Category: Issue2

Jon Holt

Introduction

In Umezu Kazuo’s masterpiece horror manga My Name is Shingo (Watashi wa Shingo, 1982–1986), the boy Kondō Satoru and the girl Yamamoto Marine explore a bleak near-future Japan, which seems eerily prescient. Factory workers are laid off in favor of robotic production. Families are torn apart because of mechanization in the workplace. Children and adults are mutually alienated from each other, never seeing eye to eye. What is produced in the manga is “Marilyn Monroe,” a friendly metallic automaton with an iconic American face that develops artificial intelligence (consciousness) through the kind interactions with the children. Unfortunately, the more self-aware Monroe grows, the more it wants to physically change the world around it, inadvertently putting those human friends into harm’s way.
Borrowing Natsume Fusanosuke’s formalist manga analysis method of “compression and release,” I will argue that Umezu visualizes bodies’ coming-of-age and additionally how his manga shows bodies, even robotic ones, to be the root of all consciousness. In Umezu’s upside-down and seemingly cruel logic, in order for one to grow mentally, the body must be first subjected to unspeakably horrific trauma. Umezu frames the liminal bodies of the children and robot characters with visual layouts that show their bodies transcending their physicalities; through his panel frames, Umezu shows them manifest consciousness in a way only possible for manga as it is a visual-and-textual artform. Umezu’s drawings and panels create a space where the reader enters into a world of pure and cold materiality but exits with a new kind of ontological awareness of one’s place in Japan. Salvation in this dark manga is only possible if his characters come to grips with the imperfections in their Japanese bodies. Then, by extension, so too will his readers sense their own possible redemption in an otherwise fallen world.

At first glance of Umezu’s visual storytelling, such ontological depths would seem impossible. The purpose of this essay is to argue that Umezu achieves that nonetheless. My Name Is Shingo accomplished something unusual for a manga; that is, through his framing of body parts (rather than faces), Umezu caused the reader to perceive the ontological development of a thinking and feeling being, even though that being happened to be a robot. To this end, I show that a careful analysis of any sophisticated manga will allow us to uncover the basic philosophical position of the narrative. Being a visual text, a manga’s phenomenological perspective must be determined through the way that bodies are depicted and framed. Faces are central, of course, but in Umezu’s works hands and feet often take precedence in demonstrating one’s awareness of oneself and one’s own body. Umezu created a manga with the power to demonstrate how consciousness arises in even the most unlikely of bodies and in the most unlikely of places and he did so through the most unlikely of artforms: horror manga.

The Unbelievable Origins and Direction of My Name Is Shingo

Originally published in Shōgakukan’s Big Comic Spirits (hereafter BCS) and running for four years from 1982 to 1986, My Name Is Shingo was a huge hit for Umezu Kazuo, although by this time he was almost guaranteed to be successful in any storytelling venture.[1] As manga historian Kure Tomofusa writes, Shingo was an “incredible gamble” that Umezu and his BCS editor took. The manga series began in the magazine’s inaugural issue and, in effect, worked as the headliner and magnet to get readers to buy and keep buying BCS. However, because Shōgakukan was only publishing it twice a month, they risked losing their audiences to other rival weekly comics (Kure 2000: 326–327). Despite this real concern, Shingo turned out to be a great success. It was a riveting story, even though no one understood the meaning of the Shingo’s title until at least two years into its run.

