Line #60 Headscratchers/Okami


1	'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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3	* Amaterasu is god ''and'' dog. [[{{Pun}} God, dog, god, dog, god, dog-- Get it?]]
4	** Good dog, good dog.
5	** Question is, however, if she's a Dog God, or a God Dog.
6	*** She's a solar deity in the guise of a canine. There, problem solved.
7	*** ...[[{{Pun}} she's a hot dog?]]
8	*** [==]DopeSlap
9	*** Like the band Cloud Cult says in their song "Time Machine Invention", which is about life, "there's a reason God is doG backwards; we must chase the tail".
10	* How Nechku and Lechku's time freeze cost Ammy three points of health but Shiranui is near death?
11	** GameplayAndStorySegregation.
12	** Maybe Shiranui didn't level up her Solar Energy stat?
13	** Actually this troper is not confused about it anymore... In ''Okamiden'' you get to see the rest of the punishment he had to suffer. After (or before, not really sure abocut this...) he received Nechku and Lechku's attack, he got frozen in the Ice Room to almost death and after Chibiterasu unfroze him, he couldn't even stand up, after that we get to remember that he protects Nagi from the falling rock in the Moon Cave and faints from the strike and [[{{RasputinianDeath}} FINALLY]] he protects Chibi, Ishaku, Nagi, Nami and Mr. Grapefruit from [[{{TheChessmaster}} Akuro's]] attack! After ALL THAT is that he finally dies.
14	* In the first battle against Nechku/Lechku (can't remember which), it bugged me how the battle can be won just by bringing up the paintbrush allowing Shiranui to endlessly attack using her Celestial Brush attacks. Also, how come Ammy can't learn those abilities despite her and Shiranui essentially being the same being?
15	** Maybe because not as many people believe in Ammy as they did a century ago. Shiranui knows good 'n' well that people believe in and need her, at least in her time, but thus far, Amaterasu has had to ''earn'' that support over time, little by little. I guess it's just a matter of willpower.
16	** Ammy does learn all the brush skills that Shiranui uses (Power slash, Cherry Bomb, & Galestorm), Shiranui's are just much more powerful due to her having more praise.
17	* Ammy supposedly gains all of the abilities she used to have as Shiranui thanks to prayer. How is it that Shiranui has those abilities, when no one even recognizes her in the time she defeated Orochi? Frankly, [[{{Headscratchers/Headscratchers}} it just bugs me]].
18	** They didn't recognize her in wolf form. One can suppose the people of that time only knew Amaterasu as a beautiful woman (said to be her real form by that blind monk spirit). As to why she took the form of a wolf, maybe it was so that she wouldn't draw Orochi's attention. Also, it's not only prayer that boosts her power, but belief; the people used to worship the gods with far more devotion in those days, and that probably was enough to keep her power high.
19	** As for the monk - she says if she were human, she'd be a beautiful woman. Note that he also compared Issun to a human. He is simply saying a visual metaphor, not necessarily her "real" form.
20	** This is old, but anyway. I recently went through this part (replaying past favorites), and I'm pretty sure he said that his inner eye "lets him see the true form of others", and when he speaks to Amaterasu, he says that she is "a maiden most fair", and continues to refer to her as such until he moves on. Also, Issun only ''seems'' like a bug when compared to the "normal" size; the Poncles basically ''are'' just miniature humans, so his comparison as "a little booger" is fitting--he's minuscule, the priest would still realize his true appearance due to his inner eye, and he's a booger of a guy.
21	* Technically Issun's a form of miniature human, but no one can see Ammy because they don't have enough belief.
22	** No one sees Ammy ''for what she actually is'', you mean.
23	* Ammy is female, so why when you use Golden Fury does she raise her leg?
24	** [[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle Actually, dominant female wolves have been known to raise their legs when marking their territory, though not as much as males.]] Female dogs do it sometimes too.
25	** The original Japanese version was written with Ammy being non-gendered. This works in the Japanese language because it's gender neutral. However, the English language cannot do it without refering to Ammy as 'it' or doing using awkward sentences, so it was chosen to give Ammy a gender. If one had to choose between genders, female fits better than male. 'Mother of all that is good' and all that. In the game, some NPC's sometimes refer to Ammy as a he too, so they kind of kept the gender neutral thing.
