Awakening

During the Nanban trade period in the 1500s, the arrival of Europeans introduced firearms, European musical instruments and Christianity to the once isolated Japanese.

A small number of people, especially musicians, welcome the introduction of western culture - of which string instruments like violin and viola enabled them to perform unique melodic and virtuous high pitches that were once non-existent.

The stark cultural difference spawned social unrest; musicians who adopted western music were accused of practicing European witchcraft, for at the time music was inseparable to divine Shinto rituals.  It was believed that the melody of violins and alike would bring ill fortune and natural disasters.

Musicians were thus treated like Yokai's and monsters, imprisoned and locked within closets of charmed ofudas (Japanese talismans), where monsters and torture awaited.

The social unrest ceased when Western culture gradually became an integral part of modern Japanese lifestyle.  One of the closets used for imprisonment, however, still exists in an ancient Minka house in Shirakawa-go.  Rumor has it that the ofudas on the closet must remain intact, for when they are broken the imprisoned violinist would bring together enchanted monsters and seek revenge on everyone she comes across beyond the closet.

(Awakening is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.)