While the identity of the eponymous watashi (“I”) of Watashi wa Shingo (“I Am Shingo”) remained a mystery, Umezu focused the first third of his story on the life of the sixth-grader Satoru. This initial arc follows the humdrum days of Satoru and his middle-class family with a solid mother and hard-working father. They are a typically average Japanese family for the 1980s. However, their lives take a sudden turn when Satoru’s father’s workplace, a parts manufacturer, begins to use two automated robots to help speed up production. Within a few days, the robots (Vivian) Lee and (Marilyn) Monroe quickly prove to the factory owner that he need to only rely on the automatons to meet his production quotas. Their naming by the factory owner, which seems like an afterthought, is nonetheless sardonic. The darkly humorous joke of these blocky robots being marginally humanized by being dressed up with life-size cardboard images of America’s cinematic sweethearts seems to be lost on all the Japanese characters. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, those workers soon are all laid off except Satoru’s father, who is tasked with robot maintenance. This gives Satoru special access to the robots and a computer that can be used to “teach” Monroe and Lee sight- and sound-recognition to improve their manufacturing capability. But Satoru instead uses the computer to communicate with the more receptive one of the two robots, Monroe, who gradually learns to recognize Satoru’s face and form. In doing so, this robot becomes conscious of itself in relation to the Other: the young human friend.

All while this is happening, Satoru makes another good friend at a nearby school, this time a girl named Marine.[2] Marine has a Japanese mother and British father, and, unfortunately, her parents have decided that they will soon relocate England, though before that happens, she accompanies Satoru to the factory. Marine too learns how to communicate with Monroe and gets the robot to recognize her.

The early part of this series spends a great amount of time developing and depicting relationships between boy and girl and between Monroe and Satoru. Satoru, albeit a child, becomes a mature, conscious individual through his relationship with his Other, Marine. Sadly, it becomes increasingly more difficult for the children to see each other, let alone for them to visit Monroe. Their impending separations cause all three to take rash actions. Monroe senses the children’s youthful excitement and heightened emotions. This causes the robot to develop a need for the children, its own Other, as well as a human-like consciousness.

In a typical Umezu twist, though, the seemingly kind robot makes a series of violent and dangerous moves that endangers the lives of Satoru and Marine, while trying to help them maintain their love for each other. The saga of their love stretches across the entire span of the manga, even as the setting shifts between Japan and England. However, their love story reaches a crescendo around one-third into the series when Satoru and Marine act on their belief that the only way to make their love real is to dramatically and publicly take a leap of faith.

High Points, Near Climaxes, and Ungrounded Feet

In one of the series’ high points, Monroe instructs the children to leap off the top of the Tokyo Tower, explaining that this is the only way they can “marry” and “have children.” For the robot, a leap of faith from a 333-meter height will allow the three to remain as the “family” of three, with Monroe as the couple’s child. Satoru and Marine trust Monroe so strongly that they do not realize that they are being urged to commit suicide. Umezu never pulls any punches in his works; even his cutest and most innocent characters can be brutally massacred or be made to inflict unspeakable, ugly violence on others.

These two sixth-graders, united in their precocious love for each other, make a self-assertion of their identity as they leap off the tip of the Tokyo Tower. This act is called their “leap over” (tobi-utsuri) in this manga and this is the youths’ leap of faith that will enable them to become “married” and earn the right to keep their “family” together. In this scene, Umezu illustrates the youths’ self-realizations, not through their words or faces, but through their feet. Through repeated, minimal panels, he marks their existential lift-off by only showing their two sets of feet and their launching point, a school backpack to provide an extra footing. Thus, in Umezu manga, the body is the site through which a person manifests authentic self-awareness and identity; only if the body puts thought into action, will the Self become real (Figure 1).

In terms of its impact in the history of manga, Shingo very much reflects the current fads as well as the future of mature comic-book storytelling. Kure placed this work squarely as an archetype in the “fifth period” of Japanese manga history he theorized. The “fifth period” corresponds to the years from 1979 to 1986, when the multiple magazines containing Young in the title (albeit for adult men) and four-panel comics took the industry’s centerstage. Shingo arrived at a time when school-age love comedies were at their zenith, and although Shingo features the youthful romance of two elementary school-aged kids, theirs was a sprawling drama that surprised its audience in the way it connected their love to unsavory elements of an advanced and scientific civilization such as Japan’s (Kure 1997: 196–197). Whereas Shōgakukan’s BCS and Shūeisha’s Young Jump had their target audiences in men in their post-high-school years, their competitor Young Magazine of Kōdansha generally targeted a slightly younger audience (Kure 1997: 197). Given this fact, it is even more remarkable that BCS would feature Shingo with six-graders as its protagonists, which underscores Umezu’s unusual ability to make such compelling heroes out of children even for adult audiences.

