Iwa ni Hana

The meaning of "shinobi-goi" (忍び恋)

People at the last reader survey expressed the desire to see more posts on cultural concepts on this blog, so here is one:

Shinobi-goi is a near cousin of the more widely known word katamoi (片思い). Katamoi means one-sided love that is not returned; the object of affection may or may not know of it depending on whether you have made your intentions known either openly (ex. a love letter) or by subtle hint.

On the other hand, shinobi-goi means love that one intentionally never speaks of to anyone (including the object of affection) in one's life. The love just burns in one heart (mera-mera めらめら is the adjective to describe it), and one dies not knowing if the love has or has not ever been returned in secret by that person. 

As far as I can see, two things combined to give rise to shinobi-goi:

1) Feudal social barriers

One never speaks of one's love out of consideration that the burden of love would weigh on the other person or that the whole thing would only end up in train wreck.

2) Aesthetic and spiritual tradition

Japanese classical poetry, for instance, has plenty of examples of shinobi-goi. And then there is also Hagakure (a classical commentary on the way of samurai) that established shinobi-goi as the highest form of love ("恋の至極は忍恋と見立て申し候。逢ひてからは、恋の長けが低し。一生忍びて思ひ死にするこそ、恋の本意なれ"). Mishima Yukio also once wrote an introductory commentary on Hagakure and offered this explanation:

"In American-style love, you confess your love, then seek and gain the love of another. The energy of love is not bent inside, but is always emitted outside. But one could also say to the contrary that once the voltage of love is emitted, it expires." 

「アメリカふうな恋愛技術では、恋は打ちあけ、要求し、獲得するものである。恋愛のエネルギーはけっして内にたわめられることがなく、外へ外へと向かって 発散する。しかし、恋愛のボルテージは、発散したとたんに減殺されるという逆説的な構造をもっている。」

I always find something beautiful in the way Japanese tradition seens to prefer yearning to fulfillment, the unspoken to the spoken, beautiful sadness to mundane joy, imagination to reality. Shinobi-goi is undoubtedly a manifestation of this. 

The mystique of the closed circle: 'Skip Beat!' and 'Bihada Ichizoku'

Watching the new series Skip Beat! and Bihada Ichizoku recently reminds me of a discussion I had about Oniisama E a long time ago:

• How 70s shoujo manga have a melodramatic, heightened emotional take on stories that just does not seem common now, and how this emotionalism embodies a kind of artistic purity.
• How this heightened emotionalism is a dead-on form of expression of the torrents of adolescence.
• How you cannot have this sort of heightened emotionalism in a setting without a visible hierarchy (divided by age or ability) that is also an isolated social world.
• How that emotionalism is like an intense spell of magic that doesn't last in the real world, but only in an artificially self-contained world (in which everyone has the same absolute, unquestioned ideal).

Looking back, I think Shoujo Kakumei Utena is unique in that it embodies all of the above in a pristine form.

Skip Beat and Bihada Ichizoku also follow that time-honoured shoujo 'template'. Bihada Ichizoku even goes for that retro style of direction; Skip Beat!'s direction feels somewhat updated, but the inner spirit of the direction remains the same.

In SKip Beat!, the only world that exists and the only world that matters is the pop entertainment industry. Likewise for Bihada Ichizoku, it is the cosmetics industry. Both are Bildungsroman in which a teenage girl has to find her place in the world, and that 'world' is (for better or worse) much narrower than we know in reality.

So what you all make of that emotionalism in old-school shoujo works? Is anyone watching Skip Beat! and Bihada Ichizoku recently?

Kouha (硬派) vs Nanpa (軟派)

I was somewhat amused by this Wikipedia Japan's entry on the meaning of kouha (硬派) in relation to anime and manga. But to start off with, the traditional meaning of kouha and its opposite nanpa (軟派) has to be defined and I think this post from Neojaponisme contains an excellent overview:

Nanpa apparently dates back to Edo time but was certainly in popular use during the Meiji period. Back then, it was written in kanji (軟派) and used in relation to its antithesis — kōha (硬派). The words mean “soft faction” and “hard faction,” respectively, and at the time, denoted diametrically opposed philosophical outlooks. Softs were thoughtful, introverted and open to compromise; Hards were aggressive, inflexible, and beat up Softs for kicks.

