The Old Kamigawa

this episode is brought to you by card kingdom go to cardkingdom.com studies to pick up some kamigawa cards old and new for your commander decks and your collection this episode is also sponsored by my new partner coalesce apparel and design use code studies at checkout for 10 off clothing and stickers including rustic studies t-shirts and hoodies that feature my brand new logo just south of the archipelago of japan on the island of yakushima an early morning bus ride delivers small groups of ambitious hikers to the mouth of the on boat trailhead from here following an old logging train track hikers begin their journey into the forest soon the terrain shifts as the flat tracks become wooden ladders and narrow steps the ocabu trail is much more challenging but keeping the hikers company is a primordial blanket of ancient trees a sense of calm permeates the overgrowth as time slows down the forest is quiet only here does shinrin yoku reach its full effect then after hours of climbing the wooden steps that lead to the summit of yakushima island they see it jomon tsugi one of the oldest trees in the world any lingering discomfort from the grueling hike disappears in the presence of the tree its age transcends written human history and still it continues to grow [Music] back on the mainlands near the hot springs of kaga in the ishikawa prefecture there grows another ancient cedar standing 180 feet tall the great sugi of kayano welcomes visitors to the sugawara shrine behind it this tree is deemed sacred wrapping around its massive trunk is a shimanawa rope which denotes the presence of a kodama the spirits that inhabits trees [Music] deep within the jukai forest grows a third cedar tree which shares an affinity with these two tsugi also wrapped in shimanawa rope and towering above the forest this tree possesses a kadama of her own but in order to witness boseju the sacred mother we must cross the liminal boundary between reality and fantasy the bridge between these two worlds however is short if but a few steps on the other side is the vibrant storybook world of kamigawa a living facsimile of the history of the country that inspired it a world whose myths and locales and peoples are mirrors of our own at the onset of building the world of kamigawa back in the very early 2000s the top-down planes of innistrad theros amonkhet and kaldtime did not yet exist beyond arabian nights there was no blueprint of how to translate living lore into the game world the previous setting of miradin was closer in concept to science fiction than it was to high fantasy and bill rose the president of r d at the time insisted that the creative team use mythology as their primary source material to develop the following block after attending a distributors meeting in tokyo he returned to northwest washington adamant that magic's next setting would invoke the trappings and imagery of feudal japan brady dahmermath the creative director was not convinced and quickly identified four areas of difficulty with this pursuit 1. what would be considered mythology in the ancient greek or norse culture is current religious practice in japanese culture two many westerners just don't know much about ancient or feudal japan beyond samurai and ninja three many westerners confuse chinese or korean cultural elements with japanese or worse they don't think the differences are significant and four most westerners simply aren't familiar with the creatures and magic of japanese lore dahmermath's predictions about his audience were correct nearly two decades have passed since the publication of this article and yet most of these worries still ring true combined with a slew of mechanical issues and lackluster game design kamigawa was a terrific failure as a commercial product it sold poorly and players struggled with exactly what the creative team anticipated above but despite its troubled past the richness and depth of this world still offers exploration and intrigue in many ways kamigawa was far ahead of its time and only through retrospect can we understand and respect all the efforts that led to its creation we can start with the symbol of champions of kamigawa the first set in the block this is a torii gate the torii gates is perhaps the most instantly recognizable and iconographic image associated with japan well beyond pop culture exports like hello kitty and that cheerful electric mouse the structure is prolific in the country and each one marks the entrance to a shinto shrine called a jinja before entering a jinja one must purify themself with water at basins located just outside the shrine and once within they can pay their respects to the kami the spirits that live in everything as with all sacred spaces ritual and etiquette is involved in every step of worship machinto is not a religion it is a practice a tradition a way of behaving more than a way of believing shinto is at the core of kamigawa's storytelling unlike other religions that have been codified into the game world like the church of abison for example kamigawa was explicit about its ties to a real world's theological counterpart as will become appearance the separation between reality and fantasy was tenuous in this block and future top-down worlds would learn from the risks associated with staying too close to the source material in the final product because of this we can treat kamigawa as a sort of museum a viewing gallery to learn about japan where nearly every card has an analog in the real world take for example ebony owl netsuke tournament players will recognize it as a key piece to the popular owling mine combo deck from this era natsuke however are not a fantasy invention they were tiny sculptures that adorns the kimono of merchants throughout the 17th century acting as a counterbalance to small crafted boxes called inro that carried accoutrement like tobacco or medicine matsuke were highly detailed trinkets that attached to the top of the sash called an obi typically carved in ivory or cypress wood these ornaments signaled wealth for a social class that was otherwise not allowed to flaunt their economic success ornate kansashi also points to another traditional japanese craft dating back to as early as