Another aspect of Shingo as a forerunner in the industry is its sheer scope, painting a what-if scenario about the future of Japan, where there is rampant anti-Asian and Japan-bashing hate; where Japan’s industrialization becomes increasingly mechanized; where families become more and more broken and dysfunctional; and, where the individual struggles to make meaning out of life. Natsume Fusanosuke suggests that BCS succeeded because of the pioneering concept of its editor-in-chief, Konishi Yōnosuke, to create “for manga a new realm of the quasi-novel (a bridge between mass-media and pure literature novels)” (Natsume 2018: 78 [Natsume 2021: web]).

Even though its protagonists are two children and a bulky robot, Shingo is a very sophisticated narrative which treads even into the realm of philosophy, rephrasing its own form of Descartes’ cogito, “I think, therefore I am,” into something more personal: “I think, therefore I am Shingo.” With this context of the history of the manga medium in mind, it is therefore not that surprising that Umezu could conceive of and produce a manga with school-age characters that could open up ontological questions. Although the children’s leap into the unknown cannot be the climax of this multivolume series, this early episode previews the possibilities of self-realization for character types normally thought to be too immature or unequipped to do so.

Reading Monroe’s Cogito Moment in Umezu’s Compressed and Released Frames

The visual design and layouts in this manga are quite advanced and certainly indicate a kind of peak in Umezu’s career, which began in the 1950s. Umezu tends to pack his page with six to eight panels, almost forming a tight nine-panel “grid,” employed by his American contemporary, Steve Ditko, known for Amazing Spider-Man (1962–1966) and Doctor Strange (1961–1965) (Wolk 2009: 239). Furthermore, Umezu often employs simple layouts with iterative panels that repeat the same image only to show seconds passing by in the flow of time in “moment-to-moment” panel transitions.

Named by comics theorist Scott McCloud in his seminal study, Understanding Comics (1993), “moment-to-moment” or “type one” sequences usually do very little to help the narrative, as the duration of the depicted time is too short to push the plot forward. Instead, one would expect a truly dynamic artist to use other, more sophisticated panel-transition types to take advantage of the comics’ ability to engage the reader imagination. McCloud defines comics as “closure.” According to him, when “comics panels fracture both time and space,” it is closure that “allows us to connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality.” To McCloud, “comics is closure” (McCloud 1993: 67).

However, Umezu uses such minimal “moment-to-moment” sequences for maximum dramatic effect. There is something so beautiful, so calculated, so horrific in these snapshots in Shingo. And his panel sequences are best understood not only as “type one” but also as “type-five” or “aspect-to-aspect” panel transition type that emphasizes mood or feeling over plot (79). Such momentary and moody panel sequences are skillfully employed by Umezu to show the awakening of a new kind of conscious subject. Put it another way, Shingo depicts ontology emerging on the page for the reader to see. Batman, with only its whams! and pows!, seems pitiful by comparison.

