Column Anime Spotlight Earthquakes, Magical Girls, and Modern Mythology: The Death of Minky Momo How one infamous episode led to the birth of a legend… By Leah Thomas | Published on January 29, 2026 Credit: Ashi Productions Comment 3 Share New Share Credit: Ashi Productions The day before I sat down to write this, an earthquake struck Tottori, in the region I called home for three years. At a magnitude of 6.2, it was large, but by no means devastating by Japanese standards. I messaged my friends in Yonago, and they sent reassurances alongside photos of broken dishes. “We are okay. It was very scary.”  Somewhere down the line, I chose a life that chases earthquakes. I lived in Taiwan, then California, and now Japan. However, I remain ill-prepared. I grew up in Michigan where tornado, fire, severe storm, and even shooting drills were commonplace, but I was in my mid-twenties putting on cosplay makeup for an anime convention in a Los Angeles apartment when a San Diegan friend told me that what I should be doing during an earthquake was not saying, “Oh my gosh, it’s still going?” but rather finding a sturdy doorframe to brace myself against. “Doorframes are the sturdiest places in most houses,” she told me, while the tremors rattled mascara tubes and wigs on a glass coffee table. “They taught us that in school.” Of course, students today are taught differently, as the doorframe theory has since been widely debunked. But at least she had some inkling of what to do. It occurred to me then that while I was well-versed in the myriad ways to get a car unstuck from snow or how to manage when an inevitable snow-effect blizzard knocked out our power and toilets and faucets stopped working, I would flail helplessly during a Big One. But truly, how much of disaster preparation is a delusion? I admire the cult classic film The Iron Giant for many reasons, including the film’s depiction of students watching a disaster prevention film about nuclear warfare. It’s a cutting satire of actual Duck and Cover videos released in the 1950s. A student is shown hiding under his desk when the bombs fall, and though the classroom is burned to a radioactive sizzle, his desk is unharmed! While this is useless advice when it comes to surviving a nuclear holocaust, friend, geophysicist, and fellow Reactor columnist Kali Wallace assures me that ducking and covering during earthquakes is sound advice, as most people are harmed due to falling objects. While a nuclear holocaust is arguably much more challenging catastrophe to contend with than an earthquake, even in the face of death, decisive action is preferable to panic. The only thing more reassuring than taking action is, perhaps, blaming something for the disasters. Scientific explanations aside, credit for disasters has long been given to gods or devils or the sins of many or karma. For my part, I believe the science, but enjoy the folklore, especially when it gets weird. On this front, unsurprisingly, Japan does not disappoint. A persistent folktale originating in the 17th century claims that earthquakes are not entirely natural disasters, but rather preternatural ones caused by the wriggling of Namazu, an enormous catfish who dwells beneath the earth. According to legend, Namazu has been held captive beneath a foundation stone at Kashima shrine in Ibaraki prefecture for centuries. Namazu becomes ornery sometimes and, if not properly guarded by the enshrined god Takemikazuchi, the big fish flings himself about and the earth trembles. (No tea, no shade, but Takemikazuchi must really be sleeping on the job, given that Japan’s Meteorological Society clocks in around 1,500 earthquakes annually.) Japan, which has one of the world’s most advanced earthquake detection systems, known globally as the EEW (Earthquake Early Warning), has toughened its responses after centuries of earthquakes wreaking havoc—but there are no preventative measures to be taken against the human imagination. Today, I am writing about a little anime girl who, since the ‘80s, has sometimes been blamed for earthquakes.  Birth of a Mythology: The Ballad of Minky Momo Credit: Ashi Productions Magical Princess Minky Momo, in many ways, was a pioneer in the mahou shoujo (magical girl) subgenre. Beginning in March of 1982, the series aired on TV Tokyo on Thursdays at 5:55 pm, an ideal timeslot to snag the attention of kids after school. Magical Princess Minky Momo is credited with being the first magical girl anime to incorporate animal mascots, which have since become a genre staple. Her transformation sequence, which paired music to her movements, was also groundbreaking, and the series is said to have directly inspired Creamy Mami (I know, I know, these names are… something), which maintains a devoted fanbase even today. Minky Momo is undeniably cute, if generic in appearance—pink hair, yellow ribbon, blue dress. She is not of Earth, but hails from a sky-kingdom known as Fenarinarsa; writer Takeshi