Iwa ni Hana

'Tenshu Monogatari 天守物語' from the series '怪 ～ayakashi～ JAPANESE CLASSIC HORROR'

There are many elements in the Tenshu Monogatari 天守物語 story arc of Ayakashi ~ 怪 JAPANESE CLASSIC HORROR that are not in the original theatre play written by the Meiji writer Izumi Kyouka 泉鏡花, and here I would like to mention just a few:

1) The idea of the "forgotten gods / wasuregami 忘神" may have been drawn from Heine's idea of the Asra, who die when they love (or the production team may have just hit upon the same idea willy-nilly). Just for reference, here is a translation of his poem in English:

Daily came the lone and lovely
Sultan's daughter, slowly wandering
In the evening to the fountain
Where the plashing waters whitened.

Daily stoof the youthful captive
In the evening by the fountain
Where the splashing water whitened -
Daily growing paler and paler...
Till one dusk the strolling Princess
Stopped and spoke a hurried sentence:
"Tell me now thy name, and tell me
Of thy country and thy kindred.'

And the slave replied, 'My name is
Mohamet; I come from Yemen,
And my people are the Asra,
Who, whene'er they love, must perish.'

2) As you can see, the 'forgotten gods' in the anime project a powerful image of female independence - they are almost without exception pretty young women who live in a castle, wearing fine clothes and entertaining themselves with music and dances. There is no men among them and they use their beauty to lure human males in order to eat them. They also sit on a pile of treasures and guard it against any intruder into the castle, which brings to us the next mythical element: -

The myth of Melusina (see Wikipedia entry here).  It may not be apparent from Wikipedia, but the myth of Melusina has been re-interpreted in a psychoanalytical light in recent times. The emotional scars of the mother fay Pressyne's failed marriage with a mortal are passed onto her three daughters. Melusina, the eldest, repeats the same marriage pattern. Melior, the second born, has to keep a sparrow hawk in a castle until she is rescued by a prince (many a prince tried but none succeeded). Palatyne, the youngest, is imprisoned with her father’s treasure on a mountaintop (likewise, many a prince tried but none succeeded).

As we know, much of anime is really just the recasting of age-old myths, and age-old myths tell us psychological truths. I am content to think of Tomihime and her fellow forgotten gods as a metaphor for women who have lost the capacity for romantic love for whatever reason (very likely their parents' failed marriage, which makes them wary of even trying to start a relationship). These women may come across to men as aloft (hence the frequent representation of them as being imprisoned on mountaintops or some castle tower). The hawk (which appears in both Tenshu Monogatari and the legend of Melusina) may be seen as a symbol of their pride and self-sufficiency. Like the hawk with its amazing vision, they believe they have 'seen through it all'. Unfortunately, one cannot just write off romantic love for good - it comes at least once. And love is about the only thing that is capable of killing these women. When Tomihime falls in love, her fellow 'forgotten gods' also weaken in power, so much so that their castle is grazed to the ground by treasure-seeking men in the end.

3) There are other mythical elements such as that of the crane maiden: Zushonosuke first sees Tomihime when she is taking a bath. The tower on which the 'forgotten gods' reside is called the Tower of Angels 天使閣 and alludes to their paradise of carefree existence as maidens of divine origin. It is also seen as a heck of 'come-down' for Tomihime to marry a mortal falconer, etc etc.

4) Tomihime's castle is a magical castle where one day is equal to a hundred years in the human world - an obvious allusion to dozens of other human-encountering-fairy folklores where the human returns to the human world only to find that many, many years have passed.

I enjoyed the story arc very much. I was postively sobbing to myself when I watched Episode 7 - it was that emotionally intense. (Personally, I would have preferred it to end tragically: When the castle is besieged, I would have Tomihime drugging Zushonosuke off to deep sleep. When he wakes, a hundred years have already passed and he learns only from a folksongs the children sing that once that was a castle where a princess by the name of Tomihime lived...)

The meaning of 'mushi' in Mushishi

There is a special meaning to the word mushi 虫 / 蟲 in Japanese, the nuances of which are lost in its English translation as 'insect' or 'bug'. Here is an excerpt from an article called 'Mushi ga ii (虫がいい)' in Nihongo Omote to Ura 日本語 表と裏 written by Morimoto Tetsurou 森本哲郎 -

そ うした心の不思議を日本人は「虫」として思い描いた。心というものは、自分が欲し、自分が考え、自分が感じる、そういうものである。にもかかわらず、心が 自分の思いどおりにならない場合がしばしばある。ということは、心の中に、もうひとつのべつの心があるにちがいない。日本人はその「ふたつの魂」のひとつ を「虫」と呼んだのである。そして、人間にとって、より根源的なのはこの虫のほうだと考えた。なぜなら、人間が意識を失って、息も絶え絶えになったとき、 日本人はその状態を「虫の息」というではないか。「虫の息」とは体内の虫だけがかろうじて息をしているさまである。つまり、最後まで人間の生をささえてい るのは「虫」なのだ。この意味で日本人の考える「虫」とはフロイトのリビドーに近い。

My translation of the above:

The Japanese characterize such mysteries of the heart as mushi. The heart is what one desires, what one thinks and what one feels. Nevertheless, there are times when the heart does not work the way one would like it to. In other words, there is another heart within one's heart. The Japanese call that 'second soul' mushi. It is believed that, of the two, mushi is by far closer to the depth of one's being. The reason for it is that when one loses consciousness and when one's breathing weakens, the Japanese call that condition 'the breath of mushi'. 'The breath of mushi' means that only the mushi within one's body is left to do the breathing. In other words, mushi is the last thing that supports one's life. In that sense, the Japanese concept of mushi is close to Freud's libido.