If one were to use McCloud’s categories to analyze Umezu’s techniques to bring ontology to the comics page, one must acknowledge their potential problems in relation to manga and I have done so elsewhere (Holt 2022: 50–51). Because McCloud heavily emphasizes sequentiality of panels, often in two-panel sets, some argue that such an approach does not apply to manga, as they function within grander single-page or even double-page layouts. Umezu specialist Takahashi Akihiko in his Umezu Kazuo-ron (Theory of Umezu Kazuo, 2015) does so, but then tries to compensate for McCloud’s failings by creating his own special category of panel transitions. In order to better explain Umezu’s art, Takahashi demands a “seventh” type of panel transition, the “iterative” (hanpuku), on top of McCloud’s six transition categories.[3] Too slow or too subjective to match McCloud’s “moment-to-moment” panel sequences, Umezu’s “iterative” panels depict, according to Takahashi, “time that functions as a kind of moment-to-moment type but cannot be considered action-to-action as these images feature instead a kind of nuance and mentality” (Takahashi 2015: 243). In other words, Umezu repeats panels to build psychological tension and force the reader into the mind of the character. For Takahashi, the “pure nuance” seen in the “iterative” type can be viewed as what McCloud calls “moment-to-moment,” which requires “very little closure” but fails to show things “happening in concise, efficient ways” (McCloud 1993: 76). However, I have questioned Takahashi’s need to create additional categories (Holt 2019: web), and I further suggested a radical re-application of McCloud’s “six types” to allow for a more fluid and productive parsing of manga panels (Holt 2022: 51).

Given that a McCloudian analysis is not enough to ascertain the mood of ontological self-awakening, an alternative approach pioneered by Natsume Fusanosuke should be utilized to elucidate the epiphanic moments in Shingo. Natsume, who developed “manga expression theory” with others in the 1990s, offers an additional way to understand how manga is created and how it can be read. In the most important chapter of his Manga wa naze omoshiroinoka (Why manga is so interesting, 1997), Natsume describes how manga artists during the 1960s would “compress” (asshuku) and then “release” (kaihō) the panels, often stretching them horizontally, vertically, or both. This process of shrinking the panels creates an effect of psychological closeness to the subject in the panel. As the camera zooms in and we get closer to the character’s face or eyes, we often feel tension in this claustrophobic zone.

In a key scene (Figure 2) in Shingo, where Monroe develops consciousness, Umezu repeats and compresses the first panel eight times, driving the reader closer to the “psychology” of the robot. The sequence of repeated panels that focus on the robot’s manipulator hand is very important, as the body of this mechanical being, particularly its grasper, reveals its thought. Through the repeated and static images, Umezu gives life to both heavy robotic arm and cold

mechanical pincer. As the panels condense and speed up, the reader senses that Monroe’s mechanical parts are becoming self-aware. In Umezu manga, agency is first and foremost self-awareness of one’s own body, as seen in the previous example of the children with their feet conveying their choice to leap over into adulthood. By repeating and focusing more intensely on the robot’s body, Umezu’s panels force the reader to understand that the narration that accompanies these static images is the emancipated mind of Monroe.

According to Natsume, if the successive frames condense on the shapes therein, they force the reader to attune psychologically to those bodies inside them. As panels compress down the page, there is a sense of weight associated with these tight frames. We also will tend to read such compressions very fast and thus they can increase reading tempo.

 

Usually, after compressing panels in the top and middle of the page, an artist will release the bottom panel with at least a horizontal stretch (Figures 3 and 4). This panel will thus open up, release the tension, and provide the reader time to linger and take in things a bit more “objectively.” From Figure 2, one must assume Umezu will release after his tight nine-panel compressed sequence, and indeed he does with Panel A on the following page (Figure 5). In other words, we get closer to and deeper into Monroe’s mind. That alone makes us uncomfortable, but the sequence also overwhelms the reader with its speed. What will be the release of this monstrous merger with a mechanical mind? The answer is given on the following page’s larger release panel.

 

Natsume writes that when such releases follow a well-planned series of compressions, manga gets so interesting (1997: 147). A skilled manga artist can set up a good tempo of compressed, smaller panels and then, the reader’s field of vision will vastly open up on both the right and left sides as the frame stretches horizontally. The reader cannot help but feel a sudden openness or liberation. Additionally, if in that larger panel “the character in the panel is drawn small, [it further] accentuates that horizontal sense of release” (Natsume 2021: web).

