0 comments on "Slavery and Japan"

slavery and rape in war and historyJapan, like nearly all nations. has a history of slavery. Many Western historians in the past believed the concept of freedom was imported to Japan from the West. This misplaced, Western-centric view states the West wrestled with its heritage of slavery and awoke to human rights and freedom before showing the rest of the world. This view is false, as we shall see.

Japan has long been a destination country for slaves, especially sex slaves, and still remains that way today (Botsman, 2011; Queen, 2015). Human trafficking to Japan traces to at least the 7th century. The lowest class of people within Japan were legally bought and sold. However, it was illegal to force a Japanese person into this class by kidnapping them, but this protection, such as it was, didn’t extend to foreigners. The system was disbanded during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) (Queen, 2015).

After a brief respite from institutional slavery–don’t doubt that slavery still existed during the Kamakura period–the Jesuits brought it back to Japan with a focus on exporting Japan’s lowest classes. Portuguese sailors in the 1500s found cheap slaves within Japan and high demand back in Europe, especially for Japanese women (Botsman, 2011; Queen, 2015).  The Jesuits exported slaves from Nagasaki. Some of the first Japanese to enter Europe were women destined to be sex slaves.

However, this backfired on the Jesuits when the Toyotomi Hideyoshi used the slave trade as evidence of Christianity’s negative influence upon Japan. He issued a series of expulsion orders against Jesuit missionaries and a formal band on the sale and export of Japanese slaves. This wasn’t because he had moral qualms about the slave trade. Rather, he wanted to build a stable society, and slavery drained the country of potential workers. The ban of 1587 prohibited the export of slaves and the domestic slave trade. Slavery more or less ceased in Japan by the end of the 1600s (Botsman. 2011). So much for the Western narrative, right?

Slavery again became a problem at the end of the Tokugawa period, if in a different form. When Japan opened to the world in 1858 with the Harris Treaty,  the problem of human trafficking also returned. The West began to institute a cooly system, cheap and exploitable labor, within Japan’s poor and lower classes. These workers, who could be considered slaves or debt-bondage labor, worked the plantations and other areas in the Western colonies, such as the sugar plantations of Hawaii (Botsman, 2011; Moen, 2012). During the Meiji government’s early years, domestic debt bondage became more visible within the sex trade. Japan still fights this problem within its sex industry, but I will examine that problem in another article.

The Meiji government saw the existence of slaves within Japan, through the cooly system and sex slavery, as shameful. The government eventually issued the “Emancipation Edict for Female Performers and Prostitutes” to liberate women and girls in the sex trade. When the brothels resisted and demanded financial compensation for their losses, the Meiji government pointed to the Tokugawa slavery bans, like those of Hideyoshi, as evidence that the brothels operated illegally (Botsman, 2011).

The edict didn’t ban prostitution. A new legal framework for the world’s oldest profession developed. The edict was also overshadowed by the 1871 “Order to Abolish Outcaste Status Designations.” This order removed Japan’s outcaste system–outcaste were the classes that the slave and cooly system exploited–by raising those people to the level of commoner, reducing their level of legal exploitation. This move also removed the legal discrimination they faced because of their low social status and professions. It also removed their status as lowly and impure within the society’s framework.

film about world war II sex slavery

The Penal Code of 1907 finished the job of these edicts by forbidding human trafficking. This code remains in effect (Queen, 2015). Of course, illegality never stops behavior. Japanese girls remain victims of human trafficking and debt bondage within Japan’s sex industry (Moen, 2012). Despite the Penal Code of 1907, the Japanese government engaged in sex slavery during World War II. Thousands of young girls and women were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese military. Euphemistically called “comfort women,” the military accelerated the program after the The Rape of Nanking. The Rape of Nanking, also called the Nanjing Massacre, happened during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Imperial soldiers spent 6 weeks looting, killing, and raping the residents of Nanjing, China. The period included the march from Shanghai to Nanjing. According to Queen (2015), “[i]t was a common belief that soldiers should not die as virgins, and many thought that sex before battle protected soldiers against death.” The Japanese military viewed the comfort women program as a way to stop future massacres and rapes.

Comfort women were mainly from Japan’s Imperial holdings. including Burmese, Chinese, Dutch, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, and Taiwanese women. An estimated 80% were Korean. Japanese women were expected to stay home and have children (Queen, 2015).

After World War II, the new Japanese constitution established human rights for its citizens. In 1950, those rights were extended by the Japanese Supreme Court (Queen, 2015): “[I]t should be recognized that any person who stays in Japan is entitled to human rights which he or she should naturally have as a human being even if his or her entry into the country was illegal.” In 1956, the Japanese Diet passed a law that ended all licensed prostitution in Japan, but it left consensual sex work open, which also left open the problem of debt bondage.

Modern day slavery focuses on forced prostitution with an estimated 75-80% of cross-border human trafficking. Because of Japan’s sex industry, enabled by the narrow definition of sex in the 1956 law, Japan remains a destination country for sex slaves and continues to struggle with domestic debt bondage (Moen, 2012).

yakuza
The yakuza play a role in modern slavery.

As you can see, past Western historians were wrong about the idea of an “enlightened” West teaching Japan the sins of slavery. Japan banned slavery in the late 1500s and had an off-and-on-again relationship with the practice since. For perspective,  Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, 275 years after Japan issued a ban on slavery. Japanese slavery didn’t focus on Africa like the Western powers of the time. Orientalism, the portrayal of Asian cultures as exotic, undeveloped, yet inspiring, helped fueled the Portuguese and Jesuit trade of Japanese women to Europe. Their exotic nature–compared to European ideals of the time–would’ve acted as status symbols for those who could afford them. This likely added to the stubborn idea of the sexy, submissive Japanese woman that remains in the US and elsewhere in the West. Of course, media doesn’t help matters now, but centuries of thinking can be subtle and hard to excise.

Slavery has been a fact of most cultures of the world, casting a legacy that nations still contend with today. For the US, it influences the treatment and welfare of black communities. For Japan, slavery remains a problem within its sex industry and the unresolved comfort women problem. The Japanese government doesn’t want to admit to the program. The nations have managed to push slavery to the shadows of illegality and no longer embrace slavery as a system. However, human trafficking remains a problem that nations can only address together.

References

Botsman, Daniel V (2011). Freedom without Slavery? “Coolies,” Prostitutes, and Outcastes in Meiji Japan’s “Emancipation Moment.” American Historical Review, 116(5), 1323–1347. https://oh0164.oplin.org:2085/10.1086/ahr.116.5.1323

Dinan, K. A. (2002). Trafficking in Women from Thailand to Japan. Harvard Asia Quarterly, 6(3), 4–13.

Moen, Darrel (2012) Sex Slaves in Japan Today. Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies 44. 35-53.