the jomon period kansashi have fluctuated in popularity utility and appearance for centuries in the modern era brides maiko and even young girls wear kansashi in their hair for wedding ceremonies or coming of age celebrations in 1982 sumami kansashi which feature intricate flower designs made of pinched and folded cloth were officially designated as traditional handcraft in tokyo alongside natsuki and kansashi kamigawa also showcases traditional japanese weapons instruments and items used in shinto rituals the jitte or jute for example flourished in the edo period within members of the military and police to bring a sword into the shogun's palace was a crime punishable by death so alternative weapons like the jitte became standard issue for the guard umizawa's here seems to be made of iron but some jitte were made of wood in either case the weapon was a blunt object not sharp like a psy might be the hook there called a kagi was used to snag at clothing push into weak joints or even grab at a victim's open mouth or nose the koto is an instrument whose 13 strings sound instantly recognizable as seen in this video by rob scallon featuring tokiko kimura ryokoto are much bigger than that depicted in the card illustration and they lay flat along a surface not held like a guitar while one hand plucks the strings behind the movable ivory bridges the other bends them to create slight shifts and accents in pitch [Music] here's a wood block print by katsushika hokusai from circa 1800 which depicts a woman carrying what would later become recognized as the national instrument of japan even cards as innocuous as long forgotten gohei provide insight into japanese history and tradition used by priests to cleanse a sacred place or bless objects carrying negative energy gohei are wooden wands decorated with two zigzagging shide streamers made of paper this card also hints at the central point of tension of the kamigawa story between the name and flavor text we get the impression that that which was holy has turned against those who once revered it this was the narrative crux of the bloc pitched as shinto gone wrong kamigawa's primary conflict was a clash between the mortal world called utsushio and the spirit realm called kakurio driving the narrative was konda lord of aiganjo who stole the essence of the supreme kami deity called okagachi in search of immortality thus initiating the 20 years kami war as spirits tore through the veil and invaded kamigawa the citizens of the plain faced not just their mortality but the total dissolution of a sanctified world the psychological trauma of the war permeates the entirety of the block from the grandiose events to the mundane normalities of daily life once we prayed to the kaijin for safe voyage now we only pray that we can escape their gaze hayato master sailor it seemed an easy thing to step into the nothingness to fall to die but then for an instant i saw it eyes filled with endless sorrow and i turned back to face my pain snowfer kitsune poet as i died i rejoiced i would see my family again but then i woke up back on the battlefield back in kamigawa back in hell that third piece on yomiji who bars the way was written by my esteemed guest for this episode ray nakazawa my name is ray nakazewa i've been writing for and about games for half my life now but over half my life now but it uh all started with magic i called ray for insight into writing flavor text for kamigawa so much of world building lives in snippets of italicized text and i was curious about the stories that he and his colleagues sought to tell in the margins of these cards i saw them once when i was a child they led me to my parents arms when i was lost why have they abandoned me now why won't they take me home again unnamed beggar one piece of flavor text that comes up uh quite a bit that i didn't write i think jj moldenhauer salazar did write it was a wandering ones and i think that he sort of captures the immediate mood very well this idea that things are going wrong that there was a time where things were better and now they're getting worse for reasons that the average person doesn't understand yet the idea just to give a sense you know of just how serious this is that you know these are mortals fighting against their own gods and how big a deal that is the motif of common folk facing a tradition that has betrayed them also appears in this suite of flavor text penned by nakazawa the orochi are one of five humanoid creatures of kamigawa they populate the zhukhai forest and like the other tribes they must reconcile with the inversion of their truths the young come to me confused they've been taught to respect the kami and now they must fight them i do not know what to say sachi to her father nothing is the same anymore the forests are not as lush the water not as pure the air not as clear without the kami to direct and sustain the forces of nature it's only a matter of time before we feel their neglect gale force and stone rain are also nakazawa at work here the kami weaponized their control over weather events in order to destroy the world the balance of power has shifted entirely leaving the citizens of kamigawa helpless against an omnipotent foe i followed a few key words here one being desperate i really wanted to get across that sense of danger being everywhere of how serious the situation was but i'd say some of that whimsical mood does creep in in the end things do work out kamigawa does survive in some form so there is a little bit of room to ease off on the despair and the hopelessness that some of the flavor texts express because we at least the reader do know it eventually does get better somehow which i think is important because i don't think this is a set that would have benefited from sort of a relentless mood of doom that you know some other settings have played with along with maintaining a contrast between despair and whimsy nakazawa used flavor text as an opportunity to turn game mechanics into narratives what happens to the orochi when they die sakura tribe elder answers this question with a lovely image of death sprouting new life there were no tombstones in orochi territory slain warriors were buried with a tree sapling so they would