JNHRO Guide to Yamainutaira 4
darthcourt10
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Lord K
Spoiler: Part 4
Spoiler
"An evening in the hidden world of the Valley of Dens - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Spoiler
Tani-no-Su - The Valley of Dens
You wouldn't think it now, but Tani-no-Su was once home to yet another village, and great swathes of terraces and farmland to once rival the fields of Noukamura and Inunojotaira. Now from the plateau above, it looks to be only a sea of trees. But it one looks past the canopy and leaves, it is possible to see the spark of metamorphosis and new purpose in the valley once more.
Historically Tani-no-Su served much the same role as the two farming areas to the east. It was largely a realm of the peasantry, without great houses, manors or estates due to being unfashionably low lying, or difficult to build on due to the terrain or distance. But the biggest divergence between Tani-no-Su and Noukamura or Inunojotaira, was that while the plateau farmlands were predominately worked by humans, canids, or yokai with ties to the Hokubu, Setto and Matangi-Ken, Tani-no-Su was a realm of those who fell outside those categories. Foxes and cats who did not get along with the wolves and dogs above, more bestial yokai that would have had issue navigating the streets and stores of Ichibahomen and Kabeoka, and finally those who simply preferred more natural or simpler existences in their true forms or animal states.
Many of those in Tani-no-Su didn't just work the terraces of their masters from the plateau above however. A good portion of those who lived in the village that once sat where the four main roads of Tani-no-Su still intersect, were also involved in the various copper mines that were once scattered through out the valley, exploiting the natural copper deposits Yamainutaira was once acclaimed for.
However, Tani-no-Su's long history of making up almost a third of Yamainutaira's farming production and being a site for centuries of based magical mining, all abruptly came to an end with the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy. Due to the lower social and economic status of many of those living in the Valley of Dens, as well as the fact that it was an area known for those of more bestial and undisguised natures, Tani-no-Su was eventually one of the last yokai communities to be broken up and moved to the Yokai Reserves, in spite of the best efforts by the Clans of Yamainutaira to retain their neighbors on the grounds of the effects such an uprooting could have on the local economy and work forces.
Over the next few decades, the terraces crumbled and nature reclaimed the Valley of the Dens, but that does not mean they have been forgotten or fallen out of use.
Today, Tani-no-Su is home to countless fruit orchards, tree plantations practicing even-aged timber management, and forest farms using agroforestry to grow high-value specialty crops that require tree canopies for optimal conditions. Though no where near what it once was, Tani-no-Su is also once more home to a budding yokai community, albeit a small one predominately made up of those working the orchards around their homes.
Predominately however, while there are outliers and properties do still work the land by magical means or produce magical words or fruits, the vast majority of jobs and properties in Tani-no-Su are are muggle based these days. A status that the area reached out of necessity, first thanks to the resettlement of over 85% of the Valley of Den's community between the 1770s and 1880s, followed by death tolls inflicted during the war, and then finally the loss of local population to urbanization in the mid-to-late 20th century. These conditions also caused a similar state to be reached with the current Doukouzan Mining Facility, and it's more recently added Doukouzan Metal Works.
Important Note: Tani-no-Su was once home to a small village by the name of Yotsukado, which once sat at the four-way crossroads just passed the Nekosu Bridge. During final wave of yokai evictions and resettlements in 1880, the village was burned down by it's remaining residents before they left. Those unfamiliar to the town are advised to avoid leaving the road or entering these ruins, especially the ones cordoned off by muggle hazard tape and unsafe structure signs, or marked with sealing ofuda.
Historical Trivia: Not all the ruined structures in Tani-no-Su are from this time period or closed off. Due to the combination of it's long history of farming development and migrating copper mining sites, crossing paths with the area's modern usage for orchards and forestry, the hills of Tani-no-Su are filled with forgotten buildings, walls and ancient foot prints going back centuries. Among the more interesting structures to look at are the remains of the old forge up on Betsutoriyama, where you can also pick and buy your own apples and dirigible plums.
Spoiler
"Doukouzan Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility - Doukouzan Mining and Metal Works Website"
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Doukouzan Mining Facility and Copper Metal Works
Since time immemorial, the hills and valleys surrounding the modern site of Doukouzan have been the site of various forms of copper mining.
So the town legend goes, it was Shoumaru the Little who established the first permanent copper exploitation operation, but archaeological evidence suggests a history of mining and copper working by the local Ainu, Ezo Wolves and Matangi-Ken dating back centuries. Most likely what Shoumaru the Little really brought with him, were the knowledge and contacts to import or hire the actual people capable of bringing new techniques and technology to Yamainutaira. Regardless, it was first under his rule that working the veins of ore and natural copper that could be found in the hillsides of Tani-No-Su and the ridge lines of Betsutoriyama and Ansokukanyama, truly began in any form of permanance. For hundreds of years since, Yamainutaira copper has been a small but not insubstantial source of the town's wealth through the centuries.
Much of northern Tani-no-Su and the regions to the west of Yamainutaira are pock-marked and littered with the scattered traces of centuries of this mining, especially from the time period of the early industrial period. Many of the great clearings, vales and caves in the area, are actually the remnants of depleted mining sites, or the slag heaps left behind when the rest of the buildings and their equipment were packed up and shifted to a new site. Since the Meiji Restoration when the mines were rapidly industrialized though, mining operations in Tani-no-Su have been largely restricted to the current ridge line and hillsides of Doukouzan.
The Meiji Restoration and the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy actually almost spelled the end of Yamainutaira's mining history. So much of the original mining workforce and operations relied on a combination of yokai labor and magical methods of ore extraction, smelting, and copper refining, that it very nearly left the entire mine inoperable. Eventually though, Doukouzan was reorganized and envisioned as a almost entirely new, western style operation, relying on mechanization, technology and science where there had once been yokai and magic. While the original refinery never reopened, Doukouzan survived into the 20th century, and even weathered the tumultuous misfortune that gripped the town for much of it's later decades. Since the early 2000s however, Doukouzan has seen a slow reversal of fortunes.
The Doukouzan of today is a world apart from what it was one hundred years ago, or even just twenty. From an industry that was once infamous for it's dirty and back-breakingly laborious nature, modern muggle copper mining is almost more of a science, than a job of task or toil. In fact, most of the mining that takes place these days has little resemblance to the classic images of excavation pits in the ground, or tunneling deep beneath the earth. Utilizing modern muggle technology and techniques such as froth-flotation, the solvent extraction and electrowinning process (SX/EW), Outokumpu flash-smelting, and poling process fire refining, almost all of Doukouzan's current copper production comes from reprocessing old slag heaps and tailings dumps left over from older sites and historic mines. What was once considered ore of too poor a quality to smelt, or slag that was past the point of being further refined, is now exploitable through newer and more efficient means.
For this reason, the core of Doukouzan's modern facilities is no longer the mining operation itself, but the Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility. Already an idea on the town's table of brainstorms for economic turn around, having much of the groundwork already laid out before Blood Week, allowed the planned construction of the facility to be rapidly pushed forwards, and the costs offset with the aid of a government grant for businesses establishing or upgrading crucial domestic war industries. Thanks to this and further developments of the site and extraction operations since opening in 2009, by 2012 Doukouzan had almost tripled it's copper production compared to what it was in 2002.
