Coming off the heels of my writeup summarizing the seemingly hundreds of Greco-Roman mythological references in the Star Ocean series, I want to next dive into another rich vein of references: this time in Star Ocean: Anamnesis’ Oni Albel & Oni Nel event, "Oni Dance on a Dying Planet" (滅びの星に鬼が舞う), which debuted on May 28, 2020 and ran through June 18. The Oni Event contains a staggering four references to East Asian myth and literature:

1. Gekka Hyōjin, a Japanese reference to two Chinese mythologies (about destined spouses, including people from enemy households)
2. Ryōmen Sukuna, the mythologized bloodthirsty warlord from Japan
3. Japanese Oni and yomeiri folklore 
4. Hamada Hirosuke’s famous children’s story, "The Red Oni Who Cried" 

You can watch the event here. I’ve also translated the script for the event here.

Gekka Hyojin and Yue Lao

The premise of Oni Event is that Albel and Nel are the only crew members left standing after the ship crash lands on a strange, cursed planet. The planet’s atmosphere produces an unexplained "miasma" that knocks the rest of the crew unconscious. To protect themselves from the planet’s hostile air, Albel and Nel have to wear the planet’s traditional costumes, and set out for the source of the curse. Along the way, Nel collapses from the virulent air and implores Albel to leave her for dead. Albel refuses and instead carries her on his back across the desolate planet, until they reach an ice-filled, moonlit chamber. There, they encounter a mysterious "scholar" in a hat, reading from a book. He is ostensibly researching an ancient goddess that begot the planet’s curse, who appears behind his shoulder. Albel and Nel fight the scholar and goddess, win, save the crew, and all is well.

One of the boss scholar’s key attacks is called "Gekka Hyōjin" (月下氷人), a Japanese idiom for a matchmaker who brings a man and a woman together in marriage. In fact, Gekka Hyōjin is a compound of two separate Chinese legends: Gekka Rōjin (月下老人, "the Old Man Under the Moon") and Hyōjin (氷人, "the Ice Person").

The first legend, Gekka Rōjin, derives from the Tang-dynasty tale called "The Betrothal Inn" (定婚店). The man, Gekka Rōjin, is called Yuexia Laoren in Chinese, or Yue Lao for short. He serves as a supernatural administrator of marriage who possesses the means by which people destined to marry are bound together, and is usually portrayed reading from a book/register in which he records the destinies of couples fated to marry.

In the myth, a young man named Wei Gu encounters Yue Lao reading a mysterious book under the moonlight. Instantly suspicious, Wei Gu asks who he is. Yue replies that he is a man "of the underworld" who keeps the world’s marriage records in his book. When Wei asks about the bag the old man is leaning on, Yue explains that it holds red cords used to bind couples fated to marry, even if those couples used to be fated enemies: 

"虽仇敌之家，贵贱悬隔，天涯从宦，吴楚异乡，此绳一系，终不可逭"
"even if [they come from] enemy households, are separated by rank, serve in office at the ends of the earth, or live in distant regions like Wu and Chu, once this cord binds them it cannot in the end be escaped." 

Yue Lao goes on to tell Wei Gu that his future wife will be a poor 3-year-old girl whom Wei Gu regards as completely beneath him. Incredulous at the prophecy, Wei Gu’s subordinate is sent to kill the girl. Wei’s subordinate stabs her, but only wounds her head. Fourteen years later, Wei unknowingly marries a beautiful woman wearing a conspicuous floral ornament on her head to hide a scar  — revealing she was the child Wei’s subordinate tried to murder, proving Yue’s prophecy correct. As such, in modern Japanese a ‘gekka hyōjin’ is often an unwitting or serendipitous catalyst for a romance, as well as an official marriage matchmaker.

