

 

[alpha red]

i see... i don really understand about the japanese folklore and culture.. i know some of the show lately have some connection to japanese folklore.. like den-o, all the imagin were actually shaped from some japanese folklore character, so were the makamou in hibiki also..
anyway, thatnks for your explanation.. it really helps me understand more..

 

[Solid Snake]

Actually I think that smiley Gedoushu commander said something about Juuzou not being a full Gedou or being a special Gedouu that's why he wanted him in his plan to split the earth open.