Queen, E. M. (2015). The Second Tier: Japan’s Stagnation in the Fight against Sex Trafficking. Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, 25(3), 541–570. https://oh0164.oplin.org:2085/10.18060/7909.0030

 

2 comments on "Considering Violent Media and Killing"

killing in anime

People have a built-in resistance to killing, but this resistance can be overcome through various methods. During World War II, only 15-20% of American riflemen fired at the enemy. This included men faced with Japanese banzai charges and other situations. Most people would rather die than kill someone else (Grossman, 1995). People often bluster about their ability to defend themselves, but unless they have several factors, they likely will not kill someone to protect themselves. However, factors like group pressure, emotional distance, desensitizing, and other methods can overcome this natural resistance. Vietnam soldiers reached a firing rate of 90-95% (Grossman, 1995). Of course, post traumatic stress disorder and other problems result from overcoming this natural resistance.

Many of these methods can be found in today’s media and culture. Anime also has some of them.

Group pressure involves letting your people down. It comes out of a sense of belonging and the desire to defend others. While the majority of people will not kill to defend themselves, a number of people will kill to defend the group and their status in the group. Group dynamics also helps people disavow their involvement in killing. Grossman (1995) writes of firing squads where members will imagine their bullet didn’t kill the person. Of course, many members of firing squads will purposefully miss too. Group pressure alone will not drive people to kill.

However, group pressure ties into the other factors behind killing by reinforcing them. Groups like incels and white supremacists indoctrinate people and provides relationships similar to military unit dynamics. Luckily, we don’t really see this in the anime community. Not all groups exert pressure that will lead to killing.

Emotional distance is necessary to kill. It’s easier to shoot someone in the back than to look at their face and kill them (Grossman, 1995). Emotional distance comes from dehumanizing the other. That involves calling them names like Jap, gook, femoid, hole, towel-head, Jew, and the like. A simple label can provide enough distance to make killing possible. It packs in the idea of cultural inferiority and animal behavior while elevating the potential killer to almost a savior status. The Internet teems with such emotional distance. After all, people only see usernames and avatars. Likewise, it provides a space where people with similar views can find each other.

Group language focuses on distancing themselves from other groups. We see this even in otaku communities. Terms like normies creates distance and a sense of superiority. Even best girl debates feature these dynamics. Now, we don’t expect people to kill each other over who has the best waifu. Distance mechanics work when you have insiders and outsiders. Members of a group typically don’t distance from each other because they share the same group identity. Waifu lovers all love waifu, for example.

Desensitizing concerns us the most as anime lovers. Vietnam soldiers had high firing rates because they watched videos of gradually increasing violence and other desensitizing training (Grossman, 1995). Playing violent video games and watching violent films will not make people into killers. But when combined with emotional distance, group pressure, indoctrination, and other factors, they can short circuit our natural resistance to killing. Repetitive exposure to violence normalizes it. Can you watch a horror film where the villain mutilates people without feeling uncomfortable? The Saw series come to mind. If you can, you’ve been desensitized to violence.

hellsing ultimate

American culture frowns on sexuality but embraces violence.  A good number of Americans don’t blink at violent films and news images. But sexuality causes a stir. At my library, we purchased High School DxD. It caused a stir among the staff members because of its nudity. Yet, they didn’t even notice the ultra-violent films that arrived with the anime. Animated nipples are taboo, but mutilation and shootings are fine. Violence has become normal in American society. So this factor in overcoming the resistance to killing has already been cleared for many, if not most, people.

Anime violence differs from horror and war films. While shows like Hellsing Ultimate take violence to the extreme, the fact it is animated makes it work differently. Animation allows us to suspend our disbelief easier than live action. This allows us to get sucked into the story–and its violence–easier. However, anime’s over-the-top violence and blood also works against desensitizing. It lacks the realism of violent films. It’s similar to how old-school theater blood looks fake. Therefore, we know it is all in good fun.

Anime violence lacks the impact of other images of violence. For a few members in the community, it can desensitize, especially when combined with violent video games. But alone anime violence won’t lead people to kill. However, it becomes a part of the background of violence that permeates American culture. Japanese culture has equally violent media, but it also has checks against violence. Group dynamics can reinforce the natural resistance to killing or it can resist it. Opportunity also plays a role. It’s easier to kill from a distance than face-to-face. American’s gun culture grants more access to a distant means of killing than non-gun cultures. Of course, if you remove access to firearms but retain all the other elements that override the human aversion to killing, you will still see killing. It may be less frequent because of the final check on it: personal distance. But not necessarily. The factors Grossman discuss remain powerful. Japanese honor culture bolsters resistance to killing others (and encourages suicide). Japanese culture makes the means of killing (other than knives) difficult to find. By itself, desensitizing media doesn’t overcome the resistance to killing.

Separating people into the “other” has allowed people to do hurt and kill in ways that wouldn’t be possible without the category.

The current political climate of the US encourages emotional distance and tribalism. Altogether, American culture has most of the factors used to allow Vietnam soldiers to fire at the enemy more often then their World War II counterparts. When Grossman wrote its book in the 1990s, he was concerned about this. The US has gone further down that road since then. At this point, we may want to feel grateful we haven’t had more outbreaks of violence.

As for anime violence, it is a small contributing factor. On the whole, the anime community remains nonviolent. It doesn’t really target other groups with truly dehumanizing language, nor does it truly wish death on anyone. If anything, the anime community counters the elements of American culture by providing a space for people who want to avoid the US’s competition and violence. After all, where else can adult American men indulge their enjoyment for romance stories and other stories that heal? American masculine culture doesn’t allow for such outside of the gay community and “safely” watching such media with a girlfriend or wife.

Reference

Grossman, Dave Lt Col. (1995) On Killing. The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Little & Brown Company.

1 comment on "Male Suicide and the Problem of Workism"

examining workismJapan has seen a recent increase in male suicides in the wake of the pandemic. In September 2020, 705 working-age men between 20-50 years old killed themselves. This is up by 8.6% from last year. Likewise in August, the number was 6.6% higher than in 2019 (Suicide, 2020).  The pandemic is driving non-regular workers and the self-employed toward seeing suicide as the only alternative.The United States have also seen in increase in suicides by 33% in recent decades (Moutier, 2019). At the root of the problem sits a misconception about work–among other misconceptions, of course. For many people, work has become a religion. In fact, the Gospel of Work, as Thompson (2019) calls it, has taken over the role of traditional religion.

