MUSUBI

Musubi

                                      

Musubi is an element that keeps resurfacing in this movie. It's something that binds a lot, if not all of the storyline together. Mitsuha's grandmother describes it as: “Musubi is the old way of calling the guardian kami. Tying thread is musubi. connecting people is musubi. these are all the kami's power. So the braided cords that we make are the kami's art and represent the flow of time itself. They converge and take shape. they twist, tangle, sometimes unravel, break, then connect again. That’s musubi. That's time." By this small fragment alone, you can already tell it plays a big role in the story, considering that Mitsuha and Taki are somehow connected, despite of the time difference. So what exactly is musubi and what roll does it play or has it played in Japanese culture?

Musubi has a lot of different meanings and can refer to a variety of different subjects and most meanings can be connected to the movie. Its meaning ‘knot; bond’ can refer to musubi-knotting or Cupid. Its meaning 'creation' can refer to musubi as an element of Shintoism. It can even refer to food. The first two meanings we will discuss in more depth.

Musubi-knotting and kumihimo

upper picture
left: Mitsuha's grandmother with a takadai
right: Mitusha using a marudai
bottom picture:
tama

The first and (after watching the movie) most straight-forward meaning of musubi, is referring to kumihimo (meaning ‘braided cords’). This is a Japanese way of braiding cords. Originally it was based on the finger loop braiding technique, but it evolved in a very time-consuming style of an “art form”, you could say. There are at least two methods to make kumihimo, and both are shown in the movie. 

In the scene where Mitsuha’s grandmother talks about kumihimo and Miyamizu shrine, you see Mitsuha work with a round stand with a hole in the middle, called the marudai (‘round stand’) and hourglass shaped wooden weights or bobbins, called tama (‘ball; small round object’), around which the ends of the cords are wrapped to hold them in place. This is an easy way to organize the cords in order to be able to twist them around afterwards. The second way of making cords is much more complex and uses a frame, called the takadai (‘elevated, high ground’) or kōdai instead of the marudai, to keep the cords in place and make them easier to work with. This method allows you to use more cords and thereby to make much more intricate designs. 

The method of kumihimo results in solid, practical cords and it gives the opportunity to make beautiful patterns with it, if you use differently coloured cords. The more cords, the more complicated the design can be. This means the cords can be decorative as well. In Japanese history, it is for these two reasons, practicality and beauty, that these cords have been used. Archeological finds prove that it was this method that was used for the cords that tie the armour pieces of the typical lamellar samurai armour together. This is one example of its functional use. It has also been used for decorative purposes, for example, as an obijime, by tying it to an obi (kimono sash). Often the ends will have tassels on them, and it will amplify the expensive look, although it still has a practical function as it keeps the obi tied up. Nowadays, it is most commonly known as a way to make friendship bracelets, since it’s fairly easy to make. Even the tools you need could be improvised or made out of cardboard or plastic. This is yet another example of decorative function.

obi musubi knot

Throughout the movie, the one thing that has always physically connected Mitsuha and Taki was the braided cord that you see Mitsuha use to tie up her hair in the first moments of the movie. At first, you don’t think much of it, but you can see that sometimes Taki wears it too and later on it becomes clear that Mitsuha gave Taki this cord. It will be the object that has Taki thinking and remembering his body switching with Mitsuha, after the comet struck and he forgot their memories. Like Mitsuha’s grandmother said: kumihimo, braided cords, that’s musubi. It connects them, like the cords of musubi are tangled and connected by this difficult process of braiding. This cord of Mitsuha is the clearest physical representation of musubi in the movie.

Lastly, if you were inspired by kumihimo, here are some videos on how it’s done!

Musubi and Shintoism

Musubi as an element in Shinto religion is a subject you can just keep digging up information on. First off, the definition. The two definitions we will be using are the one of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the one of the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics (Kokugakuin University). They both more or less come to the same conclusion: musubi is the spirit or power of creation, birth and becoming. 

