2008-02-11

Fantasy Island

[Valentine Island]This year, Enoshima is Valentine Island. (Also good for weddings, as long as all of your guests' right legs are significantly longer than their left ones.)

There is (as I have mentioned before) a long-standing tradition that couples who attract Benten's attention on Enoshima will break up shortly thereafter due to the far-reaching reverberations of Benten's supernatural jealousy. The Enoshima/Enoden tourism cabal must have decided to deal with this by ignoring it entirely. Probably the best idea, especially since -- as this site (warning: possibly NSFW religious iconography) points out -- the rumor was probably started by Edo men who didn't want any wives or girlfriends cramping their style on Party Island. You know the women there only wear six layers of clothing!

(Today, of course, Enoshima is more or less carpeted with semi-feral cats and much beloved of holidaying petit-bourgeoisie, making it the precise opposite of Party Island. Even the gyaru and their consorts who flood the place in summer, fake tans finally making sense in context, do most of their actual partying on the beach and in the love hotels that line the coastal highway.)

That site also mentions something I didn't know: that there's a similar rumor about Tokyo Disneyland's Cinderella castle. Hypothesis: also started by men, but for the opposite reason -- they didn't want to go to Cinderella's castle, with or without their girlfriends.

Popularity factor: 2

Vilhelm S:

*Cinderella* gets jealous?? Someone seems to have gotten a bit mixed up about her ontological status...

Jealous deities aside, the concepts of places that are cursed to split up couples seems popular. In particular, I remember getting a serious warning against the rent-a-boat lake in some particular park in Tokyo. Unfortunately I can't remember what park it was, so I suppose I have no choice but to avoid them all, now.

(Other reflection: once a place has achieved the right reputation, the legend might become a self-fulfilling prophesy. That is, the people who suggest going on a date there might be the ones who want out of the relationship, creating a correlation with subsequent break-up rates...)


Matt:

Man, Tokyo is just riddled with places to get broken up in. I'm surprised anyone goes on dates there at all.

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