Workism is the belief that work is necessary for economic production and forms the center of your identity and purpose. It is the “belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work (Thompson, 2019).” Japan’s work culture was influenced by the United States after World War II. The US has long had an unhealthy, even idolic view of work. Of all rich societies, Americans work longer hours, have shorter vacations, have less unemployment and disability benefits, have less retirement benefits, and retire later (Thompson, 2019). You’ve heard of karoshi, or death by overwork. Karoshi happens within a month of developing health and mental symptoms in 51% of  cases. In the majority of those cases, the person doesn’t seek medical help. Karoshi is measured as those who work more than 80 hours of overtime per month. Americans often work at those levels or more.

megumi and soma work identities

For many people, their work is their identity. People put in the long hours because work is where they feel most themselves. Without their work, they don’t have a self. Psychologies call this problem enmeshment. Enmeshment is where boundaries between people blur and individual identities lose importance. This prevents the development of a stable, independent sense of self. Usually it happens between romantic partners or people with unhealthy relationships, such as an extreme otaku toward anime. But people can also enmesh with their careers (Koretz, 2019). I’m guilty of this to some extent. When I’m asked to introduce myself, I often say I am a writer and librarian. The am equates my identity with what I do. Of course, I can also add I am a Christian, I am a tea lover, I am a curious person, I am a technologist, I am heterosexual, and I am a bonsai killer. I beware the close identification of myself with a single facet of what I do or how I think. I am more than any single aspect. However, many people who fall into workism lose this multi-faceted view of their identity. Many people who fall into the current sexual identity discourse does this too. In fact, any singular facet of personality presents this danger. That is what weeaboo, otaku, incel, and others fall into. An identity is nothing more than a story we tell ourselves and others. It can be as simple or complex as we want. It can change. It can also be a self-deception.

Workism is understandable, however. Work culture rewards those who work longer hours with raises, prestige, and promotions. This unlocks a different socioeconomic social group which help define an identity. The loss of work through layoffs or business failures can shatter this socioeconomic association. You no longer have the income to attend charities, galas, or consume as your previous social group does. This creates depression, anxiety, drug use, loneliness, and suicide (Koretz, 2019). We are all reluctant to let go of the stories we tell ourselves.

Likewise, the stories culture tells us infect our perspectives. American culture sells the belief that work is supposed to lead to self-actualization: the realization of your human potential. In a Pew Research report, 95% of teens ranked “having a job or career they enjoy” higher than anything else, including altruism and marriage (Thompson, 2019). The work we do consumes the majority of our waking hours. It should be no surprise we expect it to fulfill us. Otherwise, those hours of our lives are in danger of feeling wasted. However, the harsh reality: labor serves the needs of consumers and business owners. It is not intended to allow workers to achieve a high state of contentment and meaning. Few can achieve work that leads to self-actualization. As with any exception, it is often held up as the rule, the example we should all attain. The push of workism will lead to “collective anxiety, mass disappointment, and inevitable burn out (Thompson, 2019).” We see this as part of Japan’s and the US’s suicide rate increases.

The Cure for Workism

workism and money

In order to cure workism, we need to shift our perspectives and our consumption habits. Workism is idolatry. It uses work as a substitute for a spiritual system. You don’t need to be religious to be spiritual. Spirituality is anything that provides purpose and meaning. Of course, your work could do this. However, you need to beware the fallout for when your work ends. And it will. The purpose of money is to buy free time. And this free time is necessary to find purpose and meaning, to spend time with family, friends, and hobbies. We make the mistake of buying things, of spending up to and beyond our incomes. This habit steals time from ourselves. So on a financial front your need to (and you’ve heard it all before):

  1. Live below your means.
  2. Save and invest.
  3. Learn to be content with what you have.

The third point underpins the others. It’s hard to sacrifice. In fact, you shouldn’t sacrifice too much. You will eventually resent your financial plan. Learning to be content means you have to change your identity, the story you tell yourself and others. It may mean you no longer attend galas or charities because they are beyond your means. It may mean you no longer buy the newest fashions to keep up with your neighbors. It may mean you buy less anime and anime figures. However, in return, you will develop more financial security. With more security, you can work fewer hours and have more time to spend as you want to spend it. With enough practice, you won’t want many things. Money either buys you time or stuff. If you buy stuff, you pay in time. If you buy time, you pay in stuff.

Once you have more time, you can pursue your human potential. You can write more. You can take up a sport. You can travel. Then your money is put to better use than showing off on the social front or chasing the newest thing. Your identity will no longer be enmeshed with your work. Your work will be a means toward meaning. I like to write stories. I work and keep my spending low so I can afford editing, cover artists, and the like. I don’t expect my stories to pay for themselves (maybe one day I can make a living as an author!). My money is used to fund that which I enjoy. I forego having the fastest gaming PC or other cutting-edge technology. I used to buy a lot of that type of stuff, but it didn’t fulfill me as much as writing does. I aim to free my time to chase writing and all it involves.

Workism comes down to the stories we tell ourselves and others. It is a poor replacement for spiritual pursuits and a multi-faceted identity. It leaves us vulnerable to the whims of the market and of social groups instead of in control of our own lives. Financial stability is a necessity if you want to be in control of your own life. That means paying off debt. That means not buying the newest Apple product (unless you can truly afford it). That means having an emergency fund so if you don’t have work, you can still live just fine for a time. It means investing so your money can work for you, so your money can buy you time.

Do you worship work? Do you fall into the trap of consumerism and the trap of believing yourself a single-faceted person?

References

Koretz, Janna (2019) What Happens When Your Career Becomes Your Whole Identity. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/amp/2019/12/what-happens-when-your-career-becomes-your-whole-identity

Moutier, Christinem Kennedy, Patrick (2019) The rate of suicides in the United States i gorwing- what can we do? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/the-global-suicide-rate-is-growing-what-can-we-do/

Report Studies overwork-related suicides. (2020) NHK World https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201030_14/.

Suicide by working-age men rises. (2020) NHK World. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201121_19/amp.html.

Thompson, Derek (2019) Workism is Making Americans Miserable. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/

8 comments on "Anime is Not Japanese Culture"

anime is not japanese cultureThe other day I stumbled across various YouTube videos of people who felt like they were “becoming Japanese” because of their increasing love for sushi, anime, manga, and “other things Japanese.” At first, I thought it was just attention grabbing, but as I dug deeper, many weeaboo of all different ages seemed to follow this line of thought. The feeling of becoming Japanese strikes me as strange. Sure, it is possible for a Westerner to “become” Japanese; that is, to be nationalized and embrace the culture. But it takes years of cultural absorption for anyone to become Japanese or American or British in the same sense someone born to the culture is.

Childhood is the formative period of cultural understanding, where we pick up the culture’s way of thinking and viewing the world. Yes, we can expand our thinking to encompass other cultural views. But, using myself as an example, a part of me will always be Christian American even if I lived in Scotland or Japan for the rest of my life. I was born and grew up in the States, absorbing the American worldview. Worldviews determine how we think and what we think about. If you grow up in many countries, you will develop a more variable perspective. Some readers of JP pointed out how their cultural worldviews act like clothing to change as needed. That view is their worldview. 