26	*** You sure about that? I know you can't usually trust THAT much Wikipedia, but according to them, both the European and original Japanese versions always refer to Ammy as a female. Which kinda makes sense seeing as the Amaterasu from Shinto mythology ''is'' female. She's Susano and Tsukuyomi's sister.
27	** [[RuleOfFunny And it's funnier.]] In the game Susano tends to call Amaterasu "brother".
28	** I think the real reason for the Gender confusion is that the villagers, who like most, are unable to tell the gender of a canine without lifting up it's rear leg and taking a close look, and naturally assume all animals seen are male. You'll notice they also all give Shiranui/Amaterasu their own name instead of accepting Issun/Ishaku's name for it, so it's likely the villagers of the past also thought she was male and thus the legend spoke of Shiranui as male. Most modern characters only know about Shiranui/Amaterasu from that misreported tale, so they speak of Shiranui as male, and assume her reincarnation is male as well. Only Waka and Ishaku always speak of Ammy as a female, because they've always known that she's both Amaterasu and female. Some writer/translator read Shiranui referenced as Male and Ammy as Female, and assumed there was either some post death gender bending (not putting it past the Japanese) or that Ammy was a sexless, androgynous wolf.
29	** Hey wait a minute... Okamiden. Little Ammy is Chibi. Ammy is confirmed as female, due to Chibiterasu.
30	*** And her true form being a fair maiden.
31	*** Not really. Read what he said again and follow the context.
32	** Because squatting to pee wouldn't be very effective, would it?
33	* Why do merchants act like "sending the dog to do the shopping" is an everyday occurrence?
34	** Maybe it is in that world and era?
35	** Dude, If a dog walked into my store, pointed at the most expensive item, and produced the money to buy it ''and then some?'' I would offer it a frequent customer discount card and not look a gift dog in the mouth.
36	** And only half of that reasoning is because she might bite you if you don't.
37	** And don't forget that all of the important dog characters you come across, such as Hayabusa and Ume, have shown degrees of intelligence. I don't find it that hard to imagine Mushi telling Hayabusa to go buy him something from the local merchant...
38	** Maybe Okami's world is the same as all those dungeon crawler games, where you can send your pet dog out of the dungeon to sell stuff.
39	** There is also the point that aparently some animals can talk, like the Canine Warriors, so it might be safe to assume that people on Okami's world treat animals with the assumption of semi-sentient level at least.
40	* Queen Himiko has a LavaPit. On the second floor. OF A WOODEN BUILDING. [[FlatWhat Wut.]]
41	** [[AWizardDidIt Magic]].
42	* You get an amulet that renders you immune to flame. But then flame attacks start hurting you again anyway. I suppose this is understandable for Yami, but why do you have to freeze flame spiders to stand on them?
43	** Actually, when wearing the amulet, fire doesn't do any damage. You react to being hit, but you don't lose any solar pieces no matter how much you get hit. Test it. Go put it on, jump on one of the flame spiders, and notice you don't actually lose health.
44	** Still, you can walk through lava just fine (only worrying about air) but you flinch when touching a flame spider?
45	** Because you flinch from touching non-flaming spiders in other places in the game.
46	*** Not ones with platforms on their backs. Which are the only variety that have ever been set on fire.
47	** And because Flame Spiders immediately dump you off, so even though the fire doesn't hurt you, you still can't ride them.
48	** Whether or not the fire itself hurts you, the contact of whatever IS on fire still prompts a reaction
49	* Why do the imp merchants in the Moon Cave and Oni Island stock Holy Bones and Divine Instruments?
50	** Some of them might be into that sort of thing.
51	** You aren't the only person breaking pots for fun.
52	* What exactly happens whenever Amaterasu applies the brush techniques? Does it stop time? Is she doing it really really fast? EXPLAIN, GAME, EXPLAIN!
53	** When you are fighting with Ninetails she/it can use her brush too, so it must be some kind of time stop where Amaterasu leaves her wolf avatar form and watches everything from her goddess place.
54	** But when you fight Yami's first form, he will close up his weak spot quickly, if it's open, while you're using the Celestial Brush. So, which is it?
