A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: From Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga
Page 27
[55] The name of the hapless hero of xxxHolic, Watanuki, literally means “the first day of the fourth month.” It’s also something of an in-joke for CLAMP. April 1 is the birthday of Sakura Kinomoto, the heroine of Card Captor Sakura, the birthday of both Sakura and her beloved Syaoran in Tsubasa Chronicles, and the supposed birthday of Sakurazuka Seishirou in an earlier CLAMP series, Tokyo Babylon. More important, CLAMP was officially formed on April 1, 1989.
[56] In Japanese society, receiving a gift gives one an obligation to reciprocate with a similar gift. The first commemoration of modern Valentine’s Day in Japan was as a sales gimmick created by a Japanese chocolatier in 1958, in which women were encouraged to give chocolate to their beloved. In 1965 a Japanese marshmallow company created White Day (formerly Marshmallow Day) one month later to balance the equation. These days, the White Day gift of choice is flowers rather than candy. See (http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/calendar/february/valentine.html, and http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/calendar/march/whiteday.html, accessed March 2, 2007.)
[57] The chubby rabbit-looking Mokona has appeared in a number of CLAMP projects, but was originally in the series Magic Knights Rayearth.
[58] “Heroes and Villains”, July 22, 2009, by Mike Montesa, in http://www.therumicworld.com/blog.php, accessed July 26, 2009.
[59] Literally the “lower city,” the term used to refer to a city’s slums or lower-class area.
[60] When this manga episode was animated for television, the writers provided three completely different stories for them to tell, perhaps thinking that knowing in advance what the characters will say would dull the chills.
[61] This compression of words is common in Japanese pop culture. A couple of other examples: the central character in the manga Gokusen, which ran from 2000 to 2007 and has inspired both animated and live television versions, is a Yakuza heiress turned boys’ high school teacher named Yamaguchi Kumiko; her students compress her name to Yankumi (an allusion to the slang term “yanki”, meaning delinquent; and, more rudely, “yank me”). And in Ai Yazawa’s highly popular manga Nana, which also premiered in 2000, there is a rock band called the Buraku Sutonzu (Black Stones), also known by the compressed name Burasuto (Blast).
[62]Rashomon has become so well-known in the west that Hollywood has made its “multiple versions of the same events” plot a staple in television writing; often for comic effect, but also in an episode of the TV series based on Alan Parker’s hit movie Fame (in the episode, a medium contacts a student who’s comatose rather than dead to investigate a case of school vandalism).
[63] A similar scene takes place in Isao Takahata’s 1991 anime feature for Studio Ghibli, Omoide Poroporo (Remembering Drop by Drop), usually referred to in the west as Only Yesterday. As part of a vacation with some rural cousins, a big-city Office Lady and her hosts stop harvesting benibana flowers when the clouds part to reveal the sun, and offer up a prayer to Amaterasu.
[64] There’ll be more about vampires in chapter 29.
[65] There’s more about the School Ghosts in chapter 21.
[66] http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/spiritphotography.shtml, accessed February 22, 2007.
[67] http://www.richardchalfen.com/wip-jhm.html, accessed February 22, 2007.
[68] http://hudson.co.jp/mobile/eng/jp/imode/horror/index.html, accessed February 22, 2007.
[69] For one English version of the story, see http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/folk/ofuda/ofuda.html, accessed February 9, 2007.
[70] Anyone familiar with “The Three Ofuda” recognizes that this is actually an echo of the story. To escape the witch, the boy says that he has to use the witch’s bathroom. While there, he takes one of the ofuda, puts it on the wall, and asks it to protect him. When the witch tells the boy to hurry up, the ofuda answers in the boy’s voice, which gives the boy a chance to escape. This is one of the scenes parodied in Negima!
[71] In movies such as Ju-On (known in America as The Grudge), a house can be haunted without being deserted.
[72] Another such film, The Great Youkai War, was directed by the very edgy Japanese thriller director Takashi Miike, and was set in Sakaiminako, the hometown of Shigeru Mizuki, creator of the long-running spirit-manga GeGeGe no Kitaro. Mizuki puts in a cameo appearance, as do his characters.
[73] Plausibility is achieved here in part by bringing in a flock of traditional Japanese ghosts, ancient and modern. In the first episode alone, the group of children at the center of the story encounter a walking Ninomiya statue, Toilet Hanako, a man-faced dog, a headless ghost on a motorcycle, a Teke-Teke (see chapter 27), and much more…
[74] Inada Shiho & Ono Fuyumi. 2006. Ghost Hunt, vol. 5. New York: Del Rey, p. 151.
[75] Short for “bishonen”—literally, beautiful boy; to put it more simply, a hunk.