Anime, sushi, manga, and other surface aspects of Japanese culture are not the entirety of Japanese culture. All cultures run deeper than what they show and export to the world. To equate Japanese culture with just a few media exports insults the culture you idealize. But these weeaboo (I lack a better term) are making steps toward expanding their worldviews. When they state “I think I’m becoming Japanese,” they are expressing the idea that their worldview is expanding. “Becoming Japanese” suggests they begin to understand their native worldview isn’t the only one and how Japanese ideas–what anime conveys, anyway–enriches their perceptive. Many people don’t see a need to expand their worldviews; they are comfortable with their certainty. So in this regard, young weeaboo and otaku are benefiting themselves. Atrophied, narrow worldviews cause problems such as racism and classism; whereas, conscious effort to understand the worldviews of others helps provide solutions to such problems. 

 

Sushi is a tiny part of Japanese culture

The key is conscious effort. Passively watching anime won’t expand your worldview by much. Anime is entertainment. Yes, it is a part of Japanese culture and introduces viewers to folklore, language, and literature. But you can only absorb so much through watching. If you are a long time reader, you’ve seen me use anime as a springboard to go deeper into history and culture, such as Naruto‘s links to Confucianism. Expanding a worldview requires conscious effort to seek information and viewpoints from other cultures. It requires study and humility. You have to admit that you don’t know or understand. Like most people, I struggle with admitting that I don’t know something. It makes me feel stupid, and I grew up with the idea that my intelligence was my best asset. Admitting I don’t know undermines this idea and threatens my ego. It’s uncomfortable to not know and to be wrong in what I do know. I look foolish. The combination makes it hard for many people to expand their worldview. I enjoy speaking with people from Japan, China, and other countries and political persuasions. But these conversations can be challenging, challenging for my worldview and challenging for my ego and challenging for what I think I understand. A lifelong learner needs to get used to feeling and looking foolish.

“Becoming Japanese” requires you to study the language, the literature, the customs, the cultural strengths, the cultural weaknesses, the history, and everything else. Watching anime and liking sushi doesn’t make you Japanese any more than watching Hollywood films and liking hamburgers makes you American. You can come to understand some customs and values of the United States through Hollywood films. However, films tend to ignore the values of conservative, rural America, or get them wrong. Hollywood doesn’t portray American history accurately, either over-glorifying or over-villainizing American history. Hollywood doesn’t touch on the depth of literature published each year in the US. Likewise, while manga is vast, it isn’t the only form of Japanese literature. Japan publishes all sorts of novels, nonfiction, and other literary works. Americans don’t eat hamburgers as often as many may think.

hamburgers are a small part of American culture
Big Macs are a tiny part of American food culture.

To reduce any culture to a few of its exports insults that culture and contributes to a narrow-minded view of that culture. The dialogue of the US toward China as a source of crappy products, illnesses, Communism, and devices that threaten privacy reduces China’s long, complex history into a few over-simplified points. No culture is all-good or all-bad, and all cultures are more complex than their outputs reveal. For those who want to or feel as if they are “becoming Japanese,” I suggest you study Japanese actions toward the Chinese during World War II (I recommend Yuki Tanaka’s book Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II) and go read The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book and Dogen’s writings. From there, read about Neoconfucianism and Japanese history and Shinto (and not on Wikipedia, from actual books) and then go read modern Japanese authors like Haruki Murakami. This will help you get started in understanding the culture behind anime. You may well decide you aren’t really “becoming Japanese” after doing all this, but your worldview will expand. To become Japanese, American, Chinese, French, or whatever culture, you have to understand the culture and your own limitations as a non-native. Hollywood films and hamburgers are not America. The CCP, dragons and The Journey to the West are not China. Anime are not Japan. They are all just small parts of the culture.

Whenever you’ve encountered an idea that challenged your worldview, how did you feel? What was the idea that challenged your view of how things work?

0 comments on "Love and an Umbrella: Romance Anime and Context"

Samurai Flamenco umbrella scene Anime has many romance tropes, such as the symbolism of an umbrella. These tropes came out of the realities of relationships within modern culture. After all, romance is more about fantasy and escapism than any sort of reality.

Romantic literature traces to 12th-century France. The first romance story appears to be Tristan and Iseult. As the story goes, Iseult has been arranged to marry King Mark, Tristan’s uncle.

After the marriage they continue their affair (making a suicide pact) until Tristan is discovered and banished. They flee together for three years before they agree Iseult should return to King Mark. Tristan leaves the country and marries a woman in Brittany also named Iseult, but they don’t consummate the marriage. He is wounded in a battle and summons the first Iseult. She arrives after he dies. She dies of a broken heart (Umland, 2001).

The story provides a framework for other romance stories: the love triangle, taboo breaking, secrets, and transgressive yearnings. The framework appears in Japanese love stories too.

Fast forward to modern Japan and to a culture where marriage and romantic love (tragic and otherwise) has become rarer. In the mid-1990s, 1 in 20 women weren’t married by the time they turned 50. By 2015, 1 in 7 remained unmarried. People aged 35-39 who have never married sits at 25%, compared to 10% in the 1990s. Despite this change, single women older than 25 are still known as “Christmas cake,” a reference to old pastries sold after December 25 (Rich, 2019). This was the most recent survey that I could find.

Singlehood represents liberation now (Rich, 2019):

“It’s not fair for women to have to be stuck in their homes as housewives,” Ms. Shirota said. “They are happy as long as they are with their kids, but some of them just describe their husbands as a big baby. They don’t really like having to take care of their husbands.”

Yet people still desire romance and relationships despite the liberation of singlehood. In Japan, romantic love is an “additional something” tied to a good fate. Men and women seek companionship, but it tends to be child-focused and pragmatic. Romance is not a necessary condition for a happy marriage and can even be seen as unrealistic. The lack of romance is not usually a reason to seek a divorce. Marriage in modern Japan is mainly a social and economic contract between spouses and their families with children and continuation of family as the goal. That “something more” is rising in importance, however. But cohabitation and out-of-wedlock children remain the minority. In fact, a survey in 2012 showed 74.7% of women opposed the idea of an unmarried couple having a child (Dales, 2019).

Romance anime focuses on that “something more.” Tropes like making a bento box lunch and unreasonable demands (often for comedic effect) tie back into this “something more” by tapping into an idea called amae. Amae are the feelings and behaviors associated with making an inappropriate request of another person and expecting indulgence, understanding, and acceptance in return. It’s both a positive and negative word, and it can signal closeness in a relationship. Such requests and their acceptance make the partner feel needed, valued, or special. Women are more likely than men to ask for amae–as anime shows with tsundere like Asaka from Toradora exemplify–and notice their partner’s amae (Marshall, 2012).

good thing sakura doesn't have an umbrella

I know all of this is pretty general; this is the context anime romance tropes exist within. The difficulty of real romance allows the fantasy of romance becomes more appealing for people. Anime romance stories often focus on how difficult relationships are: the misunderstandings, the awkwardness, the pain. The same problems we can find in the early French romances. In anime, amae plays a major role in the tropes, including the usual physical abuse of men trope. Usually the woman hits a male character who fails to comply or see her amae or overstep some boundary he wasn’t aware of. Again, this is also a violation of that “something more” idea–a consideration or understanding that goes beyond words.