become a part of the forest after death sakura tribe builder doesn't come up so much as as flavor text but that's another example of like i said of filling in gaps details of the world that were too fine to you know even put in the style guide another beautiful detail that may go overlooked are the writings of noburu a master kite maker who nakazawa wrote into existence on three cards his dedication to his craft is emblematic of many japanese who carry on traditions that defy advancements in digital and industrial technologies the kansas i mentioned earlier are just one of so many art forms that take decades to master woodblock printmaking comes to mind too as well as the slow methodical art of kumiko which assembles tiny slates of wood into dazzling wall murals without the use of nails or adhesives as we slowly lose touch with the magic of making something with our hands from materials that grow in the dirt the kite maker reminds us the jeweler the potter the smith they all imbue a bit of their souls into their creations the kami destroy that crafted mortal shell and absorb the soul within nobuoru master kite maker the concept of shinto gon wrong comes through in the second line here and points to what i believe was kamigawa's greatest world-building error all stories must present conflict but the premise of kami attacking the mortal realm simply doesn't make sense in the context of shinto values because shinto considers human beings as fundamentally pure and because there are no strict moral or ethical codes to follow if you wish to practice there is also no sense of punishment for disregarding shinto traditions participating in rites of passage visiting shrines and placing emphasis on life more than the afterlife all coalesce into a form of collective respect for the health of the world in many ways shinto is a fundamentally environmentalist form of animism but the idea of kami turning against the living is too far-fetched even when gamified and it mischaracterizes shinto as a vengeful ideology similarly the design of the kami is misrepresentative of the spirits that inhabits all things in shinto it is clear that they were intentionally concepted to appear otherworldly many of the spirits are adorned with floating appendages and impossible body shapes admittedly the challenge of painting the immaterial and invisible is difficult but these kami come through the breach looking more like creatures of a drug-induced psychedelic dream world in a different high fantasy setting on another of magic's infinite planes these designs would be excellent but because kamigawa stayed so close to shinto at its foundation it wrote itself directly into a corner at the level of appropriate representation in other words yeah these kami look really cool but i don't think they should have been kami in the first place returning to dalmart's list of worries it is true that most westerners simply aren't familiar with the creatures and magic of japanese lore let alone the spiritual practices that have tradition spanning generations and so presenting kami as threatening monsters did no service to players who otherwise did not know any better had kamigawa's original name in reikai been used which translates roughly to the dark spiritual world this premise would have been forever ingrained into the plane's identity instead the creative team went with the backup name which was easier to pronounce kamigawa the river of the gods stayed very close to japan for its inspiration and aside from this twist on shinto it was also built with a lot of care this was a relatively early attempt to connect a magic world within with an average culture so there was a certain feeling of responsibility especially for you know someone like me whose father is actually from that country to i guess reflect well on its basis like i said i wanted to do justice to the existing tradition even though obviously they weren't exactly the same in fact there was originally a desire to lean even further into japanese terminology for card names the idea was to have a simple card name something innocuous like fearsome ogre carry an anglicized japanese name underneath it in a subtitle text box this may have helped mitigate the culture gap and give tournament players an easier handle on pronunciation and deckless transcription the cycle of legendary dragons too were originally slated to have longer names to instill them with a sense of grandiosity the red dragon's full name was originally ryusei the falling star lord of the sokenzin heights such a textbox treatment wouldn't take shape until 15 years later in the iquoria expansion and i think there's a lot of potential to make use of this tech in future magic sets in taking domino's worries as a challenge to myself to learn more about japan i'd like to look at a few more cards that connect the game world to legitimate japanese history and culture the first is here on kumano master yamabushi the illustration by adam rex depicts a katana-wielding shaman braving the snow deep in the sokenzen mountains the design comes from the yamabushi of the same name ascetic monks who take punishing voyages into the mountains in search of metaphorical death after hiking up rocky trails and thin sandals and crushing themselves under waterfalls they return from the mountain to leap over an open flame which is symbolic of their rebirth notice the conch shell hanging from kumano that is called a horagai which the yamabushi used as a trumpet to communicate with one another across the mountains [Music] the kitsune are another creature with origins in japanese folklore thought to be benevolent messengers of the gods these fox spirits can possess up to nine tails each one marking 100 years of life and symbolizing their supreme intelligence and wisdom many of us grew up admiring a couple of kitsune in pokemon in magic the kitsune are clerics and samurai in white whose flavor text characterizes them as knowledgeable and compassionate and poetic the most notable eight and a half tails is among my favorite cards from all of kamigawa ray nakazaw's short story of the same name details the tragic error that befell this kitsune which unintentionally helped kanda initiate the kami war as an offering of