| “ |
See, whether you call something reality or a dream you ultimately think of it in the same way. That being the case, isn't it better to live a fun life in a dream? Even you... if you don't ask for anything outrageous I'll make you tons of good dreams. The dreams I make are the same as reality. Therefore, they ARE reality. I won't do anything bad. So trust me. I'll be waiting up above. Come up and see me when you're ready... |
” |
—Mujaki
Mujaki (夢邪鬼, Mujaki?, Dream Demon) is a recurring character of Urusei Yatsura, who is also the main antagonist of Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer.
Biography[]
Past[]
Mujaki is a being who has been around since ancient times as a creator of dreams and nightmares for the mortals of the world, with many occultists and researchers classifying him as an incarnation of temptation due to having apparently influenced some of the world's most evil tyrants, devious traitors and causing spiritual discord within the innocent by supposedly planting seeds of evil. However much of his past is muddled in mystery and uncertainty, so it is unknown how many evil incidents in the past were actually his fault, although Mujaki himself claims that all he does is make dreams and that causing evil was never his intent and denies being evil or a demon, and is in fact saddened by his reputation, claiming that he makes dreams for everyone and those that became evil through his dreams were already evil to begin with, with his dreams giving them what they wanted but only becoming corrupted because of the evil already present in their hearts and souls.
All Mujaki desired was to create ideal dreams for mortals, but no matter what he creates his dreams always end up either corrupted by humans. While he claims to have created many good dreams alongside evil ones, his good dreams sadly never last and inevitably turn into nightmares despite his best efforts, and because of this they will always be destroyed by his primordial "pet" and anathemic adversary Baku whose destined purpose is to eat all of the dreams Mujaki creates. Mujaki would carry on this rather fruitless existence for centuries, always regretting that he could only exist in the dreams of others yet never have a dream of his own, always running from one place to the next.
Waking to a Nightmare[]
Mujaki was first encountered by Ataru Moroboshi after the boy fell asleep in class and was then subjected to a dream by Mujaki which was then eaten by Baku once it became a nightmare. An upset Ataru then demanded Mujaki give him a good dream in exchange for the nightmare the Baku ate, to which Mujaki begrudgingly agreed. Mujaki then gives Ataru his ideal dream, that of transforming all the girls he's attracted to into his personal harem girls (including Lum) and for Shūtarō Mendō to be his pitiful slave. Before Ataru can really enjoy his dream though, Baku arrives and eats the good dream out of hunger, giving it indigestion which inadvertently causes Ataru to start waking up. A furious Mujaki then warns Ataru that he cannot wake up or else he and Baku will be trapped in the real world. Just then, a horrified Ataru and Mujaki see what looks to be the rising sun in the distance but Mujaki points out that the "sun" is actually Ataru's own eye slowly opening and once it does all of them will be sucked out into the real world. A desperate Ataru tries to help Mujaki by keeping his eyelid closed as Mujaki tries to catch Baku, but their attempts at keeping Ataru asleep fail as Mendo in the real world awakens Ataru, causing Ataru's dreamself to disintegrate and Mujaki and Baku to be sucked out from Ataru's eye into the real world, much to the confusion and horror of Class 2-4 who become absolutely bewildered at the sight of Mujaki and Baku manifesting from Ataru's eye. Mujaki then cries that he's trapped in the real world which is his personal nightmare and begs the students to give him a job to supply Baku with food as everyone looks on in confusion.
It seems their stay would not be permanent though as Mujaki and Baku somehow found a way to travel freely between both worlds and are later seen crashing the Class 2-4 party at Tomobiki High School where they are joyfully seen dancing in the background and later returned to the dream world once more for a very special dream...
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer[]
Mujaki and Baku had long since returned to the dream world and had continued their endless waltz of creating and destroying dreams. But as time went on Mujaki began to grow tired of his existence and not having a dream of his own and so considered the possibility of retiring from his existence and fading away. That was until one day he ran into the desires of the alien girl Lum whose dream manifested in the form of an aquarium. It was here where Mujaki first encountered Lum and became captivated by her otherworldly charm and selfless pure-hearted dream of wanting a world where she and her friends could live happily forever. Inspired by her beauty and selfless desires, Mujaki made it his ultimate goal to create the perfect dream world for Lum, one that would last forever and where he could live alongside her in eternal bliss.