Important Note: It can not be impressed how much Doukouzan is NOT a location to treat as a place full of fancy muggle machinery that one can just waltz past and take a gander at. The whole area surrounding the various slag reprocessing operations, different outlying plants, and the Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility, are regarded by the muggles as one singular industrial property. This is not overly fancy blacksmithing or metal working in any traditional sense, but chemistry on a factory scale. You wouldn't just wander into a potion maker's workplace or an alchemist's laboratory when they are brewing something potentially dangerous, so don't go poking around the Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility just because it looks interesting.
Due to it's rather technical and scientific nature, those looking to apply for jobs there should also either know how to drive a truck and operate heavy machinery, or be able to display sufficiently comparably knowledge to having various muggle degrees in chemistry, metallurgy, geology, or engineering.
Historical Trivia: Doukouzan hasn't just produced copper though out it's history. Occasionally over the decades, gold veins have been discovered, but usually only ever in very trace amounts. The most common byproduct usually produced is sulfur.
Spoiler
"Hokubu Sakiko, one of the last masters of her art making a full time living via traditional methods, in a once thriving ancient craft - Hokubu Kariudoko"
The Riddle of Copper
Three things, there have always been in the hills of Yamainutaira, and upon which it's founding was based; The game to hunt, the earth to sow, and the metal to wield.
Doukouzan may now be a place of muggle science and technology, but Yamainutaira's connection and history with magical mining and metal working is not entirely extinct. It has survived past the Meiji Restoration, and still exists in the form of the Ken-gitsune master-apprentice line, of which Hokubu Sakiko is the current master and keeper of the forge. Since ancient times, smiths under the guidance of the master of the Ken-gitsune school, have done more than just process and beat Tani-no-Su's copper into shape for sale. They also made and maintained the tools of Yamainutaira, from the plowshares of peace time, to the swords of war in times of conflict. Many of Yamainutaira's greatest warriors used blades forged by the Ken-gitsune masters of their respective eras, with the longest lasting and most renowned of all being the enchanted blade made by Ken-gitsune himself, Shisashikon, "the Messenger's Tooth" wielded by Clan Heads of the Hokubu for the last ten generations.
Iconic thanks to their use of copper, bronze and brass, in their decorative work, Ken-gitsune blades never reached the kind of acclaim their contemporaries had, but a tradition of proud sword making was maintained even through the relative peace of Tokugawa rule, when most orders to the school were for jewelry and ceremonial pieces, rather than functional and enchanted examples like Shisashikon. Swords and jewelry, accompanied copper ingots as part of Yamainut
Now in a modern forge and metal workshop in Ichibahomen, on the site of where Daimaru the Builder moved the original Ken-gitsune Master's workshop to after the fire of 1561, Hokubu Sakiko still keeps a traditional forge set up in the back lot, and caters to orders for magical clientele. Got an old family heirloom you want checked out? Or do you want a piece of your very own? Is it a sword you are thinking about when it comes to that sentence, or jewelry? Mundane or magical, Hokubu Sakiko can usually at the very least identify what needs to be done, or who to put you in touch with for the best result.
Alternately if you are interested, Hokubu Sakiko is always willing to accept an extra pair of hands in her shop, if they have the previous experience to be of use. Do note however, that working under her is not an offer of the traditional style apprenticeship, or a promise of learning the magical teachings of the Ken-gitsune sword making and jewlery crafting schools, just employment at her metal working shop and jewelry store.
The Tale of Shoumaru the Little and the Three Gifts of Ken-gitsune
"So who was Ken-gitsune?" I'm sure most of you are asking. How does a guy who's name means "Sword Fox" relate to a family sword, a master-apprentice line, and copper mining in a small outpost village, in the middle of Hokkaido, far removed from the happening places of Sengoku Japan?
Well, that can be answered with a fun little tale (and an admittedly likely embellished-by-time history lesson) that even the local muggles all know, albeit with certain details removed, or viewed as metaphorical and myth due to the Statue of Secrecy.
When Shoumaru the Little first left Honshu (either in disgraced exile or in search of destiny and fortune depending on the version), it is said that one of the first things he witnessed upon arrival in Hokkaido was, a group of brigands harassing a young kitsune messenger boy. Taking issue with their treatment of the fox youth who they unjustly accused of being a thief and a trickster, and seeing how they cowed the rest of the townsfolk, Shoumaru the Little stepped in. Being smaller than the Ezo wolves due to his Honshu stature, at first they mocked him for his hieght, and in their arrogance tried to rob him as well. In the ensuing fight, Shoumaru the Little lost his sword, but he was never the less victorious thanks to his use of an old iron shield. An artifact born of an era before the prominence of two-handed blades and the katana.
Immensely thankful for being saved, the messenger boy could only apologized for causing Shoumaru the Little such inconvenience and the loss of his sword. With little to his name, all the kitsune youth could afford to give the Honshu Okami was a stone magatama, which would allow him to enter and receive aid from a village on his path through the north. And so onward he traveled, until eventually Shoumaru the Little arrived in the village the young fox had spoken to him of.
There, Shoumaru the Little met another kitsune, a priestess and guardian of the village's crops. Encountering her in a field, he found the priestess laboring to perform her duties due to her water pail being stolen. And so Shoumaru the Little handed her his great shield, and using the concave shape, they brought water to the fields. The priestess was thankfully for his service, but was regretful she could not repay him in any meaningful way, especially after the shield became scratched and discolored through their task. Instead she could only provide the location of a forested plateau that she had heard far-ranging hunters speaking of with wonder and bountiful acclaim, and handed him a stone magatama. A new one that would allow him to pass among the peoples of those lands as a friend.
Some time later, Shoumaru the Little eventually made his way to the forests of what would eventually be called Yamainutaira. It was during one of his first winters there however, that in the middle of a most terrible chilling storm, Shoumaru the Little and his Ezo hunting partners found themselves with a guest. An old kitsune came upon the hunting lodge, and begged to be allowed inside until the blizzard had subsided. Shoumaru the Little's hunting partners were against the idea, fearing that with the ferocity of the cold and wind, this was a trick by a yuki-onna or some other spirit of frost that was determined to get to them inside. Proving the kitsune's trustworthiness and innocence through a series of simple tests using warding magics and a string of prayer beads though, Shoumaru the Little eventually assuaged their fears enough that the elderly traveler was allowed into the refuge, and given a place by their fire side. When the storm finally passed, the old kitsune was filled with thanks and gratitude for the shelter and food he had been given, as he would most likely have perished otherwise. As with those before however, the traveler had naught he could give Shoumaru the Little, aside from yet another simple stone magatama.
Time went on though, with winter turning to spring, and then spring to summer, with half a year passing and the old kitsune traveler almost forgotten. Then one day, Shoumaru the Little found himself with a new visitor; A Zenko, a kitsune sworn to the service of Inari Okami, and bearing the name of Ken-gitsune. All three of the kitsune Shoumaru the Little had aided over the course of his travels in Hokkaido had been family to the Zenko, and so Ken-gitsune had come to repay the Honshu Okami as those in their hour of need could not. A master of not just sword making, but a guide in the arts of the forge and metal normally sent to aid those with Inari Okami's favor and blessing, Ken-gitsune then put his talents to work crafting three gifts of repayment.
To replace Shoumaru the Little's lost sword that he had originally borne from Honshu, and lost in the defense of one who could not fight back, when no one else would do what was right, from metals found beneath the earth of the okami's new home in Yamainutaira, Ken-gitsune forged an enchanted blade. One that would never break or decay, and would always return to the hands of the blood of his line. Furnished with wood, leather and copper, all procured from the plateau, and made by the hands of one kami's messenger for the descendant of another, the sword was named Shisashikon, "The Messenger's Tooth".
