Useful Notes / Tanabata

aka: Qixi

Tanabata (七夕) is the Japanese version of the Chinese Qīxì (七夕) festival, a.k.a. "the Night of Sevens". It was exported to Japan about a millennium ago during the time of the ('Northern' as we posthumously call them) Song Dynasty, or what is known in Japan as the 'Heian' period. Some people in the west called it Tanabata and not Qixi for political reasons; Japan was a NATO-ally throughout the Cold War whereas Communist China did not align with NATO until the 1970s, meaning that the Anglosphere's first mass-exposure to the festival was through the Japanese, although it is still much more deeply rooted in Chinese mythology.

The festival is based on the legend of two Star-Crossed Lovers, Orihime (Zhinü) the weaver girl and Hikoboshi (Niulang) the cowherd, symbolized respectively by the stars Vega and Altair (both only visible in the northern hemisphere). Throughout the year they are separated by the river of the Milky Way, but for a single night each year — the seventh day of the seventh month of most of the Chinese lunisolar calendars — one of them is said to be able to cross the void and they can be together. The method of crossing varies depending on the storyteller, but the most popular and romantic way is by a bridge of birds who serve them out of sympathy for their plight — often magpies, which are lucky birds in Chinese mythology.

In China, Vietnam (where it's called Thất Tịch), Japan, and Korea (where it's called Chilseok), the festival is a cultural equivalent of European Christianity's Valentine's Day (which is still celebrated, but with a different cultural role; see the section on Japanese Valentine's Day and White Day here). In China's south (of the Yanzi river), they celebrate the day by eating mooncakes (among other things), but the Japanese generally celebrate this day by writing wishes on tanzaku paper and hanging them on bamboo, sometimes with other decorations. The bamboo and decorations are often set afloat on a river or burned after the festival (around midnight or on the next day). Japanese artistic depictions of Orihime and Hikoboshi often have them dressed in Chinese clothing.

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Appearances of the Tanabata in other media:

Anime and Manga

• In .hack//Legend of the Twilight, the Tanabata festival is an event in The World, where male avatars have to cross a raging river to reach a female avatar and win a "date" with her. Rena ends up being the female, and Shugo tries to win, but is beaten by Balmung.
• Aoi of Ai Yori Aoshi was born on the day of Tanabata, and at one point is seen hanging tanzaku on bamboo.
• Anpanman has multiple episodes that take place during Tanabata. Each of these episodes feature the characters Negai-hoshi and Kanae-hoshi, twin stars that fly town to grant (most of) the wishes. Some wishes they never grant are Baikinman's (to finally defeat Anpanman) and Dokinchan's (to finally get Shokupanman to reciprocate her love).
• In Bakemonogatari, Senjougahara is born on 7th of July, and on their first date she shows Araragi where the Summer Triangle (Formed by Deneb, Altair and Vega) is located. The Summer triangle is also mentioned in the ending, with Altair's and Vega's Japanese names (Hikeboshi and Orihime) mentioned in it also.
• Inoue Orihime of Bleach had a running Tanabata theme, given her name. This was lampshaded a couple of times in color-spreads: One by strategically giving her a 7/7 (the seventh day of the seventh month) as her symbolic number and another by having her alternate name translated as Vega Highwell (Vega being the star pertaining to Tanabata's Orihime). In the Bleach pilot chapter, the parallels to the Tanabata story are even more prominent, with Ichigo and Orihime paralleling Hikoboshi and Orihime, as well as Orihime's dead father paralleling the Sky King in the legend who separates the two.
• In Chūka Ichiban!, Mao is inspired by the legend of Tanabata (the original Chinese version, of course) in making a noodle dish made of squid ink to represent the night sky and pearl dust to represent Orihime and Hikboshi, respectively.
• Haruhi Suzumiya revolves around this trope. On July 7, on one Tanabata, Haruhi meets the mysterious John Smith, actually Kyon who went back in time, making her start to have beliefs in supernatural beings, thus driving the show - not to mention she was trying to write letters to Hikkoboshi and Orihime at the time. Three years later, she forces the SOS Brigade to write wishes and even calculates the exact amount of time it will take said wishes to reach Vega and Altair assuming the information travels at light speed (25 and 16 years, respectively), and tells them to expect them to receive the responses to those wishes at that time. She then starts to think about the mysterious person she met those years ago, to an oblivious Kyon, who hasn't gone back in time yet. Also, in the Disappearance timeline, Kyon returns to the Tanabata of three years ago to make sure Haruhi remembers "John Smith", although this trip is mainly to meet Yuki and the older Mikuru in order to ensure his universe is restored to normal. It also probably worth noting that "Kyon" could be a mangled derivative of the name of the male of the pair in the Korean legend.
• A particularly heartwarming episode of Hidamari Sketch takes place on Tanabata. Sae and Hiro have an argument and spend the day avoiding one another until Miyako and Yuno help them patch up their differences, and in the evening they decorate a bamboo together and hang wishes on it.
• In King of Prism, Shin and Louis are depicted as Star-Crossed Lovers due to being in opposing schools. Their first meeting took place on a starry night on July 7, and Louis claims to have "crossed a millennia" to meet him.
• In Lucky Star, this is the Hiiragi twins' birthday. It's also Ponytail Day because the legend says Vega had a ponytail, so they try wearing their hair in ponytails for a bit.
  Tsukasa: Vega and Altair... I hope they meet this year... twinkle twinkle twinkle...
• Mega Man: Upon a Star: Dr. Wily uses the theme of the holiday to attack Japan with asteroids.
• In the fourth season of Ojamajo Doremi, the Ojamajos meet the real Orihime a few days before Tanabata and have to fix her celestial robes so she can meet Hikoboshi and have the wishes come true.
• While not as common as other holidays throughout the show, a few seasons of Pretty Cure have an episode which takes place on Tanabata:
  • In Futari wa Pretty Cure, episode 22 takes place on Tanabata and is A Day in the Limelight for Chuutaro, Honoka's dog, who helps a stray puppy return to his owner. In Max Heart, it's episode 21; Hikari meets her Separated at Birth little brother Hikaru for the first time, but the episode largely focuses on a one-off character, a boy named Daiki who ran away from home. Both episodes focus on characters who are separated from their families, much like Orihime is separated from Hikoboshi.
  • In Smile PreCure! episode 21, the girls collect all of the Cure Décor after a battle on the night of the Tanabata fireworks. The emphasis here is placed on tanzaku wishes, as the fairytale kingdom Märchenland apparently has a similar tradition which involves wishing to a Pegasus.
  • In Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure, it's episode 22; Tanabata is Lala's Significant Birth Date. It's also the one day that Hikaru's normally-absent father returns home from his overseas work. Romance is largely free from Pretty Cure as a series, but there's a comparison to be drawn between Orihime, the heavenly maiden who descended to Earth and fell in love with a human, and Lala, an alien who crash-landed on Earth and found companionship with humans.
• The manga and the anime versions of Ranma ½ have two different filler stories based around Tanabata. In the manga, a variant of the habit of writing wishes on leaves is used as the basis for a Red String of Fate effect, with Ranma having to struggle to keep his and Akane's leaves together and avoid their leaves being tied to those of other people. The anime episode is a tale where Akane falls off of a roof and then meets Princess Orihime (referred to in the dub simply as "Princess Ori") in person, who has descended from the Milky Way to seek out Hikoboshi ("Kengyu the Cowherd" in the dub), her fiancé, who has gone missing. As she explains over the course of the episode, the two of them are intended to wed and carry on the Milky Way School of Martial Arts, but she got into a fight with Hikoboshi over his lackadaisical manner and laid-back attitude, so now he's come to Earth in a huff to challenge and defeat earthly dojos to prove he is a strong fighter after all... but the Princess's father will make her marry another man if he hasn't returned to the Milky Way by the end of the festival. The episode ends with Akane waking up to discover she apparently was having a dream while concussed after falling off of the roof at the episode's beginning, though there is an Or Was It a Dream? twist.
• Kaworu and Shinji are depicted as Orihime and Hikoboshi in Rebuild of Evangelion. Both Sadamoto's poster for Q and Honda's artwork have set Shinji and Kaworu in a sky full of stars with each under Vega and Altair and with the Milkyway running between them. A direct allusion to the star crossed lovers from the legend and the stars associated with them. Furthermore the official theater booklet for 3.0 held interviews by the Khara staff including Megui Ogata and Akira Ishida that described Kaworu and Shinji as having been linked through "past cycles"; and only being able to be around each other for a brief time.
• The anime version of Rurouni Kenshin had an episode where Kaoru expected Kenshin to treat her to something special for the holiday but Kenshin, who forgot about it, mistook her hints for reminders of her birthday (which was months away). To make matters complicated, Kenshin found a ring inside a fish he caught and, not only forgetting about Tanabata but also not knowing about the Western tradition of engagement rings (which Kaoru and Tae were familiar with), gave her the ring... so Kaoru was now believing Kenshin proposed to her. Later on, by chance, Sanosuke meets the man who lost the ring (and is about to commit suicide because he threw the ring away in the middle of a fight with his girlfriend and fell into depression when he realized what he did) and learn about the tradition. Seeing Kenshin's face when he understood the mess he got himself into, it was hard to remember he's a feared assassin. It all ended more or less well: the ring was retrieved from Kaoru and then given back to the dude (who handed it to his girl), and Kenshin gave Kaoru a flower bouquet to make up for it. (And Tsubame and Megumi also got flowers from Yahiko and Sano).
• A comedic side story in the Sailor Moon manga centered around the Tanabata festival, with Orihime as a Laughably Evil Punch-Clock Villain. When she's defeated by Sailor Chibi-Moon she sobs and says that Hikoboshi hasn't showed up and she's afraid to see him because she got fat from overeating, but then he shows up and reassures her that he still loves her.
• Karara's first appearance in the Sgt. Frog anime included her learning about Tanabata and making a wish. This directly ties into Tamama and the others finally learning her real gender, as her wish was to become Tamama's bride.
• The 2018 ONA Starlight Promises involves a high-tech version of the Tanabata festival, with an AI organizer, Drones flying paper lanterns around, and virtual reality.
• The events of Unlock City occur on the day of Tanabata (the email Koudai receives hints at it 7 days before), although they continue on long after it's over.
• Episode 49 of Yatterman is set on the day of Tanabata and is focused around a couple of Japanese stylists who look like the classic depictions of Orihime and Hikoboshi who moved to Morocco and decided to export the holiday over there. The Dorombo Gang goes after their giant bamboo tree since apparently there's a Dokuro Ring on top of it.