Initially, this dream world manifested as a thriving copy of Tomobiki, set the day before a big school festival at Tomobiki High School and locked in an endless temporal loop. However, Onsen-Mark became suspicious of this dream world, and an incident where Sakura realized she had given him laxatives instead of the sleeping pills she had intended led her to Onsen-Mark's home, which was overwhelmed in dust and fungus. Onsen-Mark shared his suspicions with Sakura, and this act seemed to cause the dream world to begin breaking down. Onsen-Mark mysteriously disappeared, and then at the end of one false day, everyone else in the false Tomobiki did likewise, leaving only Sakura, Lum, Ataru Moroboshi, Shinobu Miyake, Shūtarō Mendō, Megane, Perm, Karakuri, Chibi, Ryūnosuke Fujinami, Ryūnosuke's Father, Ataru's Mother and Ataru's Father present in the faux-city. They discovered that they were unable to leave a certain part of Tomobiki; all paths they took instead led to dead ends. An attempt to explore Tomobiki High at night led to the teens (plus Sakura) fleeing to one of the Mendō family's private panic sites and attempting to escape atop a Harrier VTOL jet.
Doing this unveiled the true nature of this world as a 2-kilometer circle of cityscape centered on the Moroboshi household and sitting on the back of an enormous stone turtle, drifting silently through space. Standing around the rim of the cityscape atop the turtle's back were enormous stone statues depicting people exorcised from the dream world by Mujaki. Specifically, Onsen-Mark and Cherry. When the Harrier mysteriously began running out of fuel, they were forced to make an emergency landing at the Moroboshi house and stay the night.
The next morning, they woke to find that the fake Tomobiki was now a lifeless, crumbling ruin; only the Moroboshi household and a nearby convenience store remained thriving and active. Even Tomobiki High was now a crumbling ruin half-flooded at the bottom of a crater. As the Moroboshi household never ran out of power, water or other essentials, and the convenience store remained full of supplies no matter how frequently they visited, the teens largely fell into a timeless state of indulgence, amusing themselves by eating, drinking and playing to their heart's content. All the while, Mendō and Sakura secretly continued to explore and document their strange new home.
Things truly began to unravel when first Shinobu and then Ryūnosuke mysteriously vanished, with Mendō discovering that statues in their likeness had formed atop the turtle alongside the statues of Cherry and Onsen-Mark. They concocted a plan and attempted to meet secretly with Ataru that "night" in the ruined Tomobiki High School; Mujaki took Ataru's form, hoping to discover what they were up to, but they revealed they had tricked him, and, with the aid of the real Ataru, they captured him in a set of spirit wards, forcing him to reveal his true form. Now cornered, he explained his disillusion with his job and how he had met and subsequently been inspired by Lum, confirming Sakura and Mendō's theories that the other girls were expelled from the dream world by Mujaki to please Lum, as it made her angry, sad and jealous whenever Ataru would flirt with them.
As he told them this, he pulled them from Lum's dream world without their realizing, trapping them in another dream world, like fish in an aquarium. He assured them that his story of how he met Lum and why he made this world is true, and noted that the missing people - Cherry, Onsen-Mark, Ryūnosuke and Shinobu - were all now living in their own private dreams, whilst their "shadows" helped sustain Lum's dream. After some gloating over how everything was taken care of, he prepared to take Ataru's form and rejoin Lum and the others, only to be confronted by the real Ataru. He was dumbfounded that Ataru somehow avoided being trapped like Sakura and Mendō, but Ataru explained he lost his temper and attempted to attack Mujaki whilst the dream spirit was talking, only to accidentally fall into the lake surrounding the ruined school. Mujaki immediately though to trap Ataru in a dream too, but Ataru revealed he has one of Sakura's exorcism wards, and offered Mujaki a deal.