[76] Shibuya is also a very hip neighborhood in Tokyo, a center of commerce, entertainment, hi-tech and youth culture.
[77] It makes sense, however, to remember that Nagasaki, a center of Christian activity in Japan, would speak Kansai Japanese.
[78] In the first episode of Gakkou no Kaidan, just before the opening credits, as the ghost attacks a night watchman, the camera jumps to the front of the school; a statue of Ninomiya can be seen to the right of the door. Later in the episode, the statue has apparently moved on its own into the school. Ninomiya definitely got around; according to school ghost stories, so does his statue.
[79] Billy Hammond, “The School Restroom Ghost—Hanako-san”, http://tanutech.com/japan/hanako.html, accessed October 25, 2006.
[80] This is part of a long and ribald tradition of making fun of Buddhist monks as oversexed. The young monk Miroku in Rumiko Takahashi’s InuYasha is another example, since we forever see him caressing some female tush out of reflex and uttering the lamest of come-ons: “Will you bear my children?” He has about as much luck as Ryudo. We’ll visit Miroku in a later chapter.
[81] Actually, the Akio who we see seduce Tokiko is only one aspect of Anthy’s brother, but that’s a topic I discussed in the Utena chapter of Anime Explosion.
[82] This also parallels the Japanese “take” on vampires; see chapter 29.
[83] Fan service, the gratuitous display of breasts, butts, and underpants, was a hallmark of Love Hina, in which a college-bound boy lives in a rooming house with 5 girls and a hot spring in the back yard. In Negima!, there are 30 girls in Negi’s homeroom class, multiplying the possibilities accordingly.
[84] Bullying in anime/manga covers a wide spectrum, from physical to psychological abuse. In Hikaru no Go, Akira Toya, a prodigy at the game of go, joins his junior high school go club as a first-year student; the intimidated older students try to put him in his place by ordering him to play two games simultaneously—without looking at the boards. An extremely unrealistic example of ijime occurs in the romantic-comedy manga Hana Yori Dango (a complicated pun) by Yoko Kamio, in which the hazing at an elite high school ranges from pelting students with garbage to (apparently) attempted rape. When the heroine of the series stands up to the bullies, not only do they start to back down, but one of them falls in love with her!
[85] http://www.sunfield.ne.jp/~mike/essays/ijime.htm, accessed November 4, 2006.
[86] Reid, T. R. Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us about Living in the West. 1999. New York: Vintage, pp. 130-131.
[87] It’s no coincidence that the two sempai (upperclassmen) are named after prominent manga artists: Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astroboy and countless other titles, and Ryoko Ikeda, creator of The Rose of Versailles. It’s a deliberate in-joke and tribute.
[88] Shinobu doesn’t want any part of trying to exorcise Misako, saying he’s not a “youkai-basutaa”—a Japanese-English combination word meaning “ghost-buster.”
[89] This title is wickedly parodied in Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Host Club.
[90] Much of the following is thanks to Michael Dylan Foster’s “Strange Games and Enchanted Science: The Mystery of Kokkuri” in The Journal of Asian Stud
ies, volume 65 number 2 (May 2006), pp. 251-275.
[91] Kokkuri-san or –sama is a multi-layered pun. The phonetic readings of the Chinese characters in the name Kokkuri mean “fox” (ko), “dog” (ku) and “tanuki” (ri). (For the special history of the tanuki, an animal often mistranslated into English as “raccoon” or “raccoon-hound,” please see my book Anime Explosion: The What? Why? And Wow! Of Japanese Animation.) In this case, “ku” refers not to a literal everyday dog but the tengu or heavenly dog, a nature spirit sometimes described as having crow-like features, and is also pictured as human but with a very long nose. The verb kokkuri means to tilt or to nod, and refers to the kokkuri-san’s planchette tipping one leg up when answering a question. Thus, the name kokkuri-san could be rendered in English as “Mister Wobbles.”
[92] I like to think of this as an in-joke; “ee tou” is one of those phrases Japanese say while thinking, as in, “Let’s see, what was her name again?”
[93] A variety of cherry tree that bears twin blossoms.
[94] This was still during the Tokugawa or Edo period of Japanese history, when the country isolated itself from western science and technology, including medicine. Because the Netherlands were among the few countries willing to trade with Japan on its terms, interest in anything western came to be known as “Dutch studies.” In this case, a Dutch physician may refer to the doctor’s nationality, but definitely is a euphemism for a doctor of western medicine.
[95] The cycle of twelve animals in the Chinese calendar doesn’t just apply to years. The day is divided into twelve two-hour periods, governed by the same cycle. The Hour of the Ox (2 to 4 a.m.) is especially regarded as the time when ghosts have control. Their power diminishes at the Hour of the Tiger (4 to 6 a.m.)