One of the most important “something more” trope that sometimes ties into amae is the umbrella. You know the trope. It’s after class. High schoolers are the most common characters in romance because they haven’t entered the adult-world context of marriage and have a better chance of finding that “something more” than adults. A bleak suggestion isn’t it? Anyway, the sky is dumping rain, and one of the characters forgets his/her umbrella. Sometimes the love interest offers ichis, or the character makes an amae request. After all, walking together under an umbrella is a public declaration of a relationship status. In Japan, lovers write their names under an umbrella much like American couples write their names within a heart. The names are written on each side of the umbrella’s handle. Because Japan has a rainy season and is prone to typhoons, getting caught in the rain offers a good chance for a romantic encounter and a slow get-to-know-you walk together (Endresak, 2006). Umbrella sharing can also be a signal for a close friendship.

tristan and iseult
Tristan and Iseult created the archetype romance stories in the West follow. The ideas have also influenced modern anime romances.

Anime focuses on the beginning of love instead of the continuation of it because of the context anime exists within and the target audience tends to skew young. The beginning of love is an exciting time, and it has an innocence to it as well. It offers a nostalgic time before adult concerns dominate. High school also offers an easier slip to fantasy and the fishbowl effect. The characters are forced together by the school day, making the “fated meeting” more likely to happen. Although high school romance has been overplayed. Amae sits behind many comedic events, including many misunderstandings that drive the plot forward. Some requests don’t appear to be requests without understanding Japanese culture, such as simply walking to class together or requesting to be called by a nickname. They become public declarations of some sort of relationship status. Anime likes to play these to the extreme, of course. It is fantasy.

Umbrellas are a cute motif for love. Rather logical too. You will see it with some variety, and it even poses opportunities for conflict. Many of the tropes anime uses are lifted from Western literature, as I sketched, but are given a unique spin with the influence of amae. The difficulty of real-life relationships allows stories that offer that “something more” to flourish.

References

Dales, Laura & Yamamoto, Beverley (2019) Romantic and Sexual Intimacy before and beyond Marriage. Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of Closeness and Conflict. University of Hawaii Press.

Endresak, David (2006). Girl Power: Feminine Motifs in Japanese Popular Culture. Eastern Michigan University Digital Commons.

Rich, Motoko (2019) Craving Freedom, Japan’s Women Opt out of Marriage. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/world/asia/japan-single-women-marriage.html

Umland, Rebecca A. and Umland, Samuel J. (2001) “All for Love: The Myth of Romantic Passion in Japanese Cinema,” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 23 : No. 3 , Article 5.

 

0 comments on "The Child of the Thunder"

In among the hills of Echizen, within sight of the snowy mountain called Hakuzan, lived a farmer named Bimbo. He was very poor, but frugal and industrious. He was very fond of children though he had none himself. He longed to adopt a son to bear his name, and often talked the matter over with his old dame. But being so dreadfully poor both thought it best not to adopt, until they had bettered their condition and increased the area of their land. For all the property Bimbo owned was the earth in a little gully, which he himself was reclaiming. A tiny rivulet, flowing from a spring in the crevice of the rocks above, after trickling over the boulders, rolled down the gully to join a brook in the larger valley below. Bimbo had with great labor, after many years, made dams or terraces of stone, inside which he had thrown soil, partly got from the mountain sides, but mainly carried in baskets on the backs of himself and his wife, from the valley below. By such weary toil, continued year in and year out, small beds of soil were formed, in which rice could be planted and grown. The little rivulet supplied the needful water; for rice, the daily food of laborer and farmer, must be planted and cultivated in soft mud under water. So the little rivulet, which once leaped over the rock and cut its way singing to the valley, now spread itself quietly over each terrace, making more than a dozen descents before it reached the fields below.

Yet after all his toil for a score of years, working every day from the first croak of the raven, until the stars came out, Bimbo and his wife owned only three tan (¾ acre) of terrace land. Sometimes a summer would pass, and little or no rain fall. Then the rivulet dried up and crops failed. It seemed all in vain that their backs were bent and their foreheads seamed and wrinkled with care. Many a time did Bimbo have hard work of it even to pay his taxes, which sometimes amounted to half his crop. Many a time did he shake his head, muttering the discouraged farmer’s proverb “A new field gives a scant crop,” the words of which mean also, “Human life is but fifty years.”

One summer day after a long drought, when the young rice sprouts, just transplanted were turning yellow at the tips, the clouds began to gather and roll, and soon a smart shower fell, the lightning glittered, and the hills echoed with claps of thunder. But Bimbo, hoe in hand, was so glad to see the rain fall, and the pattering drops felt so cool and refreshing, that he worked on, strengthening the terrace to resist the little flood about to come.

Pretty soon the storm rattled very near him, and he thought he had better seek shelter, lest the thunder should strike and kill him. For Bimbo, like all his neighbors, had often heard stories of Kaijin, the god of the thunder-drums, who lives in the skies and rides on the storm, and sometimes kills people by throwing out of the clouds at them a terrible creature like a cat, with iron-like claws and a hairy body.

thunder child

Just as Bimbo threw his hoe over his shoulder and started to move, a terrible blinding flash of lightning dazzled his eyes. It was immediately followed by a deafening crash, and the thunder fell just in front of him. He covered his eyes with his hands, but finding himself unhurt, uttered a prayer of thanks to Buddha for safety. Then he uncovered his eyes and looked down at his feet.

There lay a little boy, rosy and warm, and crowing in the most lively manner, and never minding the rain in the least. The farmer’s eyes opened very wide, but happy and nearly surprised out of his senses, he picked up the child tenderly in his arms, and took him home to his old wife.

“Here’s a gift from Raijin,” said Bimbo. “We’ll adopt him as our own son and call him Rai-taro,” (the first-born darling of the thunder).

So the boy grew up and became a very dutiful and loving child. He was as kind and obedient to his foster-parents as though he had been born in their house. He never liked to play with other children, but kept all day in the fields with his father, sporting with the rivulet and looking at the clouds and sky. Even when the strolling players of the Dai Kagura (the comedy which makes the gods laugh) and the “Lion of Corea” came into the village, and every boy and girl and nurse and woman was sure to be out in great glee, the child of the thunder stayed up in the field, or climbed on the high rocks to watch the sailing of the birds and the flowing of the water and the river far away.

Great prosperity seemed to come to the farmer, and he laid it all to the sweet child that fell to him from the clouds. It was very curious that rain often fell on Bimbo’s field when none fell elsewhere; so that Bimbo grew rich and changed his name to Kanemochi. He believed that the boy Raitaro beckoned to the clouds, and they shed their rain for him.

A good many summers passed by, and Raitaro had grown to be a tall and handsome lad, almost a man and eighteen years old. On his birthday the old farmer and the good wife made a little feast for their foster-child. They ate and drank and talked of the thunder-storm, out of which Raitaro was born.

