In infection to the worldwide spread of the COVID-19, in Japan, an unknown thing called “Amabie” started from Twitter and became popular.
Because of the caudal fin, many people might be mistaken for “Amaebi” at a moment.
Amabie is a “youkai( like an apparition)”.
By the way, Amaebi means shrimp in Japanese.
Something was shining in the sea at night, and when one headed there, the youkai named Amabie appeared and said predictively, “A good harvest continues and a pandemic spreads at the same time, so you have to show people to paint my figure to prevent it quickly”.
In other words, it’s the youkai that matched the current world. It has the meaning of “disappearance of diseases”.
The same meaning like this Amabie is “Akabeko”.
Akabeko is not a youkai, but a cow.
History goes back long before Amabie.
“Beko” means “a cow” in the dialect of the Aizu region of Fukushima, Japan.
It’s called an “amulet cow” or a “lucky cows”, and popular as a “charm”.
Red has a magical meaning to disperse diseases, and black and white are said to have been painted in the hope that diseases will be cured when the smallpox spread once.
Many of the magical meanings like Amabie and Akabeko come from folk beliefs.
Especially in the case of Japan, there have been many gods in history (it’s said there are more than 800).
Against this background, it has become possible for Japanese to make convenient “choices Gods”in various regions.
In some parts of the world, this may be a completely unscrupulous idea.
Paradoxically, it may be said that it coexisted with highly “specialized”rather than all-purpose.
Recently there was a news that Akshay Kumar, a Bollywood star who recently played Lakshmi, the protagonist of Padman, that is the movie of India in 2018, is an avid Hindu who drinks cow’s urine every day after being infected with the new coronavirus.
Or it seems there are many Hindus who think that eating cow’s feces, not just urine, will cure the disease.
However, it may be the same in the sense that it is tied to something of hope.
Akabeko is a cow. Cows are special in Hindu India.
In addition, Akabeko is a toy as well , and the color of faith is weak.
Perhaps there may have a possibility of becoming a bridge that will be loved by a wide range of generations and foreign cultures.
Because difference desires sympathy.
But don’t just show it to the Spanish “fighting bulls”.
They’ll attack with blood.
So we will have to find the color that it makes them so calm down by arts and technics.
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