MURAKAMI HARUKI: 'THE STRANGE LIBRARY" AND THE RETURN OF THE SHEEP MAN

Murakami’s latest book in English is interesting for a number of reasons: its brevity, its pictures and the return of an old, favourite character the Sheep Man. Its shortness means that the plot is quite simple. Whilst the idea that reading makes the brain creamy to the taste might put some children off reading, it is a dark fantasy in which parallel worlds are jumbled up and what belongs in this world one minute doesn’t belong the next. As his pet starling dies in order to secure his release from the strange library so too his mother passes away soon after he notices “shadows gathering around her.”   

The pictures are also very much part of the story. As the narrator reads the diary of an Ottoman tax collector and becomes the tax collector he experiences the sights and sounds of Istanbul. The book transports him to another time and another world despite having no knowledge of the language. The pictures come from the books in the library and they illustrate events in the narrative as they unfold.

Finally there is the character of the Sheep Man. It is impossible not to read this story and to have flashbacks from Pinball 1973 and the Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dnce etc. The whipping he receives at the hands of the old man in the strange library perpetuate the his ongoing struggles. The sacrifices he continues to make his equanimity all the more endearing. This is a story for the fans who fell in love with this character and never want to let go…

ANDO HANAKO x KYARY PAMYU PAMYU

Oshin the perennial favourite on Japanese television seems more and more incongruous in this era of the empowered female. Think Kyary Pamyu Pmayu the queen of the Harajuku girls and female gender identity in Japan does not look like there will be a return to the self-sacrifice embodied in the Oshin narrative. Whilst Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is the latest in a long line of examples of the New Japanese Woman, the NHK production about Ando Hanako, the Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables, shows that there is a still a fascination for the traditional Japanese female stereotype. The NHK story has Hanako growing up in a poor farming family with no education until her father comes home and sends her to primary school. From there she is sent to a girls school in Tokyo where she is forbidden to speak Japanese. Typical of the era, the rules were strict but for those who adapted the rewards were great. Of course Anne of Green Gables had a powerful impact on young women all around the world. Simone de Beauvoir has written at length about the importance of this book to her during adolescence. This is the spirit with which the New Woman in Japan in the early twentieth century was imbued. The character of the New Woman developed (or degenerated, depending in your point of view) into the shojo of which the Harajuku girls are the latest manifestation. Interestingly, the spirit of Oshin is, however, not dead. Apart from the ongoing television series directed at those nostalgic for the traditional hard luck story of being born female in Japan, there is a group of mothers, survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in the Fukuoka region, who have made the news with their nuigurumi made from socks, named Onoko. These soft toy monkeys are sold to raise money for the victims of natural disasters. Supporters of the campaign include the actor Tsugawa Masahiko who starred in many of the late Itami Juzo's films. People who buy them hold parties and take toys on holidays and photograph them in famous locations. In this way traditional values and virtues of sacrifice and hard work endure in the age of digital technology and are propagated on social media displacing to some extent the idol culture and the slavish devotion to individualism that it promotes.

'THREE SISTERS': JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL 2014

'Three Sisters' was screening at ACMI as part of the 2014 Japanese Film festival.  It was a reasonably full house and after a short introduction it was into the film. The big screen was luxurious and lush compared to the flat screens that people's houses were filled with these days. The film walks a fine line between drama and comedy and somehow the women who ran the confectionary business Toraya in Kagoshima managed to keep their failed relationships with men in perspective. Except for the youngest sister Sakae, who was struggling to let go of the married men with whom she was having an affair. Namie, who has walked out on her husband in Tokyo, returns to the family home in Kagoshima but hardly has time to settle down before her husband arrives to ask her for a second chance. There is little encouragement for him at first but as time goes by the family warm to him and Namie slowly reconsiders her position. Or does she? She has prospects with a young publisher who has shown an interest in he as she tries to get her career going as an illustrator.

 

After the screening both producer Nishida Seishiro and director Sasabe Kiyoshi took some questions from the M.C. and the audience. They were asked questions such as whether the film reflected contemporary Japanese society? They were also asked if there were any problems with their portrayal of divorce in Japan?

"No" one of them replied through the interpreter. "In fact, the further south you go in Japan, the higher the divorce rate gets."

The audience laughed.

Then there was the scene at the airport when Namie wife meets her husband in the nick of time before he catches his plane. Whilst there is no indication that she will stay with him there is a lingering moment where the camera is focussed on her eyes. This is a scene filled with a pregnant but unspecified meaning teasing the audience to guess as to whether she will pursue a relationship with the young publisher or whether she will she return to Tokyo to be with her husband? Whilst the film left this open, current trends in Japanese society would suggest this is the last good-bye.

 

Producer Nishida suggested the film explores what is meant by family, and what is meant by marriage? The film also pays homage to his hometown in Kagoshima. The film is set at a time when small family businesses were closing down and being replaced by large shopping malls. Asked how it hard it is to get funding for film projects, he explained that he was able to get funding from local government, businesses and individuals after he explained that he wanted to film the local matsuri (festival) and introduce it to the world. 