You can find numerous examples of the words nanpa and kōha being used to bisect various social groups, ranging from newspaper reporters (Softs did society and the arts, Hards did politics) to black marketeers operating in early 20th-century China (Softs dealt drugs, Hards ran guns). The usage that eventually evolved into the modern meaning, however, was the one that applied to young men. Simply put: Softs liked women, and Hards didn’t.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Hards liked some women just fine: mothers, wives, and respectable spinsters. They were happy enough to jump through societal hoops and set up their own household, complete with standard-issue heirs. But they were only really comfortable in the company of other men.

Softs, on the other hand, loved women, and I mean loved women. They dressed sharp, preferred conversation to fighting, and always tried to be where the women were. (It’s worth noting that nanpa was also used as an adjective to describe women who would respond to such advances.)

Meanwhile, the Wikipedia Japan's entry contains three definitions in describing kouha anime/manga fan. The first one goes like this (my translation):

1) Refers to characters (mainly men) who are stoic and possess bushido or chivalry or so-call manliness or such value system.

In manga, anime or computer games, when the word kouha is used in character settings, it often does not mean this. In contrast to the 'might is right' attitude mentioned above, in this case it is more of a transcendence to something like 'the character himself is not violent, but he has the physique or mental strength to not bend to violence from external sources'. It is appears in settings of characters in middle-age because of this image of maturity. Its values are held to be opposite to moe, and people who are into kouha tend to dislike moe. However, because kouha also has a large following of fans, in a point of fact it has become a sub-category of moe.

In addition, the second definition of kouha goes like this:

2) Refers to manga, anime and computer games that are not aimed at beginners and cannot be enjoyed without prior knowledge, experience and technique - that is to say, so-called 'difficult' works. It also refers to writers and creators who tend to produce such works.

Such works are strong in projecting the image that it is not aimed at the majority but the discerning few. It is also said that even if those works have are a lot of fans, those fans may have a strong feelings as a self-appointed exclusive elite. Because those works are not beginner-friendly, market expansion tends to be obstructed. And it has been pointed out that the rise and fall of genres like SF, shooting games, combat games can be attributed to these genres being too kouha-conscious.

Lastly, the third meaning goes like this:

3) From the above usages comes the reference to people who like minor genres who 'do not go with the popular flow and choose what they like by their own will'. In this instance, 'nanpa' means things that are popular.

It is true, that kouha works like Ghost in the Shell for the 'Hards' are few and far in between these days, while nanpa works like adaptations erogames for the 'Softs' inundate the market. Personally, I am a kouha myself and I pray that Tanaka Yoshiki's Tytania (all three volumes of the still-continuing novel series I just read) will bring about a swing of the pendulum to accomodate 'Hards' who had enjoyed works like The Legend of Galactic Heroes oh-so-long-ago.

(On a housekeeping note, I can see myself updating the Tytania sublog more than I update Iwa ni Hana for the next few months ahead. So see you there!)

The meaning of 'youen' (妖艶) and Mononoke

There are words denoting shades of beauty in Japanese of which there are no equivalents in English, and I think youen (妖艶) is one of them. The typical Japanese-English dictionary gives its meaning as 'glamorous' or 'bewitiching' but in either case I think they are quite off the mark. For the record, I have observed that youen refers to:

i) The erotic attractiveness of a woman who is outside the traditional norm of feminine virtue (eg. a geisha etc) and avails herself amply of man-made enhancements to her beauty (eg. flamboyant dress, cosmetics etc). In other words, you cannot be a virtuous woman and be youen, nor can you go casual in your dress, wear no make-up and be youen. Moreover, there must be a sinister vibe to your erotic attractiveness.

ii) Youen in this sense is sometimes applied to effeminate men. A manly man is never youen. Youen is a distinctly feminine/effeminate quality.

iii) This quality is sometimes extended to the afterlife in supernatural tales, where the ghost of a dead woman bearing some personal grudge appear as a youen ghost to execute her revenge. In fact, one may go further to say that youen is the default characteristic of such female ghosts in supernatural tales - in other words, if you are a female ghost in Japanese supernatural tale, you had better be youen. Fox spirits, when they take on a feminine guise, are also typically youen.

The 'eroticism' referred in youen is different from 'sexiness' - the eroticism denotes something remote and unapproachable, typically aided by man-made effects like make-believes in a play on stage or else supernatural magic. You more or less allow yourself to be hoodwinked for the time being in order to appreciate the eroticism. It is more intellectual than physical.

