Sentaro

Sentaro is about thirty-two when the thought of sickness and death begins to trouble him. He wishes to live five or six hundred years without illness. Remembering tales of hermits with an Elixir of Life, he leaves his home and searches the high mountains, but finds none. At Jofuku’s shrine he prays for seven days. Jofuku tells him that the hermit’s austere life would not suit him, yet sends him to the country of Perpetual Life on a small paper crane.

Sentaro settles on the island and discovers its reversal: the inhabitants, who have never known sickness or death, long for death and the Paradise they believe follows it. At first he is delighted. He establishes a business and enjoys life; three hundred years pass before he grows weary and longs for home. He prays to Jofuku again, and the paper crane carries him across the sea toward Japan.

A storm dampens the paper bird and it falls into the ocean. As Sentaro struggles in the water, a huge shark approaches. He screams for Jofuku and wakes before the shrine, realizing the adventures were a dream. A messenger says Jofuku let him see that endless life would not make him happy, and that his plea for rescue showed he did not truly wish to die. The messenger urges him to return home, live industriously, honour his ancestors and provide for his children. Sentaro takes the book the messenger leaves, returns to his paternal home, and changes the course of his life.