You are walking home alone. The sun is slowly dipping down over the horizon, the last rays of sunlight casting long, deep black shadows across your path. There is a tension in the moments before night falls; the air is blurry and any number of strange and magical things could be hanging just outside your vision. This is Omagatoki 逢魔時, the meeting time of yokai, the liminal space created during twilight where day changes to the fear of night and yokai begin to emerge. In Japanese, the kanji that make up this word consist of 逢= meeting, 魔=devil/demon/evil-spirit, 時= time, but it can also be written as 大禍時, or the time of great calamity. Twilight is inherently a liminal space, a time that is neither day nor night, where the fear of the darkness and uncertainty that the sunset brings is strongest, as people prepare for the unseen dangers that could await them at night. It is much harder for humans to see at twilight than at night because neither the cones (color receiving light sensitive cells) or rods (night light receiving cells) are working at full strength, and thus gives the imagination room to invasion anything hiding in the deep shadows made by the setting sun.
While on the surface there may feel odd to bother acknowledging, is important to distinguish omagatoki from the night in regard to the role they play in the narrative of most Japanese mythologies. Unlike night itself, omagatoki is not the time where monsters and supernatural forces exist, and often it is not even the time at which the protagonist encounters the supernatural force. It is merely the space where there is a shift from the world of the familiar to other. In this space, monsters are allowed to appear for their wild romps at night and heroes enter the layer of the supernatural. As one of the progenitors of the concept of omagatoki Toriyama Sekien describes it in his illustration of omagatoki in Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past, it is the time when evil spirits of the mountains and rivers attempt to materialize in the world[1] . Much like the transition from day to night that it represents literally, omagatoki often marks the metaphorical change that occurs within a narrative, which is what makes it such a compelling liminal space
Omagatoki is one of the most the most commonly occurring tropes in older Japanese mythology to transition between the natural and supernatural; it might be easier to list off stories that don’t employ it in one way or another. Because there is not a handful of stories directly tied to omagatoki, but instead many disparate stories across mythology that employ it, we will instead look at how it is used in a few select stories as a trope and its function within the text and metatext of the work.
One of the older tales that the employment of omagatoki can be see is from the tale of How an Itinerant Priest Encountered a Nocturnal Procession of Demons, a setsuwa from the Uji Shūi Monogatari (宇治拾遺物語). This story is one of the more of the instance that holds most literally to its name of the “meeting time of demons”. Within this tale, the wandering priest of the story is heading to the province of Settsu. As dusk approaches he encounters a temple called the Ryusen-ji and goes inside to rest. Around midnight, demons enter the temple, claim that it is theirs and kick the priest out onto the veranda so they have enough room inside the temple. At dawn, the temple vanishes and the priest finds himself across the province. Within this story omagatoki is juxtaposed with dawn to draw clear lines for the audience between the time when the fantastical is allowed to occur. The supernatural element (the non-existing temporal temple where the demons meet) is only seen by the priest when the day begins to change to night, and the definable setting and non-magical creatures only return after sunrise. As was discussed before, this is not necessarily where the priest is introduced to the truly fearful demons, but it is the time when the supernatural and uncanny elements of the story are introduced.
The key scene from the Story of Mimi Hashi no Hoichi also takes place during omagatoki. It is during twilight that the priest of Amida-ji writes the holy sutra of Hannaya-Shin-Kyo onto Hoichi’s body to shield him from the onibi (spirits) that have been haunting him. In this story as well, during omagatoki there are no actual encounters with evil spirits. Here the omagatoki is employed to signal not just a shift from the everyday to supernatural, but a tone-shift as well. Before this scene in the story there was little transition between Hoichi’s encounters with the onibi, and this space for build-up and tension as the characters discuss the potential danger Hoichi may be in help set the audience on edge and helps transitions the narrative to the darker subject matter at the end of the story. This tension would be missing if the story skipped straight into the night time scenes, which is why twilight is so useful as a transitional space here. It is not the point of danger, but the point where the danger becomes evident.
In the Tale of the Earth [Dirt] Spider 土蜘蛛草紙, which appear in many text the most notable of which is the Heike Monogatari 平家物語, the story revolves around the protagonist Raiko and his retainer as they enter an old mansion to battle the monster spider[2]. They enter the property of the mansion from a graveyard through several large gates during the sunset. This is an example of the use of three moments of liminal space to reinforce the transition between their world and the supernatural space of the Earth Spider. The graveyard functions as a liminal space by being a transitional space from the world of the dead to the world of the living, the gates signify the change from one threshold to another, and the twilight signifies to the audience that the encounters Raiko will have with the spirits in the mansion will take place during night.