Youen also has other usages when applied to things. For one thing, it can be a term of description in visual art, but youen in art is rather like zen - it cannot be explained in words and either you get it or you don't. However, you may look at the illustrations of Amano Yoshitaka and you may get a feel of what youen in art means.

Youen can also be used to describe a story, typically a supernatural story. Many times have I heard Mononoke described as a youen story in Japanese (or else in some similar adjective, like tsuyayakana 艶やかな). Sure, the art direction and the voice-acting etc may contribute to Mononoke being youen, but if I were told the plots of the same stories for the first time in nothing but plain words, strange to say but I would have still found the stories youen nonetheless. Why I cannot say.

More on the Chinese illustration/manhua boom (and a word on cultural cool vis-à-vis Japan)

There is so much happening on the China illustration/manhua scene than I have time to cover, so I think I will just let the pictures of these emerging artists speak for themselves:

iiiis

Probably stylistically closest to Eno. (whose works I adore). iiiis is also an independent musician and he even draws the covers to his own albums (see his MySpace post here). As you can see, he likes to play with visual space in the sense that you cannot quite tell which is the 'real' part of the picture and which is the 'unreal' part of the picture - though the two seem to coexist in the same picture which is in itself something of a twist to the traditional Chinese aesthetic concept of ji bai dong hei (see my earlier post on Eno. for detail). 

The meaning of 'isagiyoi (潔い)' and the works of Shimizu Reiko

Isagiyoi (潔い) is a powerful concept in Japanese culture and though a typical dictionary would give its meaning in English as 'graceful', 'manly', 'sportsmanlike', 'noble', 'courageous', 'readily', 'with good grace' etc etc, none of these is correct - or at least not quite. There is a peculiar meaning to this word. A typical native Japanese speaker would give i) cherry petals falling and ii) a samurai committing seppuku /harakiri as examples of isagiyoi. But what do i) and ii) have in common? My observation is that underlying the concept of isagiyoi is:

A ready resolution to  relinquish something or end the existence of something or oneself at an immaculate, pure or perfect condition either before the onset of contamination, impurity or imperfection (when or should they set in) or at the first sign of contamination, impurity or imperfection. It is built on a kind of self-determination to let go of or withdraw something or oneself before the downhill, decay or dishonour in a dignified manner and without fear or hesitation. The idea is to have no vulgarity, stain or ugliness in existence or conduct and to make a clean cut to preserve the noble, immaculate or beautiful when or should vulgarity, stain or ugliness set in. At the extreme end, this resolution sometimes borders on madness and typically manifests itself in death or destruction. Like zankoku bi, it may well be considered an offshot of hakai no bi or 'beauty of destruction'.

I searched my mind for more examples of isagiyoi but unfortunately the only examples in anime or manga that came to mind were both from Shimizu Reiko:

The Love of One Million Pound / 100 Man Pondo no Ai

This is one of Shimizu-sensei's manga short stories in the early phase of her career. In it, a gigolo marries a heiress in her eighties who has 6 month's life left. In return for his marrying her, she promises that he would inherit her wealth on her death. Apparently she has never been married in her life. He also saw pictures of her younger self and was bewildered that such a rich and beautiful girl never married at all. Later, she left a window open deliberately to catch a cold in the hope of her illness taking a bad turn for good, so that she can die earlier to leave him her wealth. She says it is the best thing she could do for him before he begins to dislike her.

He finds himself attracted to this old woman in spite of himself. After her death, he discovers that she had been in love with his grandfather who looked exactly like him in her youth. Her love seems to have been unrequited. She never loved another man in her life.

The Revelation

In Episode 4, a group of old men who were strangers to each other met online and agreed to commit group suicide. Isagiyoku shinu (潔く死ぬ) or 'to die in an isagiyoi manner' was the reason they gave to end their lives as they perceive themselves to be living in dishonour in being a burden to their families who looked after them but secretly wished they would die soon.

Actually, Episode 4 is an original story in the anime series that is not found in the original manga, but I presume Shimizu-sensei had a hand in devising this story. At any rate, you can see of some sort of isagiyoi idealism in a lot of her characters. Maki for one sleeps with a hidden gun so that, should he be attacked when he is off-guard, he can blow his brains out immediately so as to not compromise any confidential information he has  acquired due to the nature of his work. Aoki also leaves his sister before things get complicated. There is a character in the theme park mascot murder case (which I have been raving about and which has yet to appear in the TV anime version) which I also think is isagiyoi in a twisted way but I don't want spoil the story at this point.

