page_title: Momotarō
section_title: Story
hierarchical_section_title: Momotarō / Story
caption_attribution_description: Image from The Japanese Fairy Book
context_page_description: Momotarō is a popular hero of Japanese folklore. His name translates as Peach Tarō, a common Japanese masculine name, and is often translated as Peach Boy. Momotarō is the title of various books, films and other works that portray the tale of this hero.
  There is now a popular notion that Momotarō is a local hero of Okayama Prefecture, but this claim was invented in the modern era, and not accepted as consensus in scholarly circles.
context_section_description: The present conventional form of the tale (Standard Type) can be summarized as follows:
  Momotarō was born from a giant peach, which was found floating down a river by an old, childless woman who was washing clothes there. The woman and her husband discovered the child when they tried to open the peach to eat it. The child explained that he had been bestowed by the Gods to be their son. The couple named him Momotarō, from momo (peach) and tarō (eldest son in the family).
  When he matured into adolescence, Momotarō left his parents to fight a band of Oni (demons or ogres) who marauded over their land, by seeking them out in the distant island where they dwelled (a place called Onigashima or "Demon Island"). En route, Momotarō met and befriended a talking dog, monkey and pheasant, who agreed to help him in his quest in exchange for a portion of his rations (kibi dango or "millet dumplings"). At the island, Momotarō and his animal friends penetrated the demons' fort and beat the band of demons into surrendering. Momotarō and his new friends returned home with the demons' plundered treasure and the demon chief as a captive.
  This Standard Type of "Momotarō" was defined and popularized due to them being printed in school textbooks during the Meiji Period.
  This is the result of development of the literary "Momotarō", which had been handwritten and printed since the early Edo period into Meiji. One significant change is that in most examples of Edo Period literature, Momotarō was not born from a peach, but born naturally to the elderly couple who ate the peach and regained their youth. Such subtypes are classed as kaishun-gata (回春型) "rejuvenation" type, whereas the now conventional subtypes are termed kasei-gata (果生型) "birth from the fruit" type.
caption: Momotarō coming out of a peach
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