As one turns the page, the initial panel opens up putting Monroe in the larger space of the factory setting (Figure 5). The final predicate from the extended monologue is the verb iimasu (“they say”). There is closure. The Marilyn Monroe cut-out, of which the face has been partially burned from an earlier accident, is now more visible. We are invited to linger over this larger liberated panel and see it more objectively. Monroe is the machine and the machine bears part of Marilyn Monroe’s vivacious sexuality (if somewhat maimed). All is dark and bright, but nothing is truly clear. This release allows the reader time to rest, to reflect, to think. In fact, that is exactly what Monroe is doing, pausing on the predicate that marks her (yes, her) story as belonging to another. To be sure, this is a moment of existential crisis, even if a bulky robot is having it.

Usually, manga artists will compress on a human character’s face, sometimes drawing up against the eyes or the ears, to approximate our journey to the mind of the character. For Monroe, Umezu does draw us closer to the sham face of Marilyn Monroe, but he also brings us closer to machine parts on the factory belt. Monroe’s “mind” consists of these machine parts, which are extensions of herself. Her “body” and narration fuse in these tightly compressed panels. She is aware. Her “body” shows it. Natsume’s logic of classic manga composition makes it clear how this extended sequence of consciousness and awakening can be understood in the context of these other dreary scenes of a factory floor devoid of any human actor. The title of this work is My Name Is Shingo, but the identity of Shingo has not been revealed. Instead, we know only that the machine has begun to think: My Name Is Monroe might have been a better title at this point.

The scene on these two pages—a mere two out of the seven-hundred pages at this point—demonstrates the motto of the series: “Miracles can happen to anyone once, but when it does happen, nobody notices.” The miracle is Monroe’s obtaining her consciousness through her manipulation of her body. In Figure 2, Umezu slowly spreads out her narrative over eight visually similar panels: “With me then putting together the motor, I first time I felt myself being conscious, so … they say [to iimasu]” (Umezu 2000: 67–68). All the panels in this sequence are drawn in a very Umezu-esque style. The scratched out circular marks form a frame within the panel (koma) frame, one that Umezu typically uses for a kind of spyglass refocusing on a character, a technique borrowed from his work in girls’ manga.^[4] This sketchy, wavy, and unstable spyglassing of Monroe could be one of two things: 1) someone is watching another person; or 2) it refers to someone (usually the depicted subject) thinking about themselves. When Monroe says to iimasu (“they say”) as the final predicate of her sentence in Figure 5, we know that she is speaking to the reader from a distant, later point in time. Yet her view of her self-origin is hearsay and therefore mediated by another. If being is always mediated by another, who mediates the manga? Are we the “nobody,” an equally disembodied non-self that notices the miracle of this nobody robot’s awakening?

Release from Visual and Verbal Frames

In Kyōfu eno shōtai (Invitation to Fear, 1996) a collection of essays where Umezu reflects on his works, he looks back on the creation of Shingo, commenting upon the narrative style he chose for this series. Umezu wanted some unknown, unseen force seeing the action and its seeing to be felt. “I settled on the narration style,” he writes, “because I wanted it to feel like the persons themselves were seeing themselves” (Umezu 1996: 61). This is precisely why Monroe is depicted in those spyglass circle frames within the square border frames. She is seeing her body become “herself.” The typical manga square frame panel is the mediation of the Other, whereas the visual frame functions as the verbal frame “they say.” Both the visual and verbal frames determine narratives, which will be beyond the control of the characters within the visual or verbal predicate. However, Monroe is capable of owning her body; she is capable of resistance against this universal, human, totalizing manga force, the frame (koma), as her body is not completely declared by the invisible human narrator.

This may be one of the reasons why Shingo is so compelling and so horrific. Umezu insinuates to the reader that they do not have full control. By taking ownership of her narrative, Monroe is intimating that she is becoming more and more like her reader, the nobody. The ultimate horror in this manga sinks into the reader once they identify themselves with Monroe, the unattractive and murderous robot protagonist. The interaction between the depicted and the onlooker becomes complicitous. Monroe’s consciousness can only be fully realized by the reader injecting themselves into the body of this thinking robot, no matter how ugly, scary, or seemingly inhuman she is.

