The second book: #2 The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
And so we jump from Arabian fairy tales to Japanese. The version of this story that I read was from a larger collection of Japanese fairy tales (the book, I saw later, recommending a specific 1998 edition, but in this case for me the core story mattered).
Reading some of these fairy tales has been pretty interesting in general. After Arabian Nights, these felt a bit less forward, a bit more controlled and less repetitve (but that's also because there's less of them). The tropes are still there - down to the room you shouldn't enter - but there's certainly more of a morality tale to it and less awkward crowd pleasers.
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a good example of it, working as a morality tale with an interesting story. It follows plenty of the fairy tale lines - a magically found baby, gold and gems coming out of nowhere, and the good adoptive parents getting wealthy and having good luck. The second part, regarding the suitors, have their own mini lessons, but also feel to follow different beats, avoiding repetitiveness by having each of them taking a different approach to avoiding their quests. It all still feels pretty predictable.
The third part, regarding the king's meeting and the end of the story, play nice, even if it never entirely leads anywhere - there's no success and the real resolution, the girl returning back to the moon, comes out of nowhere. It's a bit unfortunate, but fits in with the general theme of these stories of staying in your place and accepting your fate - returning to your own place.
Time to move into the current millennium!