Comic Books

• In the "Reflections" arc of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), Princess Celestia's relationship with the King Sombra of the Mirror Universe is very similar to the folklore, both characters coming from opposite dimensions who can only meet through the use of a magic mirror. On top of that, Mirror King Sombra owns a wishing garden and in this garden, ponies write wishes on paper and hang them on trees much like those who celebrate the festival.
• The Usagi Yojimbo story "Runaways" explicitly references the myth with Usagi and the princess he had fallen for even attending the festival.

Film

• In the 2010 version of The Karate Kid, Mei Ying invites Dre on a date the night of the Qīxì festival. They watch a shadow puppet play about the tale of Zhinü and Niulang.

Literature

• In general, as a highly romantic story, it has been a popular topic in Chinese and Japanese poetry for centuries.
• Bridge of Birds: The actions of Master Li and Number Ten Ox become interwoven with the Qīxì story, although the heroes don't realize this when they first set out.
• Nona celebrates this in the British children's book Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. Nona's actually Anglo-Indian, but became interested in Japanese culture through her Japanese dolls.
  Nona: S-something to do with the stars, t-two stars. I think they are the spirits of two people who loved each other long, long ago, a thousand years ago, and were separated. Now they are up in two stars each side of the M-milky Way, and one night each year they can cross and meet.
  Anne: Across the Milky Way? How pretty.
  Nona: Yes. And on earth that night children — grown-up people as well, but mostly children — write wishes on pieces of coloured paper and tie them outside on the bamboos, all over Japan.