Judith Butler in Gender Trouble writes of the hard binary between mind and body, but also of the twisted ontological prerogative of the Subject (usually male) mind to even escape the Otherness of the body (and the Feminine).

In the philosophical tradition that begins with Plato and continues through Descartes, Husserl, and Sartre…the mind not only subjugates the body, but occasionally entertains the fantasy of fleeing its embodiment altogether (1990:17).

In the scene presented above, Monroe understands that one can never obtain the subject position, especially if one is a woman or a minority, because ontology has been and always will be essentially a part of the regime of the phallocentric signifying economy. The sentence-final “they say” that marks Monroe’s speech could be interpreted as a way to draw attention to the hegemonic forces that seemingly shape our world—it cannot be sheer chance that the factory owner donned the robot with a cardboard cut-out of America’s cinematic sweetheart and sexpot. Butler writes, “Paradoxically, the reconceptualization of identity as an effect, that is, produced or generated, opens up possibilities of ‘agency’ that are insidiously foreclosed by positions that take identity categories as foundational and fixed” (Butler 1990:201). Therefore, she suggests a strategy of “repetition” as a part of “critical task” to challenge gender norms, categories of constructed identity, and the trap of ontology. Framing and reframing these repetitive sequences, Umezu has Monroe “locate strategies of subversive repetition enabled by those constructions,” and “affirm the local possibilities of intervention through participating in precisely those practices of repetition that constitute identity and, therefore, present the immanent possibility of contesting them” (Butler 1990:201).

Figure 6 shows the robot actively dispensing with the gender identity given to her. Monroe disposes of the bulky cardboard cutout in the tight sewer tunnel either as an act of survival or as a preliminary act of self-redefinition. Notice how the act itself is punctuated with meaning onomatopoeia baki (snap!) and basha! (splash!) all in compressed panels that then release into a newly liberated being.

As the reader transitions from the last panel of the right-side page (Figure 6) to the first panel of the left-side page (Figure 7), they will notice that the picture is repeated except for the addition of the thought bubble of the robot, “I am Shingo,” to the latter. This Shingo, we will learn, is entirely self-titled, generated from the synthesis of his first two human contacts: Marin 真鈴 and Satoru 悟. The two-character names Shingo 真悟 consists of shin, which is the Sinitic reading of the first character of Marin’s name, and go, the Sinitic reading of the character for Satoru. Importantly, Shingo is a common Japanese name for boys. One could argue this is a kind of a Butlerian Japanese robot doing his own kind of “gender trouble” to synthesize his new being. Shingo resists those hegemonic forces of the phallocentric signifying economy by reconstructing his gender from the pieces available to him in the sewers of underground Tokyo.

It is possible to consider that Umezu’s character enacts its own kind of “gender trouble” to disrupt norms or to at least question the naturalization of sex, bodies, and humanity. In Umezu’s manga, there is always the question of what it means to be a Japanese person, such as “Are there categories of Japaneseness that are naturalized?” and “Who is allowed to be Japanese and who is not?” Along these lines, we may ask, “Can Monroe, a factory automaton that was made in Japan but has an American face, be Japanese?” and “What is required of Monroe to become Japanese?” Because “there is no possibility of agency or reality outside of discursive practices that give those terms [of gender] the intelligibility that they have,” according to Butler, the task now becomes “to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself” (1990: 203).

Empathetic Release or Repetition of the Status Quo?

Thus far, we have explored the phenomenon of the repeated panel in Shingo, which creates questions, fear, or discomfort about our assumptions of the body—anyone with a body can also have consciousness. For the final part of this paper, I will discuss how a connection with the body of the Other could generate either community-building acts of empathy or on the contrary something quite the opposite.