Mujaki created a paradisiacal harem for Ataru, musing confusedly over how this was basically his plan all along. However, before he could leave, Ataru did something Mujaki never anticipated: he asked where Lum was. A disbelieving Mujaki pointed out that Ataru had always fled Lum's advances. In response, Ataru declared that he loves Lum as much as he loves all the other beautiful young women in his life, and he flees from her because she won't share him with them. Thus, a dream harem without Lum in it is inherently flawed, to Ataru's thinking, and he ordered Mujaki to bring him Lum, threatening to break out of this flawed dream if he refused.
Mujaki lost his temper with Ataru, refusing to soil Lum by forcing her into a compliant role in Ataru's perverted dream. In his flailing, he accidentally dropped the horn that would summon Baku to consume the dream-world, a fact he then inadvertently revealed to Ataru. Ataru promptly blew the horn, and Baku devoured the post-apocalyptic playground that Mujaki had created for Lum. The vengeful dream spirit tried to punish Ataru by trapping him in new dream worlds; first a facade of having returned to the waking world, then in a dream-world modeled on Ataru's game of tag with Lum where there were only ten minutes left before the final match was concluded after Ataru fought back against Mujaki. Ataru nearly used his willpower to escape this dream-world, but his hesitation at the last second caused him to lose to the fake Lum, resulting in him being beaten unconscious by the angry onlookers. He then placed Ataru in a third nightmare, as a pastiche of Frankenstein's Monster, but Ataru realized what was happening and tried to fight Mujaki again. However, he lost once more, and this time Mujaki placed him in a new nightmare, where Ataru awoke to a reality where he and Lum had been placed into cryogenic stasis due to contracting a mysterious illness, but her capsule malfunctioned and she died. This dream shocked Ataru so badly that he broke free of it by complete accident, although Mujaki promptly knocked him unconscious.
When Ataru regained consciousness again, Mujaki lectured him on the inherent malleability of dreams, and how that made them superior to the waking world. He offered to give Ataru a blissful eternity in the dream world, provided he didn't ask for anything Mujaki considered "too outrageous", and then left Ataru, expecting him to follow. Instead, to his surprise, Ataru returned to the waking world, with Mujaki and Baku following. Watching as Ataru and Lum nearly kissed, only to resume fighting after Ataru realized they had an audience, he mused that keeping up with the two of them took way too much energy, and so he took Baku and returned to the dream world.
Great Storm! Ryūnosuke's First Time Wearing a Swimsuit!![]
After some time, Mujaki is seen still in the waking world (either residing there now or visiting again) where he and everyone else from Tomobiki (and other planets) attend the big duel on Ganryu Island between Ryūnosuke Fujinami and her father to finally determine if she will surpass her father and wear a girly swimsuit.
Mujaki is shown to have confidence in Ryūnosuke, calling over Ataru to bet 3,000 yen on her, believing that she would win the match. Unfortunately, the match would be interrupted and the crowd seats destroyed by Ryōko Mendō who effectively sent Mujaki and everyone else flying after she ordered her private army to bomb the beachside arena.
Inaba the Dream Maker[]
In the ideal future created by Lum and made possible by Inaba, a future Mujaki is seen attending Ataru and Lum's wedding where he is crying next to Elle as Lum finally marries Ataru (Mujaki likely saddened due to still having feelings for Lum). When Cherry takes a group photo of the wedding ceremony, Mujaki was also in the background.
Appearance[]
Mujaki is a short little dream demon dressed in red with a top hat and little black spectacles. His overall appearance is that of a very short and rotund humanoid with a large overbite, silver hair, a pudgy belly and oddly enough a small horn underneath his top hat which conceals his true otherworldly origin. Overall his appearance resembles that of a stereotypical magician dressed in red, and like a magician he carries confetti and streamers with him when necessary.
When he first appeared, he was slightly taller and had green hair and a longer horn, making him resemble an oni. His outfit was also not red, instead he wore a pink coat with white hearts and blue pants, but his hat was still the same color but he also sported red shoes. He also did not have an overbite in his first appearance.
When he was seen for Ryūnosuke Fujinami's big duel with her father, Mujaki sported a black version of his crimson outfit.