For Shoumaru the Little's aid to the priestess, and his altruism in ensuring the bounty of others, when there was no pressing need to or any advantage for himself, Ken-gitsune next repaired the okami's shield. Removing the damage and scars of his battles since leaving Honshu, Ken-gitsune polished the shield until it could reflect it's surroundings like the water had carried. Upon this surface, he then placed enchantments that would allow it to forever show the truth of all things, reflect more than just light, and never mar or break, no matter what it encountered. And so Ken-gitsune created the Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo, the "moonlight reflecting off the river" deity and beast shield.
As his final gift to Shoumaru the Little, Ken-gitsune then took the three magatama the okami had received for each of his deeds, and fashioned them upon a necklace of obsidian beads. Turning each of the three magatama thrice in his hand, they then became not of common stone, but of agate, coral and ivory, and were imbibed with special powers. One bead would heat in the presence of danger to it's owner or nearby kin. The second would enable the necklace to separate, bind and wound beings of evil nature, regardless of their state in the physical or spiritual world. And the third would grant luck and fortune to the kin of those who wore it, but not the bearer them self. For proving the innocence of one in need, and providing shelter and breaking bread with a traveler with naught to offer in return, Ken-gitsune's final gift became the Omotenashi no Magatama, "the Beads of Hospitality".
Upon the completion of his work, and as one final gift of his own to Shoumaru the Little, Ken-gitsune took on an apprentice, teaching him much of what he knew and was allowed to pass on for many years, before eventually leaving his graduated student in Shoumaru the Little's service. Upon the completion of this task, he at last returned to his duties as a servant of Inari Okami, and slowly faded from the annuals of history.
Each of these three gifts still exists within the ownership of the Hokubu Clan, having been passed down for the last five centuries till today.
Traditionally in peace time, the Shisashikon is always carried by the clan head as a symbol of their leadership of the bloodline. The Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo is normally held by the Clan Heir as a metaphor of the clan's future to be protected, and a reminder for their need to deflect and see through the illusions of power or politics others might cast over them. And finally, the Omotenashi no Magatama is entrusted to the Hokubu-Setto Head Priest or Priestess of Hokubu-no-Okami Shokonsha Yashiro, as a sign of the trust and value the Hokubu place on the ties between the two clans.
In war and times of crisis however, all three gifts are carried by the Clan Head. For example, if one looks closely at photos of the current Koshaku and Hokubu Clan Head, Kogamaru, one can often see all three gifts somewhere on his person since Blood Week, usually with the Shisashikon at his hip, and the Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo shrunk down for ease of transport.
Historical Trivia; It is interesting to note that of the three gifts, only the Omotenashi no Magatama seems to work as per the original tale, rather than being an embellishment of it's characteristics.
While the blade of the Shisashikon has never shown any signs of wear or damage in it's long history, the tsuba, tsuka, saya and everything else that is not the sword itself, is known to take damage, and have even been destroyed at times over the course of the Shisashikon's history.
The Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo meanwhile, is infamous for the fact that while it will reflect magic and most projectiles, it is actually relatively ineffective against area-of-effect type attacks. More than one Clan Head and Heir has has also been injured dealing with the shock of blocking things, and even the back-blast of spells or projectiles they have unintentionally reflected.
Even the Omotenashi no Magatama is not without flaw either, as while it does apparently perform functions to the tune of the legend, it will only work at all, when worn by someone descended of Shoumaru the Little's bloodline.
Historical Trivia; While never proven or confirmed by the Main Family, it is rumored that Hokubu Royomaru's dairies suggested that he was unable to wear the Omotenashi no Magatama for many of his final years as clan head, and never told anyone for the security of his status as Clan Head. It was also initially thought that he lost the Shisashikon, as upon his arrest at the end of World War II, the Shisashikon was was confiscated and feared to be among many of those blades either destroyed in furnaces or dumped into Tokyo Bay by ICW Occupation Forces. Upon his death though, the Shisashikon appeared in the hands of Tsumemaru the Peacebound, bereft of it's koshirae and fixings, just as it always had whenever a Clan Heir succeeded upon the death of a Clan Head who died beyond the borders of Yamainutaira.
Spoiler
"Forestry by magical means, in the hills of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin - Hokubu Kariudoko"
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Matangi-Ken no Shinrin - The Nature of Industry and the Industries of Nature
Travel down the Shuryo-do Road long enough, and eventually you might be surprised to at last come across a curve in the kilometers long straight. Keep following those curves, but don't go around the big one, and eventually you will arrive at Matangi-Ken no Shinrin. Or at least what used to be it's borders.
Today on official maps, Matangi-Ken no Shinrin is an area deemed to fall within the boundaries of the Shirakawa river to the east, the old grounds of the Yamainutaira Lumber Mill to the north, to a trio of survey markers in the west and south. Once long ago however, Matangi-Ken no Shinrin was considered a great forest, stretching as far to the southwest as the southern facing slopes of the Ansokukanyama ridge line and the Murasame no Taki river. Following the opposite side of the Shirakawa canyon, it's borders once stretched as far north as the hills of Makunbetsu, while it's eastern reaches were dominated by the highland of Tenmakuyama in a time when it was a forest of bounty, rather than a place of dread.
In it's own way though, Matangi-Ken no Shinrin, even in it's reduced state on government papers and official survey maps, has survived through to the modern day with it's own Yamainutaira blend of the magical past, with the muggle world of today.
Just as Okamiryosen and most of Okamimamotte Iriguchi is owned by the Hokubu Clan, and Settoshugyoba and Settokanshiba were once predominately the properties of the Setto Clan, the woodlands of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin were, and still are the realm of their namesake Clan. While most of the yokai that make up the Matangi-Ken today, live in Inunojotaira and Noukamura, the vast majority of the titles and deeds that make up the modern area and a few properties beyond Yamainutaira's border, are owned by the descendants of the forest's original inhabitants.
Out of necessity and a desire to remain relevant, much of the Matangi-Ken's territory that falls within the borders of Yamainutaira's borders, is not actually a true forest. Decades of muggle logging until the Matangi-Ken finally acquired all the deeds after first be forced off the land during the Meiji Restoration, due to a combination of muggle land law rulings and magical legislation cracking down on those still living more naturalistic ways, resulted in a great portion of the original wood being cleared for farm land, and many older trees and forest giants felled. With the power and balance of this area ruined by these events, since the 1920s the Matangi-Ken have continued to selectively rotate tree farms and logging projects around this destroyed border of their old lands, and the original territories the Hokubu and Setto first first negotiated for permission to clear for their medieval lumber supplies.
An industry that still continues to be the primary economy in Matangi-Ken no Shinrin to this day. While the current lumber mill has been around and occupied it's current site since the early 20th century, much like the Matangi-Ken's greenhouses in Inunojotaira and the reinvented mining operations in Doukouzan, forestry in not just Matangi-Ken, but all of Yamainutaira, is a modern blend of the magical past and modern muggle thinking. Sustainable forest management is one of the core schools of thought behind Yamainutaira's industry, preserving what few natural old-growth groves and primeval forest remains. Agroforestry, silviculture, arboriculture, community forestry, even-aged timber management, have all been the buzz-words of forest farming and the lumber industry in this town for the last 30 years.