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR AND JEAN PAUL SARTRE'S BIG TRIP TO JAPAN

Two old lefties who could never agree with anybody... Neither with the communists and definitely with those on the right. de Beauvoir was filled with loathing and hatred for her own country during the Algerian conflict. In the end thewy had to side with somebody and so it was the communists that they found the most common ground despite Stalinism and suppression of the facts about the camps. Trips to Cuba in the early 1960s helped give them faith in the goals of political solidarity. In 1966, however, they visited Japan for a three month period and were feted from one end of the country to the other (as they had been in Cuba). All Sartre's and de Beauvoir's books had been translated into Japanese and The Second Sex had been a best-seller.  On a boat to Beppu, de Beauvoir observed that Sartre was travelling with a camera for the first time in his life and "plied it with the ardour of a Japanese." Elsewhere she noted that Sartre had told reporters at a press conference that he held a very high opinion of the works of Tanizaki. Tanizaki's relationship with his wife had been as unconventional as that of Sartre and de Beauvoir. For a while, with her late, first husband's consent, she  had been Tanizaki's mistress. When Sartre met Tanizaki's widow, he questioned her about her late husband's sexual life. She told him that, "Tanizaki had wanted them both to try out some of the some of the practices described in his account of the blind female musician; at first she had refused, but then, because she admired him so, she agreed."

In her account de Beauvoir speaks about many aspects of Japanese life including the economy, religion, society and the arts. She writes about  Japanese temples and shrines, the Eta, sumo wrestling and both Noh and Bunraku theatre. In terms of her meetings with Japanese woman, de Beauvoir observed that women at one port did the work of unloading cargo from the boats. Questioning them she learned that as well as working seven days a week they also did all of the house work and were paid less than men. This was a widespread phenomenon in Japan; women received on average sixteen thousand yen a month compared to men who received thirty-five thousand yen. At that time, women represented thirty-five per cent of the Japanese work force. In the little town of Komamuto, de Beauvoir observed some men accompanied by geisha and noted that compared to other geisha that they had seen, these were "less stiff" and "sang cheerful songs, laughed a great deal, and put up with having their bottoms slapped." The author of The Second Sex did not seem to feel the need to make any adverse comment about this frivolous behaviour.

NAKAGAWA TAKASHI: KAIDOSUJI NO CHAKKUCHI SHINAI BLUES

Nakagawa Takashi is an old school rock n roller with Neil Young sideburns and some zeal for Neil Young style political activism. He started as a post-punk musician in a band called Newest Model and graduated to a more blended sound in a new band called Soul Flower Union, combining elements of rock and roll, Irish folk music and traditional Japanese music. After the Kansai earthquake in 1995, he set up a side band called Mononoke Summit which played the pre-war ching dong style of music on old style musical instruments allegedly to raise money for earthquake victim and to steal pre-war Japanese culture back from the militarists and to give it to the Japanese people. On his latest release Kaidosuji no chakkuchi shinai buru-su (At the Roadside: No Touchdown Blues), Nakagawa revisits material from throughout his career and gives it the old acoustic guitar treatment. The photos in the booklet show a sunset, a small country road (with a rusty side rail) and an old farmer's house. These are the roots that Nakagawa clings to in the fast paced world of mass media and commercialised newsfeeds. Roots that inevitably take Japanese people back to the homeland of the heart, the furusato. Nakagawa is a reminder of the atavistic role the balladeer once played, a little too opinionated to be a chronicler he is more the conscience for a generation that want quality of life rather than endless growth and consumption. In a nod to popular Japanese culture and perhaps to distance himself from fanaticism, he plays a version of the theme song to the film series Otoko wa tsurai yo (It's Tough being a Man).

In the credits it says:

 

"To everybody who has been supporting Nakagawa Takashi and Soul Flower's activities, Thanks! Cheers! This album is dedicated to resistance all over the world with no touchdown blues and to children everywhere."  

 

Every year in early December, Soul Flower Union do live shows in Osaka. These are a must-see for fans of live music that is aggressive, soulful and politically engaged. Japanese popular music has given us TAMA and it has given us Nakagawa Takashi. 

MATSUMOTO SHUNSUKE: PRIVATE SPACES IN PUBLIC PLACES

Matsumoto Shunsuke, was born in Shibuya, Tokyo but spent his childhood years in Northern Honshu, and lived in Hanamaki and Morioka city before moving to Tokyo at the age of 17. At this time, Tokyo was a new city having emerged from the ravages of the 1923 earthquake. Matsumoto, with his interest in Western painting and in particular in modernism, was well placed to paint this new city. In one of his early pictures called Machi (town), Matsumoto painted a montage with a blue background against which there are details such as the girl in the red dress, a man polishing shoes, a man with a soft hat, a clock tower and a café. It is like a dream like world. Later he painted New York featuring some scenes from downtown as well as the White House. In other paintings from this period, there are dark, sombre, secluded places devoid of people which raises the question of why he painted Tokyo like this? There is a feeling of isolation and loneliness in many of his paintings. The scenes are often of isolated spots such as bridges, garbage disposal centres, public toilets  and, in one case, some sewage outlet pipes into the Kanda River. Matsumoto also liked to paint the St Nikolai Cathedral near Ochanomizu. One picture was painted from such an angle that it puzzled critics for many years. The sketch books showed, however, that he had merged two views into one.