penance the fox cut off half of his ninth tail deeming himself unworthy of the honor it represented contrasting the kitsune's benevolence are the zubara faceless humans who have been pulled into the kami world with nightmarish results known as noperabal the most well-known of these ghost stories titled mujina features a woman hunched over and crying stranded on the roadside who when offered assistance turns to reveal her completely smooth and featureless face miyazaki has used noperabol in pompoco and more famously in spirited away to great storytelling effect the zubara endemic to kamigawa are equally mysterious and unnerving and mechanically benefit from death adjacent to the terrifying noperable are the goryo and the unreal the vengeful spirits of japanese mythology the most famous example in popular culture is perhaps koji suzuki's ringu whose imagery has haunted me for decades kamigawa has a pair of cards inspired by this concept the flavor text of footsteps of the goryo details how angry spirits are born from violent deaths and guardio's vengeance turns that narrative into a game mechanic the latter card has provided countless stories and gameplay loops all its own bringing back the dead for ruthless and game ending attacks and still the references continue the more i browsed the card image gallery the more tangents opened up the deeper the roots became everything has origin somewhere elsewhere for instance the soratami like the zubara derive from one story called the tail of the bamboo cutter in which an old harvester finds a princess nestled within the stock of a severed bamboo we learn that she comes from the moon and after attracting the attention of the emperor she returns home leaving him in great sadness the moon folk of kamigawa live in the clouds their character design evokes hair-like features long white faces and dangling ribbons that resemble ears hearken back to the idea that in the craters of the moon the japanese see not a face of a man but the shape of a rabbit and still the references continue kamigawa was in in a sense uh a storybook world before lore wind was it takes place pretty far in the past i think that's a reason why kamigawa stuck with me something about it being in the far past and it being based on a more traditional portrayal of a past setting gave it that storytelling atmosphere very strongly and i think that's why that's why it sort of resonated with me so i guess i'd describe the world as a glyphs of the past that we as the writers the group of us we're trying to bring forward kamigawa is old in the literal sense the plane has endured thousands of years spanning deep into the past and very soon projecting far into the future the kami war delivered existential trauma to the living who suffered not just their own deaths but a schism with their faith on the macro and in the micro we feel the ripple effects of this crisis from brief lines of flavor text to resounding card names and extravagant illustrations there is a sense of scale in kamigawa that reflects the creative team's gigantic ambition against the task presented to them every card offers a story a trail that leads back to its source material a path welcomed to any who wish to follow it at the same time the request to build a world based on a country with centuries of arts and culture and history was perhaps asking a bit too much from the medium in which it lived repurposing that country's spiritual practices was also in my eyes an unnecessary overstep but kamigawa endures it has been nearly 20 years since its creation and in that time many players have grown older and moved away from the game style guides have changed and methodologies on world building have learned from the mistakes made in magic's first major top-down world the birth of the game's most popular format too is likely indebted to these 621 cards without which i can't imagine elder dragon highlander existing at least in its current form soon we will return to the zhukai forest growing there slowly will be the sacred mother she will be wrapped in shimanawa rope and stand towering above a metropolis of glowing lights defiantly resisting the fallacy of progress and embodying the passage of time she looks like her relatives the great cedar trees of japan who like its people endure the world is old it rewards those who take time to grow [Music] this episode was sponsored by card kingdom and coalesce follow the links below to pick up magic cards and merchandise everything you purchase directly supports the show i'd like to extend a very special thank you to ray nakazawa for his time and insights on his website you can find all of the cards for which he wrote flavor text both within kamigawa and the set surrounding it he wanted me to tell you that he apologizes it hasn't been updated for decades but i think that gives it all the more charm thank you ray i've been honored to celebrate your work here finally as the patreon credits roll i'd like to thank all my friends for breathing life into the flavor text i picked for this episode i'll leave you with a few more including another of my favorites from nakazawa's portfolio unearthly blizzard thanks so much for watching we are trapped the mountains and blinding comedy storms have made us hopelessly lost we are starving in the name of all things sacred please send help lost battalion final message to general takano how can we hope to match the speed of lightning the fury of storms the power of mountains the answer is simple we cannot i advise against this war sensei hisoka led her to lord konda these nazumi they disgust me the things they will do for money no other thinking creature would consider this of course makes them useful beyond words maloku the clouded mirror imagine a dove flying through smoke does the dove injure the smoke [Music] does the smoke impede the dove teachings of eight and a half tails do not fall into the trap of thinking you understand the kami can not a drop of water be due on the meadow a glacier's thaw or the tear of a child sensei hisoka after his death monk spent 10 years transcribing the tattoos from ricky's body and gathering stories from those who spoke with him thus the volume you hold was written the history of kamigawa you

