Anime-Myth.com v. With You

Hades

Greek counterpart to Pluto. Lord of the dead. Rhea and Kronos were his parents. When the world was divided among the three sons, Hades received the underworld, with Poseidon receiving the sea, and Zeus everything else. He was husband to Persephone. He carries a scepter, and has a helmet of invisibility. In the beginning, he was said to use his staff to drive the souls of the dead to his realm, but later this task fell to Hermes. His throne is of ebony. "The Rich One," he owns the riches of the earth. Among the immortals he is not favored, and mortals would not breath his name on fear of calling attention to themselves. The cypress and narcissus are sacred to Hades.

Hades appears in the Saint Seiya story.

Hahakiri

From the Karura Mau movie. Wani explains that it was used to put her and her beloved to sleep and after awakened she's now drawn to the sword. It steals her will and commands her to murder. The Hahakiri is later explained to be another name for the sword of Totsuka, the god's sword, used by Susanoh to take the heads of Oroshi. Bizen Isonokami Shrine is where it is supposed to be at. As a side note this sword looks similar to the one seen at the end of the Miyu TV series.

Hair

In volume one of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, Kushana cuts off her braid as a pledge to her men who died. Her brothers betray her and many of those under her are killed. She says after taking a knife to her hair: "I swear you will not have died in vain! Accept this, my pledge of honor!"

Hakkenden

Nanso Satomi Hakkenden was a 106 volume novel written by Takizawa Bakin, who lived during the Edo or Tokugawa period in Japan. In the novel Princess Fuse has 108 Buddhist rosary beads, the 8 large ones fly from her after death, and the Hakkenshi (Eight Dog Samurai) are born from them. The eight beads bear the marks of the eight Confucian virtues. She was promised to the dog Yatsufusa after he helped the princess' father defeat his enemy, and the Hakkenshi are their sons.*

From Chris on Dragonball: "I was reading an interview with Akira Toriyama in the March issue of Shonen Jump(English version), and he said that the idea of collecting the dragonballs came from a folktale called Satomi Hakkenden, The Eight Dog Warrriors. Apparently in the story a princess stabs herself and 8 magic balls come from her wound."

*Two reference sites: http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~opaku/
http://www.bh.wakwak.com/~gensougarou/gallery/02_english/46_e.html

Hand

From Symbols in Teutonic Mythology: "The hand symbolizes loyalty, highlighting the importance of the bond of the oath." A palm with an eye in the center was a symbol of insight for both Tibetan bodhisattvas and Native Americans. This is another image seen in Shamanic Princess.

The hand is also a sign of healing. Perhaps this goes back to biblical references. Dende in Dragon Ball heals from his hands, as does Mitsukake in Fushigi Yuugi. Fuu uses a healing wind from her hands in Rayearth.

Hansel and Gretel

A fairy tale written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Hansel and Gretel's parents don't have enough money for food so decide to take the children to the forest and leave them. They wander for a time until coming to a house made of sweets. A witch comes forth and takes the children inside where she puts Hansel in a cage and Gretel to work for her. She can not see well but is determined to plumpin' up Hansel in order to eat him, but he keeps her fooled. Finally, the day comes when she can wait no more and so Gretel while preparing the oven asks the witch what to do and if she may show her. The witch starts to climb inside and Gretel pushes her in and shuts her inside, and rescues her brother. As the witch's house was full of riches they filled their pockets and Gretel's apron with all the jewels they could, and returned home where they received a happy homecoming with their father.

Cruel Fairy Tales
From Chris: Kaori Yuki's "Cruel Fairy Tales" has a reference to Hansel and Gretal. The two children in the forest and the evil witch.

Hansel and Gretel
Manga by Junko Mizuno. "Meet Hansel. Meet Gretel. She's a little bit loudmouthed and aggressive, he's a little bit brainy and pudgy. And everything's fine in their tiny mountain hamlet--Dad's on medication, the local barber's selling diet food, and there's croissants for everyone--until one day a tiny lady shows up... and something goes horribly wrong in Hibari-cho."*

Princess Tutu
From Chris: From episode 3, Ahiru tells Mytho (Sigfried) that their situation reminds her of a story where two siblings are lost in a forest and they come to a candy house where an old lady feeds them to fatten them up to eat.

Swan Lake
From Joanna: In my dubbed version (swedish) the squirrels' names are Hans and Margareta. Margatera is the long from of Greta, so Hans and Margareta = Hans and Gretel.

Note, this is true for the names in the English dub too.

*From http://www.pulp-mag.com/junko/

Harpy

At one time, goddesses of the storm; also they were once pictured as beautiful, winged maidens. Later they were given the popular depiction of today, half-bird half-woman, and fiercesome, sometimes tormenting a person or set upon them as punishment. The harpy appears in Yu-Gi-Oh! as one of the battle cards. From ep. 3 of Cutey Honey Flash, White Panther's character looks to possibly be a harpy. Her defense and attack are poison feathers.