 

 

 

Matsumoto caught the Yamanote line train to get to many parts of the city he painted on canvas drawing lots of sketches and taking lots of photographs. He painted many scenes near various stations such as Ochanomizu, Suidobashi, Tokyo and Shinjuku. Near Tokyo station he painted the Yaesu bridge and in the background a series of chimneys that capture a sense of the rhythm  of the city. He also painted a pedestrian bridge near Yokohama station. The post-war version of the same bridge shows the destruction of the surrounding area and a jeep. It has been suggested that Matsumoto's attraction to bridges is based on the idea that bridges connect areas that are otherwise separated. Made from steel and concrete, they allow people to move freely from one side to another. With the nation embarking on the road to war during the 1930s, Matsumoto painted a monolithic vision of himself as an artist that suggests that he would not be so  easily subsumed into the self-sacrifice required for the war effort. Together with his wife Teiko he started a new drawing and essay magazine called Zakkicho. He published an essay on the subject of humanism. His wife also featured in his 'Portrait of the Artist'. Matsumoto Shunsuke died in 1948 at the age of 36. The parts of Tokyo that he painted include:

• Takebashi bridge
• Rooftops near Yoyogi Station, east exit
• White buildings near the Suidobashi station
• Miyoshoji river, near where Matsumoto lived
• Tokyo station, Yaesubashi
• Hijiribashi, Ochanomizu station
• Nikolai Cathedral, Kanda
• Shinjuku station, south exit stairway and public toilet
• Yokohama station, Tsukimibashi (pedestrian bridge) and public toilet
• Showadori bridge, Shinbashi

As a modernist, Matsumoto follows in the footsteps of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch whose famous painting 'The Scream' is also set on a bridge. Where the man in Munch's painting is the centre of attention, Matsumoto has turned to the surrounding city itself. The atmosphere he creates is one of isolation and loneliness. The line work he uses in Y shi no hashi (Bridge in Yokohama) allows him to suggest structures in the background whilst the fine lines add a sense nuanced detail in the foreground. These are contrasted with the heavy lines that he uses for the pedestrian bridge which give it a surreal, playful  presence like some gym equipment. An example of his fine line work can be seen in the 1948 work semi (cicada) which looks like something that Brassai, and his ilk with their predilection for graffiti might have been drawn towards.

 

 

THE SPACE ELEVATOR

Every now and then you hear something that has to be seen to be believed. And even then it is unbelievable... When Japanese scientists say that they will build a 96,000 kilometre elevator into space using nanotechnology making space rockets redundant you think okay, maybe this will work. Or, more likely, you will think how will it stay attached to the earth's surface? What if it is hit by a piece of space junk? How will it stay straight without getting tangled up in itself. As someone posted on a chart site, it would take a week to get there. Imagine being trapped in an elevator with 29 other people for a week? I guess it depends on what you mean by an elevator. Maybe it has cubicles and a bar and a restaurant... But if it is travelling at hundreds of kilometres to get the passengers to the station inside a week I guess comfort has to be sacrificed for speed. The Japanese have built and designed many amazing things in the post-war period from pocket transistors to the Sony Walkman, the video cassette recorder to instant noodles and the electric rice cooker, the blue ray disc and the compact disc, then there is the bullet train and the ninja robot. The list goes on.... The idea that we can catch an elevator into space, this one might outdo them all.

ANTI-NUCLEAR CRUSADER: NAOTO KAN IN AUSTRALIA

Former political leaders can end up doing a variety of jobs. Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore travels the world talking about climate change whilst former Japanese prime-minister Kan Naoto is pursuing an anti-nuclear campaign. Earlier this year, he brought this message with him to Australia talking about his experience as prime-minister during the Fukushima power plant meltdown. Australia being a major exporter of uranium is obviously a place where he would like his message to be heard. He talked about how during the Fukushima disaster his government had come close to evacuating people from a 250 kilometre radius of Fukushima. This would have included Tokyo and would have involved displacing 40% of the population or 50 million people. At the time of Kan's visit to Australia there were plans for Australian prime-minister Tony Abbott to visit India where he was to sign an agreement to sell Australian uranium for the first time. When Kan resigned as prime-minister due to criticism of his initial handling of the Fukushima incident and the slow pace of reconstruction he later won approval for his plans to phase out nuclear power. The legislation he drew up to realise this aim was overturned by the election of an LDP government led by Abe Shinzo in 2012. His pleas for Australia to reduce the world's dependency on nuclear power will fall on deaf ears as the Abbott government has no interest in the renewable energy sector.   