Finally the young man said solemnly:

“My dear parents, I thank you very much for your kindness to me, but I must now say farewell. I hope you will always be happy.”

Then, in a moment, all trace of a human form disappeared, and floating in the air, they saw a tiny white dragon, which hovered for a moment above them, and then flew away. The old couple went out of doors to watch it, when it grew bigger and bigger, taking its course to the hills above, where the piled-up white clouds, which form on a summer’s afternoon, seemed built up like towers and castles of silver. Towards one of these the dragon moved, until, as they watched his form, now grown to a mighty size, it disappeared from view.

After this Kanemochi and his wife, who were now old and white-headed, ceased from their toil and lived in comfort all their days. When they died and their bodies were reduced to a heap of white cinders in the stone furnace of the village cremation-house, their ashes were mixed, and being put into one urn, were laid away in the cemetery of the temple yard. Their tomb was carved in the form of a white dragon, which to this day, in spite of mosses and lichens, may still be seen among the ancient monuments of the little hamlet.

0 comments on "The Gender-Neutral Pronoun: Ichi"

Gender neutral pronoun ichi

As a writer, I pay attention to words. The use of the word they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun has been a debate among my editing and writing friends. Many people take offense to the use of he, she, her, his, it, and him in reference to their gender identity. Let’s set aside the identity debate and focus on the grammar. A good gender neutral pronoun is needed in English. It would help fiction writers in particular with their characters. It could be used to inject more mystery into a character, for example. I will propose a solution using a Japanese word too. This is, after all, JP!

Okay, so what’s the big deal about using they as a singular pronoun? Well, it is a plural pronoun. Whenever I read or hear someone refer to themself (that is an awkward word) as they it makes me think they (using it as a plural) have many personalities. Now, I’ve used they as a singular pronoun here on JP and in my writing, but usually in a passive sentence or direct object or otherwise referential context. Sorry for this article is getting a little grammar-y. The use of singular they breaks down with active verbs:

They sits in the chair.

They asks a question.

They swings the sword.

They swung the sword. (Is this sword huge and require multiple people?)

They sat in the chair. (This must be a big chair!)

She hit them. (Is them singular or plural?)

These sentences have a jarring ring to my native-speaker ear. They = plural.

What is the solution? What would work as a gender-neutral pronoun?

ichi gender neutral pronoun

Let’s use ichi. It means one in Japanese, as in the number one. It is gender neutral and references the more stuffy use of the word one in English. One, after all, can write using one as a pronoun. This use most often appears in academic, business, and legal literature where the writer doesn’t want to use I or you. One sounds arrogant to my ears. So the grammar convention already exists. Ichi, as a foreign word, doesn’t have the baggage one has, plus we can morph the word into a possessive.

So let’s see if ichi can substitute for he, she, and him without goosing the native-ear:

Ichi sits in the chair.

Ichi asks a question.

Ichi swings the sword.

Ichi swung the sword.

Ichi sat in the chair.

She hit ichi.

Call ichi and see if ichi is ready to go. (Call him/her and see if he/she is ready to go.)

Not bad, right?  It’s even a little elegant if I do say so. It compresses him/her together with he/she in direct object use. Yes, I know placing the male pronoun in front of the female pronoun isn’t considered politically correct. Anyway, ichi could be mistaken for a proper noun until it becomes more widely used, but even that still tells us someone is doing the act. What about possessives?

Ichis car is red.

Ichis hair looks beautiful.

Ichis favorite anime was Cowboy Bebop.

I don’t know about you, but this word has a pleasant ring. Using ichis as a possessive is close to the ‘s convention (at least in sound) while making its more normative as a possessive. Using ichi’s might work better, or at least be less ambiguous, as a more obvious possessive as the pronoun is adopted. However, this might also be confused with a name when starting the sentence. This also allows for an ichi + is contraction:

Ichi’s a tall person. (Ichi is a tall person.)

Ichi’s a retail clerk. (Ichi is a retail clerk.)

I believe ichis is better as a possessive pronoun because of this contraction allowance, following convention of it’s (it is) and he’s (he is). The use of singular ichi as a pronoun frees they to remain plural. It also reinforces the singularity of the pronoun since ichi = 1 in Japanese. Does any Japanese native speaker want to offer ichis thoughts? How does this unabashed co-opting of a Japanese word feel?

Ichi would eliminate the pattern of alternating between male and female references as you often see in nonfiction, where one chapter refers to a female reader and another chapter refers to a male reader. Likewise, ichi would eliminate the painful s/he, she or he, his or her, his/her, and other painful efforts at inclusive writing, including the stuffy use of one. Ichi would act as a pronoun reserved for living beings. It can be reserved for objects and ideas.

Many people contest the need for a gender-neutral pronoun, perhaps more than who contest for one. However, living languages change, expanding and contracting as needed. As a writer, a good, singular gender-neutral pronoun would ease writing once I got used to it. You may see me use ichi in future articles on JP. Co-opting ichi for a pronoun wouldn’t be unusual for English. The language has co-opted many, many words: taco, burrito, zen, tao, schadenfreude, cartoon, cookie, safari, kiwi, soprano. You get the idea. Not to say other languages don’t do the same, of course. Adding a pronoun like ichi would follow in the conventions of English language, making the language more inclusive and useful. I don’t care if ichi or some other loanword or some other invented word is used. Let’s stop using they as a singular pronoun.

0 comments on "Server Problems and Writing Update"

As you may have noticed, JP was down for few days. My webhost migrated to a new, faster server and broke a bunch of things. I think they are fixed. If you see anything odd, please let me know!

I haven’t given you a writing update in awhile:

I finished the first draft of a new YA tentatively titles “Fox Maiden.” It uses the folktale of Tamamo as a base. I’ve been revising Mameko’s second story, “Hotaru,” and my next project is to write her fourth (the third is awaiting revision).

Today, I plan on finishing the first draft of a new Middle Grade book that follows Yorimitsu in his tween years.

Finally, my editor is hard at work on my most ambitious project so far: “Stories from Old Japan: 177 Folktales and Legends from the Land of the Rising Sun.” I hope to release this book next year. I rewrote 177 Japanese and Ainu folktales to make them easier to read for casual readers.

Here is the cover candidate for the book. What do you think?

As for JP plans, I have a pair of articles about sex slavery in modern Japan (light topic eh?). I’ve been reading Japanese poetry and literature lately. Look for posts (eventually!) about what I find. I may start posting chapters from a story I’ve written. I will post these once a month. As you might have guessed, this story is based on Japanese fox stories.

I’ve been watching Kushigoto, Himeyasha, and other series on Funimation. I had to drop Crunchyroll because of its performance problems. I prefer Funimation’s offerings more anyway. What have you been watching this season?