I am sure there are other examples of isagiyoi that escaped me just now. But in the meantime, the floor is all yours should you think of any.

Introducing manhua artist Han Lu 韩露 (attn: fans of Yuki Kaori) and a word of prediction about Chinese manhua

Just looking at the picture below, one would have thought that Yuki Kaori came back to the public spotlight at last with new works. Actually they are the earlier works of Han Lu (韩露), the manhua artist of Chang An Huan Ye which I wrote about earlier here.

Among her earlier works was Apocalypse of the War, a series of interconnected short stories told in retrospect about the Second World War. The tone of these stories is a strange combination of seriousness, irony, lyrical poetry, dark twistedness and Yuki-Kaori-style angst. The plots are well thought out and have many twists and turns. I would personally think of this as a product of Han Lu's self-exploratory phase when she imitated the early style of Yuki Kaori to perfection before she embarked on her currently running series Chang An Huan Ye, which is more expressive of her established individual style.

Still, I am curious as to how the tradition of shoujo manga will take root in the PRC and Han Lu will be one indicator of that. Here are a few trends and predictions I have:

1) Emphasis on sibling-like bonding with other young people over romantic love per se

Obviously, the one-child policy in the PRC means that most young people are growing up without siblings these days. You see some of that almost sibling-like bonding among the characters of Chang An Huan Ye. The strange thing is that the story is set in the Tang Dynasty and the characters by implication actually grow up in large families, and yet they form their closest bond with young people from other families and do not interact much with their real siblings (who do not appear at all). I think it is a workable compromise to integrate the sibling-like bonding that readers consciously or subconsciously yearn for into the story and still be able to recreate a confident, historic China (see point 2 for detail).

I say sibling-like bonding will be emphasized over romantic love per se - but then romantic love in Chinese culture has always been something like an extreme form of deep-rooted friendship. Romantic love is typically depicted as something springing naturally from two kindred spirits, and the basis for that is typically sibling-like bonding. For example, in The Dream of the Red Mansion, Baoyu and Daiyu are cousins who grew up together - they are kindred spirits who know each other so well that when Daiyu sends him her old handkerchiefs after a fight, he knows just what she means by that. Any other guy would have been puzzled by what she means by sending him her old handkerchiefs all of a sudden, but not Baoyu. That is the sort of romantic bonding that the Chinese mind sees as ideal.

2) Visions of a forward-looking, outward and confident China

Chang An Huan Ye is set in the time period which is considered to be the peak of Chinese civilization. It was a time when foreigners were welcome and women lived relatively free lives - probably a time present-day China finds easiest to identify with. You can feel something like historic pride in the display of riches and stylishness in the story - something which you also see in big-budget live-action films like Curse of the Golden Flower. I have a feeling that just as pre-war Europe was the place of romance in old-school Japanese shoujo manga, extravagant periods in China's history will emerge as the place of romance in Chinese manhua.

3) No doormat heroine

It is reported that the gender imbalance in the PRC has got to such a state that 50 million men of marriageable age will not find a wife. Also, girls typically outperform boys at school, and young women are typically given preference over young men in hiring decisions (because young women are perceived to be more detail-oriented, cooperative and emotionally mature etc). I think the demographic implications are quite obvious.

To put it simply, in place of the typical doormat heroine (representing the conformist 'good girl'), the crossdressing heroine / the androgynous bishounen (representing what young women secretly yearn to be) in Japanese shoujo manga, I think the typical heroine in Chinese manhua will be a very different animal.

4） Emphasis on mental prowess over physical prowess

It seems fair to say that China reveres the written word (文) and Japan reveres the sword (武). The seat of power in China is held historically by a scholarly elite, whereas the seat of power in Japan is historically held by a samurai elite. Word puzzles and the exchange of repartees in the form of poetry are the Chinese cultural equivalent of dueling with swords in Japan. The concept of 'personal strength' is thus perceived differently. In Japanese manga/anime, the protagonist typically wants to become strong in a physical and combative sense (even in a setting where brute force seems to make little sense). 'Strong' female characters are typically strong in a martial-art sense (ie. Mokoto, Barusa etc). I think in Chinese manhua, the protagonist would typically want to become strong in an intellectual sense, and 'personal strength' will be characterized by mental horsepower. Chang An Huan Ye is again an example - problems are solved by erudite knowledge (ie. of being well-read) and logical reasoning (ie. of having the mental capacity to apply what you have read).