EMPTY VESSELS: MURAKAMI HARUKI'S 'COLOURLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI'

In Murakami's ;latest novel, a colourless man who considers himself to be an empty vessel, is rejected by his close-knit group of high school friends at the age of twenty. Out of the group of five friends he is the only one to leave Nagoya to pursue his studies in Tokyo. He wishes to become an engineer specialising in the construction of railway stations. Hence the significance of his name Tsukuru, which means 'to make'.

 

The notion of being an empty vessel is significant in Murakami's writing. In the first story in After the Quake, Komura agrees to take a small box to Hokkaido. When he arrives in Hokkaido he doesn’t feel like he has come a long way. What is interesting about the box is that it appears to contain nothing. After his wife leaves him Komura reads in her letter that although he is good and kind, “living with you is like living with a chunk of air”. At the end of the story, after failing to get an erection, Komura is told by the mysterious Shimao, “That box contains the something that was in you”. Having felt he has come a long way Shimao tells him “But really, you’re just at the beginning. In Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki, Tsukuru finds himself close to death for a period of six months but he recovers and notices that his face has changed. He finishes his studies, finds work and has several girlfriends but there is nothing permanent in his life. It is not until he meets Sara, who forces him to make contact with his old friends that he lost sixteen years ago, that he uncovers the truth about the past and is able to confront his unresolved feelings. On of the triggers that sets him on this course of action is his failure to get an erection. Having taken Sara home she had "reached out and gently took his hard penis in her hand... But a little later, as he was entering her, his penis went limp. It was the first time in his life that this had happened to him and, and it left him baffled and mystified." It is a mystification that deepens...

As events are uncovered, his dreams parallel and inform the events that unfold. He has lurid sexual fantasies about the two girls in the group. Whilst he is caressed by and has sex with both of them, he only ever ejaculates inside Shiro. It turns out that Shiro had a horror of sex. Her father was a doctor who performed abortions. When she was raped, she blames Tsukuru. Even though Kuro knows that this is a false accusation, she stands by Shiro because she feels whilst Shiro is weak and needs protection, Tsukuru is strong and can survive. As she explains to Tsukuru, sixteen years later, when he comes to find her in Finland, she figured that he was a survivor. Later, Shiro has a miscarriage and moves to Hamamatsu. It is here that she is strangled to death. Tsukuru was not told about this at the time. He feels that he was in some way responsible and so was possibly the reason for her death. Kuro feels the same way. It turns out that she was also in love with Tsukuru at the time which made her feel even worse.

In the period before he re-established contact with his old friends, Tsukuru met  a man at the local swimming pool named Haida. Haida tells him the story about his father who had a death charm. He always carried package with him which he placed on the piano before he played. When Haida disappeared from Tsukuru's life, he sees it as yet another example of  how people abandon him for little or no reason. He is afraid of losing Sara and so puts together the pieces of his past so that he can be together with her. When they have sex she feels that he is absent. Later on he comes to feel that  he has a lump inside him which needs to melt.

As an engineer, Tsukuru builds train stations, these are designed for safety as people are transported across the system. In Tokyo, the centre piece of this system is Shinjuku station. The fact that 3.5 million people use this station each day makes it the busiest station in the world. He loves stations and often sits in them to observe passengers in transit. He reflects on the famous photo that depicts a wave of Japanese commuters, head down and looking pensive, which an American photographer had taken. The idea was that even though they had experienced an economic miracle, they were unhappy. Tsukuru feels that this hypothesis missed the point. It gave no context for the look on their faces. The reality was that, given the volume of people in the system, there is a need to keep moving. If someone trips or loses a shoe the results could be catastrophic.

Finally, as events unfold, there is a musical motif provided throughout the novel. The characters listen to a piece of music Mal de Pays by Lizst which Shiro used to play on the piano. Tsukuru listens to one recording given to him by Haida whilst Kuro listens to another. These are quite different interpretations which leads to a reflection on the nature of music and the reading and interpretation of musical notes. This leads to a raised awareness of birds and bird song in the novel. Birds make an appearance regularly and it is through their songs that they make their presence felt. Tsukuru observes in Finland that, "The cries of the birds made for an unusual melody. The same melody pierced the woods, over and over." Kuro (now called Eri) says, "The parent birds are teaching their babies how to chirp... Until I came here I never knew that." Tsukuru decides that:

"Our lives are a complex musical score... Filled with all sorts of cryptic writing, sixteenth and thirty-second notes and other strange signs. Its next to impossible to correctly interpret these, and even if you could, and then could transpose them into correct sounds, there's no guarantee that people would correctly understand, or appreciate, the meaning therein. No guarantee it would make people happy. Why must the workings of people's minds be so convoluted?