0 comments on "Kiyohimé or the Power of Love"

Kiyohimé was written down around 1887 and contains dated language and spellings. This period brought many stories from Japan to the West. I left the language unchanged; I find the language charming. A bonze is another name for a Japanese or Chinese monk. A bonzerie is a monastery.

Quiet and shady was the spot in the midst of one of the loveliest valley landscapes in the empire, near the banks of the Hidaka river, where stood the tea-house kept by one Kojima. It was surrounded on all sides by glorious mountains, ever robed with deep forests, silver-threaded with flashing water-falls, to which the lovers of nature paid many a visit, and in which poets were inspired to write stanzas in praise of the white foam and the twinkling streamlets. Here the bonzes loved to muse and meditate, and anon merry picnic parties spread their mats, looped their canvas screens, and feasted out of nests of lacquered boxes, drinking the amber saké from cups no larger nor thicker than an egg-shell, while the sound of guitar and drum kept time to dance and song.

The garden of the tea-house was as lovely a piece of art as the florist’s cunning could produce. Those who emerged from the deep woods of the lofty hill called the Dragon’s Claw, could see in the tea-house garden a living copy of the landscape before them. There were mimic mountains, (ten feet high), and miniature hills veined by a tiny, path with dwarfed pine groves, and tiny bamboo clumps, and a patch of grass for meadow, and a valley just like the great gully of the mountains, only a thousand times smaller, and but twenty feet long. So perfect was the imitation that even the miniature irrigated rice-fields, each no larger than a checker-board, were in full sprout. To make this little gem of nature in art complete, there fell from over a rock at one end a lovely little waterfall two feet high, which after an angry splash over the stones, rolled on over an absurdly small beech, all white-sanded and pebbled, threading its silver way beyond, until lost in fringes of lilies and aquatic plants. In one broad space imitating a lake, was a lotus pond, lined with iris, in which the fins of gold fish and silver carp flashed in the sunbeams. Here and there the nose of a tortoise protruded, while on a rugged rock sat an old grandfather surveying the scene with one or two of his grand-children asleep on his shell and sunning themselves.

The fame of the tea-house, its excellent fare, and special delicacy of its mountain trout, sugar-jelly and well-flavored rice-cakes, drew hundreds of visitors, especially poetry-parties, and lovers of grand scenery.

Just across the river, which was visible from the verandah of the tea-house, stood the lofty firs that surrounded the temple of the Tendai Buddhists. Hard by was the pagoda, which painted red peeped between the trees. A long row of paper-windowed and tile-roofed dwellings to the right made up the monastery, in which a snowy eye-browed but rosy-faced old abbot and some twenty bonzes dwelt, all shaven-faced and shaven-pated, in crape robes and straw sandals, their only food being water and vegetables.

Not the least noticeable of the array of stone lanterns, and bronze images with aureoles round their heads, and incense burners and holy water tanks, and dragon spouts, was the belfry, which stood on a stone platform. Under its roof hung the massive bronze bell ten feet high, which, when struck with a suspended log like a trip-hammer, boomed solemnly over the valley and flooded three leagues of space with the melody which died away as sweetly as an infant falling in slumber. This mighty bell was six inches thick and weighed several tons.

Kiyohimé
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. (1793 – 1804). Uwaki no sô = [The fancy-free type] Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-4791-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
In describing the tea-house across the river, the story of its sweetest charm, and of its garden the fairest flower must not be left untold. Kiyo, the host’s daughter, was a lovely maiden of but eighteen, as graceful as the bamboo reed swaying in the breeze of a moonlit summer’s eve, and as pretty as the blossoms of the cherry-tree. Far and wide floated the fame of Kiyo, like the fragrance of the white lilies of Ibuki, when the wind sweeping down the mountain heights, comes perfume-laden to the traveler.As she busied herself about the garden, or as her white socks slipped over the mat-laid floor, she was the picture of grace itself. When at twilight, with her own hands, she lighted the gay lanterns that hung in festoons along the eaves of the tea-house above the verandah, her bright eyes sparkling, her red petticoats half visible through her semi-transparent crape robe, she made many a young man’s heart glow with a strange new feeling, or burn with pangs of jealousy.

Among the priests that often passed by the tea-house on their way to the monastery, were some who were young and handsome.

It was the rule of the monastery that none of the bonzes should drink saké (wine) eat fish or meat, or even stop at the tea-houses to talk with women. But one young bonze named “Lift-the-Kettle” (after a passage in the Sanscrit classics) had rigidly kept the rules. Fish had never passed his mouth; and as for saké, he did not know even its taste. He was very studious and diligent. Every day he learned ten new Chinese characters. He had already read several of the sacred sutras, had made a good beginning in Sanskrit, knew the name of every idol in the temple of the 3,333 images in Kioto, had twice visited the sacred shrine of the Capital, and had uttered the prayer “Namu miō ho ren gé kiō,” (“Glory be to the sacred lotus of the law”), counting it on his rosary, five hundred thousand times. For sanctity and learning he had no peer among the young neophytes of the bonzerie.

Alas for “Lift-the-Kettle!”. One day, after returning from a visit to a famous shrine in the Kuanto, (Eastern Japan), as he was passing the tea-house, he caught sight of Kiyohimé, (the “lady” or “princess” Kiyo), and from that moment his pain of heart began. He returned to his bed of mats, but not to sleep. For days he tried to stifle his passion, but his heart only smouldered away like an incense-stick.

Before many days he made a pretext for again passing the house. Hopelessly in love, without waiting many days he stopped and entered the tea-house.

His call for refreshments was answered by Kiyohimé herself!

As fire kindles fire, so priest and maiden were now consumed in one flame of love. To shorten a long story, “Lift-the-Kettle” visited the inn oftener and oftener, even stealing out at night to cross the river and spend the silent hours with his love.

So passed several months, when suddenly a change come over the young bonze. His conscience began to trouble him for breaking his vows. In the terrible conflict between principle and passion, the soul of the priest was tossed to and fro like the feathered seed-ball of a shuttlecock.

But conscience was the stronger, and won.

He resolved to drown his love and break off his connection with the girl. To do it suddenly, would bring grief to her and a scandal both on her family and the monastery. He must do it gradually to succeed at all.

Ah! how quickly does the sensitive love-plant know the finger-tip touch of cooling passion! How quickly falls the silver column in the crystal tube, at the first breath of the heart’s chill even though the words on the lip are warm! Kiyohimé marked the ebbing tide of her lover’s regard, and then a terrible resolve of evil took possession of her soul. From that time forth, she ceased to be a pure and innocent and gentle virgin. Though still in maiden form and guise, she was at heart a fox, and as to her nature she might as well have worn the bushy tail of the sly deceiver. She resolved to win over her lover, by her importunities, and failing in this, to destroy him by sorcery.

Japanese woman and fan
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1900 – 1940). Portrait of Japanese woman. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c261ef12-e4aa-3577-e040-e00a18067776

One night she sat up until two o’clock in the morning, and then, arrayed only in a white robe, she went out to a secluded part of the mountain where in a lonely shrine stood a hideous scowling image of Fudo, who holds the sword of vengeance and sits clothed in fire. There she called upon the god to change her lover’s heart or else destroy him.

