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.