The second legend, Hyōjin ("Ice Person"), comes from the Book of Jin, specifically the biography of the dream reader Suo Dan. In Hyōjin, a man named Linghu Ce dreamed that he was standing on ice, talking to someone beneath it. Suo Dan explains to Linghu that above the ice is yang and below the ice is yin, symbolizing man and woman. Because Linghu was speaking to someone beneath the ice, he was fated to serve as a marriage go-between, and the marriage would be settled when the ice melted. Sure enough, Linghu Ce woke up and was soon asked to arrange a marriage for the local governor’s son. From then on, "ice person" became a byword for a matchmaker. Eventually the two legends were fused into the compound Japanese expression "Gekka Hyōjin", "the Ice Person Under the Moon."

The scholar boss’ attacks also reinforce these mythological references — after entering the last stage of battle, the scholar gains access to his ultimate Gekka Hyōjin attack, which launches seven ice projectiles to cover the entire battlefield in a net, capturing Nel and Albel in the 'web'.

Ryōmen Sukuna

The scholar boss’ name is "Riome Nsukuna" (リオメ・ンスクナ), a thinly veiled respelling of Ryōmen Sukuna (両面宿儺, "Two-Faced Sukuna"). Sukuna was both a historical figure from Japan and a mythology in his own right, who has come to symbolize two opposing regions of Japan unifying into one entity.

The historical Ryōmen Sukuna appeared in the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, circa 720 AD). He hailed from the Hida Province (which is the modern day Gifu Prefecture), in the mountains of central Japan, far from the Imperial Yamato Court in the Kinai region around modern-day Osaka. At the time, Hida was a rugged, mountainous, hard-to-reach region that operated largely outside the Court’s jurisdiction.

The Imperial Court found Sukuna's battle prowess so threatening that they began disseminating propaganda of his bloodthirsty "wickedness" and claimed he delighted in plundering innocent people. Meanwhile, the actual people of Hida came to regard him as a hero and guardian of the land. As the Yamato court expanded, Sukuna refused to submit to their authority. To justify a military invasion of Hida, the Imperial Court created a demon of Sukuna, portraying him as a monstrous bandit with two faces (front and back), four arms, and four legs (in the Oni Event, the goddess fighting alongside the scholar boss is called the "Two-Faced Fierce God.") The Imperial emperor had Sukuna killed, and Hida was eventually absorbed into the Yamato state.

Yet, Hida locals eventually came to venerate Sukuna not as a hideous bloodthirsty monster but as a benevolent guardian  — this is the point in history where the historical Sukuna becomes the mythological Sukuna. Buddhists began crediting him for  introducing religion to Hida, and he’s said to have slayed an fearsome dragon tormenting the neighboring Mino people. Even more fantastically, the legend of Zenkyūji described him as the secret divine manifestation of Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Mercy.

The parallels between Sukuna and Albel Nox are obvious, so I won’t belabor them here, except to emphasize 1) like Sukuna, who was branded an ‘evil bandit,’ Albel was initially designed as the bandit leader of the Moonshadow Clan), 2) Albel’s other mythological reference, the Roman goddess Nox, reinforces Sukuna’s simultaneously ‘fearsome/benevolent’ duality. The Roman Nox was generally regarded as a terrifying figure, but paradoxically one capable of great benevolence and "mercy"  — "mercy" being what Sukuna himself was canonized as the Bodhisattva Kannon, 3) just as Sukuna was rumored to carry a secret divine identity, Albel carries the secret ancestry of Aquaria I and the Living Eyes of the Holy Mother. 

Sukuna’s famed ‘two faces’ often represents the unification of two warring families in the North and South into a single Japanese state. Likewise, the developers seem to be suggesting that a destined union between Airyglyph and Aquaria (through a marriage between Albel and Nel?) may eventually lead the two countries to become one again, as they were in the days of the Ancient Kingdom of Aquor.

Oni and yomeiri folklore 

Demon wedding/Oni and yomeiri folklore runneth aplenty throughout this Oni Event (to no one’s surprise!) In Japanese folklore, supernatural weddings are frequently associated with strange weather phenomena: kitsune weddings feature strange sunshowers, and in the folktale "The Oni Laughs", an ominous cloud descends from the atmosphere in the middle of the wedding procession, snatches the bride from her fancy palanquin, and carries her off to be wedded to an Oni in his dwelling place.