Thence, with her head shaking, and eyes glittering with anger like the orbs of a serpent, she hastened to the shrine of Kampira, whose servants are the long-nosed sprites, who have the power of magic and of teaching sorcery. Standing in front of the portal she saw it hung with votive tablets, locks of hair, teeth, various tokens of vows, pledges and marks of sacrifice, which the devotees of the god had hung up. There, in the cold night air she asked for the power of sorcery, that she might be able at will to transform herself into the terrible ja,—the awful dragon-serpent whose engine coils are able to crack bones, crush rocks, melt iron or root up trees, and which are long enough to wind round a mountain.

Kiyohimé

It would be too long to tell how this once pure and happy maiden, now turned to an avenging demon went out nightly on the lonely mountains to practice the arts of sorcery. The mountain-sprites were her teachers, and she learned so diligently that the chief goblin at last told her she would be able, without fail, to transform herself when she wished.

The dreadful moment was soon to come. The visits of the once lover-priest gradually became fewer and fewer, and were no longer tender hours of love, but were on his part formal interviews, while Kiyohimé became more importunate than ever. Tears and pleadings were alike useless, and finally one night as he was taking leave, the bonze told the maid that he had paid his last visit. Kiyohimé then utterly forgetting all womanly delicacy, became so urgent that the bonze tore himself away and fled across the river. He had seen the terrible gleam in the maiden’s eyes, and now terribly frightened, hid himself under the great temple bell.

Forthwith Kiyohimé, seeing the awful moment had come, pronounced the spell of incantation taught her by the mountain spirit, and raised her T-shaped wand. In a moment her fair head and lovely face, body, limbs and feet lengthened out, disappeared, or became demon-like, and a fire-darting, hissing-tongued serpent, with eyes like moons trailed over the ground towards the temple, swam the river, and scenting out the track of the fugitive, entered the belfry, cracking the supporting columns made of whole tree-trunks into a mass of ruins, while the bell fell to the earth with the cowering victim inside.

Then began the winding of the terrible coils round and round the metal, as with her wand of sorcery in her hands, she mounted the bell. The glistening scales, hard as iron, struck off sparks as the pressure increased. Tighter and tighter they were drawn, till the heat of the friction consumed the timbers and made the metal glow hot like fire.

Vain was the prayer of priest, or spell of rosary, as the bonzes piteously besought great Buddha to destroy the demon. Hotter and hotter grew the mass, until the ponderous metal melted down into a hissing pool of scintillating molten bronze; and soon, man within and serpent without, timber and tiles and ropes were nought but a few handfuls of white ashes.

Reference

Griffis, William Elliot (1887) Japanese Fairy World. London: Trubner and Co.

0 comments on "My Next Life as a Villainess"

my next life catarinaI watched My Next Life as a Villainess on a whim. I had been deep in my revisiting of various past anime series and needed something new. The new anime season has been thin with COVID-19 related closures and other events hampering production schedules. My Next Life offered a different look on the isekai genre. It followed Catarina Claes as she was reborn into a world modeled after a visual novel video game aimed at girls. Only instead of being reborn as the hero, she was reborn as the villain. Knowing what would happen to her in each of the video game’s endings, she decided to do whatever she could to hedge or avoid the doom flags of the game.

In a word, she decided to be kind. And to learn how to farm.

my next life farming

The farming angle offered some soft humor. Catarina was born into a noble family who tolerated her desire to learn farming as an eccentric, if shameful-for-her-social-standing, hobby. For Catarina, farming acted as a hedge for one of the endings where she would be exiled. The farming hobby also provided means for her to connect to the characters she would’ve fought over with the video game’s heroine, Maria.

Much of the story focused on Catarina trying to befriend all of the men Maria and she would normally fight over in the game and the other women who would cause her doom. Her kindness, which was also her natural personality, becomes her means to avoid the doom flags of the game. But soon her wildcard personality started to shift the normal story sequence, making it harder for Catarina to predict what would happen next in the world.

my next life

Basically, My Next Life was a friendship-harem story that includes both men and women. Of course, Catarina remained oblivious to this in proper isekai fashion. The story was mostly fluff, but it delved into the importance and impact of kindness in the lives of people. Often, Catarina was unaware of just how much her kindness impacted a character. In this regard, My Next Life offers some lessons for us. Doom flags we foresee can be mitigated by how kind we’ve been in the past. And all of us have seen these flags in our lives. Whether it is a romantic relationship that is failing or a disagreement with a family member, a bank account of good will can go a long way toward helping a problem. Even when that problem is unsolvable or pain is unavoidable.

The problem with this method is the quantity of good deeds it takes to cover over a bad deed. I’ve read somewhere that it takes 7 good deeds to cover over a single wrong (I failed to find which book I read this in. Even librarians can fail in information searches!). Over the course of the anime. Catarina builds a large bank account with each of the characters so that when her final doom flags arrive, she will have a good balance. She doesn’t do this consciously, of course. In reality, people sense when you are trying to make a goodwill deposit. But natural deposits–genuine empathy and interest and listening–work well. Despite her desire to, well, not die, Catarina makes natural deposits because of her giving, kind nature. But she also consciously listens and tries to be available for the other characters, such as Maria, when they are troubled.

my next life catarina

Of course, it’s trite to say good deeds are, well, good for us too. However, they need to come from a genuine state of concern and kindness to work. In the Book of James in the Bible, works–good actions– are equated as active, living faith. Faith that remains just lip service is called a dead faith. It is fake and doesn’t come from your inner character. True faith and good works come from a virtuous inner character. And this character has been cultivated through study, practice, and failure in applying compassionate virtues. I know that’s a little airy. Good character comes from conscious, mindful practice of virtues such as thoughtfulness, self-discipline, appreciation, empathy, knowledge-seeking, and similar virtues. Once these blossom inside you can then naturally perform good works. Some people and fictional characters like Catarina are born with existing strengths in some of these areas. And with existing weaknesses, such as Catarina’s lack of discipline when it comes to sweets.

Good deeds don’t need to be large acts. Catarina, for example, often listens without offering advice. Genuine listening is a faithful work. In fact, with our media and opinion age, genuine listening and understanding is perhaps the most difficult work we can practice. I certainly fail at it; I often offer my thoughts, advice, and opinions instead of listening and trying to understand where the other person is coming from. Many problems come from the the absence of this work. Likewise being present, as Catarina is in the anime, is a valuable deed with large emotional deposits.

My Next Life doesn’t dig into these philosophical musings, but these ideas underpin the story. It remains a light, calming watch. The characters fall along various otome game tropes, but the character interactions with the ever lively Catarina, amuse. The anime is a fluffy affair with little conflict, but there’s nothing wrong with relaxing to a good friendship story now and again.

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