Channel: Rhystic Studies

Views: 221,755

Keywords: magic the gathering, mtg, trading card game, themagicmansam, rhystic studies, kamigawa, rei nakazawa, flavor text

Id: 5Z1CAYTMm3I

Length: 29min 4sec (1744 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/CountedCrow]

Another banger from Sam.

I really enjoyed the section criticizing the design and use of the kami as vengeful horrors. I love the weird-looking spirits in Kamigawa blocks, but no small amount of that admiration was a baseless assumption of authenticity.

Edit: To clarify, I'm saying specifically the psychedelic designs I love so much (as seen on [[Hana Kami]], [[Kami of Twisted Reflection]], and [[Pain Kami]] for instance) I had wrongly assumed were representative of how Kami appear in Shinto. In terms of how Kami actually behave and their relationship with vengeance, I am not an authority, and neither is Sam.

[u/Moist_Crabs]

I always forget that OG Kamigawa has some of the best flavor text. [[Night of Soul's Betrayal]] is existentially horrifying, but Sam picked so many examples of damn beautiful text I hadn't seen before. Bravo

[u/ian22042101]

Seeing this video and Spice8racks video back to back gave me some interesting differing perspectives on old kamigawa.

[u/naritori]

Damn, I just checked his channel out of the blue an hour ago or so and didn't see anything.

[u/Vigilante_8]

Wandering Ones has one of the best flavors text on all of Magic: the Gathering

“I saw them once, when I was a child. They led me to my parents’ arms when I was lost. Why have they abandoned me now? Why won’t they take me home again?” —Unnamed beggar

Top 10 for sure.

[u/FlubzRevenge]

I really wish Rhystic would go back to "The Magic Art of", it's been 2 years, has there been any specific reason why he stated he wouldn't go back to it? There are still dozens of great artists to make videos for, and these were my favorite for MTG ever. Hell, some of my favorite videos on youtube. Legitimately made me appreciate and see the art so much more for these artists.

/u/themagicmansam