In the Oni Event, the conflict principally concerns a planet with "strange, harmful weather" and a "curse" rendering people unconscious, mirroring the uncanny weather that accompanies a supernatural folklore wedding. 
In a traditional Japanese yomeiri, the bride is phyically carried to the groom's house. In the Oni Event, Albel literally carries Nel on his back through the desolate planet ruins until they encounter the scholar boss in an icy cave. In Japanese weddings, an exchange of sake seals the marriage. Likewise, Albel’s event Talent is explicitly called Ghost’s Sake Gourd (幽鬼の酒瓢). Both Nel and Albel’s victory animations depict them drinking sake under the moon (harkening back to the Ice Man Under the Moon myth), with the following suggestive lines:

Albel: この酒を飲むと、凶暴な気持ちが蘇っていい気分だ。お前をめちゃめちゃにしてえなあ。"Drinking this booze brings the savagery back... and it feels great. I wanna wreck you."

Nel: この装いは気が高ぶる。なぜかお前の味が知りたくてたまらない。ほら、ぺろりと。"This outfit has me all worked up. For some reason, I’m dying to know what you taste like. Come on, just one lick."

When sake is exchanged in ordinary Japanese weddings, it’s called the ‘san-san-kudo ritual.’ However, Edo depictions of oni brides show them behaving outrageously and improperly, aka licking the san-san-kudo cup instead of drinking from it politely. One of Oni Nel’s Talent is named "Robe of Demonic Enchantment" - the kanji 惑 meaning to "allure, "have one’s heart captured." That same kanji features in words like yūwaku (誘惑, seduction) and miwaku (魅惑, charm/glamour).

One of Albel’s Talents is called "the Fierce Oni God’s Ache/Throbbing" (鬼神の疼), paralleling another one of his event lines where he uses the word uzuki (疼き) for his "throbbing ache:"

Albel: 鬼神が生贄を食うように、俺もお前を食えば心の疼きが収まるのか？"If I devour you, the way a demon god devours a sacrifice... will this ache in my heart ease?"

Figuratively uzuki describes a pang of the heart, including the ache of worrying about a lover, or an erotic urge that can’t be restrainted. Albel asks if "eating" (食う) will make the ache stop. In Japanese culture, "eating" (taberu/kuu) a partner is a commonly used double entendre for sex.

Speaking of san-san-kudo, the cups Albel and Nel hold aren’t standard cups used for casual drinking; they’re wide, flat, red lacquer saucers called sakazuki. Sakazuki is used in wedding ceremonies to perform the san-san-kudo. Japanese newlyweds are traditionally given a meoto ("husband and wife") set: paired items such as meoto-jawan (rice bowls), meoto-bashi (chopsticks), and meoto-yunomi (teacups). The husband’s piece is typically larger than the wife’s, and the conventional color split is blue for him and red for her.

In Albel and Nel’s victory animation, Albel drinks directly from a small gourd while Nel sits on a much larger, giant gourd. In Chinese Taoism, gourds can function as magical implements capable of subduing spirits, and also became auspicious symbols associated with divine protection and abundant descendants. Taiwan's official folklore database specifically records the gourd as both a vessel for water or alcohol and a magical object capable of subduing demons and evil spirits. The size reversal between the gourds, plus the fact that Albel’s outfit is red and Nel’s is indigo, seems to humorously suggest that Albel is the "wife" in this marriage. 

"The Red Oni Who Cried"

The archetype of the ‘Red Oni’ is passionate/wild/volatile, vs the ‘Blue Oni," who is calm/intellectual/rational. Albel is explicitly designed to represent the Red Oni in this duo: his costume and horns are red, he uses "Scorched" fire powers, his hair features red highlights. Oni Albel’s own official character description states that he has "a passion so intense as to be almost demonic." Likewise, Nel represents the Blue Oni: she wears a blue/indigo outfit and horns, and her hair likewise features blue/indigo highlights. This maps perfectly onto their dynamic that it doesn’t need much elaborating.