Personality[]
| “ |
Things are a mess for ya 'cause you think time and space are objective things. Y'know how time seems to slow down when yer waiting? Fact is, time is simply a creation of your human consciousness. What if there ain't no human beings left in the world? Wouldn't clocks and calendars be a waste? Maybe there ain't no such thing as time that flows in only one direction from the past to the future, and never was, don'tcha think ma'am? Human beings are slipshopds to begin with, so there ain't nothing strange about time being slipshod too. If everything was hunky-dory, then that'd be weird! The only certain thing is the present, which just keeps flowing like this... Ain't that the best way to think about it? |
” |
—Mujaki
Mujaki is an eccentric and jolly being who enjoys making dreams and nightmares for others, but as time went on he began losing his passion for creating dreams, causing him to want to retire, that was until he met Lum who he instantly fell in love with and wanted to create the ideal dream world just for her as his ultimate masterpiece. In the end though, Ataru's efforts and Lum's love for Ataru made Mujaki give up on that endeavor, and it can be presumed that he either chose to begin living in the real world or returned to making dreams afterwards.
Mujaki takes great delight in making dreams with his dream eggs, but this leads him into eternal conflict with his constant companion and adversary Baku with whom he shares a very conflicting and unique relationship. Baku is pure anathema to Mujaki in that while Mujaki creates Baku only destroys. Mujaki can create highly detailed dream worlds but in the end all will eventually be consumed by Baku causing Mujaki to think of Baku as nothing more than a gluttonous good for nothing. Despite this adversarial relationship, Mujaki and Baku are for some reason inseparable, with Baku acting as a sort of pet to Mujaki, often being in his company or riding atop Mujaki's head in private, and Mujaki actively going out of his way to feed Baku nightmares he doesn't like. Showing that the two exist in a sort of dualistic balance of both companionship and hostility that are necessary to each other. This is further proven by how Mujaki's attempts at creating the perfect dream world for Lum and keeping Baku pacified prove fruitless as the dream world begins to fall apart and decay on its own and in the end it was necessary for Baku to devour it as began to turn more nightmarish.
According to Sakura's Encyclopedia of Evil Spirits for miko priestesses and sorceresses, the text classifies Mujaki as a being of pure evil, either being a demon or an incarnation of the Devil himself and credits him as being responsible for some of the world's greatest evils and betrayals, some of which are listed below:
- Starting an untold number of bloody wars.
- Drove the fair and poetry-loving Emperor Nero insane, turning him into a bloody tyrant and had him burn down all of Rome.
- Tricked the faithful apostle Judas Iscariot into betraying his lord Jesus Christ to the Romans for silver.
- Forged the temptation of lust within Gautama Buddha's mind to keep him from harvesting the tree of knowledge.
- Transforming the shy art student Adolphus Hitler into the tyrannical national socialist dictator and starting World War II.
- Manipulated Marcus Junius Brutus into assassinating his emperor and closet friend Julius Caesar (Et tu, Brute?).
- Tempted Eve into convincing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of good and evil.
However Mujaki himself clarifies that he is not the Devil or even a demon despite his evil-sounding name, claiming that he simply knows magic unlike ordinary humans and he has lived longer than them, elaborating that he was not responsible for causing those people to turn evil as they already had evil in their hearts before he made dreams for them, although he is aware that his actions and long lifespan do make him seem evil. Still he claims that while he did make dreams even for evil and traitorous humans, the dreams he makes are based on the desires of his subjects, not his own, so his dreams are merely corrupted by the evil or temptation that was already present within those humans. So if a person has an evil dream it was only because of their own evil desires corrupting the dream, although Sakura still considers him the catalyst for creating the dreams they wanted in the first place. Mujaki is aware of this though and is upset that he is only known for his evil nightmares rather than his good dreams, but he admits that it is to be expected as all his good dreams, no matter how well intended they are, always end up turning into twisted or evil nightmares that will inevitably be devoured by Baku. Even the perfect dream world he created for Lum and her friends ultimately proved unsustainable as it began to fall apart and become more nightmarish despite his best efforts.