The novel ends with a conversation at 4 a.m.. Sara has agreed to meet Tsukuru the following day. He has asked her if she is seeing someone else. She has asked for three days before she gives him her answer. Eri's advice to Tsukuru is, "... make sure you hang on to Sara. You really need her." Presumably the fact finding that he has been engaged in will enable him to  conquer his erectile dysfunction, but there are no guarantees that she will choose him. In Tsukuru's world of railway stations, "Everything proceeds smoothly, efficiently, without a hitch, down to the second." But the reality is that there are aberrations in life such as having six fingers. Luckily, whilst these might be the product of a dominant gene, these are "nothing more than one among many elements in tendency distribution."

FLOWER METHOD: AZUMA MAKOTO

A bonsai in space... why not? Dogs and chimpanzees have been sacrificed for the cause before, why not plants? Especially plants that have been trained to conform to the most exacting standards that can be imposed to please the aesthetic standards of their masters. At least a plant that is restricted in its growth to the size of a miniature is not as drastic as a woman's foot. (Apologies for the species discrimination.) In this era of eco-tourism, eco-food packaging  and eco-love, Azuma Makoto has produced eco-art. in his publication Flower Method, there are photographs of Botanical Installations and Botanical Sculptures, a Botanical Lady Dior and a Global Green display for Isetan. There are House Visions, a Lego Pine and a decoration for Roppongi Hills 10th anniversary. In case people feel the artist is getting carried away there are examples of sublime humour in this rarified atmosphere such as the Botanical Ashtray and Hello Moss Kitty!

YAMASHITA KYOSHI: HADAKA TAISHO (LIFE OF A VAGABOND)

TAMA had twenty years together creating their anarchic folk music. These days Chiku and drummer Ichikawa perform with a band called Pascals whilst the other members, Takimoto and Yanagihara, have their own solo careers. Part of TAMA's charm was in their rejection of the cute, manufactured J Pop appearance and sound. Instead they embraced a more primitive or naïve style. In particular, drummer Ichikawa Kohji adopted a casual dress sense based on the artist Yamashita Kyoshi, a legendary figure with Downs syndrome who wandered Japan, often without a shirt, painting. Known as the Japanese Van Gogh, he died in 1971 at the age of 49. It was during the war when he ran away and began living the life of a vagrant painting as he went. He had to beg for his own food and was once arrested for vagrancy. His style of painting is described as being 'mosaic'. Clearly his pictures have also influenced the painting style of film director Kitano Takeshi. There is a clear similarity between the pictures of Yamashita Kyoshi and the artwork that is featured in Takeshi's film Hanabi.

 

PSACALS LIVE AT WOMADELAIDE

Unfortunately I did not get over to Adelaide to see Pascals at the Womadelaide festival in 2012 but thanks to this video you can see and appreciate the sound of the band for yourselves. Chiku (ex Tama) is playing the ukele and along for the ride is Tama's former drummer, Ichikawa Koji, (that's him on the side of the stage hamming it up as usual for the camera). Although the camera strays, it never strays too far away as Ichikawa's infectious, good humour adds such a presence on stage. Yes that's him playing around with a chair later on in the song for some extra sound and visual effects. In the second clip for 'Dan Dan Batake' he appears to have found a plastic raincoat which, with his red socks and red shorts, adds some more chutzpah (not sure what the Japanese term for this is, iki iki?) to his stage presence. In this song he accompanies Chiku on vocals with a bit of triangle playing. On one of the Pascals CDs they do a version of the Rolling Stones song 'Satisfaction', it is a great piece of understatement given that it is such a bloated industry and the band has such a bloated reputation and the song is filled with such a lot of bloated recognition. Somehow they manage to disguise it so that even its own mother (Mick and Keith) wouldn't recognise it. You could say that they take the cock out of rock, or, you could just enjoy the music. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZsGYN_7qqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAJxgD8rbJM

TSUGUMI AND THE UGLY FEMALE

Tsugumi, in Tsugumi (1989), is a quintessential shojo manga character in that she reflects the ‘petty individualism’ that Kinsella (2000) argues critics have associated with the shojo manga genre. Tsugumi is characterised as being obnoxious to all of the people around her. These include her sister, Yoko, her cousin, Maria, and her mother and father. Maria, the narrator, writes that:

“If I had to make a list of the Top Three Victims of Tsugumi’s Outrageously Nasty Disposition, the order would undoubtedly be: Aunt Masako, then Yoko, then me. Uncle Tadashi kept his distance” (Goodbye Tsugumi, 1989a, English translation 2002, 4).

