Tajikarao



Tajikarao (たぢからお) is a four-volume Manga series by Mori Jinpachi and Yoshikai Kanji.

In Kyushu, the aging population of a small, isolated village named Yamagami still practices a traditional agrarian lifestyle and engages in old Shinto rituals. One day a villager who had gone to the city comes back with yakuzas on his trail. The inhabitants are faced with a drastic choice: either they sell their lands to pay off the villager's debts to the Mob, or they stand and fight.

They seek advice from the local wise woman, who, in a trance, sees two youths from the city defending the village. At the same time, two young people from Tokyo who had lost their way chance into the village. One of them readily takes to rural life and decides to stay, while the other is more reluctant; however, it turns out that he's a suitable recipient for the god Tajikarao to manifest in, thus holding the village's fate in his hands.


 * Arcadia: The villagers live in timeless communion with nature, away from the evils of urban life.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Don't waste food in front of Mr. Saeki.
 * Evil Debt Collector: The enforcers sent by Mr. Saeki to the village.
 * Got Volunteered: A non-comedic example of the trope. Yusuke is designated the savior of Yamagami whether he wants to or not, because of his spiritual compatibility with Tajikarao. No Refusal of the Call for him.
 * Green Aesop: Living in harmony with nature is good, despoiling it is bad.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Tetsuo sacrifices himself rather than allow two elderly inhabitants of the village to be run over by the yakuzas' car.
 * Initiation Ceremony: The city boys are accepted by the villagers after participating in a Shinto ritual that involves eating a sample of the raw flesh of a freshly culled deer.
 * Intimate Healing: In order to heal Yusuke when he had been made the unwilling recipient of a kami possession, Hinano chews rice and regurgitates it in his mouth.
 * Mask of Power: The sacred mask of Tajikarao.
 * Religion Is Magic
 * Shrines and Temples: The local Shinto temple is the center of the village's civic life.
 * Values Dissonance: Between the city folks and the village ones.
 * Yakuza: The trouble starts when a villager gets conned into taking a gambling loan from yakuzas, who come after him to get their money back.