Morimoto also provides examples of Japanese idioms that further illustrate the Japanese concept of mushi. For example, 'mushi's notification 虫の知らせ' means a gut feeling for something inauspicious. 

That is what I had in the back of my mind when I watched Mushishi 蟲師 the anime. Mushi in that context are said to be closer to the souce of life than any other lifeforms on earth. They are something between life and death, and between 'things' and 'living beings' (courtesy of Wikipedia Japan).   

A very neat metaphor is mushi, is it not? 

List of Favorite Male Seiyuu

Vaguely continuing from my previous post and discussion with W-dono:

I am afraid I do not recognize most names from you list of favorite male seiyuu except Nakata Jouji and Yamadera Kouichi. I presume you fell for the latter's voice in the role of you-know-who in Gankutsuou? Meanwhile, here is my list:

• Okiayu Ryuutarou 置鮎龍太郎 (mostly his Saga vocie from Saint Seiya Hades)

• Nakata Jouji 中田譲治

• Tobita Nobuo 飛田展男 (mostly his Shion voice from Saint Seiya Hades)

• Yamadera Kouichi 山寺宏一 (mostly his voice as the Man with the Key in Millennium Actress)

• Miki Shinichirou 三木真一郎 (mostly his Yorihisa voice from Harunakaru Toki no Naka de)

• Inoue Kazuhiko 井上和彦 (mostly his Tomomasa voice from Harunakaru Toki no Naka de)

• Sugita Tomokazu 杉田智和

• Sakurai Takahiro 櫻井孝宏

• Toriumi Kousuke 鳥海浩輔 (Kanna from you-know-where)

Of course I may have heard the voice of your favorite seiyuu in one anime or another - I just don't recognize their names. Just mention some of the memorable roles they have played and I might recall.

'Bakeneko 化猫' from the series '怪 ～ayakashi～ JAPANESE CLASSIC HORROR'

[Massive spoilers ahead]

1) Here is my translation of the plot summary from the Japanese official website:

The story takes place in a certain samurai household in the Edo period. It is the wedding day of the lord's granddaughter. However, the bride dies a violent death just when the wedding is about to take place. 'It is the work of bakeneko*,' says a pharmacist, and true enough many strange deaths follow one after another. Bakeneko at last appears before the terrified  people. Behind bakeneko's strike is an outrageous incident in the past that has to do with that samurai household...

(江戸時代のとある武家屋敷。今まさに当主の孫娘の嫁入りが行われようとしていた。しかし、いざ輿入れという時花嫁は無残にも惨殺される。「これは化猫の仕業だよ」薬売りの言葉をなぞるように次々と起こる怪死事件。おびえきった人々の前についに化猫が姿を現す。化猫が人々をつけねらう裏には、その武家にまつわる、恐ろしい狂気の出来事があった・・・。)

* Bakeneko = cat demon. You can read up on this particular demon in Japanese folklores here.

2) Something tipped me off at the very beginning that whatever wrong the samurai household committed in the past, it probably is something along the lines of 'the sins of the fathers'. Perhaps it is the motif of death and the maiden (which seems to point to the idea of  'wronged maidenhood' in these supernatural tales). Perhaps it is the conversation between 'the pharmacist' and the household maid Kayo, which hints at the bride's fiance being an old man of advanced years and possibly impotent. Perhaps it is Kayo's further hints that the lord of the household is not good at making ends meet (usually licentiousness tends to go with financial ruin in these fall-of-a-great-family scenarios) and the young girl must be married off to whoever will undertake the family's debts.

3) Sure enough, to make a long story short: twenty-five years ago, a girl on her wedding day was kidnapped by the former lord of the household and ended up as everybody's sex slave down in a dungeon. She died by starving herself to fatten a cat she kept as a pet, in the hope that the cat might escape from the dungeon someday. I am aware that the curt manner with which I summarize this tragedy does not nearly do justice to the masterly storytelling of this anime, which is discreet as to what to say and what to leave unsaid. But there you have it - 'the sins of the fathers'.

6) The animal on the pharmacist’s sword appears to be xie zhi 獬豸, a Chinese mythical beast that has come to be known in Japan as kaira. Legend has it that when a xie zhi sees two people arguing, it will push the person in the wrong with the hone on its forehead till that person falls (some say it will also eat the person after he falls). Needless to say, xie zhi is a symbol of justice. I think it is a neat stroke that the pharmacist's sword can only be unshielded with three things: the form of the monster (物の怪の形), earnestness (真) and reason (理). 

7) If I rememeber correctly, I think the hairstyle of the samurai's wife is called keisei 傾城. Usually it is worn by high-class prostitutes or else kabuki male actors playing high-class prostitutes roles which are also known as keisei. It beats me as to why a samurai's wife is wearing such a hairstyle that no 'decent' women would 'condescend' to wearing. Perhaps it is a hint of her gaudy past?

8) Of course it helps that one of my favourite male voice actors, Sakurai Takahiro 櫻井孝宏, is playing the leading role as 'the pharmacist' (albeit his real job in the story should be more appropriately described as 'an exorcist of demons').

9) W-dono, if you are reading this, please let me hear your thoughts so that we can discuss this further. I have more to say but they are all trivial things. Anyway, please feel free to comment.

[EDIT 24/03/2007: Content added below.]

10) A question has been raised as to what was Yoshikuni's wedding scene about. I took two screen captures of it. I believe Yoshikuni's bride was not Tamaki but some other woman (Tamaki in her healthy-looking days has thicker eyebrows, and she wears a different wedding dress). Yoshikuni also looks a lot younger at the wedding than when he first finds out about Tamaki in the dungeon. My guess is that the patriarch violated Yoshikuni's bride some years before Tamaki comes along, and this is Yoshikuni's way of getting back at the patriarch.  In other words, the patriarch's track record with women has never been good to begin with.

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