In her selfishness Tsugumi recalls the Yukino character in Yoshimoto’s earlier novel Kanashii Yokan (A Sad Premonition) (1988d).  This type of character is not entirely new in Japanese writing, however. In the 1939 short story ‘The Schoolgirl’ (In Run Melos and Other Stories) by Dazai Osamu, the narrator wakes up and says ‘I’m at my ugliest in the morning’ (44). She speculates later about a female Christ and thinks, ‘How repulsive’ (51). Later, after being ‘nauseated’ by a pregnant woman wearing makeup on the train she says:

“Women are so disgusting. Being one myself, I know all too well what filthy things women are, and I hate it so much it makes me grind my teeth. The unbearable smell you get from handling goldfish – it’s as if that smell covers your entire body, and no matter how much you wash and scrub, it won’t come off. And when I think that I’ve got to go through every day of my life emitting that smell, that female smell, there’s something else that pops into my mind and makes me think I’d just rather die now, as I am, still a young girl” (Run Melos and other Stories, 1988, 70).

This misogynistic depiction of women brings to mind the Meiji period writer Kunikida Doppo who suggested that women were “monkeys mimicking humanity.” Tsugumi is obnoxious but Yoshimoto is careful to place this in context. She is associated with the fantasy women characters in Yoshimoto’s writing like Urara in Moonlight Shadow (1988a). Tsugumi is described as being an ‘unpleasant woman’ (1) and ‘like the devil’ (3). Her room is described as being like a scene from The Exorcist (5). As a result of illness, she has been treated kindly since birth and people are afraid for her health. Tsugumi is described as ‘growing into her badness’ in this environment (4). In terms of the novel’s construction, Tsugumi’s character represents rebellion as opposed to her cousin Maria who represents conformity.

Furuhashi Nobuyoshi argues that this split between narrator and main character is necessary because Tsugumi is such a ‘selfish’ character (1990, 103). Furuhashi argues that by having Maria narrate Tsugumi’s story, Yoshimoto demonstrates that even a ‘selfish’ character such as Tsugumi may be understood (106). And this is a very different emphasis from that of Doppo or Dazai. However, Tsugumi is not just ‘understood’ by Maria, she also inspires Maria, who comes to see the suffering that Tsugumi masks through anti-social behaviour. They enjoy a symbiotic relationship in which each needs the other. Tsugumi needs someone to tell her story and Maria learns to be strong from Tsugumi. This is the enclosed world of the shojo. It is a world of intense feeling in which Maria says of the days spent on the island with Tsugumi ‘… those days were blessed’ (161). The enclosed shojo world cannot last forever, however.

Earlier in Tsugumi (1989) when the girls’ favourite series came to an end on TV, Maria says:

“That night, having wriggled down into my futon all alone, I found myself in the grips of a wrenching sadness. I was only a child, but I knew the feeling that came when you parted with something, and I felt that pain” (Goodbye Tsugumi, 1989a, English translation 2002, 67).

Tsugumi describes a group of ‘four women enjoying each other’s company’ (27). As such, it is also a forerunner to the ‘women’s paradise’ in Amrita (1994). But Yoshimoto does not just describe the vulnerability of this world and suggests that there is more to the world of the shojo, as Aoyama (2004) argues, than passivity and frivolity. Rather than witnessing the decline of Tsugumi’s health, the reader is shown Tsugumi learning to take responsibility for others. Thus, when the dog, Gongoro, is kidnapped, Maria says, ‘It was the first time in her life Tsugumi had gotten angry on someone’s behalf. Something about her seemed sacred to me then’ (Tsugumi, 1989, English translation 2002, 137). When Gongoro disappears again, Tsugumi digs a deep hole at the back of a neighbouring house. Yoko, Tsugumi’s sister, discovers the hole and rescues one of Gongoro’s youthful kidnappers trapped inside. When she tells Maria this story, Yoko describes it as a ‘genuine adventure’ (151). Maria reminisces and says, ‘She hadn’t changed a bit since she was a girl. All along she had been living in a universe of thought that was all her own, shared with no one else’ (156). There is a sense of purity about Tsugumi’s single-mindedness. This event becomes part of their shojo folklore, all the more precious because of Tsugumi’s illness.

Treat describes Tsugumi as the ‘perfect shojo who will never grow up’ (1996, 295). For Tsugumi, there is ‘never anything but “today”’ (295). He argues that in Tsugumi, ‘Yoshimoto Banana generates a youth (seishun) that could be anywhere, at any time, as an act of homage to a present that does not necessarily have to be “now” or “here” (296). He is critical of Yoshimoto on the basis that her ‘contemporary nostalgia lacks any determined past to validate it’ (296) and points to how Yoshimoto portrays herself as the perfect shojo in the postscript identifying herself with Tsugumi rather than the successful author she has become as an adult (297). Treat asks ‘why childhood and adolescence should be so idealised as a lost object at the expense of a future adulthood?’ (1996, 297) and suggests that characters like Maria are narcissistic and reluctant to let go of their adolescent selves. This could be true, but Maria is also vulnerable because of her parent’s relationship. Even though Maria is hurt by Tsugumi’s anti-social behaviour, she can see through it and forms a strong friendship with Tsugumi. Tsugumi is to be admired, not pitied. Tsugumi might be an 'ugly female' character but she is no longer to be judged by the standards of the past.