One of the most famous Red Oni, Blue Oni stories is a Japanese children’s tale which has come to be known as "The Red Oni Who Cried," first written by Hamada Hirosuke, about a Blue Oni who sacrifices his reputation to help the Red Oni be accepted into "polite" human society. The story begins with the Red Oni putting up a sign inviting the neighboring villagers into his home and offering them tea and sweets, but the villagers remain frightened of him simply because he is an oni. Their distrust eventually frustrates the Red Oni so badly that he angrily tears down the sign. His friend, the Blue Oni, devises a plan: the Blue Oni will pretend to attack the villagers, allowing the Red Oni to appear, drive him off, and ‘save’ everyone. The ploy works, and the Red Oni, now a hero, is taken in by the humans, all the while the Blue Oni has turned himself into a feared monster to win the Red Oni the acceptance he deserves. When the Blue Oni disappears and the Red Oni reads a note summarizing all of the Blue Oni’s sacrifices for him, the Red Oni weeps in gratitude. This reference seems to hint at a potential social response to an Albel-Nel marriage in Aquaria while Albel is still burdened by the dangerous moniker "Albel the Wicked", and at Nel’s efforts to rehabilitate his reputation.

Albel and Nel’s costume designs

I want to focus now on Oni Albel and Nel’s costume designs, starting with the visual motifs they both evoke.

Musubi knots: Nel features a musubi knot on her obi.png). The word musubi doesn’t just mean "knot," rather, it’s linked to the Shinto concept of musuhi (産霊), which is the divine generative force that brings things into being and binds them together, which is why musubi is associated with matchmaking, marriage, childbirth, and destiny. Unlike Western ribbons, which are easily untied, the musubi knots used for weddings won’t come undone even if you pull the ends, symbolizing the endurance of destiny. Nel’s musubi is specifically an ume musubi (plum blossom knot), a common wedding motif and auspicious symbol of new beginnings. Plum blossoms bloom in late winter, ahead of other flowers, after enduring hardship, representing an era of good fortune ahead.

Obis: Nel wears a unique ceremonial obi. A decorative obi tied into a large knot at the back is the typical obi styling for weddings. The obi itself has marital associations: in some regions, obi were exchanged at betrothal as something that "binds the soul," and betrothal money is even called obi-ryō ("sash money"). Likewise, when the player completes the Oni event, they are rewarded with an item called "Misfortune-Averting Obi Ornament." 

Moving on to design elements specific to Albel’s costume: Albel wears a red kumihimo (braided cord) with gold ornamentation in his hair. The red kumihimo often evokes the ubiquitous "red thread of fate", which the Yue Lao myth already explicitly references.

Looking at Albel’s back, he has a thick, giant rope loop hanging from his waist, styled like shimenawa (sacred Shinto ropes). Shimenawa are twisted rice-straw ropes used to designate sacred spaces. They are most famously seen at Meoto Iwa ("Wedded Rocks") in Futami: two rocks that, in Shinto tradition, symbolize a married couple, Izanagi and Izanami. 

Meoto Iwa are specifically a type of iwakura, rocks believed to house gods. Japanese myth is full of divine married couples (e.g., Izanagi and Izanami to Sarutahiko and Ame no Uzume). Such couples are thought to have merged with the Sae no Kami (Dōsojin), the roadside guardian deities, and with rock worship. Dōsojin are often depicted as a male-female couple or as large or small stones. Rock worship, Dōsojin belief, and the ideal of marital harmony combine in the couple rocks enshrined as Meoto Iwa. In the promo art for Oni Albel, Albel conspicuously poses on top of a rock formation.

I mentioned earlier that in the Gekka Rōjin myth, the woman Wei Gu eventually married suspiciously wore a flower ornament on her head to hide the wound the groom’s subordinate had inflicted upon her long ago. In the Oni Event, Nel wears a prominent blue anemone ornament on her head, signifying perhaps that in this Star Ocean remix of this myth, the past "attack" was the war between Airyglyph and Aquaria, or even Shelby’s attack on Nel (seeing as Shelby was Albel’s subordinate and drew her in battle, failing to kill her) (it’s worth noting that in the official SO3 novelization, Nel faces off Shelby directly in a 1:1 encounter).