Thanks to being more spaced out and divided in areas of operation, it is a industry that is also easier to insert yokai into. Combined with the general simplicity of many tasks when aided by magic or natural abilities, forestry work and laboring under the supervision of the Matangi-Ken, is currently one of the best jobs for those who arrive in town without much in the way of muggle or magical qualifications, are lacking in their disguises or capability to assume human forms, and are in need of a quick way to get back on their feet. Roles are not just limited to manual work cutting down trees, buckering limbs and moving logs either. The modern world of forestry requires a wide range of jobs such as aborists, ecologists, log scalers, nursery gardeners, timber cruisers, tree planters, and even people licensed to be muggle truck drivers.
Historical Trivia; The main lumber exports of Yamainutaira are native woods such as Jezo Spruce, Hinoki Cypress, Sawara Cypress, Sakhalin Fir. Traditionally, much of it was used for firewood and in local buildings, but for most of the 20th century, Yamainutaira's lumber industry was a shrinking business as most of the wood was used in paper, which eventually began to be supplanted by digital mediums. Today Yamainutaira's lumber industry is experiencing an explosion of growth, as the difficulty and cost in importing materials for plastics and metals in non-war industry related construction, has caused many to re-examine and explore the use of timber plywoods and laminates in modern construction once more.
HOWLING Juice - Unleash the Beast
Just typing that tagline makes me want to facepalm, and yes the brand name is officially written in all caps, but if one is going to talk about the modern Matanegi-no-Shinrin, it would be impossible to leave out the juice bottling factory.
HOWLING Juice first had it's start in an idea bandied about in the late 90s to help out not just Yamainutaira, but also a number of other yokai and magical communities in the area that were looking for a entrepreneurial opportunity, after a number of years of regionally successful harvests lead to both an overabundance of produce that went to waste, and the sales price for various fruits falling. For this reason, though most people think of HOWLING Juice as being a recent thing due to it's opening in 2007, the solidification of plans for the juice factory were officiated as far back as 2004. Unfortunately though, the advent of the war first led to a delay in breaking ground, followed by a change of the entire factory's scale and location, due to the redevelopment of Settoshugyoba as a residential are for refugees, and the loss of a separately branded facility by the original investors.
Today, HOWLING Juice makes a wide range of fruit based drink products, utilizing produce from innumerable farms across Yamainutaira and the surrounding Kawakami District. In particular, HOWLING Juice takes great pride in being a Golden Heart Sticker business and consumer product, thanks to employing refugees and war migrants throughout it's production and bottling facility, as well as buying much of it's raw fruit and ingredients from farms and business that themselves, employ refugees and war migrants.
In recent years, HOWLING Juice has also branched out into two sub-lines of products. While HOWLING is still it's primary fruit drink product line and source of earnings, RABID (Go Nuts) was first put on shelves in 2010 as a line of fruit based energy drinks. More recently, as of January 2013, HOWLING Juice has been proud to announce it's new fruit and cocktail syrup line, LUPUS (Feel the Change). Since 2011, HOWLING Juice has also had a deal with the SDF to supply HOWLING and RABID for the cafeterias and vending machines of various bases and facilities.
Employment at HOWLING Juice is definitely one of those things not for the easily cultured shocked or magicals unfamiliar with muggle technology. The vast majority of both the juicing plant and the bottling factory are automated production lines, with most entry level jobs being either system management, machinery maintenance, or various quality checking and inspection roles. That's not to say it's impossible though, as almost 30 percent of the management staff, administrative office workers, and floor crews are yokai and human magicals
Helpful Tip: Want to see something neat and take an interactive trip with the family? Visit HOWLING Juice's juicing and bottling plant, and take a tour around the premise. Even better, they give a free (non-alcoholic) drink with every tour, and the gift shop has specials and discounts on many of their more unique and interesting products. For those who regularly burn the midnight oil due to schooling or work, and are looking for something that is both little more pleasant than your normal energy drink or caffeine shot, and with a little bit more kick, they also sell RABID in bulk boxes at wholesaler prices.
Spoiler
"Few remain who know how to hunt via the old ways, and fewer still have their own licences to do so in this day and age. Matangi-Ken heiress, Ifukube Chufsanma, shoots more than photos in her spare time, accompanied by long time hunting partner, Hokubu Hanzomaru - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Hunting with the Hunting Dogs of Winter
Before Shoumaru the Little of the Hokubu Okami, there was the Setto of the Ezo Wolves. But even before them, there were the Matangi-Ken. While the Hokubu may have once ruled Yamainutaira for almost half a millennium, and the Setto repeatedly warred, hunted and migrated across the plateau, and through the surrounding hills and valleys, it is the Hunting Dogs of Winter who have walked the forests to the south and the foothills of Daisetsuzan longest. Hunting has long held a special place and role for life in Yamainutaira, in spite of the area's main trait being that of an agricultural farming town for the last five centuries. Even today, the activity still has an importantance, but not quite as heavily or for the same reasons as in previous centuries, when it was an important source of food for the town's largely meat loving demographics.
Today, non-magical mundane deer and boar are a massive problem. This is not the complaint of somebody from a farming community, with more than a few experiences of fields planted with her own two hands being torn up, but a reliably calculated and evidence based conclusion, backed up by multiple studies. While a balanced ecosystem is important, the system is already irrevocably unbalanced due to the rarity of any mundane predators to keep numbers in check. Bears are a rarity, and wolves are technically "extinct", so there is little way to keep the populations of the district in check, except to rely on people getting hunting licences and going out whenever they have time during the open season.
Obviously this has it's issues. For one thing, going off into the woods for most of a day is admittedly not a productive task by most modern standards. And then there's the "humaneness" question. Considering most people who still hunt in town are magically capable, and only really own muggle firearms for show and as muggle covers, humaneness of the kill is thankfully not an issue for most meats procured by Yamainutaira hunters. Thankfully in that aspect, the value of hunting has also increased over the last few years, as people have turned to the land for sources of food rather than the sea.
Where once hunting was a deficit expenditure due to licencing and gun registration, today you can easily break even after only a few kills. As an added incentive to further entice help culling pest deer and boar numbers, and to bring in hunters from out of town, the Yamainutaira Council may occasionally even announce bounty periods.
Important Note: While these culls are considered useful tools for controlling pest numbers that may destroy not just farmland, but also the primary and preserved areas of woodland surrounding Yamainutaira and in the Old Forest of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin, this is NOT an every man free for all. Hunting in this community is very strictly regulated, controlled and organized, especially due to the increasing numbers of intelligent boar and deer yokai who have joined the township or taken up residence elsewhere in Kamokawa District in recent years. Because of this, there are a number of responsible standards the community always adheres to;
1 - NEVER hunt alone; Always travel with at least four people minimum, and never split into groups of less than two.
2 - NEVER hunt unannounced. All trips must be announced either to the town council office, or to the Matangi-Ken at least two days in advance.
3 - ALWAYS check with the Matangi-Ken's Forest Guards if there is anybody else in the woods, before you enter the Old Forest of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin.
4 - ALWAYS confirm what you are looking at with a spotter, before you fire/loose your arrow/cast/attack.
5 - CLEAN KILLS and sanitary carcasses are the only ones that will be approved for bounties or purchased for commercial sale by local butchers.
6 - RESPECT the Old Forest and it's wildlife, even if you are there to kill something mundane.
Break or attempt to circumvent any of these rules, and the Matangi-Ken will know, even before you leave the forest.
Important Note: Please do not be disparaging towards the town's opinions on hunting activities, especially that of the Matangi-Ken. For one thing, it's a tired old (often uninformed) argument many of us have all heard before. For a second, the Matangi-Ken hunt more than anyone else because the act of it and the methods of gathering certain materials are an important aspect of their clan, and a component of their magics of more ancient and animistic natures.