55	** I believe Orochi as well, moves even when the Celestial Brush is on, which can be kind of creepy. My guess is that it works in some kind of... higher plane timespan. Hence why these more powerful creatures are aware of it, but like Ammy, can't really move their physical bodies. To other people it will look like "A God's deed", something happening instantly. I have always like to "jump - brush - draw lily pad - land" because I imagine doing this would give the awesome illusion that lily pads are appearing instantly on the water where Ammy is about to land.
56	** It might be a representation of a divine power at work - a type of hyper-focus where you work and think so fast that the surrounding world seems to stand still. Yami, Ninetails and other semi-divine beings are capable of the same feat - either influencing your divine powers (Ninetails and Shiranui), or react to them (Yami).
57	* How was Ishaku able to see Issun's painting of Amaterasu? Isn't he supposed to be blind?
58	** I thought the implication was that he couldn't see very well, not that he was completely blind. After all, he does have those huge eyebrows in the way. Or maybe Issun draws in Brail?
59	** He isn't blind. He's just become nearsighted. After you beat the spirit gate, go talk to him and he'll mention that your deeds have allowed his vision to clear up a bit more.
60	* When Himiko's soul ascends to the heavens, the game says she's praying for Ammy's safety. Spot the problem with this.
61	** The gods have New Powers As The Prayers Demand -- if millions of people are relying upon her to save them, Ammy's powers increase so she can handle the workload.
62	*** Forgive me, but I don't see how that is relevant. Queen Himiko is one person praying for one thing, when the one who can provide it is sitting right in front of her so praying is redundant (because she can just come out and say it) and ineffective (Gods have wants and needs too, and would just give it to themselves if they needed it).
63	*** Himiko isn't praying ''to'' Amaterasu to ''ask'' for Amaterasu's safety. She's praying ''in Ammy's name'' to offer her own devotion, so that her faith empowers the goddess. It's the same as at the end of the game, where everyone prays ''for'' Amaterasu.
64	* Is it just me or could Waka have avoided A LOT of trouble if he had laid everything out to Amaterasu from the start?
65	** Amaterasu probably remembers Waka and Waka knows her but doesn't act like it. Maybe because Yami was looking for him or he felt guilty about the Arc of Yamato incident and didn't want to think about it. But I still wonder why if they were pretty close friends.
66	** Well, it depends how you look at it. One way Amaterasu didn't know what was going on and Waka saying "Hey, this is what you have to do ''mon ami''" and telling her everything that she needs to do would have been pointless. I mean, she couldn't defeat anyone with just bloom. It would have been pointless to tell her since she had to go and get all of her powers back.
67	** On the other hand, Amaterasu was aware of what was going on the entire time and knew what was going to happen in the future. Really, it depends on how you see it.
68	** Perhaps he was afraid that if he didn't trick her, she would refuse to help him?
69	** SecretTest? It would make sense for Waka to want to be absolutely certain this is Amaterasu, given that he'd already caused one disaster by trusting the wrong thing. Of course, he wants to help her if she's real. So speaking in riddles and following her progress (and even stealing the Serpent Crystal early) is his way of not committing himself too much, just in case she's a fraud.
70	* One thing. Many creatures from the game (except Yami, Nechku and Lechku) are based on monsters from the Japanese folklore, including Oni, Tengu, Orochi, the Spider Queen (Jorogumo) and Ninetails. Yet, Crimson Helm seems completely out of place here. I can't remember of a Japanese equivalent for it (except, peraphs, the Ushi Oni).
71	** Crimson Helm bugs you, but Lechku & Nechku and Yami don't?
72	** I thought Crimson Helm was Orochi's fire head in a different form.
73	** Lechku and Nechku are actually based off of demons from the culture of the Ainu, who were real-life indigenous people who lived in parts of Japan and Russia. Yami has a variety of incarnations in different mythologies, but is usually an incarnation of death or darkness of some kind. I have no clue as to why this version is a giant transforming ''ball''... maybe it's meant to some kind of parallel to the sun; a circular object that spreads darkness instead of light. Crimson Helm is probably just an Ushi-oni (cow demon) with Orochi's main head as its head.
74	** Blight is a demon of sickness, which isn't necessarily from Japan, The dozen-times impaled swordsman does count however.
