Week 6 Essay: Japanese Mythology

This week I read Japanese Mythology as my unit. The main reason I chose this unit was because I looked through the chapters and saw that there was a story about a dragon, and I can’t really resist that. There were a lot of aspects of this unit that I really enjoyed and then there were only a few aspects that I would have preferred to have gone without. For the most part I really enjoyed this unit. I couldn’t say it was one of my favorites, but it was definitely enjoyable. The stories about Yamato and his wife Tacibana were my favorite part of the unit I think.

My favorite thing about this unit was, of course, the dragon. Along with the dragon though, I felt like the stories were very good at giving vivid descriptions of all of the creatures. It made me want to grab my sketchbook and draw all of them so I could actually see what that creature would have looked like. I love it when stories are really descriptive. It helps me to visualized what it is I am reading and the more I can visualize it, normally the more I enjoy it. The Labors of Yamato were my favorite set of stories from this unit. They reminded me of other stories where the heroes were made to perform gruesome trials to prove themselves.

My least favorite thing about this unit was the way it read in some parts. As anyone who has read my other essays can see, I don’t like for the writing to be too difficult to read, otherwise I lose interest. I want to be able to be pulled into the world the writer is creating and I can’t do that if the writing makes me work too hard to understand what is going on. The writing was easiest to get through in the stories about Yamato, so that might have been why I enjoyed those stories the most. Overall, I would recommend this unit to anyone. It consists of simple stories and is enjoyable to pass the time.

Japanese Mythology