Spoiler: Part 4
Spoiler
"An evening in the hidden world of the Valley of Dens - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Spoiler
Tani-no-Su - The Valley of Dens
You wouldn't think it now, but Tani-no-Su was once home to yet another village, and great swathes of terraces and farmland to once rival the fields of Noukamura and Inunojotaira. Now from the plateau above, it looks to be only a sea of trees. But it one looks past the canopy and leaves, it is possible to see the spark of metamorphosis and new purpose in the valley once more.
Historically Tani-no-Su served much the same role as the two farming areas to the east. It was largely a realm of the peasantry, without great houses, manors or estates due to being unfashionably low lying, or difficult to build on due to the terrain or distance. But the biggest divergence between Tani-no-Su and Noukamura or Inunojotaira, was that while the plateau farmlands were predominately worked by humans, canids, or yokai with ties to the Hokubu, Setto and Matangi-Ken, Tani-no-Su was a realm of those who fell outside those categories. Foxes and cats who did not get along with the wolves and dogs above, more bestial yokai that would have had issue navigating the streets and stores of Ichibahomen and Kabeoka, and finally those who simply preferred more natural or simpler existences in their true forms or animal states.
Many of those in Tani-no-Su didn't just work the terraces of their masters from the plateau above however. A good portion of those who lived in the village that once sat where the four main roads of Tani-no-Su still intersect, were also involved in the various copper mines that were once scattered through out the valley, exploiting the natural copper deposits Yamainutaira was once acclaimed for.
However, Tani-no-Su's long history of making up almost a third of Yamainutaira's farming production and being a site for centuries of based magical mining, all abruptly came to an end with the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy. Due to the lower social and economic status of many of those living in the Valley of Dens, as well as the fact that it was an area known for those of more bestial and undisguised natures, Tani-no-Su was eventually one of the last yokai communities to be broken up and moved to the Yokai Reserves, in spite of the best efforts by the Clans of Yamainutaira to retain their neighbors on the grounds of the effects such an uprooting could have on the local economy and work forces.
Over the next few decades, the terraces crumbled and nature reclaimed the Valley of the Dens, but that does not mean they have been forgotten or fallen out of use.
Today, Tani-no-Su is home to countless fruit orchards, tree plantations practicing even-aged timber management, and forest farms using agroforestry to grow high-value specialty crops that require tree canopies for optimal conditions. Though no where near what it once was, Tani-no-Su is also once more home to a budding yokai community, albeit a small one predominately made up of those working the orchards around their homes.
Predominately however, while there are outliers and properties do still work the land by magical means or produce magical words or fruits, the vast majority of jobs and properties in Tani-no-Su are are muggle based these days. A status that the area reached out of necessity, first thanks to the resettlement of over 85% of the Valley of Den's community between the 1770s and 1880s, followed by death tolls inflicted during the war, and then finally the loss of local population to urbanization in the mid-to-late 20th century. These conditions also caused a similar state to be reached with the current Doukouzan Mining Facility, and it's more recently added Doukouzan Metal Works.
Important Note: Tani-no-Su was once home to a small village by the name of Yotsukado, which once sat at the four-way crossroads just passed the Nekosu Bridge. During final wave of yokai evictions and resettlements in 1880, the village was burned down by it's remaining residents before they left. Those unfamiliar to the town are advised to avoid leaving the road or entering these ruins, especially the ones cordoned off by muggle hazard tape and unsafe structure signs, or marked with sealing ofuda.
Historical Trivia: Not all the ruined structures in Tani-no-Su are from this time period or closed off. Due to the combination of it's long history of farming development and migrating copper mining sites, crossing paths with the area's modern usage for orchards and forestry, the hills of Tani-no-Su are filled with forgotten buildings, walls and ancient foot prints going back centuries. Among the more interesting structures to look at are the remains of the old forge up on Betsutoriyama, where you can also pick and buy your own apples and dirigible plums.
Spoiler
"Doukouzan Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility - Doukouzan Mining and Metal Works Website"
Spoiler
Doukouzan Mining Facility and Copper Metal Works
Since time immemorial, the hills and valleys surrounding the modern site of Doukouzan have been the site of various forms of copper mining.
So the town legend goes, it was Shoumaru the Little who established the first permanent copper exploitation operation, but archaeological evidence suggests a history of mining and copper working by the local Ainu, Ezo Wolves and Matangi-Ken dating back centuries. Most likely what Shoumaru the Little really brought with him, were the knowledge and contacts to import or hire the actual people capable of bringing new techniques and technology to Yamainutaira. Regardless, it was first under his rule that working the veins of ore and natural copper that could be found in the hillsides of Tani-No-Su and the ridge lines of Betsutoriyama and Ansokukanyama, truly began in any form of permanance. For hundreds of years since, Yamainutaira copper has been a small but not insubstantial source of the town's wealth through the centuries.
Much of northern Tani-no-Su and the regions to the west of Yamainutaira are pock-marked and littered with the scattered traces of centuries of this mining, especially from the time period of the early industrial period. Many of the great clearings, vales and caves in the area, are actually the remnants of depleted mining sites, or the slag heaps left behind when the rest of the buildings and their equipment were packed up and shifted to a new site. Since the Meiji Restoration when the mines were rapidly industrialized though, mining operations in Tani-no-Su have been largely restricted to the current ridge line and hillsides of Doukouzan.
The Meiji Restoration and the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy actually almost spelled the end of Yamainutaira's mining history. So much of the original mining workforce and operations relied on a combination of yokai labor and magical methods of ore extraction, smelting, and copper refining, that it very nearly left the entire mine inoperable. Eventually though, Doukouzan was reorganized and envisioned as a almost entirely new, western style operation, relying on mechanization, technology and science where there had once been yokai and magic. While the original refinery never reopened, Doukouzan survived into the 20th century, and even weathered the tumultuous misfortune that gripped the town for much of it's later decades. Since the early 2000s however, Doukouzan has seen a slow reversal of fortunes.
The Doukouzan of today is a world apart from what it was one hundred years ago, or even just twenty. From an industry that was once infamous for it's dirty and back-breakingly laborious nature, modern muggle copper mining is almost more of a science, than a job of task or toil. In fact, most of the mining that takes place these days has little resemblance to the classic images of excavation pits in the ground, or tunneling deep beneath the earth. Utilizing modern muggle technology and techniques such as froth-flotation, the solvent extraction and electrowinning process (SX/EW), Outokumpu flash-smelting, and poling process fire refining, almost all of Doukouzan's current copper production comes from reprocessing old slag heaps and tailings dumps left over from older sites and historic mines. What was once considered ore of too poor a quality to smelt, or slag that was past the point of being further refined, is now exploitable through newer and more efficient means.
For this reason, the core of Doukouzan's modern facilities is no longer the mining operation itself, but the Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility. Already an idea on the town's table of brainstorms for economic turn around, having much of the groundwork already laid out before Blood Week, allowed the planned construction of the facility to be rapidly pushed forwards, and the costs offset with the aid of a government grant for businesses establishing or upgrading crucial domestic war industries. Thanks to this and further developments of the site and extraction operations since opening in 2009, by 2012 Doukouzan had almost tripled it's copper production compared to what it was in 2002.
Important Note: It can not be impressed how much Doukouzan is NOT a location to treat as a place full of fancy muggle machinery that one can just waltz past and take a gander at. The whole area surrounding the various slag reprocessing operations, different outlying plants, and the Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility, are regarded by the muggles as one singular industrial property. This is not overly fancy blacksmithing or metal working in any traditional sense, but chemistry on a factory scale. You wouldn't just wander into a potion maker's workplace or an alchemist's laboratory when they are brewing something potentially dangerous, so don't go poking around the Copper Extraction and Refinement Facility just because it looks interesting.