That are just my predictions and interpretations. I am always open to suggestions and corrections.

In the meantime, more gorgeous illustrations of Han Lu after the jump.

A word on androgynous beauty and the appeal of BL in shoujo manga

Let me begin by sharing an idea I have always had in rationalizing why something is beautiful to me:

X does not have the title to bear the aesthetic characteristics of Y, and yet X, under certain circumstances, bears those aesthetic characteristics of Y better than Y does. And the more fleeting or unreal those circumstances are, the more I like X.

For example, maple trees are not flowers, and yet for a few fleeting days at the height of their full glory in autumn, maple trees are more beautiful than any flowers (at least to me). That is why I like maple trees better than any flower.

By the same analogy, Kamijo of the Japanese band Versailles is not a woman, but when he is dressed for a public appearance, he is more beautiful than any woman (at least to me). I cannot say I like his music, but if I were pressed to nominate the most beautiful human being I have ever seen, I would put forth his name without reservation.

Having said that, drawn human beauty moves me in a way that photographed human beauty or even human beauty in the flesh cannot. (It is perhaps by the same analogy that I get hungrier looking at drawn food than at actual food.) This brings me to androgynous beauty in shoujo manga.

There are always what I call ならぬ男 and ならぬ女 in shoujo manga - you may think of the former as l'homme manqué and the latter as la femme manquée. I personally feel that bishounen characters in shoujo manga are essentially young women in drags - they are not so much female fantasies of the ideal man, but female fantasies of what young women could have been, were they given the same social and biological freedom of men and yet retain their feminine qualities.

This is where the only explanation of BL that has made sense to me so far comes in: BL is a projection of romance where marriage, childbirth, family obligations, money, social status and all the rest of it from your typical boy-meets-girl scenario do not really come into play. There is no question of who is marrying up or marrying down. There is no question of little mouths being borne unto this world to feed. There is no question of who should look after elderly parents (typically the wife's responsibility). There is no question of who is making more money and more successful career-wise (always a factor if the woman makes more than the man in a relationship). That is perhaps the appeal of male/male relationships in BL - all factors that are part of the equation of heterosexual relationships are removed, and both persons in the relationship need not compromise their identities and ambitions, whereas a woman in real life typically gives more in a heterosexual relationship (in doing housework, caring for elderly parents on both sides, putting career on hold to care for children, going through abortions of unwanted children). If one understands the weight of responsibilities and sacrifices of a woman in such a relationship and the subconscious or overt apprehension of young girls or young women at those responsibilities, then one may begin to understand the appeal of BL.

Kyoushuu (郷愁): Not just as simple as mere homesickness / nostalgia

There is a powerful concept in the spectrum of Japanese sensibilities called kyoushuu (郷愁). It's right up there with isagiyoi (潔い) - which is another chapter in itself that I will discuss some other time. The dictionary definition of kyoushuu is i) homesickness or ii) nostalgia. However, the way the word is actually used covers wider meanings than that and from my observation it typically falls under four categories:

1) Yearning for one's physical homeland

Homesickness. This is regardless of whether one has or has not been to one's physical homeland before. The bond to the physical homeland is so strong that sometimes it is not uncommon to see it as the primary driving force of a story. Take Toward the Terra, for example - the Japanese audience readily see that it is kyoushuu that sets everything into motion and the intensity of that kyoushuu is something close to irrational madness (狂おしいまでの「地球」への思慕・郷愁の思い). Everything else like romantic love, friendship, family bonds etc take a backseat to kyoushuu. I for one think that it is not just the sci-fi setting of Toward the Terra that facilitates the predominance of kyoushuu over all other sentiments per se - it is in fact a powerful feeling that strikes a resounding chord in the Japanese mind.

In Samurai Champloo, the most emotionally intense scene (to me at least) was in Episode 14 when Mugen falls unconscious and dreams of his past in his homeland, ie. Ryuukyuu. Ikue Asazaki's song Obokuri Ēemui certainly helped to produce that kyoushuu effect. But what was unexpected was that a guy like Mugen who did not ordinarily looked like he gave a damn about anything in this world had such a strong emotional bond to Ryuukyuu.