75	** Devs weren't required to base absolutely all their monsters on specific pieces of folklore. It seems Crimson Helm was an original one - it's a cow's skeleton, bathed in Orochi's blood and absorbed some of its dark power, specifically, fire from the main head, on which it's armor based.
76	* What gender is Ninetails? I'm assuming it's female, despite being called the Dark Lord.
77	** If Ninetails is male, the implications of possessing several attractive--or not so--priestesses is... [[FridgeHorror well]]...
78	** Issun also refers to Ninetails as female. For the sake of our sanity, let's just go with that...
79	*** But that was after seeing it in Rao's body.
80	** Ninetails was pretending to be the Dark Lord. After all, the Dark Lord is Yami.
81	* Why did Amaterasu give the Fox Rods to Fake Rao? Waka later says she knew what Queen Himiko's fate was. But it seemed like Amaterasu didn't know what was going on when she handed them over, or that Rao had been impersonated by Ninetails. It's hard to know what is going on in Amaterasu's head, I guess.
82	** Perhaps it's because the best way to thwart a trap is to set it off in a way that favors you? Amaterasu knows what's happening, but plays along to force Ninetails into the open, where it can be beaten?
83	* If Ammy is "mother to us all", what does that make [[VideoGame/{{Okamiden}} Chibi]]? Our brother?
84	** Amaterasu is "mother" to the brush gods only.
85	*** The sea people call her mother to us all too.
86	** Maybe they refer to Ammy as "mother to us all" in the same way God can called "father" while not making Jesus your brother.
87	*** Where do you think writers of the New Testament got the "brotherly love" idea from?
88	*** Because of the relationship between actual brothers? This is not really the place to be discussing serious, real-world religions.
89	* Simple explanation: because she's the Sun. Without sun, nothing would ever grow, which - in a way - makes her "mother" to everything.
90	* I had to get deep into the [[FridgeLogic fridge]] for this one... If Ammy's power is based on the faith of the people at the time, then why isn't she powered up when she goes back in time? The same goes for Shiranui when she goes forward, she should be powered down!
91	** Perhaps they are connected to their proper time period?
92	** Perhaps they are? Amaterasu is able to handily defeat full power Orochi despite still being incomplete and Shiranui taken out by an attack Amaterasu can easy shrug off even with minus one godhood.
93	** Well, people didn't know who Amaterasu was one hundred years ago, but everyone knows who Shiranui is one hundred years in the future, so it should be the opposite.
94	* If Himiko wanted help from Amaterasu then why did she order her guards not to let them in and put a lava pit in her palace?
95	** Because there's a gigantic demon fox on the loose that can disguise itself as almost anyone or anything. She probably put those obstacles up as tests, that she believed only the ''real'' Amaterasu would be able to get around. It didn't work, but still.
96	* Did Ishaku fail? He was Amaterasu's Celestial Envoy 100 years prior (when she was known to the world as Shiranui), but now everyone sings the praises of Shiranui when they don't even know Amaterasu's name. Why wasn't he busy telling the world that Ammy defeated Orochi?
97	** Same reason Issun was struggling to find people willing to take his paintings in Okamiden. Once the dark times are over, people tend to forget or not care about them as much anymore. Since things are good, there's no reason to believe in the gods. In fact, I think that was the explanation used in game as well.
98	* A God of ''Walls''? Really?
99	** [[FridgeBrilliance Well it]] ''[[FridgeBrilliance is]]'' [[FridgeBrilliance the animal that got kicked out of the zodiac...]]
100	** Given that Tachigami can wield a BFS while being a ''mouse'', and Kabegami can... cling to walls, I'm beginning to see why the zodiac is how it is.
101	** But a god of fireworks is ok?
102	** The point being that one blows demonic entities to bits in a fantastic explosion, and the other, well... doesn't. Catwalk IS useful, but it's not as practical.
103	** Unless you completely suck during the final boss and need assistance from items.
104	** It seems kind of nice when you think that walls are everywhere, so a God is always protecting you. That's the main principle of Shintoism; everything has a spirit and could be a God, so that's why Japanese people say "I'm home!" or "I'm going out!" even if they live alone. Because the gods can hear them.
105	** OddJobGods. In Shinto there's a god for '''anything'''.
