Iwa ni Hana

I remember 'Moon Child' by Shimizu Reiko (or The Portrait of a Shoujo Manga Fan as a Young Woman)

Recently, I stumbled upon newly republished volumes of Moon Child (月の子), a manga classic by Shimizu Reiko (清水玲子). It struck me that it was precisely ten years ago, when I was a sixteen-year-old girl in some godforsaken place in Canada, that I discovered Moon Child, and went down the slippery slope of shoujo manga ever since. I was extremely pleased by the elegantly designed new covers, and in a bout of nostalgia I reflected on the decade-long love that dares not speak its name that is my love of (well-written) shoujo manga.

It may sound like ancient history in this age of freely distributed manga scans: Ten years ago, I lived in the backwaters part of town, and the most economical feasible way for me to get hold of manga was through trips to a Chinese-run manga rental store that was two hours away by bus. These trips had to be planned and budgeted ahead of time, as I had only a small allowance and I usually also stop by a well-stocked public library to borrow books (the library closer to home simply did not have the books I wanted to read in literature and history) and CDs (mostly classical music). 

As you may have guessed it, there was really no one around to share my passion for these things, so these trips were inevitably solitary excursions. Until I discovered the fan communities on the internet later on, I had no one to whom I could spread the gospel. The other kids at school were interested in dating, Hollywood movie stars, sports etc - things that they could talk about to each other aloud. I was in love with the quality of ephemeral beauty and the aesthetic sense in Shimizu-sensei's manga (among a bunch of other things). I think it was also around this time that I began to develop my idea that having a trained eye for beautiful things is the saving grace of otherwise sordid and transient human life, even if it means having that trained eye means social isolation. Think of the myth of Psyche having to to keep silent about her pregnancy in order to give birth to Pleasure.

There is an incident during one of my trips to get manga, books and CDs that recur in my dreams quite frequently of late. Once, I was so absorbed with whatever I was reading on the way home that I missed the stop where I was supposed  get off. The next stop was 15 minutes away by bus and 1 hour away by foot.I got off at the next stop, in order to take the same bus route going the opposite way to get home. The bus I was waiting for comes only once every half an hour, so I was stuck in the middle of nowhere with two heavy bags of loot. I sat down on a wooden bench, tried to carry on reading but was afraid that I would get so absorbed again as to miss the bus. So I simply sat, and gazed at the countryside around me, with cows chewing grass here and there and not a human soul to be spotted across the horizon. The wind blew against my skirt and I felt a touch of the chill of the Canadian early spring. And perhaps because the landscape was so very broad, I felt very small. Time seemed to have stood still to me, and I felt an inward sadness. So this is where your passion gets you, I thought to myself. Why can't you just be like everyone else? Certainly the natural landscape around me compounded the loneliness I felt, and that feeling is vivid even in my dreams to this day. Still, I wonder why do I dream of this incident so often?

Ten years later, the picture is very different. There is less pressure for a working adult to blend into a set of social group for one thing, and your independent judgment has more credibility - in fact, unless you teach, the typical working life is all about agreeing and disagreeing with other professional adults. In high school, you are conditioned to be like everyone else. In the real world, anything goes.

By way of conclusion, here is my question to anyone reading this: Have you ever had the moment of revelation where you ask yourself, why can't I just be like everyone else?

'Kemuri' (the ED of 'The Revelation') and the artist Makichang

The first thoughts that crossed my mind when I first heard Makichang's Kemuri (the ED of The Revelation) were:

i) It is the most musically inspired ED since Aya's Overnight for Le Chevalier D'Eon (which I wrote about in more detail here).

ii) It would have been the perfect ED for Shimizu Reiko's Kaguya-hime (輝夜姫) if it were ever made into an anime - that is, if you look at the lyrics, which is written from a female perspective and alludes to yearning to leave the earth to somewhere faraway (ie. space) as well as bitterness of being trapped on earth.

iii) My regret is that it is a visually 'lazy' ED - all the images are taken straight from Shimizu Reiko's illustrations.

Like Aya, Makichang would seem to be an independent artist - certainly she seems to be a relatively new face on the music scene and it is something of a wonder that she managed to put herself forward in the pop music cartel.

I am hoping that Kemuri is not just a one-shot wonder from Makichang, the way Aya seems to have been completely off-the-radar since Overnight.

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.

Those mesmerizing eyes in the works of Shimizu Reiko

I have been revisiting the works of Shimizu Reiko recently and I recall a conversation I had which I would like to share. It ran like this:

A: 'Okay, so the artwork is pretty alright. But I still think those big sparkling eyes are cheesy. It's so... shoujo manga. What do you like about them anyway?'

Me: 'The eyes make me wonder what it would be like to see the world with those eyes. Just what does the world look like through those eyes, I wonder?'

'Monogatari Bi (物語美)' and the Beauty of Imperfection in the works of Shimizu Reiko

It seems fair to say that those who have encountered the works of Shimizu Reiko would inevitably grope for a word to describe the unspeakable beauty in her works. The other day, I found one such newly-coined word at a Japanese fansite, and it is monogatari bi (物語美). Here is my translation of the term as defined by the Japanese fan:

It is difficult to explain monogatari bi, but it is different from the artwork and characters being beautiful. It is about the work in its entirety having no flaw and no vulgarity that makes one sense the aesthetic touch that permeates the entire work. Combined with story-telling and attractive characters, a unique beauty is born.