Next, the word musubi can be found in the name of quite a lot of kami. The most famous ones are two of the three gods of creation in the myth of the creation of Japan: Takamimusubi no kami, Kamimusubi no kami and Ame no minakanushi no kami. These names can be translated as the god of the heavens, god of the earth and god of the heart of the universe, respectively. This myth and these deities are mentioned in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. Both of these books are some of the earliest historical written works of Japan and are considered history books by the believers of Shintoism. Since these texts are so old, this is probably where the word musubi comes from in terms of etymology. Just like Mitsuha’s grandmother said: musubi is creation and creation is one of the main principles of Shintoism.

Besides the Kamimusubi no kami, there are also stories about the Musubi no kami. This is yet another kami or god, namely the god that binds two people together. In dictionaries, the name of this deity is often translated as Cupid or god of matchmaking. There is a story of the god of love, residing in a cherry tree and a 17-year old girl, who is about to be married off. She wants to be married to a person she loves, so she goes to the shrine of the Musubi no kami and prays for 21 days. After this, she sees a handsome young man, standing by a cherry tree next to the shrine, and instantly falls in love. She denies all the men her father wants her to marry, claiming she already found love. One of her admirers can’t handle the fact that this mysterious man she loves doesn’t have a face and goes to look for him. He finds a handsome young man at the cherry tree the girl described and tries to force him to tell his name and tries to seize him when he doesn’t. He fails and is approached by a priest of the shrine, who explains he just offended the one and only Musubi no kami. To show his regret of his actions, he decides to dedicate the rest of his life to serve the god of love. 

Mitsuha’s grandmother says musubi is connecting people, like kumihimo connects cords. This story of Musubi no kami shows that it also binds loved ones, which is what Mitsuha and Taki become throughout the movie.

Musubi and food

The last meaning of musubi that we will discuss and in this case the least important one, but still worth mentioning, is the connection between the word musubi and food. Practically the first thing you find when you look up musubi on the internet is musubi spam, a Hawaiian snack that looks like onigiri or sushi. As a matter of fact, it originates from onigiri, since that is sometimes called o-musubi. Yet, does this play a role in the movie? We don’t think so. If you go down that road, you’re guessing rather than anything else. Taki does eat onigiri when he is looking for Mitsuha, but in this case, we ought to keep the context in mind. It is still an anime movie and in almost every anime, people eat onigiri, so we can’t assume this has anything to do with the term musubi in the way that Mitsuha’s grandmother describes it.

Musubi today

Nowadays the term musubi is still used, but not with exactly the same meaning or in the same context. One of the ways that the term is still used, is in the industrial world. According to Jan Swyngedouw, the meaning of musubi is gradually shifting from a rather traditional interpretation, related to Shintoism, to a more secularized meaning. It is still connected to creation, like the first meaning we discussed within Shinto. Yet, this creation is very specific as in production, reproduction and the unity between those two. To quote Swyngedouw on this, he says that Shinto is “increasingly transferring this creative, evolutionary idea of musubi from the forces of nature to the forces that sustain industrial productivity.”

Apart from this, there are still some examples of the term musubi in the context of ‘binding’. For example, in the old Japanese language, there is a phenomenon called kakari-musubi. This refers to what we could call subject-particle agreement. It means something among the lines that some subjects demand a particle. There are four particles that make up this kakari-musubi. 

Lastly, another example of the ‘binding’ meaning, is a place called 'Musubi Do'. This is a building, situated in the Nippon Kan Gardens. It is translated and referred to as a ‘place of togetherness’ and is built to reflect Japanese and other Asian influences. Its purpose is to serve as a place where small lectures or meetings can be held, and standing for a place where people can connect, it offers employment for legal Asian refugees.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/musubi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_creation_myth

http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/atfj/atfj35.htm

https://okunomichi.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/kimi-no-na-wa-and-musubi/

https://www.mimusubi.com/2013/06/13/what-does-it-mean/

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Musubi

https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2329

http://www.nippon-kan.org/ahan/musubi-do-completion-ceremony-in-the-nippon-kan-gardens/

https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kobun-adjectives/

https://jisho.org/word/%E7%B5%90%E3%81%B3%E3%81%AE%E7%A5%9E