106	* After Ammy helps Susano dice up Orochi, a cloud of miasma erupts from his corpse and floats off in four directions. Supposedly, the miasma empowers Crimson Helm, Blight, Ninetails, and Lechku and Nechku... but Ninetails' dialogue and the fact that the real Rao's now nothing but a skeleton in a tattered kimono suggests it's been around a lot longer than a few days. And Crimson Helm was supposedly Orochi's fire-head grafted to an undead centaur... thingy, no? He/it's the boss you fight right after Orochi, and the people have evidently been plagued by him/it for some time. How's all this work?
107	** It is possible that some or most of those demons were still doing things before they're allegedly revived, just not to their full potential. Or not strong enough to be sensed by Ammy. I dunno. However the Crimson Helm comes ''before'' the fight with Orochi, not after.
108	*** My bad. Blight and the cyborg owls were stated to have just awakened - reawakened from a 100-year slumber in the case of Lechku and Nechku. [[EpilepticTrees Maybe Ninetails was at full power 100 years ago but lost the fox rods to the Dragon King and was sealed with the other demons at Orochi's defeat, and when it was released it killed Rao and went after the princess to get its power back?]]
109	*** Rao's body was in such a state that it was likely in the well for years. But according to everyone else, she had always been around. There was no gap beteen Rao's death and Fake Rao taking her place. This suggests that Ninetails killed Rao at least three years prior to the events of the game, but never missed a day pretending to be her. More likely, Ninetails lost to fox rods long ago, and other demons had been using them until the Dragon King tried to seal them away. Or, she'd picked a fight with the Dragon King and lost them then. The only way she could have kiled Rao recently would be if she could speed up time to make the corpse appear to be much older than it is.
110	*** Maybe Ninetails just ''ate'' Rao sometime recently, but left some of the clothes & just a little bit of flesh stuck to the skeleton, and then discarded it in the well so no one would discover her ruse. She's bigger than Amaterasu, a full-grown wolf, so being able to eat a human shouldn't be too much of a stretch. I can't remember if Ninetails specified ''exactly'' how long she had been impersonating Rao for, but she could've either been exaggerating or just lying. And as for Orochi's miasma, remember he was already killed once. Maybe the exact same thing happened with Nagi and Shiranui a century before, and ''that's'' where all the other bosses originated from. Going with what was said above, the second miasma probably acted as a source of more power for them, which is why everything conveniently goes down right after you defeat Orochi.
111	*** I thought this too, but if you go onto the Ark of Yamato and talk to the celestials, they say that Orochi released the other demons right after being defeated by Susano and Amaterasu. As it stands, Blight and Ninetails seem to be plot holes.
112	*** Didn't Ninetails say it was difficult to be in that body or something. Maybe she was actually wearing her skin (and maybe her flesh too) and the bones weren't needed. It would help it hide its scent, and in a world with the canine warriors and the Oina tribe.
113	*** Also, if you go to the Sei-An City checkpoint before defeating Orochi, the people there will talk about the massive cursed zone over the city, and the mysterious illness, which was Blight's doing. So Blight had to have been around before Orochi's defeat...
114	** There was a timeskip after you beat Orochi, I thought that was obvious...
115	* Why is that snowball in Wep'keer??? You know the one I'm talking about... And why can it only be reduced in size once?
116	** ...Purely aesthetic detail?
117	* What did Ammy say to the Spider Queen?
118	** Whatever it was, it seems to have been a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, based on the length and the spider Queen's reaction.
119	** Nothing; Spider Queen was offended from being ignored. That's why after Issun pipes up, she says, "Ah, so the beast speaks."
120	* A minor Headscratcher, but why did Ninetails have to cover its eye with hair while it was pretending to be Rao? Supposedly, it's to hide its actual lack of one, but couldn't it just claim that it was attacked by demons (as the real Rao was before her death) and lost an eye?
121	** Perhaps because she didn't want there to be ''any'' flaws in her disguise. The real Rao didn't have a missing eye, so even if Ninetails did use an attack as an excuse, it might still cause suspicions... although, I have to wonder why she didn't try to make the beads the same color, but that probably wouldn't have been as noticeable.