[96] In Japan, one is not considered legally an adult until the year in which one turns twenty. This is usually commemorated on January 15 of that year in the Coming-of-Age Day (Seijin no Hi) ceremony.
[97] Anime News Network press release of Jan. 7, 2004 (www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=4492); perhaps there’s a manga out there based on the movie starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg.
[98] The most potentially offensive thing about this movie is that the doll’s features are modeled on a cartoon-y version of a Negro; still, as the entire movie is based on sexual humor rather than the possibility of ghosts, the racial caricature probably should not be taken too seriously.
[99] This parallels a gag in Satoshi Kon’s 2003 movie Tokyo Godfathers, an anime parody in many respects of the classic John Ford western Three Godfathers, complete with Christmas symbolism. In this case, one of the three misfits who find an abandoned baby on Christmas Eve is Hana, a middle-aged drag queen. At one point, he returns to the drag bar where he used to work, and tells the “mama-san” that he’s now homeless because his lover is dead. Mama-san asks the dramatic question: “AIDS?” Hana shakes his head: “He slipped on a bar of soap.”
[100] The following is from Benj Vardigan, “The Thrill of the Haunt”, in Shojo Beat, vol. 3 #2 (January 2007), p. 184.
[101]http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hiroshige_Benzaiten_Shrine_at_Inokashira_in_Snow.jpg, accessed January 19, 2007.
[102]http://www.jref.com/practical/kichijouji.shtml, accessed January 19, 2007.
[103] Spoiler alert: he is held to account in the anime version.
[104] This is a loaded name for the series’ spiritualist. It invokes Himiko, the first recorded female ruler of Japan; Himiko, who was a sorceress and a shaman, was born about the year 175 C.E. and died in 248, although there is very little known about Himiko and even these dates are disputed. As a shaman, she reportedly left the actual day-to-day government of ancient Japan to her brother.
[105] See Troy Taylor’s website, http://www.prairieghosts.com/resurcem.html, accessed January 18, 2007.
[106] For some reason, the salvage crew has its encounter with Madame on October 12, 2092—the 600th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the western hemisphere.
[107]http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/7731/hitogata.htm, accessed October 29, 2006.
[108] One relatively mild example occurred in the Don Dracula manga by Osamu Tezuka, when the vampire tells his daughter Chocula, “I don’t like Koreans; they cook with too much garlic.”
[109] Do I really need to explain why the women would be more sensitive to this?
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: TO GET THINGS STARTED
01. “Tell me …”
CHAPTER 2: THAT’S THE SPIRIT
CHAPTER 3: SHALL WE DANCE
02. My Mother, the Hungry Ghost
03. Don’t forget me
04. “Don’t shoot!”
05. Blue Roses
06. “I’m running away!”
CHAPTER 4: “I’LL BE YOUR GUIDE”
07. The Red Hydrangea
08. “The afterlife sure seems to have a lot of rules.”
09. The Ring
CHAPTER 5: A LIKELY STORY
10. The Neglected Wife
11. Barefoot Gen—His Mother’s Bones
12. A Bolt of Lightning
13. Attached to the House
14. The Hungry Ghost
15. Remembering Mother
16. The Return of Nobunaga
CHAPTER 6: HYAKU MONOGATARI (ONE HUNDRED STORIES)
17. Dead Air
CHAPTER 7: CEMETERIES IN JAPAN
18. “Daddy will find me.”
CHAPTER 8: SUICIDE
19. The Glorious Princess
20. For the love of the game
21. The Da Vinci Code
22. Mirror and Bell
23. The Temporary Suicide
CHAPTER 9: CLASSIC JAPANESE GHOST LITERATURE
24. Genji and Lady Rokujo
CHAPTER 10: OKIKU OF THE PLATES
25. “six, seven, eight, nine …”
CHAPTER 11: OIWA AND THE YOTSUYA KAIDAN
26. “You killed my father, and now me …”
CHAPTER 12: NOH DRAMA
27. The Flutist and the Warrior
28. Modern Western Noh: “The Gull”
CHAPTER 13: KAIDAN KASANEGAFUCHI
29. A Curse for Father and Son
CHAPTER 14: PRINCESS OF THE DARK TOWER A/K/A TENSHU MONOGATARI (STORY OF THE CASTLE TOWER)
30. Because of a falcon
CHAPTER 15: CATS AND DOGS
31. Because even a dog should rest in peace
32. Mission accomplished
33. Whose ghost is it?
34. The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima
35. A Cure Worse Than the Disease