Due to it's rather technical and scientific nature, those looking to apply for jobs there should also either know how to drive a truck and operate heavy machinery, or be able to display sufficiently comparably knowledge to having various muggle degrees in chemistry, metallurgy, geology, or engineering.
Historical Trivia: Doukouzan hasn't just produced copper though out it's history. Occasionally over the decades, gold veins have been discovered, but usually only ever in very trace amounts. The most common byproduct usually produced is sulfur.
Spoiler
"Hokubu Sakiko, one of the last masters of her art making a full time living via traditional methods, in a once thriving ancient craft - Hokubu Kariudoko"
The Riddle of Copper
Three things, there have always been in the hills of Yamainutaira, and upon which it's founding was based; The game to hunt, the earth to sow, and the metal to wield.
Doukouzan may now be a place of muggle science and technology, but Yamainutaira's connection and history with magical mining and metal working is not entirely extinct. It has survived past the Meiji Restoration, and still exists in the form of the Ken-gitsune master-apprentice line, of which Hokubu Sakiko is the current master and keeper of the forge. Since ancient times, smiths under the guidance of the master of the Ken-gitsune school, have done more than just process and beat Tani-no-Su's copper into shape for sale. They also made and maintained the tools of Yamainutaira, from the plowshares of peace time, to the swords of war in times of conflict. Many of Yamainutaira's greatest warriors used blades forged by the Ken-gitsune masters of their respective eras, with the longest lasting and most renowned of all being the enchanted blade made by Ken-gitsune himself, Shisashikon, "the Messenger's Tooth" wielded by Clan Heads of the Hokubu for the last ten generations.
Iconic thanks to their use of copper, bronze and brass, in their decorative work, Ken-gitsune blades never reached the kind of acclaim their contemporaries had, but a tradition of proud sword making was maintained even through the relative peace of Tokugawa rule, when most orders to the school were for jewelry and ceremonial pieces, rather than functional and enchanted examples like Shisashikon. Swords and jewelry, accompanied copper ingots as part of Yamainut
Now in a modern forge and metal workshop in Ichibahomen, on the site of where Daimaru the Builder moved the original Ken-gitsune Master's workshop to after the fire of 1561, Hokubu Sakiko still keeps a traditional forge set up in the back lot, and caters to orders for magical clientele. Got an old family heirloom you want checked out? Or do you want a piece of your very own? Is it a sword you are thinking about when it comes to that sentence, or jewelry? Mundane or magical, Hokubu Sakiko can usually at the very least identify what needs to be done, or who to put you in touch with for the best result.
Alternately if you are interested, Hokubu Sakiko is always willing to accept an extra pair of hands in her shop, if they have the previous experience to be of use. Do note however, that working under her is not an offer of the traditional style apprenticeship, or a promise of learning the magical teachings of the Ken-gitsune sword making and jewlery crafting schools, just employment at her metal working shop and jewelry store.
The Tale of Shoumaru the Little and the Three Gifts of Ken-gitsune
"So who was Ken-gitsune?" I'm sure most of you are asking. How does a guy who's name means "Sword Fox" relate to a family sword, a master-apprentice line, and copper mining in a small outpost village, in the middle of Hokkaido, far removed from the happening places of Sengoku Japan?
Well, that can be answered with a fun little tale (and an admittedly likely embellished-by-time history lesson) that even the local muggles all know, albeit with certain details removed, or viewed as metaphorical and myth due to the Statue of Secrecy.
When Shoumaru the Little first left Honshu (either in disgraced exile or in search of destiny and fortune depending on the version), it is said that one of the first things he witnessed upon arrival in Hokkaido was, a group of brigands harassing a young kitsune messenger boy. Taking issue with their treatment of the fox youth who they unjustly accused of being a thief and a trickster, and seeing how they cowed the rest of the townsfolk, Shoumaru the Little stepped in. Being smaller than the Ezo wolves due to his Honshu stature, at first they mocked him for his hieght, and in their arrogance tried to rob him as well. In the ensuing fight, Shoumaru the Little lost his sword, but he was never the less victorious thanks to his use of an old iron shield. An artifact born of an era before the prominence of two-handed blades and the katana.
Immensely thankful for being saved, the messenger boy could only apologized for causing Shoumaru the Little such inconvenience and the loss of his sword. With little to his name, all the kitsune youth could afford to give the Honshu Okami was a stone magatama, which would allow him to enter and receive aid from a village on his path through the north. And so onward he traveled, until eventually Shoumaru the Little arrived in the village the young fox had spoken to him of.
There, Shoumaru the Little met another kitsune, a priestess and guardian of the village's crops. Encountering her in a field, he found the priestess laboring to perform her duties due to her water pail being stolen. And so Shoumaru the Little handed her his great shield, and using the concave shape, they brought water to the fields. The priestess was thankfully for his service, but was regretful she could not repay him in any meaningful way, especially after the shield became scratched and discolored through their task. Instead she could only provide the location of a forested plateau that she had heard far-ranging hunters speaking of with wonder and bountiful acclaim, and handed him a stone magatama. A new one that would allow him to pass among the peoples of those lands as a friend.
Some time later, Shoumaru the Little eventually made his way to the forests of what would eventually be called Yamainutaira. It was during one of his first winters there however, that in the middle of a most terrible chilling storm, Shoumaru the Little and his Ezo hunting partners found themselves with a guest. An old kitsune came upon the hunting lodge, and begged to be allowed inside until the blizzard had subsided. Shoumaru the Little's hunting partners were against the idea, fearing that with the ferocity of the cold and wind, this was a trick by a yuki-onna or some other spirit of frost that was determined to get to them inside. Proving the kitsune's trustworthiness and innocence through a series of simple tests using warding magics and a string of prayer beads though, Shoumaru the Little eventually assuaged their fears enough that the elderly traveler was allowed into the refuge, and given a place by their fire side. When the storm finally passed, the old kitsune was filled with thanks and gratitude for the shelter and food he had been given, as he would most likely have perished otherwise. As with those before however, the traveler had naught he could give Shoumaru the Little, aside from yet another simple stone magatama.
Time went on though, with winter turning to spring, and then spring to summer, with half a year passing and the old kitsune traveler almost forgotten. Then one day, Shoumaru the Little found himself with a new visitor; A Zenko, a kitsune sworn to the service of Inari Okami, and bearing the name of Ken-gitsune. All three of the kitsune Shoumaru the Little had aided over the course of his travels in Hokkaido had been family to the Zenko, and so Ken-gitsune had come to repay the Honshu Okami as those in their hour of need could not. A master of not just sword making, but a guide in the arts of the forge and metal normally sent to aid those with Inari Okami's favor and blessing, Ken-gitsune then put his talents to work crafting three gifts of repayment.
To replace Shoumaru the Little's lost sword that he had originally borne from Honshu, and lost in the defense of one who could not fight back, when no one else would do what was right, from metals found beneath the earth of the okami's new home in Yamainutaira, Ken-gitsune forged an enchanted blade. One that would never break or decay, and would always return to the hands of the blood of his line. Furnished with wood, leather and copper, all procured from the plateau, and made by the hands of one kami's messenger for the descendant of another, the sword was named Shisashikon, "The Messenger's Tooth".