2) Yearning for a unique time/place in one's past

This is probably closest to what we understand as 'nostalgia' in English. This is not unique to Japanese per se. You see some of that in the works of Shinkai Makoto (though I think in his works nostalgia is contrasted against saudade - there is longing not only for something that is past and never to be returned, but also for something from the past that might return. But this, again, is another chapter in itself.)

Also, those of you who know Chinese may find it strange that kyou 郷 can refer to a place other than one's ancestral homeland, but apparently in Japanese words like furusato 故郷 refers not only to the physical place where one's ancestor come from, but to a place an individual has been to and lived in for a while. In other words, one individual may have several furusato.

3) Yearning for an experience not in one's past but in the past of one's ancestors

Toward the Terra also covers some of this. But the true meaning of this shade of kyoushuu is (I think) exemplified in this description of Tenshu Monogatari: 'This is a work that magnificently depicts through animation otherworldly beings and the kyoushuu for the illusion of fleeting love (妖しきものや儚き恋の幻への郷愁を、アニメーションによって見事に表現してみせた作品である。)'. In the context of the story, kyoushuu actually refers to the yearning of the heroine (who has never fallen in love before) to repeat her mother's mistake in falling in love with a mortal man.

There is something to the idea that one's life extends beyond one's birth, to the experience of one's parents and grandparents, and perhaps back to a time immemorial. The brain may have no memory of such experience, but the body remembers, and the body yearns for a deja-vu of that experience.

4) Yearning for an idealized/fantasized past

I have always complained that historic drama is not a forte of anime. I was puzzled to read review after review in Japanese saying that Miyazaki Hayao's movies like My Neighbour Totoro reeks of kyoushuu. It is the same thing with Mushishi - review after review of it in Japanese speak of the world of Mushishi as of unique worldview, pulse of life and kyoushuu (独特の世界観・生命感と郷愁).

I suppose My Neighbour Totoro may remind older Japanese audience of rural Japan in 1958, though I suspect the world of My Neighbour Totoro is probably an idealized version of rural Japan in 1958. As for Mushishi, the timeline is deliberately left vague - a good guess would be the Meiji Era, though if anything one gets the feeling that time never really moves in those isolated villages that Ginko visits - they seem to exist in some timeless vacuum.

I think this shade of kyoushuu refers not to the real historic past, but to an idealized or fantasized past. But the way the word kyoushuu shows up in Japanese sentences makes one think that the Japanese mind regards real history and fantasized history nearly as one. To put it another way, there is an extreme readiness in the Japanese mind to embrace fantasies that the western mind would find puzzling. (Think Ikki Tousen).

But there you have it, kyoushuu covers not only the objective past, but also the subjective past.

(Are there other examples of kyoushuu you can think of?)

Nikkei Business discusses the original meaning of 'otaku'

I ran into this recent article on the Japanese magazine Nikkei Business (out of all places) which I feel compelled to share. I know the original meaning of the word otaku has been discussed to death, but this is one interpretation that I find insightful:

We all know that otaku can be a second person pronoun (ie. you) and can also mean the home of the person you are talking to. This interpretation has it that otaku does not refer to the person you are talking to per se, but to the world constructed by the person you are talking to (相手が築いた空間). Think of it this way: the home of the person you are talking to refers not to the physical home, but to where he or she is at home by virtue of his or her special interests.

In that way, there is always an understood sense of polite distance when you meet other fans (同人) - the word otaku reminds you that you are facing a constructed world to which you may be an intruder. There may be cases when your constructed world overlaps with that of another fan (and the two of you may become friends), but otherwise this word is a reminder of the invisible wall that divides one from another in the mental sphere.

Apparently, the article was written partly in response to the bestselling book Otaku Is Dead (which I blogged about earlier). I really must look into this whole controversy more.

Introducing 'Eureka': The critical thinker's magazine on (among other things) manga and anime

Eureka (ユリイカ) is a monthly magazine published by Seidosha that features a special topic each month. Some of the topics they have covered so far are (in no particular order):

• Manga artists such as Takano Fumiko, Matsumoto Taiyou, Araki Hirohiko, Umezu Kazuo and Mizuki Shigeru
  
• Anime and anime creators such as Miyazaki Hayao and Oshii Mamoru.
• Literati such as Mishima Yukio, Tanazaki Junichirou, Yosano Akiko, Nishio Ishin, the Brontë Sisters, Marcel Proust and Murakami Haruki
• Theatre and film personalities such as Noda Hideki, Kitano Takeshi, Oshima Nagisa
• Photographers and artists such as Hoshino Michio and