It is important to note that as seen in these stories, it is common to use omagatoki alongside other forms of liminal space. As twilight is an ephemeral time, there usually needs to be more concrete liminal spaces for the characters of the story to exist in after the transition from day to night has been complete. In the setsuwa story, the scene takes place in the liminal space of an empty field, devoid of any other person or creature, which conveys a sense of uncomfortable isolation and fear even before the monsters are even introduced. The graveyard functions in the same way in the Tale of the Earth Spider, helping convey that the place Raiko and his retainer are moving to is one that blurs the line between the living and death before the characters encounter a single ghost. Because of the ephemeral nature of a sunset, the story needs an uncanny physical space to continue creating a sense of unease in the characters and audience alike. This is also why in many of these stories, omagatoki is treated much more like a scene transition, and is generally rushed through to get to the more interesting monster confrontation moments that happen after twilight.
When discussing the concept of omagatoki, it is important to point out that while other words used to refer to the symbolic concept of twilight in Japanese like kawatare彼は誰 (彼=he/person 誰= who) and tasogare黄昏( 黄=yellow 昏=evening/dusk/dark) my hold the same denotative meaning, they do not necessarily hold the same connotative meaning. Both kawatare and tasogare can be translated into twilight, however they derive from a greeting one would say when passing an indiscriminate figure during twilight. They were often asked at twilight, when it would have been harder to see someone’s face, which is how they became associated with twilight[3]. I would like to focus on the key difference between these two terms and omagatoki when describing twilight, and how I believe they have come to represent the fundamental change undergone in how Japan (as well as the rest of the world) has come to view the setting of twilight in narratives. Kawatare/tasogare have no inherent negative or scary connotations to them in the same way omagatoki (a word that can literally mean the “time of great calamity”) does. Instead, they forth a feeling of the unknown and uncertainty, which is a far more neutral emotion and leaves in the option for hope and joy. That blurry face in the distance may be a yokai, but it may also be a friend or neighbor or even your future love. Twilight is still a symbol of change and a period of transition, but that change no longer needs to be one that holds the fear of the monsters that lurk at night.
The introduction of electrical lighting into urban settings and the mass migration to city centers that was seen all across the world starting in the mid-1800’s caused a change in human’s relationship to twilight and darkness. One of the predominant changes was that twilight was no longer a time of transition for light to complete darkness. Now we have street lights, phones with flashlights and stores open 24-hours with glowing signage; light is everywhere and constant and intense. In major cities like Tokyo, one would be hard pressed to find a truly dark space at any point at night. This is all to say, the fear of night no longer exists purely in what could be hiding in the darkness, because the is no true darkness to be found. In the modern age of electronics, the fear of the darkness comes from isolation. Especially in densely populated areas like Japan, there is a feeling in the 20st/21st century there is no where we can go that does not hold human life, where we are truly alone. There is something disquieting to the idea of being alone in a space where you know there are other people, whether that be physically alone or socially/emotionally isolated from other.
This can be seen in more modern (post-industrial) mythology coming out of Japan. These mythologies and ghost stories shares many characteristics to the English “urban-fantasy” genre; both are generally stories that re-imaging older mythologies from their culture in a modern and urban landscape. Tales of the Metropolis 都会の幽気 by Toyoshima Yoshio 豊島与志雄 from Kaiki: Uncanny Tales from Japan Vol. 3 is an example of these modern ghost stories. While pre-Meji era mythology may have had scenes that took place in “urban” environments, there weren’t many where the urban environment is explored in great detail in the way it is in Tales of the Metropolis. The first paragraphs of the story are dedicated to exploring the relationship between the ghost and the city they inhabit. This attention to detail and exploration of the details of the city helps give the urban landscape our protagonist walks through a firm grounding in time and space. The city itself is anthropomorphized within the narrative, with the author describing parts of it as “silent, slumbering streets” (98) and an “eerie, confused town” (102)[4]. It creates the sense that the town—and the ghosts that are tied to it—are a human-like presence in the story and characters in their own right, without being human.
This goes back to the idea of isolation being a greater fear than the monsters that might hide in the dark in our modern era. There is no monster that attacks the protagonist or attempt to trick him. It is just him—his feelings of isolation, aimlessness, and fear of losing control—and the ghosts of the city, who are as the story describes them “countless traces, countless human shapes—human shapes that have formed out of their ardent desires, human shapes left everywhere from each and every moment” (111). These ghosts are not tangible presences that can hurt the narrator, but they help create a feeling of both being overwhelmed by the presents of people and being alone mentally. It plays off the anxiety of always being observable that one can experience in a densely populated; that there is always someone looking at you, even if you feel like you are alone . These are far more familiar fear to people living in urban areas than simply the fear of what hides in the dark. When humans have become the dominant species, what else is more terrifying to us than other humans.