Headless Horseman

From OVA 3 of Dream Hunter REM. The Headless Horseman is the character from Washington Irving's tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Headless Samurai from this episode seems to be partly influenced by this character. At the end it's discovered that the samurai is actually the spirit of the man who loved Rem's ancestor.

Hel

Provided by Superpuu using Pantheon.org. "In Norse mythology, Hel is the ruler of Helheim, the realm of the dead. She is the youngest child of the evil god Loki and the giantess Angrboda. She is usually described as a horrible hag, half alive and half dead, with a gloomy and grim expression. Her face and body are those of a living woman, but her thighs and legs are those of a corpse, mottled and moldering.

The gods had abducted Hel and her brothers from Angrboda's hall. They cast her in the underworld, into which she distributes those who are send to her; the wicked and those who died of sickness or old age. Her hall in Helheim is called Eljudnir, home of the dead. Her manservant is Ganglati and her maidservant is Ganglot (which both can be translated as "tardy")."

Helba is a reference to Hel in .hack.

Helios

Helios was the Greek god of the Sun, and brother to Eos and Selene. It was said Helios was omniscient, as he was the god of light. Indeed, the power associated with Helios and the Sun was illumination. His Roman counterpart was Sol. Helios' palace is gold and bronze, with gables of ivory. He was a beautiful youth of wavy locks and gleaming gaze.

"To his golden chariot, which Hephaestus had fashioned, the Horae harnessed the winged horses" (Hamlyn, 160). They were also described as four white steeds, breath of fire and light. On the Islands of the Blessed, his horses were supposed to rest while grazing on a magic herb. Elis was one place Helios was worshipped. White animals (especially horses) were sacred to him.

Helios appears as a young priest of Elysian in Sailor Moon, and represents a sun and moon duality along with Chibi Usa.

Heng O

Shen I married Heng O, the younger sister of the Spirit of the Waters.

While her husband was gone, one day, she saw a beam of light from the roof and smelled a delicious odour fill the house. She used a ladder, to reach the beam where the light issued forth, and finding the pill of immortality awarded to her husband, ate it. On returning, Shen I asked what happened, and suddenly afraid, she fled from him.

"Heng O continued her flight until she reached a luminous sphere, shining like glass, of enormous size, and very cold. The only vegetation consisted of cinnamon-trees. No living being was to be seen. All of a sudden she began to cough, and vomited the covering of the pill of immortality, which was changed into a rabbit as white as the purest jade. This was the ancestor of the spirituality of the yin, or female, principle. Heng O noticed a bitter taste in her mouth, drank some dew, and, feeling hungry, ate some cinnamon. She took up her abode in this sphere" (Werner, 184-185).

Meanwhile, the God of the Immortals told Shen I to not be angry with his wife. He told him that he too would become an immortal, as his wife living in the Palace of the Moon. Shen I was given the Palace of the Sun, and a lunar talisman with which he could visit Heng O. Though he would be able to travel to the lunar palace, she would not be able to travel to the solar palace. And on every fifteenth day of each moon, he would visit her.

Herbal Cake

From Spirited Away. What is at first thought to be a stink god, comes to the bathhouse reeking and leaving sludge in its wake. He's offered a tub and Chihiro discovers he has a "thorn in his side." He is really a sleek river god, a dragon like Haku, who has been completely encased in garbage (the pollution dumped in the river he is guardian too). As a reward for saving the River God, he leaves with her a herbal cake. In the English dub it is translated as medicine. First, the idea that it is a "herbal" cake harkens back to the scene just before the incident where Lin and Chihiro are made to scrub the filthiest tub in the bathhouse. Only the strongest herbal soap will do it. It's "herbal" so it is also something natural and something that will clean away whatever has been polluted or sullied. Chihiro thinks she will give it to her parents, maybe it will turn them back to humans, but instead finds two others who need it more. The first person she gives half to is Haku. He's bleeding from the inside, and hoping to help him she makes him swallow the cake. This herbal cleanser works as a spiritual soap. Haku had swallowed Zeniba's golden seal he had stolen and succumbed to its curse for his crime. The herbal cake immediately makes him sick and spits up the seal and an oil-like warm. The latter had been used by Yubaba to control him. Chihiro's love for Haku breaks the curse put on the seal by Zeniba and the herbal cake has rid Haku's body of what harmed it, and as an action out of unselfish loves creates a deeper cleansing Haku will feel when he wakes. The second comes through Kaonashi. His loneliness has driven him to swallow several people and take on their gluttonous habits. His body swells with his greed, a manifestation of his increasing material greed and an emotional greed for Chihiro. She recognizes he is not himself and tosses the remainder of the cake to him, which once swallowed again causes an instant vomiting fit to clean Kaonashi of the evil he's done and bring him back to his true self.