For Shoumaru the Little's aid to the priestess, and his altruism in ensuring the bounty of others, when there was no pressing need to or any advantage for himself, Ken-gitsune next repaired the okami's shield. Removing the damage and scars of his battles since leaving Honshu, Ken-gitsune polished the shield until it could reflect it's surroundings like the water had carried. Upon this surface, he then placed enchantments that would allow it to forever show the truth of all things, reflect more than just light, and never mar or break, no matter what it encountered. And so Ken-gitsune created the Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo, the "moonlight reflecting off the river" deity and beast shield.
As his final gift to Shoumaru the Little, Ken-gitsune then took the three magatama the okami had received for each of his deeds, and fashioned them upon a necklace of obsidian beads. Turning each of the three magatama thrice in his hand, they then became not of common stone, but of agate, coral and ivory, and were imbibed with special powers. One bead would heat in the presence of danger to it's owner or nearby kin. The second would enable the necklace to separate, bind and wound beings of evil nature, regardless of their state in the physical or spiritual world. And the third would grant luck and fortune to the kin of those who wore it, but not the bearer them self. For proving the innocence of one in need, and providing shelter and breaking bread with a traveler with naught to offer in return, Ken-gitsune's final gift became the Omotenashi no Magatama, "the Beads of Hospitality".
Upon the completion of his work, and as one final gift of his own to Shoumaru the Little, Ken-gitsune took on an apprentice, teaching him much of what he knew and was allowed to pass on for many years, before eventually leaving his graduated student in Shoumaru the Little's service. Upon the completion of this task, he at last returned to his duties as a servant of Inari Okami, and slowly faded from the annuals of history.
Each of these three gifts still exists within the ownership of the Hokubu Clan, having been passed down for the last five centuries till today.
Traditionally in peace time, the Shisashikon is always carried by the clan head as a symbol of their leadership of the bloodline. The Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo is normally held by the Clan Heir as a metaphor of the clan's future to be protected, and a reminder for their need to deflect and see through the illusions of power or politics others might cast over them. And finally, the Omotenashi no Magatama is entrusted to the Hokubu-Setto Head Priest or Priestess of Hokubu-no-Okami Shokonsha Yashiro, as a sign of the trust and value the Hokubu place on the ties between the two clans.
In war and times of crisis however, all three gifts are carried by the Clan Head. For example, if one looks closely at photos of the current Koshaku and Hokubu Clan Head, Kogamaru, one can often see all three gifts somewhere on his person since Blood Week, usually with the Shisashikon at his hip, and the Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo shrunk down for ease of transport.
Historical Trivia; It is interesting to note that of the three gifts, only the Omotenashi no Magatama seems to work as per the original tale, rather than being an embellishment of it's characteristics.
While the blade of the Shisashikon has never shown any signs of wear or damage in it's long history, the tsuba, tsuka, saya and everything else that is not the sword itself, is known to take damage, and have even been destroyed at times over the course of the Shisashikon's history.
The Kawaakari no Shinju-kyo meanwhile, is infamous for the fact that while it will reflect magic and most projectiles, it is actually relatively ineffective against area-of-effect type attacks. More than one Clan Head and Heir has has also been injured dealing with the shock of blocking things, and even the back-blast of spells or projectiles they have unintentionally reflected.
Even the Omotenashi no Magatama is not without flaw either, as while it does apparently perform functions to the tune of the legend, it will only work at all, when worn by someone descended of Shoumaru the Little's bloodline.
Historical Trivia; While never proven or confirmed by the Main Family, it is rumored that Hokubu Royomaru's dairies suggested that he was unable to wear the Omotenashi no Magatama for many of his final years as clan head, and never told anyone for the security of his status as Clan Head. It was also initially thought that he lost the Shisashikon, as upon his arrest at the end of World War II, the Shisashikon was was confiscated and feared to be among many of those blades either destroyed in furnaces or dumped into Tokyo Bay by ICW Occupation Forces. Upon his death though, the Shisashikon appeared in the hands of Tsumemaru the Peacebound, bereft of it's koshirae and fixings, just as it always had whenever a Clan Heir succeeded upon the death of a Clan Head who died beyond the borders of Yamainutaira.
Spoiler
"Forestry by magical means, in the hills of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin - Hokubu Kariudoko"
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Matangi-Ken no Shinrin - The Nature of Industry and the Industries of Nature
Travel down the Shuryo-do Road long enough, and eventually you might be surprised to at last come across a curve in the kilometers long straight. Keep following those curves, but don't go around the big one, and eventually you will arrive at Matangi-Ken no Shinrin. Or at least what used to be it's borders.
Today on official maps, Matangi-Ken no Shinrin is an area deemed to fall within the boundaries of the Shirakawa river to the east, the old grounds of the Yamainutaira Lumber Mill to the north, to a trio of survey markers in the west and south. Once long ago however, Matangi-Ken no Shinrin was considered a great forest, stretching as far to the southwest as the southern facing slopes of the Ansokukanyama ridge line and the Murasame no Taki river. Following the opposite side of the Shirakawa canyon, it's borders once stretched as far north as the hills of Makunbetsu, while it's eastern reaches were dominated by the highland of Tenmakuyama in a time when it was a forest of bounty, rather than a place of dread.
In it's own way though, Matangi-Ken no Shinrin, even in it's reduced state on government papers and official survey maps, has survived through to the modern day with it's own Yamainutaira blend of the magical past, with the muggle world of today.
Just as Okamiryosen and most of Okamimamotte Iriguchi is owned by the Hokubu Clan, and Settoshugyoba and Settokanshiba were once predominately the properties of the Setto Clan, the woodlands of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin were, and still are the realm of their namesake Clan. While most of the yokai that make up the Matangi-Ken today, live in Inunojotaira and Noukamura, the vast majority of the titles and deeds that make up the modern area and a few properties beyond Yamainutaira's border, are owned by the descendants of the forest's original inhabitants.
Out of necessity and a desire to remain relevant, much of the Matangi-Ken's territory that falls within the borders of Yamainutaira's borders, is not actually a true forest. Decades of muggle logging until the Matangi-Ken finally acquired all the deeds after first be forced off the land during the Meiji Restoration, due to a combination of muggle land law rulings and magical legislation cracking down on those still living more naturalistic ways, resulted in a great portion of the original wood being cleared for farm land, and many older trees and forest giants felled. With the power and balance of this area ruined by these events, since the 1920s the Matangi-Ken have continued to selectively rotate tree farms and logging projects around this destroyed border of their old lands, and the original territories the Hokubu and Setto first first negotiated for permission to clear for their medieval lumber supplies.
An industry that still continues to be the primary economy in Matangi-Ken no Shinrin to this day. While the current lumber mill has been around and occupied it's current site since the early 20th century, much like the Matangi-Ken's greenhouses in Inunojotaira and the reinvented mining operations in Doukouzan, forestry in not just Matangi-Ken, but all of Yamainutaira, is a modern blend of the magical past and modern muggle thinking. Sustainable forest management is one of the core schools of thought behind Yamainutaira's industry, preserving what few natural old-growth groves and primeval forest remains. Agroforestry, silviculture, arboriculture, community forestry, even-aged timber management, have all been the buzz-words of forest farming and the lumber industry in this town for the last 30 years.
Thanks to being more spaced out and divided in areas of operation, it is a industry that is also easier to insert yokai into. Combined with the general simplicity of many tasks when aided by magic or natural abilities, forestry work and laboring under the supervision of the Matangi-Ken, is currently one of the best jobs for those who arrive in town without much in the way of muggle or magical qualifications, are lacking in their disguises or capability to assume human forms, and are in need of a quick way to get back on their feet. Roles are not just limited to manual work cutting down trees, buckering limbs and moving logs either. The modern world of forestry requires a wide range of jobs such as aborists, ecologists, log scalers, nursery gardeners, timber cruisers, tree planters, and even people licensed to be muggle truck drivers.