The Japanese fan also gave an example from the ending of Ryuu no Nemuru Hoshi (龍の眠る星), one of Shimizu-sensei's earlier works. Without spoiling the ending, here is my translation of her comment:

There is a secret longing for beautiful ruins with no sign of living humans in this. To put it another way, what I like is that there is a feeling that living is vulgar, but through depicting a world in the near future where the realm of life transcends this vulgarity, life is not repudiated.

(Source: ttp://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~fleur/zakkicho002.html)

I think this Japanese fan sums it up rather nicely. In addition, there is always this beauty of imperfection in her works that gives the story a touch of sadness that haunts the reader for a very, very long time:

[Spoilers of the ending of Kaguya-Hime ahead]

'Himitsu - Top Secret' (or 'The Revelation' as it is now known) launches official website

I cannot say that I like what I see of the character design at this point, but that is probably a problem of adjusting the eye as I already got used to Shimizu-sensei's artstyle.

The fact that they made a point of coming up with a good English title of the anime series may be a hint that an overseas release is being contemplated.

It will begin to air on 8 April 2008, and they have one month to pimp this. The stellar voice casting will help. Apparently Seki Tomokazu is to play Maki Tsuyoshi and Namikawa Daisuke is to play Aoki Ikkou. Given the previous characters these voice actors have played, one would have expected them to cast Seki Tomokazu as Aoki Ikkou and Namikawa Daisuke as Maki Toyoshi (and not the other way around), but this may well be a challenge for the voice actors concerned. I cannot wait to see how they will render these characters to life.

(Source : ttp://www.ntv.co.jp/secret/)

The definition of 'sci-fi' and Shimizu Reiko (清水玲子)

What is your definition 'sci-fi'? Many years ago, my definition thereof was foggy at best - I used to think that sci-fi just means a fictional story with a lot of robots, high-tech gadgets and perhaps space battles.

Then I started reading the works of Shimizu-sensei, and my definition of 'sci-fi' was refined into this - a sci-fi story is a fictional story which asks the question:

If X becomes Y, then what would happen to Z?

X = a pre-exisiting condition or thing
Y = a new condition or thing brought on by means of new technology that replaces X or changes the nature of X
Z = a fundamental human condition that is at the root of human existence

For example, Himitsu - Top Secret asks the question: if the human brain and all the memories, fantasies and dreams thereof can be scanned and digitalized into viewable format after one's death (and sometimes even before one's true biological death), then what would become of one's secrets, privacy and memories?

I just finished reading up to volume 3 of the manga and it is nothing short of mind-blowing. Volume 3 in particular is a masterpiece in itself. In the manga, there is no longer a safe way to keep one's secret except by smashing one's own head and smashing the heads of others who found out about one's secret.  Sometimes the human brain is used by criminals as a 'piece of paper' for sending a message across (knowing that the police would scan the victim's brain). And of course, the human brain is also used a tool for resurrecting the (often shocking) truth from the long dead.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it a true sci-fi story should be like - speculative, imaginative, and thought-provoking. If any variant of Gundam or Macross starts asking the same question, then I could call it 'sci-fi' instead of 'mecha'.

An update on 'Himitsu - Top Secret'

So Himitsu - Top Secret, one of my most anticipated anime in 2008, finally gets a page on Hakusensha's website:
ttp://www.hakusensha.co.jp/himitsu/index.html

I also checked Madhouse's website but there is no update yet.

I also did a search on Technorati and found this Japanese blog:
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/coffee2006/e/f7235c8a208e3cfd1c695fd8f9b22d04

It seems that: i) The show will air in April and ii) There will be 2 クール. (Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe クール means two 'seasons' or 2 sets of 13 episodes, making a total of 26 episodes?)

The March issues of anime magazines will be out in Japan in a few days or so, and I would expect another spade of updates.

[Newsflash] Shimizu Reiko's (清水玲子) 'Himitsu - Top Secret (秘密−トップ・シークレット−)' to be animated

This is breaking news indeed - Shimizu-sensei's ongoing manga series Himitsu - Top Secret is to become a TV anime series in the spring of 2008. I have only read the first volume oh-so-long-ago, though I can put my name down to guarantee the quality of the story. The plot is based on an interesting premise:

In the year 2055, a technology has been invented to scan the memory of people who died unnatural deaths in order to investigate the cause(s). However, the scan can only reproduce what the dead person 'saw' but not the sounds, so experts in lip-reading are required to interpret what happened. Moreover, the technology by default amplifies the capacity of the dead person's brain (which normally only runs at 5-10%) to 120%, so visions of ghosts or illusions which are not normally seen with the naked eye are also shown alongside with what the dead person actually saw. It is possible to trace back the memory of the dead person up to a period of 5 years before his or her death.

The story begins with the mysterious death of the late American president. He met a mysterious youth who was bought to his birthday party at the White House by his daughter. 2 months later, he was killed under mysterious circumstances. It is the job of the Ninth Autopsy Lab to investigate the unspeakable secret behind the president's death.

Besides her unique artstyle, Shimizu-sensei's has always been known for a unique bent bordering on something like philosophy in her sci-fi shoujo manga. Admittedly, Kaguyahime was a bit of a failure, but her shoujo sci-fi short stories such as 22XX is an absolute masterpiece - surpassing Hagio Moto's (萩尾望都) They Were 11 (11人いる!) and Takemiya Keiko's (竹宮恵子) Toward the Terra (地球へ...) in my opinion. Personally, I would love to see her imaginative series Moon Child animated as well. At any rate, this is certainly one series I will look forward to along with Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo (薬師寺涼子の怪奇事件簿).

(Source: ttp://www.saiani.net/article/75210741.html)