Legend · Upper-intermediate · JLPT N2 · 60 min

杜子春

Toshishun

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (芥川龍之介) · 1920

A ruined young man asks a mountain hermit to teach him magic. The one rule: never say a word.

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About this story

作品について

Akutagawa wrote this story in 1920 for Akai Tori (The Red Bird), the same children's magazine that had published The Spider's Thread two years earlier. The plot comes from a Chinese tale of the Tang Dynasty about a man named Du Zichun, but Akutagawa changed the ending. In the Chinese original, the hero's final choice is a failure. In Akutagawa's version, it is exactly what makes him human. That one change turned an old tale of Taoist magic into one of the best-loved stories in Japan, read by generations of schoolchildren. It is written in the polite です/ます style, so the grammar is gentle, but the setting brings a colorful vocabulary: hermits, tigers, armies of spirits, the King of Hell. There are six short chapters. Take them one at a time.

Short Story · Single Volume

Contents

Read · Discover · Enjoy.

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Reading

Read the original Japanese text with furigana. Tap any word to see an easy English meaning without leaving the story.

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Idioms & Expressions

Idioms, sound words, old-style expressions and similes from the story. Filter by type and check each one in its sentence.

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Grammar Patterns

Grammar patterns used in the story, with examples from the text. Filter by (estimated) JLPT level.

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Blog

Articles about the story's background, its author and its expressions (1 article).

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Source Text

This story comes from Aozora Bunko, a library of free Japanese e-books in the public domain.

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