Shuto adapted the mouthful of a place name from a musical he wrote in high school called The Man from Finalinasa, after realizing “Finalinasa” would be difficult for Japanese speakers to pronounce. Fenarinarsa is home to countless copyright-free fairy tale characters, and Momo and her three animal companions are directly inspired by Momotaro. Fenarinarsa is in danger because it can only remain in Earths’ orbit if people on Earth have hopes and dreams, which, erm, was surprisingly tough during the ‘80s bubble economy. So Minky Momo goes to Earth and, like Superman, moves in with a childless couple. From then on, she uses her magic powers to transform into a teenage version of herself that, à la Barbie, takes on different roles in order to solve life’s problems and bring happiness to human beings. She’ll be your vet, your hairdresser, your police officer, whatever you like! Schmaltzy? Yes. Typical of the subgenre? Yes, at that point in time. Harmless? Probably, and I am not one to disdain programming intended to motivate children to do good deeds. It is all too easy for the world to dismiss the things girls like as empty and worthless, and I do not doubt that its target audience found much to love about the anime, which had high-quality animation and a heroine worth admiring. Kids are not cynical, jaded old weebs like yours truly. Of course, inspiring little kids was not the real intention of the people paying for the show, and when Minky Momo merchandise failed to meet market goals, toy company Popy pulled sponsorship. When that happened, the show was destined for cancellation. The creative team behind Minky Momo accepted this defeat with a decided lack of grace. No, Minky Momo did not go quietly into that soft night. Instead, in a clear act of vengeance as petty as it is iconic, the show’s creators decided to murder Minky Momo. Her cause of death? An early, unforgettable example of Truck-kun. Minky Momo saves a child in the road, only for a truck full of toys to barrel right through her. Cut to a shot of her gravestone, complete with a funeral portrait. Credit: Ashi Productions In short? A lighthearted children’s TV program ran over its young protagonist and cut straight to the graveyard way back in 1983. Eat your heart out, Game of Thrones.  Now, Shuto claims this gruesome ending was always on the table just in case funding was pulled, but come on. The murderous truck was full of toys. A statement was being made. …And then immediately retconned, because Popy reinstated funding to Minky Momo in order to sell a dragon-themed pair of scissors that they already had in production. Ashi Productions agreed to shoehorn a dragon character into the show. And so, within minutes of her death scene, Minky Momo was reincarnated as a human baby. Ashi must have been a real rollercoaster of an office environment in this era. The dragon character, called Kajira, was beloved by no one involved in production. His role was to bite and eat everything and repeatedly say only his own name, but mostly to sell those damn scissors. All of this makes for an amusing romp through weird ‘80s anime lore, and it isn’t hard to see the animators as punchy rebels in this scenario—at least until they doubled back. Animators are often overworked and unappreciated and have every right to protest. However, writing this piece has made me consider another perspective (I am a sentimental creature, and I will not apologize)… The scenario becomes much less funny when you consider the little girls at home who probably loved Minky Momo and her adventures and watched her death unfold onscreen in abject horror. The resentment animators rightfully felt (and still feel) toward their officious overlords aside, growing up is tough, man. I wonder if Minky Momo was to some Japanese kids what Artax from The NeverEnding Story was to so many Americans. Her death may have been a formative experience. I have written before about anime’s treatment of girls, both the good and the bad, but truck-kun doesn’t get the final word this time. Nor does the toy company, or the production company, or the show’s disturbing and unintended popularity among the burgeoning lolicon subculture at the time. Minky Momo’s legacy would continue on, albeit in odd and unexpected ways. Perhaps it was the weird dichotomy between innocence and adulthood that motivated audiences to see further darkness in the series. A show that ended so violently is probably more sinister than it appears, they reckoned… whatever the reasoning, someone, somewhere, observed a bizarre connection between episode 46, “The Day the Magic Died,” and the trembling of the earth, and a legend was born. The Curse of Minky Momo Credit: Ashi Productions Centuries after stories of catfish causing earthquakes became commonplace in Japan, the would-be final episode of Minky Momo aired, accompanied by a superimposed onscreen alert that an earthquake had struck the Kanto region. Viewers at the time joked