THE EQUIVOCAL DAZAI OSAMU: 'ONE HUNDRED VIEWS OF FUJI' AND 'SCHOOLGIRL'

Dazai Osamu wrote The Setting Sun (1947) which defined a generation in post-war Japan in the same way that Sartre defined the new reality and mind-set of post-war France. This was a period in which there was almost no sense of continuity between one generation and the next. The void was filled by a profound sense of nihilism which was most clearly expressed by Dazai.

 

In the short story 'One Hundred Views of Mt Fuji' written in 1939 before the war Dazai was already prepared to cast a disparaging eye on his surroundings, in this case Mt Fuji, the most celebrated mountain in Japan. Deciding to visit his mentor Mr Ibuse at Tenka Chaya (tea-house) at Misaka Pass Dazai observes that the mountain is nothing like the famous paintings by the likes of Hiroshige and Hokusai instead the angle of the mountain is such that it is "almost pathetic as far as mountains go." His trip to the mountain is just as disappointing given that it involves a "bone-shaking, hour-long ride." All is not a total loss, however, and on a trip to his mentor's friend's house he sees a photograph of the mountain's  crater covered in snow like "a pure white waterlily." Glancing at the young woman his mentor has recommended for marriage he is inspired to  marry her. "That" he says, "was a Fuji I was grateful for." Later, when there is a snow fall at Misaka Pass, the narrator is called outside to admire the mountain. Observing the summit he notes that it is "pure and radiant and white." He is moved to exclaim "Not even the Fuji from Misaka Pass is to be scoffed at." Nothing in this world of fleeting sensations is unsullied for long, however, and when a group of prostitutes visit the tea-house the narrator is momentarily pained by his inability to change the world He then looks at Mt Fuji "looking for all the world like the Big Boss, squared off in an arrogant pose" and is relieved of his sense of responsibility.

 

The final insult arrives in the form of a bride who stops her car in order to spend some time outside the tea-house contemplating the mountain before her wedding. This was a scene that the narrator decides is "titillatingly romantic" until the bride does something unforgivable and gives a "great yawn." The mood is ruined and the young female servant at the tea-house condemns her as a "hussy". This embarrasses the narrator as his own plans for marriage are now well advanced and he has overcome the lack of financial support that his family is willing to provide. In the penultimate moment in the story two secretaries ask him to take a photograph of them with Mt Fuji in the background. He imagines their surprise when they develop the film and find he has photographed the mountain in such a way that they are not included in the picture. In this way he pays homage to the mountain saying "Goodbye Mt Fuji. Thanks for everything." The sceptical Dazai has to some extent fallen unwillingly under the spell of the mountain.

This sense of equivocation can also be seen in the short story 'Schoolgirl' when the narrator tells the reader that she occasionally pulls a few weeds near the front gate in order to do her "labor service" for mother. She wonders why, "there are some weeds you want to pull out and some you want to leave alone. They're all weeds, they all look exactly the same, so why are they all so different? Weeds that strike you a s darling and weeds that don't; lovely weeds and hateful weeds - why are they so clearly divided? There's no logic to it, of course. A woman's likes and dislikes are just so random and haphazard." Racked by self-doubt and loathing the narrator gives Dazai the opportunity here to explore some of his more misogynistic thoughts.

DENNO COIL (2007): FOOD FOR THOUGHT

During the recent heat wave in Melbourne, we sat down and continued watching the series Denno Coil (Cyber Coil) which we started watching last year. Japanese anime has been exploring the world of technology since Tezuka Osamu's Tetsuwan Atomu in the 1960s based on the manga series (1952 - 1968). Whilst that series looked at how technology could be used for peaceful means by the 1980s this utopian fantasy had turned and darker dystopic fantasies such as Akira (1988), Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Appleseed (2004) have proliferated. Denno Coil was broadcast on the NHK education channel in 2007 and has a slightly different purpose. It is, after all, educational and therefore has a strong moral message which can be seen at the end of the series when the parents put their collective foot down and confiscate the kids' cyber glasses. But that's at the end of a very long and complicated story. All you need to know is that there are some black shadows (illegals) looking for something in the town of Daikoku where there have been a number of accidents involving children from which the technology company Megamass is keen to disassociate itself and its products...

 

In Daikoku all the children wear glasses which allow them to enter cyber space, they also have cyber pets. These can only be seen if you are wearing the glasses. Part of the discussion that is generated in the series is whether things that exist in cyber space are real in the way that they are in the 'real' world. Thus when Yasako's pet dog Densuke dies, her mother questions whether the dog ever existed and therefore whether it can be mourned.

