Once upon a time, there was a little village with a large river. According to tradition of the village, there were kappa living in the village who do bad things to people. For example, it was said to drown children playing in the river. It was also said to drive fish out of the village river. However, villagers haven’t seen kappa for hundreds of years, and anyway, they just believed in the legend.
One day, children went fishing in the river and they were enjoying fishing with fishing rods down from the bridge. And then, they heard someone crying far away. They stopped fishing for a moment and headed for the riverside. When the four boys were looking for what was going on, a boy found a broken plate there and what the cry was. Kenta called everyone together, “Hey! Come here!” The other three started running toward Kenta. They were surprised to see kappa for the first time and they remembered that their parents had told them to stay away from kappa even if they saw it. Kenta wanted to help kappa but the other three refused. They said to Kenta. “My father often says that kappa is the enemy of human beings.”We should leave here as soon as possible.” However, Kenta told them that he could not miss people in trouble. The other three left Kenta behind and went home.
Kenta tried to listen to kappa. “Hey, what happened?” Kappa explained the situation to him in tears. “I was swimming alone in the river and then I bumped my head against a rock, so I broke the plate of my head. I can’t go home with this.” Kenta thought of a way to help kappa. Kenta said to kappa, “Wait a minute here.” He hurried away somewhere.
After tens of minutes, he came back to kappa with something in his hand. It was a plate. Kappa asked him, “Whose plate is this?” Kenta answered, “This is mine. When I traveled with my family for the first time, I made it myself at a famous plate shop. This is my treasure. I will give you this plate!” In fact, the shape of the plate was not so beautiful, but kappa was really pleased that he gave his treasure to kappa. “Thank you very much! I am very happy. I have no human friends, so I want to be friends with you.”
Kenta thought for a while. I was wondering if the bad legend about the village kappa was true. However, Kenta saw kappa happily staring at himself and then he convinced that the bad rumor was a lie. He told kappa, “I am Kenta. I want to be friends with you, too.” Kenta introduced kappa to his friends. Kenta’s friends confused about kappa at the beginning. However, they forgot about bad rumors as they played with kappa. The children learned a lot from kappa. For example, how to swim and tips for fishing. Kappa was also told what classes the children took at school. The children and kappa enjoyed every day.
One day, the children’s parents were wondering where they were playing every day and followed them in hiding from them. Their parents were really surprised that they played with kappa. When their parents saw the children playing happily with kappa, their parents felt that their thoughts and the bad legends of kappa were wrong.
The legend of the village, which was wrong until now, has disappeared cleanly thanks to village children. The little village has been full of kappa and human smiles. You will learn something important from this story.