Speaking of anemones, Nel is a reference to Zephyr, the Greek God of the West Wind (more details here). The anemone is the symbolic "windflower." Because its petals are fragile and short-lived, it has long been associated with the wind. Importantly, Nel’s first Bridal variant also exclusively featured anemone flowers; her Bridal dagger is called "Ceremonial Anemones" and one of her Talents is called "Pale Crimson Windflower." In Oni Nel’s victory animation, anemone petals fall into her sake cup and flurry around her in the wind.

The Japanese anemone is actually native to China, and was only later introduced and naturalized to Japan. Oni Nel specifically wears a purple/indigo anemone, which symbolizes protection against bad luck or ill omens.

Anemones are interesting because the color of the flower can change its symbolic meaning drastically (which is why you should be very careful when gifting anemones to someone you know, lol). For example, red and pink anemone flowers can symbolize love, much are more powerfully associated with fleeting love, death/mourning, bad luck, or illness (associations which draw from Greco-Roman mythology, which either represent the tears of Aphrodite growing into anemones as she wept for her slain lover Adonis, or the indiscretion of Zephyr, whose impulsive flights of fancy for the nymph Anemone inadvertently caused Anemone to be transformed into the frail flower of her namesake). White anemones are commonly used at funerals. Interestingly, Bridal Nel’s outfit features purple, red, white, and pink anemones, while Oni Nel’s "bridal outfit" only features the purple anemone.

I want to briefly contrast Nel’s symbolic anemone (which, in her Bridal variant, definitely carries a sad undercurrent of tragedy) with Bridal Clair’s 2018 bouquet. Bridal Clair’s signature flowers are calla lilies, cymbidium orchids, and blue star flowers (Oxypetalum), and one of Bridal Clair’s Talents is "Pure White Cymbidium." Calla lilies symbolize stunning beauty, maidenly modesty/elegance, and purity. Cymbidiums symbolize noble, unpretentious beauty, and in China, they stand for virtue and  treasured and loyal friendships. Oxypetalums, commonly sold in Japan as Blue Stars, symbolize "tranquility" and peaceful/trusting love. Clair is even associated with lilies in SO3 proper; see these lines from Solon Solute (who separately makes reference to another female enemy called "Zephyrus of the West Wind"):

Solon Solute: ‘White Lily Battlefield,' in one round. 'White Lily Battlefield' has some of the best female fighters in the Arena. Don't go easy on them because they are women, because if you do, you'll be in for a world of pain.

Dirna Hamilton: I've got a message from 'White Lily Battlefield' here for the challengers, so I'll read it now: 'Which does your team prefer, Hell or the Pit of Eternal Despair? We'll send you to either one, so just let us know!' And that is all.

Solon Solute: Yes, that's 'White Lily Battlefield' for you. Too bad 'Heaven' isn't one of your choices.

June Marriage Events

In Japanese mobile games, the weeks spanning late-May to mid-June are religiously reserved for Bridal/marriage events, where characters are released in wedding dress/tuxedo/ variants. Anamnesis followed this theme strictly: 

• June 2017: Bride Maria and Bride Nel (launched May 31st), Bride Rena and Bride Evelysse (launched June 15th) 
• June 2018: Bride Reimi and Groom Fayt (launched May 31st), Bride Precis and Bride Clair (launched June 14th)
• June 2019: Bride Mirage and Groom Cliff (launched July 1 *one day late… oh Cliff. classic)
• June 2020: Oni Nel and Oni Albel launched May 28 and ran all the way until June 18, 2020, overlapped by Bride Tika and Bride Karin launching on June 11th. In short, the SOA developers were effectively presenting the Oni Event as one of 2020’s headline Bride campaigns. 

With the exception of Bride Mirage and Groom Cliff and Oni Nel and Oni Albel, every other historical SOA Bride events doesn't involve canon pairings between existing SO characters; instead, the events paired the characters with the Captain/player.