While he claims to not be evil, Mujaki comes off as childish and selfish at times, and while he is incapable of actually killing anyone within his dreams, he prefers to seek revenge by scaring victims or trying to keep them sleeping. He ultimately does not mean any harm but seems to suffer from a severe case of shortsightedness and an equally short temper that often clouds his judgement. His love for Lum in particular drove him to some rather dark decisions, such as trying to keep her and her friends trapped in their ideal dream worlds and ultimately taking the place of Ataru in Lum's life, but in the end it seemed he learned to understand their bonds and was content with simply watching their own dreams unfold.
Notably, Mujaki sees no difference between Dreams and Reality, having been born within the realm of dreams, dreams are just as real to him as reality is to mortals, comparing it to the philosopher Chuang Tzu's dream of being a butterfly which could just as likely have been a butterfly dreaming that it was Chuang Tzu. Unlike reality though, he admits that in dreams things can be done over and over again with no end and mistakes can be undone, claiming that it is more fun to live a life of many good dreams than a single real life, especially when the dividing line between dreams and reality is thin when one takes into account the bizarre nature of the world and most notably Tomobiki.
Abilities[]
Mujaki's mysterious powers give him near unparalleled control over the dreams of mortals, being able to create any dreams and nightmares he desires through his own hands or through his pre-constructed dream eggs. While inside someone's dream he is virtually omnipresent and can appear anywhere he pleases, taking on the forms of others or even possessing dreamers and dream constructs. His powers are nearly unstoppable unless his victims are close to waking up. The method he uses to create dreams can be described as bizarre, either being shown to manifest them through his own will and imagination, his dream eggs, or just making them rather haphazardly when in a rush by just putting together sets made from lumber and cheap paint. Overall Mujaki's powers are just mysterious as he himself. He claims to be powerless in the real world though and if transported there he could not return initially but eventually he managed to find a way to travel freely between the two worlds.
Despite all of Mujaki's powers he is not entirely invincible within dreams, as a powerful spirit medium like Sakura could still see through his guises and even briefly ward him off, and Ataru was able to resist his influence through his own stubbornness. Mujaki though is entirely powerless against Baku's ravenous hunger which can destroy and consume his dreams in a flash, leaving nothing behind but a void of either white luminous tiles or a floating green sea of subconscious thought filled with floating strands resembling DNA. Although even when all he has made has been destroyed, he can still rebuild and create new dreams if given enough time.
Mujaki's greatest creation was undoubtedly his perfect replica of Tomobiki which he created on top of a flat stone disk carried on the back of a giant stone turtle in a constructed replica of outer space. However despite his creative abilities and attention to detail, his dreams are doomed to decay if allowed to exist for too long, which necessitates the existence of Baku.
Trivia[]
- His name 夢邪鬼 roughly translates to Dream Demon, that is, an evil oni who controls dreams.
- This might be why he initially had green hair and a horn like Lum and why he was so attracted to her.
- He speaks in Kansai dialect when communicating with others, as do other oni characters such as Ten, Ran, and Lum's father.
- Sakura's Encyclopedia of Evil Spirits seems to consider Mujaki an incarnation of the Devil and the Devaputra-Mara, although he himself denies being them or being responsible for the evils they caused.
- Although Sakura points out that Mujaki still acted in their benefit as the final catalyst, but as he creates dreams it was inevitable that they would dream of the evils that were already placed within them.
- Mujaki is apparently not familiar with aliens, as he had never seen a being like Lum before and commented that she looked as if she was born under a peculiar star before being corrected by Sakura that she was in fact born on a different star. This suggests that Mujaki is bound to only their planet and human dreams, however he could still enter Lum's dreams, likely due to her being on their planet.
- Mujaki may be based on Yume no Seirei (夢の精霊, The Dream Spirit), a Japanese spirit said to have been responsible for creating all nightmares and whose nightmares were subsequently eaten by the benevolent Baku (獏) the dream eater.
- The Yume no Seirei unlike Mujaki though was not a rotund little oni who traveled with Baku. The Yume no Seirei appeared as a decrepit old man in ghostly white robes who was never seen with Baku.
Media Appearances[]
Manga
- Chapter 31: "Waking to a Nightmare"
Anime
Gallery[]