This is relevant to the discussion of omagatoki because the idea of omagatoki has a core foundation that the change from twilight is a negative change; the two translations of its name are literally “the meeting time of demons” and “the time of great calamity”. But when humans are no longer afraid of the monsters that lurk at night—be that imaged ones or the literal tigers that could attack someone while you are walking alone through the woods—than twilight no longer feels like a calamity; why would it, when there are street lights guiding your route home, and the trains run until the early hours of the morning, and all the bars are still open until 1 am? Instead, we see in this story that the time for transition into the world of the supernatural is not as firmly established as it has been in earlier mythology, but rather is connected to the feelings of isolation experienced in the narrator. One of the reoccurring times that ghosts start appearing in the story when the narrator begins to sense the supernatural at around 1 am as he walks home alone. This is much closer to the Western idea of when supernatural events begin to happen known as “the witching hour” (around 2 am – 4 am) than to the time of omagatoki. This can explain why the transition period for the supernatural became later, as 1 am is a far more isolated and silent time in a city than twilight, when nightlife is just beginning.
In the past few centuries, the nebulous space created by twilight has even become a space of safety for marginalized groups because of its association with an ambiguity, hidden identity and change. In her essay The "hour of pink twilight": Lesbian Poetics and Queer Encounters on the Fin-de-siècle Street Kat Flint makes the argument that twilight and dusk where used as tropes in turn of the century literature, especially those written by women for women, as a space where they could explore their taboo affections precisely because of the unsure liminal space it created. In her essay she describes it as “the magic quality of dusk, the moment at which the city seems denaturalized, fantastical” [5] . And while I can’t speak for the use of twilight as a trope in LGBTQIA+ literature within Japan specifically, this use of twilight to explore the excitement, magical and even taboo nature of romance can be seen in modern Japanese media.
As an example, in the movie Kimi No Na Wa, the sunset and twilight seem to be on the surface used as liminal and transitional spaces in the same way that they are used in the more traditional mythologies and fables. It seems that it is used in the movie as a framing device to transition from the common and every day to the mysterious and scary, as both the meteor strike witness by one of the main characters, Mitsuha, in the movie and the discovery of the destruction caused by the strike to Mitsuha’s town by the other main characters, Taki, happen during twilight. But within the movie, these are framed as moments of beauty and discovery rather than horror. There is unquestionable some tension as the audience sees the meteor break off as Mitsuha watches it, but the colorful animation and sweeping soundtrack accompanying it paint the moment as one of excitement rather than fear. And rather than a tragedy, this scene also ends up being a catalyst for Mitsuha and Taki to meet and eventually form a relationship[6].
There is an example of liminal space being used in the movie to convey a more traditional unease, when Taki walks through the remains of Mitsuha’s old village and enters a cave where he experiences a surreal vision of Mitsuha’s past. In this scene, the music switches to a low, plaintive melody and the visuals move from the vibrant color palate used in the rest of the movie to mute greys and final inverted, hyper saturated hues. In the language of film, this is the tone of fear, not bright colors and soft melodies. In contrast to that, the moment Mitsuha and Taki are reunited at twilight goes back to sweet melodies and bright colors. This is a weird, supernatural meeting, but one of joy and love and hope for the future. In fact, many of the discussions centered around the uncertainty of the future in this movie take place at twilight. One of the reoccurring songs in the movie is called Kawatare Doki. While the future can be terrifying, it can also be truly wonderful. The unknown of the future, like twilight, is a space for hope and joy as well as fear.
This is why twilight is so prevalent in modern media as moment of love confessions or climaxes . As our culture changes to one where the fear of the things hidden in the dark becomes less prevalent, the feeling of change and uncertainty that twilight brings changes to reflect the excitement and surprise that we can find in change. This is why omagatoki is far less relevant when discussing modern Japanese supernatural stories, and why terms like kawatare and tasogare work so much better at discussing the symbolic use of twilight in media.
[1] Sekien, Toriyama (Author), Matt Alt (Editor, Translator), Hiroko Yoda (Editor, Translator). Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of
Toriyama Sekien. United States of America, Dover Publications, 2017. Print.
[2] Kimbrough, Keller, and Haruo Shirane. Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds: A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales. New York, Columbia
University Press, 2018. Print.
[3] Figal, Gerald A. Civilization and Monsters Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan. Duke University Press, 2007.
[4] Tales of the Metropolis - Kaiki: Uncanny Tales from Japan, Vol. 3. Higashi, Masao (Editor), and Rampo Edogawa (Editor). Kurodahan Press, Vol. 3, 2012. pp. 95-112. Print.
[5] Flint, Kate. The "hour of pink twilight": Lesbian Poetics and Queer Encounters on the Fin-de-siècle Street. Victorian Studies, vol. 51 no. 4, 2009, pp. 687- 712. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/366920.
[6] Ichikawa, Minami, Noritaka Kawaguchi, Kenji Ota, Makoto Shinkai, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Ryō Narita, Nobunaga Shimazaki, Kaito Ishikawa, Kanon Tani, Michael Sinterniklaas, Stephanie Sheh, Kyle Hebert, Cassandra Morris, Ben Pronsky, Ray Chase, Catie Harvey, Masashi Andō, Ei Inoue, Ken'ichi Tsuchiya, Shunsuke Hirota, Kazuchika Kise, and Masayoshi Tanaka. Kimi No Na Wa (Your Name). , 2017.