 

Some of the children collect meta bugs and later kira bugs which allow them to become more powerful in cyber space. In the town there are still a number of old cyber spaces. These are being cleaned up by Megamass which has employed Tamako for this purpose. Under her command she has a number of robots known as Sacthi who chase down illegal cyber activity and clean up old cyber spaces. They cannot, however, enter shrines or schools. A new girl nicknamed Isako arrives at the school and takes control of the hackers club. Apart from the fact that she can write codes and is collecting kira bugs she has a secret and this secret connects her to Yasako who has had a dream in which all she can remember is the number 4423. Over the series, the search for the meaning of this number draws various characters together and against each other. The number 4423 turns out to be the number of the hospital room in which Isako's brother Nobuhiko is being kept. His cyber body and his real body have been split after he went over to the other side, controlled by Michiko and the illegals. He is unable to come back so Isako is trying to use her codes and amass enough kira bugs so that she can open up a pathway to the other world so that she can be reunited with her brother.

 

Suffice it so say, Tamako is monitoring Isako as she herself is being monitored by Nekome, also employed by Megamass. If people have concerns about CCTV cameras and the digital footprints that they leave all over cyber space, this series will be food for thought. Whilst some have given up on privacy this series opens this issue up with siblings spying on each other with cyber pets that have illegal recording capacities not to mention a company (Megamass) that can shut the whole system down that people have become dependent upon.

 

At the end of the series, it is revealed that Isako is being manipulated by Nekome who has his own reason for opening up the pathway in contrast with Tamako who wants it shut down. It is also revealed that that the cyber dog Densuke holds the key and that Yasako's grandfather who designed the cyber glasses for Megamass implanted a node in the dog which is necessary allows a pathway to be opened up to the cyber world. This is where Michiko and the illegals lurk eager to draw children over to their world. To protect themselves and their cyber products, Isako is blamed for the accidents in the town (including the death of Kanna which haunts Hanaken, the nephew of Tamako) and she is further said to be in league with Michiko. Her death is a tragedy but more to the point, the adults in the town have little knowledge of any of these events. They sense that their is something wrong so they blame the cyber glasses and confiscate them. The message for children watching the program is that technology is fun but dangerous. Whilst adults have power and can confiscate the glasses the real danger of the technology is only understood by children because they are the one who live these experiences. For the rest of us it is more reason to distrust the self serving natures of big corporations.  

BANANA YOSHIMOTO'S: 'SWEET HEREAFTER'

Like her mentor Stephen King, 2013 was a big year for Yoshimoto Banana. Whilst King returned to form with Doctor Sleep which revisits the character of Dan Torrence from The Shining, Yoshimoto published three new novels and at least one collection of essays. Sweet Hereafter is also significant because Yoshimoto also renews her collaboration with artist Hara Masumi who designed the front cover. Sweet Herafter is typical Yoshimoto Banana. The protagonist Sayoko is involved in a car accident and, whilst she survives, her boyfriend Yoichi is killed. It is the type of story that takes the reader back to Yoshimoto's debut in 1988... Yoichi is a sculptor who works with metal and wood and is more famous overseas than he is in Japan. During Sayako's near death experience she is reunited with her dog but not Yoichi. She is persuaded to come back to this world by her late grandfather who drives her on his Harley Davidson. After a slow recovery and rehab during which she looks like Frankenstein, she takes on the job of looking after the legacy of Yoichi's work. This means she spends her time between this work in Kyoto and her doctor's appointments in Tokyo.

Sayako has been changed by her experience, she notices that after Yoichi’s death she has started taking on some of his personality… She becomes less feminine and looks like some kind of lesbian so no-one tries to pick her up. Because she is busy working or else in hospital there is no chance really to meet anyone. She has vivid memories of the rainbow coloured world she returned from… She sees the rainbow as the bridge on which her grandfather brought her back. But her body returned before her soul so her body has been mostly on auto-pilot. At the local bar, the owner Shingami san won’t allow her to drink too much. He jokes that he needs to keep his customers alive. When she was younger and drinking heavily she didn’t really like his bar. Now she appreciates its atmosphere much more. She realises since her return from the other world that the price of living in a world of such beauty is the energy you bring with you (69). This world however is shared by the dead as well as the living. 

The first ghost she ever saw was a young woman sitting at a window. She didn't move or make eye contact, she just smiled and flicked her hair. At the bank she Sayako saw a young man coming out the wrong door with a bicycle. He saw her staring at the window and started talking to her. She realizes she is living in a world shared by both the dead and the living (59). It turns out the young woman was his mother. She wishes that Yoichi was watching over her in the same way… The woman died of a weak heart. The young woman she sees in the window is how she looked when she was young. He asks her inside the house. She wonders if she can stay and he says yes… She realizes that he can read her mind. She also realizes that she herself is living the life of a ghost, half alive and half dead looking after the unfinished business of her dead boyfriend. 

With references to Frankenstein and zombies, Sweet Hereafter is a response to tragedy and the painful process of recovery that follows. In her afterword to the book she thanks those readers who send her letters saying how  much her books have helped them. In the aftermath of the tsunami and the accident at Fukushima, she initially wanted to go and help out as a volunteer. Instead, she chose to write this book. Whilst there is criticism of her books as being light and filled with New Age fantasies there is a real sense that these books can 'speak' to those who have been damaged and are looking for ways to rebuild their sense of self.