that Minky Momo had used her magic to take revenge for her unjust demise. Once is a joke, but when the same coincidence happens twice, things start getting weird. Later that year, on May 26th, the 1983 Sea of Japan Earthquake devastated the Tohoku region when the resulting tsunami caused 104 deaths. This earthquake occurred within hours of the broadcast of “Don’t Say Goodbye,” the final episode of Minky Momo. It is probably here that the urban legend really began taking root. And the coincidences continued. During a rebroadcast of the series in 1989, an earthquake struck Aomori the day episode 46 aired. And then, in 1995, the Kobe earthquake, a truly catastrophic disaster, coincided with another rebroadcast of Minky Momo’s death. At least 5,000 people died, and the city of Kobe still bears the marks of its impact. I have met people who remember the quake and still shudder when recalling it.  I wonder if it was at this juncture that the discourse changed from, “Minky Momo is cursing us!” to “Minky Momo is trying to warn us!” Because all these curse allegations haven’t led to depictions of Minky Momo as a villain—if anything, she is seen as a girl fighting to defend the earth, even as her murder is seen as the cause of so much destruction. Japan is a nation that experiences multiple earthquakes a day, and I am not a superstitious person. But I am fascinated by the stories that shape our world, like so many horror and fantasy fans. The supernatural is compelling regardless of your belief in it—while I think the obvious answer to the Minky Momo/earthquake question is that correlation is not causation, at the same time, I love this legend for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is this: the senseless death of a little girl at the hands of her creator should not go unnoticed. This is true even for fictional little girls. The Birth of a Legend Credit: Ashi Productions What does it mean to mythologize a fictional character? The curse of Minky Momo reminds me of other modern characters that have been linked with tragedy. In 2014, two fourteen-year-old girls attempted to murder a friend as a sacrifice to the creepypasta character Slender Man. The man who murdered John Lennon cited The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield as an inspiration, the first of several instances in which the book was reportedly carried by disturbed individuals who committed acts of violence. I am never one to blame entertainment media for violence, to be clear—it’s much too slippery a slope, and far too big of a discussion to begin unpacking here. But the sway a fictional character can have on the human psyche is fascinating. I would argue that far more characters have provided positive inspiration throughout history. This is never as newsworthy as specific instances of violence or tragedy, of course, and feels like a more amorphous catch-all: Yes, kids are inspired by Peter Parker and Sailor Moon and Luffy, and we do not question that. We rarely seek reasons for goodness, but we always seek reasons for evil. But earthquakes and human beings are not the same. An earthquake’s tremors, even if caused by a grumpy catfish, are not selfish actions, but mindless seismic activity. It is fascinating that we continue to anthropomorphize forces of nature to this day, but pairing up the violent, uncontrollable shaking of the earth with an anime girl somehow feels especially human of us. I don’t believe in the curse, but I do admire its tenacity, and what it says about the power that stories have over our world. On this front, I want to end this with one more fact about Namazu. Despite the chaos he inflicts on Japan, the giant catfish is not actually seen as a villainous monster. In fact, he is viewed a little bit fondly by the public, and not only because he has cute whiskers. In the years before billionaires could flee on their private jets, earthquakes were a unique equalizer. Earthquakes were as devastating to the wealthy as they were for the poor; the wealthy, of course, had far more land and assets to lose. In the wake of a disaster, their wealth might be redistributed among the poor. This giant catfish has something in common with Robin Hood: Just as the tides of public opinion turned Minky Momo into a harbinger of a coming disaster rather than the cause, in the Edo period Namazu gradually came to be credited with decimating the ill-gotten gains of overbearing feudal lords. For all that the world is unfair to creatures both real and fictional, I find this tendency—to shift our perspective from fearing a curse to embracing a gift—a hopeful aspect of being human. Life is very unfair right now, and likely to remain that way. So I’ll cling to whatever peculiar justice stories have to offer for as long as the world allows art to exist.  Thanks for looking out for us, Momo.[end-mark] The post Earthquakes, Magical Girls, and Modern Mythology: The Death of Minky Momo appeared first on Reactor.