Historical Trivia; The main lumber exports of Yamainutaira are native woods such as Jezo Spruce, Hinoki Cypress, Sawara Cypress, Sakhalin Fir. Traditionally, much of it was used for firewood and in local buildings, but for most of the 20th century, Yamainutaira's lumber industry was a shrinking business as most of the wood was used in paper, which eventually began to be supplanted by digital mediums. Today Yamainutaira's lumber industry is experiencing an explosion of growth, as the difficulty and cost in importing materials for plastics and metals in non-war industry related construction, has caused many to re-examine and explore the use of timber plywoods and laminates in modern construction once more.
HOWLING Juice - Unleash the Beast
Just typing that tagline makes me want to facepalm, and yes the brand name is officially written in all caps, but if one is going to talk about the modern Matanegi-no-Shinrin, it would be impossible to leave out the juice bottling factory.
HOWLING Juice first had it's start in an idea bandied about in the late 90s to help out not just Yamainutaira, but also a number of other yokai and magical communities in the area that were looking for a entrepreneurial opportunity, after a number of years of regionally successful harvests lead to both an overabundance of produce that went to waste, and the sales price for various fruits falling. For this reason, though most people think of HOWLING Juice as being a recent thing due to it's opening in 2007, the solidification of plans for the juice factory were officiated as far back as 2004. Unfortunately though, the advent of the war first led to a delay in breaking ground, followed by a change of the entire factory's scale and location, due to the redevelopment of Settoshugyoba as a residential are for refugees, and the loss of a separately branded facility by the original investors.
Today, HOWLING Juice makes a wide range of fruit based drink products, utilizing produce from innumerable farms across Yamainutaira and the surrounding Kawakami District. In particular, HOWLING Juice takes great pride in being a Golden Heart Sticker business and consumer product, thanks to employing refugees and war migrants throughout it's production and bottling facility, as well as buying much of it's raw fruit and ingredients from farms and business that themselves, employ refugees and war migrants.
In recent years, HOWLING Juice has also branched out into two sub-lines of products. While HOWLING is still it's primary fruit drink product line and source of earnings, RABID (Go Nuts) was first put on shelves in 2010 as a line of fruit based energy drinks. More recently, as of January 2013, HOWLING Juice has been proud to announce it's new fruit and cocktail syrup line, LUPUS (Feel the Change). Since 2011, HOWLING Juice has also had a deal with the SDF to supply HOWLING and RABID for the cafeterias and vending machines of various bases and facilities.
Employment at HOWLING Juice is definitely one of those things not for the easily cultured shocked or magicals unfamiliar with muggle technology. The vast majority of both the juicing plant and the bottling factory are automated production lines, with most entry level jobs being either system management, machinery maintenance, or various quality checking and inspection roles. That's not to say it's impossible though, as almost 30 percent of the management staff, administrative office workers, and floor crews are yokai and human magicals
Helpful Tip: Want to see something neat and take an interactive trip with the family? Visit HOWLING Juice's juicing and bottling plant, and take a tour around the premise. Even better, they give a free (non-alcoholic) drink with every tour, and the gift shop has specials and discounts on many of their more unique and interesting products. For those who regularly burn the midnight oil due to schooling or work, and are looking for something that is both little more pleasant than your normal energy drink or caffeine shot, and with a little bit more kick, they also sell RABID in bulk boxes at wholesaler prices.
Spoiler
"Few remain who know how to hunt via the old ways, and fewer still have their own licences to do so in this day and age. Matangi-Ken heiress, Ifukube Chufsanma, shoots more than photos in her spare time, accompanied by long time hunting partner, Hokubu Hanzomaru - Hokubu Kariudoko"
Hunting with the Hunting Dogs of Winter
Before Shoumaru the Little of the Hokubu Okami, there was the Setto of the Ezo Wolves. But even before them, there were the Matangi-Ken. While the Hokubu may have once ruled Yamainutaira for almost half a millennium, and the Setto repeatedly warred, hunted and migrated across the plateau, and through the surrounding hills and valleys, it is the Hunting Dogs of Winter who have walked the forests to the south and the foothills of Daisetsuzan longest. Hunting has long held a special place and role for life in Yamainutaira, in spite of the area's main trait being that of an agricultural farming town for the last five centuries. Even today, the activity still has an importantance, but not quite as heavily or for the same reasons as in previous centuries, when it was an important source of food for the town's largely meat loving demographics.
Today, non-magical mundane deer and boar are a massive problem. This is not the complaint of somebody from a farming community, with more than a few experiences of fields planted with her own two hands being torn up, but a reliably calculated and evidence based conclusion, backed up by multiple studies. While a balanced ecosystem is important, the system is already irrevocably unbalanced due to the rarity of any mundane predators to keep numbers in check. Bears are a rarity, and wolves are technically "extinct", so there is little way to keep the populations of the district in check, except to rely on people getting hunting licences and going out whenever they have time during the open season.
Obviously this has it's issues. For one thing, going off into the woods for most of a day is admittedly not a productive task by most modern standards. And then there's the "humaneness" question. Considering most people who still hunt in town are magically capable, and only really own muggle firearms for show and as muggle covers, humaneness of the kill is thankfully not an issue for most meats procured by Yamainutaira hunters. Thankfully in that aspect, the value of hunting has also increased over the last few years, as people have turned to the land for sources of food rather than the sea.
Where once hunting was a deficit expenditure due to licencing and gun registration, today you can easily break even after only a few kills. As an added incentive to further entice help culling pest deer and boar numbers, and to bring in hunters from out of town, the Yamainutaira Council may occasionally even announce bounty periods.
Important Note: While these culls are considered useful tools for controlling pest numbers that may destroy not just farmland, but also the primary and preserved areas of woodland surrounding Yamainutaira and in the Old Forest of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin, this is NOT an every man free for all. Hunting in this community is very strictly regulated, controlled and organized, especially due to the increasing numbers of intelligent boar and deer yokai who have joined the township or taken up residence elsewhere in Kamokawa District in recent years. Because of this, there are a number of responsible standards the community always adheres to;
1 - NEVER hunt alone; Always travel with at least four people minimum, and never split into groups of less than two.
2 - NEVER hunt unannounced. All trips must be announced either to the town council office, or to the Matangi-Ken at least two days in advance.
3 - ALWAYS check with the Matangi-Ken's Forest Guards if there is anybody else in the woods, before you enter the Old Forest of Matangi-Ken no Shinrin.
4 - ALWAYS confirm what you are looking at with a spotter, before you fire/loose your arrow/cast/attack.
5 - CLEAN KILLS and sanitary carcasses are the only ones that will be approved for bounties or purchased for commercial sale by local butchers.
6 - RESPECT the Old Forest and it's wildlife, even if you are there to kill something mundane.
Break or attempt to circumvent any of these rules, and the Matangi-Ken will know, even before you leave the forest.
Important Note: Please do not be disparaging towards the town's opinions on hunting activities, especially that of the Matangi-Ken. For one thing, it's a tired old (often uninformed) argument many of us have all heard before. For a second, the Matangi-Ken hunt more than anyone else because the act of it and the methods of gathering certain materials are an important aspect of their clan, and a component of their magics of more ancient and animistic natures.