122	* This troper is bothered that a lot of people assume Amaterasu has a "real" form (barring the Shiranui form). People reference what the monk said, forgetting that it was simply a comparison (like say, you'd compare a rose to a beautiful woman). He didn't see her "true" form.
123	** Because Amaterasu is depicted as a beautiful woman in a lot of real-life mythology, and is also able to take the form of a white wolf. Whether this applies to Ammy in the game, thinking that she's currently in her wolf form and not her "true" form isn't too farfetched.
124	* How does Rao/Ninetails go to Queen Himiko's room? There was a lava pit in front of the room!
125	** She probably just jumped over it, or used some kind of magic, just like you did with the Fire Tablet. Hey, being a ridiculously large demon fox can be good for a few things.
126	* When you fight Ninetails, and each of her tails divide, who are the other people that each of the tails takes the form of? Are they supposed to be past victims, or something? Also, how in the world is Ninetails, a fox, ''bigger'' than Amaterasu, a fully grown ''wolf'', even in her true form?
127	** Amaterasu is a God incarnated into a normal-sized wolf (or wolf statue). Ninetails is a kitsune, a nine-tailed spirit fox, which would make him/her capable of much more than just increasing its size. Also, the game developers probably wanted that boss-feeling for you to be the [[{{Pun}} underdog]]
128	** The people that form from each of Ninetails' tails are the Tube Foxes from the Fox Rods you obtain in the Water Dragon's belly. In the belly of the beast, you beat the Tube Foxes and they turn into the Fox Rods, which Rao takes back. Ninetails now has full power, and the Tube Foxes, like Ninetails herself, can turn into Rao. As for the size difference, Ninetails is a demon first and foremost. Just because she looks like a fox doesn't mean she actually is one.
129	*** Actually, if you read Ninetails' bestiary entry, it says, "Nine souls inhabit nine tails." This would imply that each tail is inhabited by the soul of a different victim who she has killed and taken the form of at some point. And judging by how each one is dressed like Rao, it could well be that Ninetails just has a taste for priestesses. Youkai targeting priests and priestesses for power or for food ''does'' seem to be pretty common in Japanese media...
130	* Ninetails' story goes that she lost her Fox Rods to the Water Dragon, and you fight the Tube Foxes which turn into the Fox Rods. It looks to me like the Fox Rods contain the nine tails that Ninetails uses to make up her fully powered "Fake God" form later on, as opposed to her one-tailed form after you beat her tails. So when Ninetails killed Rao, Ninetails must have been reduced to her one tail since she'd fought and lost to the Water Dragon. Why does she have all nine in the flashback, then?
131	** Ninetails is a shapeshifter. She could have created eight more tails that had no effect on her power, just for the purposes of being more frightening.
132	** Her real form is more demonic: it's basically just a fox with glowing eyes.
133	* Also, why does Crimson Helm have a place on the Ark of Yamato? You could make a case that the Spider Queen was one of the original demons on the Ark, but Crimson Helm was born long after it crashed.
134	** It's alluded to that Blight and Ninetails were born from Orochi's defeat, so in that regard, neither of them should have a place on the Ark as well.
135	** It's not about who was there originally - it's about whose spirits were drawn there after their deaths. Doesn't explain the neatly matching wall carvings... Maybe Yami added them?
136	* If the idea behind your divine weapons is that they judge and banish evil, then how come they can hurt Nagi?
137	** For that matter, how was Ninetails, a powerful demon possessing Rao's body capable of carrying Prayer Slips?
138	** Nobody's totally perfect, which may just explain why your weapons can hurt Nagi. [[FridgeBrilliance It also explains how a regular mortal has such high health - he almost totally pure, but just not quite.]]
139	* Just what was the point of "locating" Oni Island? From your first conversation with Himiko, it sounds like you would need to know the location of the island well before it actually appears there, because the preparations would take a long time. And yet, mere minutes after Himiko tells you the location, you're standing on the island. And Oni Island only shifts position once per day at sunset, so they should've been able to figure out where it was 24 hours before it changed location just by using their eyes. Why did Himiko need to spend weeks praying and then die, sealing her soul in the crystal ball when they could've just asked the merchant at North Ryoshima Coast where it was, or, you know, just looked themselves? Following that logic, what's the big rush in getting to the island? Couldn't they have just hung out near the ocean at sunset every night, see where the island appeared, and when it appeared in a place close enough to get to, just do the Water Dragon thing and have a full 24 hours until it shifts?
