Fables and Folktales: Urashima-Tarō

I've always heard this story as being called the "Japanese Rip van WInkle", but there is really only one connection to that story and this one. Like you mentioned in your video, it has more in common with European fairy stories than it does with anything American.

I had to translate a simplified version of this story for a Japanese class assignment once. I only remember because the story specified that the box was a particular style of origami box and the copier cut off the translation for that word (and also turtle, but that was easy to find online). And then I spent hours trying to make the box…

Fun fact, this story was used as the basis for a story arc in Final Fantasy 4. One of the main party (Rydia I think) ends up in an underwater realm, and spends years learning magic and summons from the people there before making her way back to possibly avenge her friends (who she probably thinks are dead) only to find that only a few weeks had passed for the years she spent underwater.