KUCHIKAMIZAKE

Kuchikamizake 口噛み酒

Kuchikamizake or Kuchikami-no-sake is a type of sake that Mitsuha and her little sister Yotsuha make during the offering ceremony early on in the movie. The word kuchikamizake consists of 3 parts: 

1. 口 (kuchi: mouth)

2. 噛み (kami), which comes from the verb 噛む (kamu: to chew, gnaw or bite) 

3. 酒(zake: the rendaku form of sake, which is a rice based wine). 

Therefore, it literally means sake that is chewed with your mouth. This is exactly what you see Mitsuha and her little sister Yotsuha do in the movie. They chew cooked rice and spit out the liquid that remains . In this post we will explain how this process works and what the relation is between kuchikamiazke and Japanese culture.

How kuchikamisake is made

Despite the fact that sake is often translated as “rice wine”, the process of making it isn’t that similar to the one of making wine, nor beer. Of course it has its own process. To make wine, in a nutshell, you can crush grapes, add some yeast, wait a while and the grapes will ferment and alcohol will be produced. The reason that this works, is because grapes contain a lot of glucose, which the yeast turns into alcohol. To make sake on the other hand, you can’t process rice the same way and get alcohol, because rice contains too little glucose, and mostly consists of starch. Therefore, just like in the process of making beer, you need an extra step to break down the starch into glucose. Usually, this is done by using bacteria or fungi. Nowadays, the most common method is indeed by using a fungus: Aspergillus oryzae. It’s a specific type of mold, that is better known as koji. After this stage, the rest of the process is similar to that of western style wine making. 

To make kuchikamizake, the chewing of the rice replaces the step of adding koji to the rice, because the amylase enzymes in saliva break down the starch instead. After that, there should be enough glucose to be able to ferment, with the help of the natural yeasts in the air. This is definitely a more primitive method that has evolved a lot since the use of koji was introduced. Therefore, it only makes sense that the result is bound to be different from the sake that we know today. The kuchikamizake is said to be more grainy and sour. It being sour can probably be blamed on the fact that the chewed rice liquid was simply spit into a container, and wasn’t necessarily kept at a reasonably high temperature. Keeping the liquid at a high temperature will stimulate the yeast and prevent other bacteria from altering the taste. If this step is excluded, there are plenty of other bacteria in saliva that could mess up the flavour. Some even say that it would have been impossible to make sake like we know it today with this method, and claim that it would just turn out to be a kind of rice paste, that had to be eaten with chopsticks.

Sake and Shintoism

Sake is often seen as something that is typically Japanese, but in fact, there have been a lot of countries around east-Asia where rice wine was made, including China and Korea, where it is called shaoxingjiu and shogokchu, respectively. One of the most prominent reasons that it stayed popular in Japan specifically, is because of the fact that the importance of sake is heavily intertwined with Shintoism. Since rice was introduced to Japan and rice production spread throughout the country in the early Yayoi period (ca. 300 BC – 300 AD), it has played a large role in Japanese society. The rice plant became almost sacred and therefore, one of the best ways to bring offerings to a god or kami, was by offering some sort of rice product. Since sake is a rice based wine, it has of course played a role in Shinto rituals. 

Sake offerings are most commonly associated with offerings at ceremonies that concern purification or transitions. It symbolises various types of inaugurations, beginnings and the flow of time and life. These kinds of transitions can be found in a human life, for example at the birth of a child or the marriage between two people. On the other hand, it can refer to transitions in nature, for example, the changing of the seasons. Furthermore, it was one of the favourite drinks at Shinto festivals, also known as matsuri in Japanese. In this context, it was simply a means to an end. Festivals were to renew the vitality of the kami, but were also meant to drink, to party and to make friends.

kegs of sake as offerings for a 
Shinto Shrine in Tokyo

Like in many other Asian countries, you can see that rice is an important factor in society. In Japan this can be seen in political systems that revolved around rice producing land distribution. It can be seen in economy: an example of this is that a quantity of rice, that should be enough to feed one person for a year, in Japanese called a koku, was used as a currency for merchants. 

What is remarkable however, is that, as we just explained by showing the importance of sake in Shintoism, it can also be found in religion, and, with that, in ideology. Despite the fact that over time, Buddhism and Confucianism have taken a place in the ideology of Japan as well, Shintoism, and with that rituals including sake,  have never really left the picture. These elements all contribute to the fact that over time, rice has become more and more embedded in the collective identity of Japan, which is still the case today.

This is of course a short history of sake, but doesn’t talk about the history of kuchikamizake in particular. The reason is that we couldn’t find many sources on the history of kuchikamizake. We know it isn’t usually considered as the predecessor of sake, since it is brewed in another way, differs in culture and might be introduced to Japan in another time period, yet we don’t know where the origin of sake lies either. Apart from that, kuchikamizake isn’t the only subcategory of sake. There have been other types of sake in the course of time as well, like overnight sake, or hitoyozake. However, the course of its existence and the ties to Shinto rituals do seem to be similar. Just like sake, it has survived over time. There have even been records of some islands in Okinawa, where they still made sake by chewing rice until the 1930’s. If you keep this in mind, the idea that there would still be some people that make this type of sake as in 'Kimi No Na Wa', isn’t that strange. 

Another fact that we know historically, is that in rituals, it was traditionally or preferably made by shrine maidens, also known as miko in Japanese. Yotsuha, Mitusha’s sister, calls herself and Mitsuha miko as well, which explains why they had to perform the ritual, since it’s their task, even though the purpose of the ritual in the movie isn’t that clear. When their grandma talks about their task at the Miyamizu shrine, she says: “The meaning of our festivals became unknown and only the form lived on. But even if words are lost, tradition should be handed down. That’s the important task we at Miyamizu Shrine have.” This referred to the fact that there had been a fire previously that burnt down their shrine, but their belief still remained. 

The role of kuchikamizake in the movie

The kuchimakizake is seen in two scenes: when Mitsuha and her sister make it, and when Taki drinks it to swap bodies one last time in hopes of saving Mitsuha and Itomori. Even though the above information may give an added value to these scenes, the movie is understandable without it. You get the chance to choose how to interpret it. You can keep it as an element that can point out the difference between the countryside, where people are more loyal to traditions, and the city. You can see the scene where Taki drinks it as a way to get closer to Mitsuha, but also as a way of connecting or getting closer to the kami that lives there. You can even see it as something that is, since closely related to the kami, also closely related to musubi and so on. The importance of kuchikamizake isn’t a given, but lies with the decision of the audience of how to interpret it. 

Sources: 

https://journals.openedition.org/gc/1953 (peer reviewed article)

https://byo.com/article/making-sake/

http://www.birthofsake.com/ (documentary)