140	** EDIT: There's more. The plot straight up breaks the rules it established with Oni Island, because when you're running to save Rao, you should be able to look back and see Oni Island just a little ways away from Watcher's Cape. And yet, it's way off in the distance. It's only until Himiko "locates" the island that it moves into position, even though there was absolutely nothing about your conversation with her that indicated that all of her praying would actually move Oni Island.
141	*** I was always confused about that as well. Even before you do the water dragon/Rao bit of the game, you can see Oni Island. Himiko is praying for Sei-An City and also trying to divine the location of Oni Island. She didn't leave her city so she could at least attempt to help her people, and also so she could find Oni Island. Either that or it's just a plot hole. By the time Amaterasu gets there, Oni Island is almost in its new position, but Himiko doesn't know that because she's been trying to divine its location for ages and can't leave her city without a leader in a time of crisis. Maybe she only figured out how she can find it just before the Rao thing? Plus maybe she and Otohime were working together somehow.
142	* Why didn't Shiranui do anything against Orochi? It's actually Ammy from the present who travels back in time 100 years and defeats True Orochi. It's made clear that Ammy is a severly depowered form of Shiranui, yet she was still able to defeat Orochi who was at the peak of his power. Given that Shiranui is way stronger than Ammy, defeating True Orochi would have been an utter cakewalk for her. So why did Shiranui never fight him? She pretty much let him ran rampant for 100 years...
143	** It's mentioned occasionally that gods need mortals to help them carry out prophecies. It's entirely possible that if Shiranui had tried, she still wouldn't have been able to beat Orochi without Nagi's finishing blows at the end. Also, notice that Nagi cuts off Orochi's heads directly, something that even Amaterasu can't do wielding a glaive or using Power Slash – it's possible that because Shiranui is using Divine Instruments, which merely judge and reflect, she can't do PHYSICAL damage to Orochi, who is powerful enough (on the verge of Godhood!) that he's managed to make a physical form that can exist once his evil essence has been depleted. So, Nagi was necessary for the finishing blow, but Shiranui (or Amaterasu, depending on how you think the timespan really is) needed to wear down the spiritual power first. This would also explain why imps and the like never really show gore, since it's just their evil essence being worn down and they just aren't powerful enough to exist without one, and why the Divine Instruments can't really hurt human beings all that well. They're just too rooted in the physical realm for the spiritually-inclined gods to be able to do that.
144	** If that's the case about physical presence, why do Ammy's Divine Instruments harm Oki, the Canine Warriors, and Nagi enough to beat them? Nagi was knocked out cold after his defeat by Amaterasu for crying out loud. Also remember, with Nagi there's a quick time event that involves cutting Orochi's heads off with Powerslash after he slices at them (minus the fire head). Otherwise he gets bitten back.
145	*** The Divine Instruments still have physical form, and are likely rather heavy (strings of large stone prayer beads, blunt metal ceremonial blades, stone mirrors, etc), so getting hit by them still physically hurts (think being hit by a large rock at high speed). Plus they still can cause some mystical damage by striking the evil aspects of a person (Nagi's sloth and ego, Oki's arrogance and pride, etc)
146	* Instead of wasting her time poisoning Sei-en city and planning to kill Queen Himiko, why didnt Ninetails ever attempt to retrieve the Fox Rods from the Water Dragon?
147	** Villains don't tend to like doing dirty work or putting themselves at risk. Also, she wasn't responsible for the fog, Blight was.
148	* If Nagi and Nami got together, then why are Kushi and Susano also depicted as romantically involved? If each is the direct descendant of the ancestors, then they're very closely related...sure, Kamiki is a small ancient town and there's likely to be...less genetic diversity, but that seems like an uncomfortable oversight. Alternatively, if they're not related, how can that be true? Is Kushi just inexplicably identical to Nami?
149	** Kushi is never said to be Nami's descendant. It's more likely that she's an IdenticalStranger that moved into the village some time ago.
150	** [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Doylist explanation]]: have you noticed how in most animated media, characters who travel back in time usually find out important characters looks exactly like their contemporary counterparts?

Context Headscratchers / Okami