Hermaphrodite

A hermaphrodite is a being with both the parts of a male and a female, usually sexual organs. In the film, They Were 11, two characters are given as hermaphrodites while in their stage of growth. One, Frol, is still in this state and her/his passing of the academy's exam will determine if s/he will be able to become a male. In Frol's society the first born are usually allowed to become male, but not so the younger offspring, but Frol does not want to live as a female and wants to prove s/he can qualify to be one. For Frol, hermaphroditism is a characterization device in the film to set Frol off as alien, to enforce that while Frol looks like a lovely young girl, Frol is neither sex. They Were 11 is a space-age story and several characters come from planets besides Earth. One character refers to Frol as an angel at one point. There is double meaning in this reference. First, Frol has the appearance of a woman, and even the hero, Tada, is falling in love with her/him. He means it as a compliment to Frol, and an acceptance and understanding of Frol, as he too was once a hermaphrodite himself. Second, angels in some lore were thought to be androgynous or hermaphroditic. Androgynous implies there is no gender, but a hermaphrodite, again, is to be both sexes at once. By using the word angel, he begins to explain to Frol that there are those on board that do indeed understand the species and culture Frol comes from.

A second example of a hermaphrodite seen in anime comes with the traveler from Countdown's short, Alimony Hunter. The main character of the short is a woman with a fiance, and yet this woman seems somehow lonely or missing something when the audience meets her. She's in need of a spark in her life. On her way home one day, she happens upon two women in the throes of love-making. She blushes and leaves, but later on the train home she is still thinking of what she's seen. To her amazement, the woman who'd looked at her appears and sits beside her. The incident is a secret between them now, therefore beginning an unspoken intimacy. The mysterious woman dressed in a man's suit turns out to be a hermaphrodite the woman discovers. But the protagonist doesn't seem to be disgusted but curious, and it seems even more fascinated and entranced by this mysterious stranger who she decides to take for a lover. Here the hermaphrodite holds a different kind of representation than the example above. The stranger is alien in that she/he is not human, but the stranger represents a kind of supernatural or perfect lover. The stranger is a woman and thus a safe or familiar kind of intimate partner; another woman is not threatening for the protagonist and already holds the intimacy on several levels only shared by females. Another female also makes a fitting guide, a psychological shadow making an appearance, to explore and bring out the excitment and emotions the heroine needed. But as the stranger is also a man, s/he can offer a new level of sexual awakening known simultaneously as both sexes. In various anime productions sex and sexual awakenings represent deeper awakenings, releasing of supressed emotions, character attributes, or qualities. That the stranger appears as a kind of angel or mysterious being who releases and awakens anew that side of the protagonist, the stranger is serving to address the deeper needs unacknowledged by the woman. What this deep need is is left to the viewer to decide, perhaps it is strength of self or a deep sense of Self lost somewhere by the woman in the ordinary life she's fallen into and not found contentment in.

Hild

In mythology one of the Valkyries. In the Ah! My Goddess manga she is Urd's mother and a demon.

Hitodama

These are spirit lights seen in anime as blue flames hovering in the air. They are in episode 2 surrounding Sakurain Hyper Police in her flashback.

Hitogata

They are the paper figures Zeniba sends after Haku in Spirited Away. They could be a form of shikigami.++

++http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/anime/www/culture-notes.html

Hohriki

From Karura Mau movie fansub endnote: Power exerted by priests of Shintoism. Usually accompanied by chanting or some other device to gather the individual's ki.

Hohshi

From Karura Mau movie fansub endnote: Person using hohriki; priest.

Horseclaws in Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind

Toriuma is their original name. Most likely inspired by Diatryma, an extinct bird from the Eocene Epoch.

These are the mounts in the world of Nausicaa. They look similar to the Chocobos of the Final Fantasy universe. They are treated as and called "warhorses" by those who ride them. When a mate dies, the other will lay eggs. Kui does this after Kai dies protecting Nausicaa in the second volume of the manga.

Hourglass

Represents time, the cycle of life and death, and heaven and earth. It is also a reminder of our mortality. It is a symbol for the eternal return. The hourglass is a symbol in the Utena series.

Human Sacrifice

Human sacrifice played a religious role for many peoples of Central and South America. The Incas would hold sacrifices each year for gods such as Inti and Pachacamac at their festivals. This comes up in the anime Nazca.

Hydra

Creature from Greek legend with the body of a serpent and many heads. If any of the heads were cut off, another grew in its place or two would grow, making it almost impossible to kill. The hydra appears in ep. 1 of Bastard.