EF#14 Ikkyu san

This week challenge from Blog English Club is the favorite cartoon.

Source : Wikipedia

In the 80s, for the fisrt time, I watched Japanese cartoon. Japanese cartoon was also known as anime. At that time Voltus V, and Ikkyu san were very well known. We watched the films from betamax video tapes that we borrowed from a video rental shop. Ikkyu san film was in Japanese with Indonesia subtitle.

“Suki suki suki suki Ikkyu san…. ” (Suki means like) was part of the theme song that I remembered very much. I prefer Ikkyu-san to Voltus V because of the anime was so smooth in motions and dialogs and also because of the beautiful pictures. And it did not show violence at all.

Ikkyu san was a Buddhist monk, a very well known one. It said that the film based on a true story. The film told the story of a little monk, only 5 years old. He was a clever and smart boy, who could solve any kind of problems with his intelligence and wit. He would sit in a lotus position, wet his two index fingers and rotated them above his head then meditated until he found the answers of the problems.

His real name was Senggiku Maru, a son of a novelty who lost in the civil war. That was why his mother Iyono Tsubone, brought him to the Ankoku temple, to keep him in a safe condition. Although war was ended there were many bossy soldies around, so people felt afraid. Ikkyu could not see her for a long time instead she gave him a doll. She gave him a teru-teru bozu, a kind of doll, as a prayer of sunshine, hanged at a branch of a tree in the temple. Every time Ikkyu felt sad he would ran over to the doll and cried under it.

I could not remember the details of the story, but I was lucky, I could find Ikkyu san films in youtube, so I watched it once again.

In the first episode when Ikkyu was washing turnip by the river, a bossy soldier came and called him, kozo, a novice, instead of a monk. Ikkyu did not want to be called that way. So Ikkyu showed a big turnip and asked for its name :”It is turnip”

Then, Ikkyu once again showed a small turnip :”What is it?”
“It is a turnip”
Ikkyu said : “A big or a small turnip is called by the name of turnip. Old or new monk are the same, they all called monk”.