Saber Marionette Money!

Discussion in 'Manga and Anime' started by c0ke, Jan 29, 2003.

  1. c0ke

    c0ke New Member

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    I'm wondering how the money system in Japoness works?

    In Ep. 1 of SMJ:

    It took 105 mon to buy Lime's clothing

    after that the mon completely disappears from the series, and then there's the ryo, which must be a lot since in Ep. 7 the highest amount that could be won in the lottery was 1000 ryo.

    Now back to the question:

    What is the equvilent of a mon to a ryo? does 1000 mon make one ryo? it can't be 100 hundred mons make 1 ryo other wise the owner of the second hand clothes shop would have asked for 1 ryo and 5 mon, and the mon must also be a huge number of money since Otaru was hoping to get a tax exempt from the store owner since 105 mon was too much for him to pay for.

    (Now I would be asking this question if in Ep. 7 when Otaru had that Nappachi Burger stand, and was scamming one of the customers, if the customer had punched Otaru after he told the price of the burgers.)
     
    #1
    c0ke, Jan 29, 2003
  2. BakaMattSu

    BakaMattSu ^__^
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    Heh, would you believe I can actually answer that? lol...

    Assuming it works as the money that was introduced during the real-life Tokugawa Shogunate, the exchange would be:

    10,000 Mon = 1 Ryo

    At least that's how it worked in the real-life Meiji Era.

    Here's some cool pictures of real zeni notes, as well as some history if I was too brief for your interests: http://www.money.org/boling/kawase.html

    Interesting question. Give me some more like that, I'm always eager to see how far the historical references in SMJ go!
     
    #2
    BakaMattSu, Jan 29, 2003
  3. Stardust Phox

    Stardust Phox Such a Taurean I am!

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    That's what you call dedication and fannishness. ^_^

    That's also why we love our fandom. *hugs you both* I'd either never heard of or forgotten mon and ryo.
     
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    Stardust Phox, Mar 27, 2003
  4. c0ke

    c0ke New Member

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    I think I found out how the money system works. Even though that site states 1 Ryo to equal 10000 mon, isn't a bit much?

    Then I saw this other anime (Tsukikage Ran) and on it liner notes it showed how the Tokugawa money sytem worked, and how it balanced out:

    1 Ryo = 4 Bu
    1 Bu = 4 Shu
    1 Shu = 250 Mon

    So

    1 Ryo = 16 Shu = 4000 Mon = 4 Bu

    Of course they never use the Bu or the Shu on SMJ

    Later during the Meiji Restoration, the Ryo becomes the Yen.
     
    #4
    c0ke, Jul 16, 2003
  5. BakaMattSu

    BakaMattSu ^__^
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    Well, it is a bit hard to accurately measure, as it did change at different points in history.

    Despite there being a monetary system, income was measured primarily in rice. So to find the value of your money, you did a conversion to its value in rice.

    A Zeni (a small round copper coin with a square hole in the middle), equaled one meal of rice or one cup of tea.

    A Mon (which was silver), equalled rice for a month.

    A Ryo or Koban (an oval gold coin), equalled rice for 4 years.
     
    #5
    BakaMattSu, Jul 16, 2003

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