Live-Action TV

• Crash Landing on You makes a few allusions to Chilseok, and the ultimate solution for the Star-Crossed Lovers is clearly inspired by it: they get to reunite once a year when Jeong-hyuk is allowed out of North Korea to go to Switzerland to perform.
• In the Iron Chef Tofu battle between Morimoto and Takaji Yoshida, Yoshida, a traditionalist who dislikes the modernization of Japanese cuisine, made his dessert dish themed after Tanabata.
• Kamen Rider Den-O uses Tanabata as the running theme for Kamen Rider Zeronos; his two primary forms are called Vega and Altair, and his Imagin partner is named Deneb and is modeled on tengu (among other things). The theme of Star-Crossed Lovers also applies to Zeronos' user Yuto Sakurai and his fiance Airi Nogami, separated because Sakurai is hiding in the timestream to protect their future child, and had to erase Airi's memory to keep her safe too.
• Ultraman Ace has the titular hero being transformed from Seiji Hokuto and Yuko Minami, both are coincidentally born in Seventh July (though what year was it was never specified). The resemblance becomes eerily closer as to the Wham Episode where Yuko was Put on a Bus after Ace killed Lunatyx, finally fulfilling the duties from her former homeworld. Like Hikoboshi and Orihime, the two have become literal Star-Crossed Lovers as Yuko currently resided on her former home world (the moon) and Hokuto permanently fused to Ultraman Ace. Ultraman Mebius was the only occasion that the two ever reunited (no less thanks to fighting the same rabbit monster).
• Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger has an episode focused around this festival. The MOTW uses this festival as a means to grant the wishes of anyone who wrote on his slips and then kills them the next day due with his powers. Five of the Kyoryugers are hit with this, and it's up to the leader Daigo to stop the MOTW before everyone else dies.

Music

• South Korean Girl Group Red Velvet has a song titled "One of These Nights". The Korean title is "July 7" and the song is heavily inspired by Orihime and Hikoboshi.

Tabletop Games

• Two of the original characters in the Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game RPG are enamored Japanese fighters who chose to fight under the names of Hikoboshi (misspelled as "Hikodoshi" in reference material) and Orihime, although this is mainly due to Hikoboshi's Patriotic Fervor - the two are actually very close to each other.
• Referenced in Yu-Gi-Oh! with Satellaknight Bridge. "Satellaknight Altair" and "Satellaknight Vega" appear in the artwork.
  • Tanabata is further referenced with the "Esprit" series.

