- In Kasimasi the main character gets turned from a guy into a girl. After being turned into a girl her father repeatedly tries to get her to take a bath with him. Is this an actual Japanese custom?
- In Bleach the father invites his daughters (both under 10) to sleep with him. Another Japanese custom?
- Both Nana: Seven Of Seven and Bleach make reference to a strange ritual during fetivals involving partially disrobing girls wearing kimonos by twirling them around by taking off their sashs. Is this a Japanese custom?
Unless you’re talking about the age-old custom of dirty old men trying to sleep with hot young women, no.
I don’t know the titles you are referring to, but anyways.
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Theoretically Japanese families enjoy bathing together. In reality the only places large enough to accomplish such are probably public bathhouses and resorts which will probably be separated into male and female areas. But if for instance a single-parent father wanted to take his young daughters (10 or under sounds good) with him to the guy’s side, I doubt there would be any fuss.
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Not that I am aware of, but without having seen the series I can’t say whether this would be something hinky or not.
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This isn’t a ritual. It’s an old joke about lecherous daimyo’s, where they would grab the end of the obi (sash) and pull to disrobe the girls he wanted. For a father to do this to his daughters would be similar to say having a father go and rub his nose on his daughters belly and go “I’m going to eat you!” like a monster. Scary if he was a monster or lecherous daimyo, but just playing with your kids in reality.
For a non-lecherous example of #1, see Tonari no Totoro.
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Parents help their children with the bathing, just as in any other country. Given the construction of Japanese baths, the only practical way to do this is to take a bath together. Of course bathing is also a social activity in Japan; while it’s not exactly a family activity in home baths (they’re too small), there’s nothing unusual about a 10-year old child taking a bath with either parent.
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I assume you mean sleeping in the same room, in separate futons. Japanese children typically do not start sleeping in their own rooms until age 6 or later.
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It’s a standard joke, as Sage Rat said.
You might want to look for it by its English title - “My Neighbour Totoro” (not to jump on you, Sublight, but I’m not sure blockbuster/netflix/whatever would have it under the original title should furryman seek further edification)
To clarify: a non-lecherous example of a father bathing with his daughters, not a boy being turned into a girl.
All of these could be dodgy or innocent, depending on how they were played.
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I’ve been in public baths where little girls came with their fathers to the men’s side. Up to age 8-10 or so, this seems to be accepted with no question. On TV, I’ve seen a couple of scenes in dramas and some footage on a game/variety show where girls as old as their teens took baths with their fathers. The show footage was documenting a “contest.” If she could convince her dad to let her go to Europe, the show would pay up to about $2,000 for her to go. She cooked him a nice dinner and scrubbed his back to butter him up. I think she was about 19 or maybe even 20. She got to go.
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Everybody sleeping together in the same room is not that unusual in rural areas, I think. Depending on the size of the house, not everyone will actually have a private room. The family who hosted me for my first week or so in Japan while my predecessor was moving her stuff had only a two-bedroom house. The daughter had her own room, the boys shared the other, and the parents used one or the other of the multi-purpose/living rooms. When the kids were younger, I think everybody used to sprawl in the main living room. They understood that I needed more privacy than they did, so I got a futon in a small room that was mostly used by the mom for her sewing projects. Despite the kids having their own rooms, they were just as likely to crash with one or the other of their parents as they were to sleep alone, and they were all in their teens.
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What the others have said. When my girlfriend wore a yukata to a fireworks-viewing party, one of the Japanese guys int the group made a crack about how I should spin her like a top when we went home later. She blushed, got a bit angry, and told him off. She didn’t know him well enough to feel comfortable taking that kind of teasing from him.
Of course. I forget about that sometimes.
As for the kids sleeping with their parents, my boss’s kids (4 and 6) routinely sleep in the same room as them (according to him). My wife and I are currently mulling over when and how to rearrange the layout of our place so our soon-to-arrive kid will have his/her own room, and are thinking about a similar time frame.