Iwa ni Hana

There ought to be a word for Japanese films in which two people fall in love, and then nothing much happens.

A screencapture of the official website of the film "Yamazakura" (山桜), based on a novel written by Fujisawa Shūhei (藤沢周平).

A while ago, I was watching Yamazakura (2008), an above-average film in which two people fall in love, and then nothing much happens. Before that, I was watching The Invitation from Cinema Orion (2007), an average film in which two people fall in love, and then nothing much happens. There are many other Japanese films in which the love story is characterized by what never happened (I mean this in a positive way). These films are a genre in themselves.

History’s sense of black humour

Before I go on, I would like to take a moment to mention the two people – Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I think it must be history’s sense of black humour that just when all the traditional barriers to love such as class, wealth, religion, race and nationality fell apart to a large extent (though not entirely) after the WWI, this pair came along and turned “freedom” itself into a barrier to love.

Personally, I found their idea of “freedom” dubious, but I suppose one must give them credit for managing to turn “freedom” into a prison. I say it is a prison because it seems that under their credo you have the freedom to do what whatever you like… except for the freedom to refrain from doing whatever you like.

Love and harmony

The Japanese humorist Harada Munenori [原田宗典] once mused in his writing that the translation of “love” as ai [愛] back in the Meiji era was a mistake; instead, the more correct expression should have been the word wa [和], or “harmony”. So instead of a girlfriend asking her boyfriend, “do you love me?” [愛してる?], she would ask, “do we harmonize?” [和してる?] and he in turn would reply, “yup, we are harmonized” [うん、和してるよ]. And instead of saying things “love will save the world,” you would say “harmony will save the world”.*

The below is just my opinion. If you look at the word wa, it is comprised of the words for “thousand” [千] and “mouth” [口]. In other words, harmony is made of a thousand voices. Naturally, these thousand voices may all say different things. This makes me think of Yoshinaga Fumi’s Ôoku, a manga series I have been reading. You can read more my introduction of this series here.

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Tankouban release of Nokemono to Hanayome [ノケモノと花嫁]

Illustration of "Nokemono to Hanayome"

To those of you who wonder what ever happened to Ikuhara “Utena” Kunihiko [幾原邦彦], I gathered from his blog that a tankouban of his manga collaboration with Nakamura Asumiko [中村明日美子] is to be released in December. This manga is serialized so far on a fashion magazine called KERA. I will be sure to place an order and write more on this when the time comes.

Ikuhara-sensei’s blog entry with a photo of this announcement can be found at: http://www2.jrt.co.jp/cgi-bin3/ikuniweb/tomozo.cgi?no=504

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Cover image of Vol.5 of "Ôoku" by Yoshinaga Fumi. On the cover is the third female shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.

Ôoku must be the first shoujo/josei manga in which the heroine (or at least one of the heroines) had been raped, killed the rapist and given birth to a stillborn child from the first time you see her.

The story is currently being serialized on the manga magazine Melody and it is a historical fantasy set in an alternative Edo era in which:

• The male population had been decimated by an infectious disease, leaving Japan with a male-to-female ratio somewhere between 1 to 4 and 1 to 5.
• Japan implemented the close country policy in order to conceal this demographic crisis from foreigners.
• Gradually women took over the labours of men, and men were free from labour, became very sheltered and had only one contribution to society (ie. reproduction).
• The shogunate came to be headed by a lineage of female shoguns and the Ôoku (the shogun’s harem) was filled by men as i) a reserve military force to protect the shogun in the event of war and ii) to mate with the shogun.

I know you are probably thinking that this must be some sort of escapist fantasy, but I can endorse my name that it is not. It is more like apocalyptic fiction about a demographic crisis that spans across generations. In that alternative world, women for the most part live their lives without fathers, husbands and sons. The female shoguns in the story do find something like romantic love with men (though it seems to me that it is not really in the pattern of what is typically recognized as romantic love – I mean this in a positive way).

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