Video Games

• Arena of Valor: The archangel Lauriel is noted to be born on July 7th, the same as Tanabata. However, she plays a different aspect than the typical Star Crossed Lover scenario (because she's celibate): Lauriel manages the Hall of Prayers of Veda. Meanwhile, during such festivals, certain nation (usually Japan) has a tradition of writing their wishes and putting it on a bamboo, hoping that their prayers and wishes are granted (praying and making wishes also exist in Qixi festivals, but not as emphasized as in Tanabata). In other words, Lauriel takes the aspect of people praying for wishes during Tanabata/Qixi and she's managing their prayers.
• BlazBlue: Litchi Faye-Ling is born on July 7th (Tanabata) and her story revolve around being a Love Martyr who wants to initiate one final meeting with her love interest Lotte Carmine and curing him from his wretched existence as Arakune. After a lot of unwilling Forced into Evil antics, she gets her wish to meet with a lucid Lotte... and gets told that he does not want to get cured, he's fine hanging around in the other place near the Boundary and Litchi should get back to the living being to live her own life. Therefore, they're now completely separated and having to move on with their lives, and unlike the legends, that's the only chance they got, they don't get yearly reunions.
• Bravely Second has several characters based on Tanabata. It has characters named Altair and Vega who are Star-Crossed Lovers, with the twist being the magpie, in the form of the game's Greater-Scope Villain Providence, is the one keeping them apart instead of bringing them together.
• Ensemble Stars!: Tanabata is one of the annual events that all idol units are expected to perform for, so every year (except 2019 when it was skipped) there will be a story event centered around it. Usually, the focus is on the wishes the characters make on their tanzaku, demonstrating their hopes for the rest of the school year and/or how much they've changed since starting at Yumenosaki Academy.
• Flower Knight Girl: Yearly, the Tanabata festival is celebrated in Spring Garden around the time of "the night of sevens", with corresponding seasonal lines for the Flower Knights, plus updates which add story events taking place during the festival. One Tanabata themed event debuted two Flower Knights, Tree of a Thousand Stars and Lesser Celandine, who thematically represent Hikoboshi and Orihime respectively.
• The plotline of the story is involved intimately in the background of Mega Man Star Force 2, and the involved characters have their names maintained appropriately across localizations. Orihime is the main villain of the game, and in English is named Vega for the star.
  • This is complete with her lover being named Hiko (obviously from Hikoboshi) in Japanese and Altair in English. And mind you, they come from Kingdom Tannabata. This, and Altair being deceased, makes them a true pair of Star-Crossed Lovers.
• Referenced in Persona 3: after SEES figures out how to predict when certain bosses will appear, Akihiko comments that one upcoming battle will be "a Tanabata special bout". Humorously it's the battle against the Hierophant and Lovers Arcana, which represent tradition and choice or the misuse of tradition and lack of choice, and also is the infamous Love Hotel battle.
• Jirachi is a star-shaped legendary Pokémon that is supposed to wake up once every thousand years, and people upon seeing it will write wishes that Jirachi will grant onto small pieces of paper and place them on Jirachi's head. Fittingly, it is often distributed in Japan around the time of the Tanabata festival.
• Super Robot Wars has two mechas named after the stars of Tanabata: Altairlion and Vegalion. Their pilots, Ibis Douglas and Sleigh Presty, aren't exactly lovers, they're more like best friends, but they went through hardships and misunderstandings a lot (especially on Sleigh's side) until they finally understand each other and eventually unite their mecha into Hyperion. This is referenced in Second Original Generation where the resident mecha Otaku Ryusei Date noticed the theme naming and asked why Hyperion isn't instead called Tanabatalion, in which his idea gets shot down.
  • Also, according to Super Robot Wars Alpha 1, where the character originates from, Kusuha Mizuha (who is the full-blown protagonist of the Alpha series and a reasonably important character in the Original Generation series) was born on Tanabata. In OG, this connection isn't very meaningful or explored, but it ends up being rather more important symbolically in Alpha, in a sense that her boyfriend is kind of a Distressed Dude at times and just to reunite with him, Kusuha would go through heaven and hell just so she'd save and reunite with him.
    • Her default Alpha skillset^note wherein skills are determined by a combination of birthday and blood type even has a subtle joke on Tanabata in it: she has a "spirit" skill which increases her movement speed substantially available for a far lower cost than many other characters. She can cross the otherwise vast distances between people very easily!
• In WarioWare Gold, some of the microgames from previous installments about bringing couples together (Hookin' Up, Tearful Reunion) are remade to be about Orihime and Hikoboshi.
• We Love Katamari includes a stage where players roll up all the planets and stars they've created, with the rolling up of the sun as the ultimate objective. This stage includes numerous Easter Eggs, such as the stars Vega and Altair, on which ride small human forms that shout "Hikoboshi-sama!" and "Orihime!" as you collect them.
  • Beautiful Katamari on the Xbox 360 features a downloadable stage called "Lovers' Loom", where you are asked to roll up fabric and wool to make the star Vega. When completed, the King turns your Katamari into a five-pointed star with Orihime and Hikoboshi sitting on the arms.
• In zOMG!, Shrine Maiden Katsumi asks you to deliver an off-season wish to a Wish Tree in Zen Gardens (she is wishing for the safety of others in the Animated attacks). The wishes in the Wish Tree turn out to be Animated themselves— but they were created almost completely in goodwill, so they're mostly neutral/benevolent towards humans.

Visual Novels

• In Hatoful Boyfriend, the heroine gets to see the wishes of the birds she's the closest to at Tanabata and make a wish herself to conquer the world by force, rule the world from the shadows, gain the Mad Love of a Fallen Angel, or become a famous artist.
• In Katawa Shoujo, Yamaku High School has a festival organized around Tanabata. The players only get to see it in Shizune's route, though, with Shizune and Misha (both in yukatas) take Hisao there.
  • In Lilly's route, Tanabata is heavily discussed, as Hisao promises to take her to the festival. Appropriately, that does not happen because Lilly and Hisao have their own Star-Crossed Lovers situation. Whether this is permanent depends on the player's actions: if the player manages to get Lilly's Good Ending, Hisao promises to take Lilly to the following Tanabata to make up for missing the previous one, something which Lilly is surprised that Hisao remembered.
• The plot of Star-Crossed Myth kicks off the evening before Tanabata. After an initial encounter that the protagonist writes off as a dream, she's approached again by six gods of the Western Zodiac during the "Star Festival" event at the planetarium where she works.
• In Umineko: When They Cry, there is a side-story called "The Witches' Tanabata", in which the audience learns about the witches' philosophies when it comes to granting Tanabata wishes.

Webcomics

• Bailin and Li Yun once did a one-off special episode for Qixi, with an illustration of Li Yun as Niulang and Bailin as Zhinü.

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