There is “the danger of empathy becoming a condescending reaction” and a “means to reinforce the dominant position and even superiority of the privileged,” as Eszter Szép summarizes in her Comics and the Body (2020:15). Szép argues that the very nature of the materiality of comics can generate empathy or a shared sense of vulnerability between the reader and the artist (she uses the term “drawer”). Vulnerability, she notes, “allows for an ethical encounter with the Other” and this encounter can “also happen via the way embodied practices around comics allow performing vulnerability” (2020: 9). Drawing on the concept of the vulnerability of “shared precariousness” from Butler’s Precarious Life (2004), Szép posits that comics “can be the site of ethical encounters” because they “can articulate the primary experience of vulnerability by the very lines by which it was drawn” (2020: 22).

Without discounting Szép’s argument for vulnerability, I shall also emphasize the importance of empathy, as it operates just as well in comics. If handled well, empathy can also help us think how we can honestly face each other in order to make better sense of our world. Leslie Jamison, in The Empathy Exams, similarly defines empathy as a kind of dialogue:

Empathy isn’t just listening; it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you see…Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds (2014: 5).

As Monroe-turned-Shingo schleps his robot-self through the underground sewers to find his old friend Satoru and his new friend Miki, a mysterious being confined in an infant-like body in a playpen, another question emerges. Can and should outcasts like Shingo and Miki ever be human? Apparently, their friendship in mutually shared pain and loneliness is what allows them to be legitimated as human, as seen in a couple of breathtaking sequences from the end of the third story arc known as “Consciousness.”

To discover their true place in the world, Shingo seeks an empathic connection with Miki, a fellow alienated, suffering being, who happens to live in Satoru’s old apartment, directly above Shingo’s sewer location. Importantly, Miki appears only as a disembodied voice. Thus, Shingo and Miki share much in common in how they are visually and verbally depicted in this manga. Seemingly destined to be forever isolated in this story, Shingo finally finds a true Other with whom he can gain real empathy.

In fact, there are many breathtaking and problematic scenes of empathy drawn in the pages of Shingo at this point. One of the queerest and the most exciting is Monroe’s transformation into Shingo. This happens through a series of phone calls and later in-person dialogues with Miki, whose parents moved into Satoru’s apartment after the boy and his family broke up following the Tokyo Tower incident. In yet another series of highly charged, repetitive panels, which depict Miki’s mother’s hand bringing the phone receiver to Miki, Umezu brilliantly visualizes the outcasts’ bond, showing empathy growing with intense focus and magnification on the page—a large release of a double-page spread (Figure 8). Their phone call, the site of their empathetic mutual acknowledgement, demonstrates how empathy, according to Jamison, can be an acknowledgement of a “horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond

what you see.” Unable to see each other, they can only rely on the phone call enabled by the mother. Precisely because they know nothing of each other, they can empathize and share their vulnerabilities. “I am Miki,” she first says. “I am Shingo,” responds he (Umezu 2000:294–295). However, this exchange is fraught with danger, because the terms of their engagement create categories of identity and gender, namely, “I,” “Miki” (a female name), “Shingo” (a male name).

In the next double-page spread (Figure 9), where their long-overdue encounter is depicted, they voice their latest category in chorus: “You too must be human!” Natsume explains the rationale for this double-page spread as their mutual self-discovery and empathy that constructs a very uncomfortable objectivity. In this scene, Shingo, using his self-aware mechanical grasper, penetrates past the protective crib veil into the vulnerable zone of Miki. As an adult-like being trapped in an infant-like body, Miki’s vulnerability is laid bare to the probing Shingo, the male-like actor. In a seemingly unified voice (the word balloons have no arrows to indicate the speakers), they together confirm each other’s humanity. Umezu depicts these epiphanic moments in two two-page spreads, highlighting a sense of something liberated, something objective, and something to linger over (to use Natsume’s terms). Nevertheless, because Miki’s body is subsumed within the frames and only Shingo’s pincer is visualized, priority is given to the male actor. Armed with his new freedom and newly acquired agency, Shingo now repeats an act of alienating the Other, Miki. In doing so, he rejoins the phallocentric signifying economy and announces, “Then, I too am Human!!” in the following page (Umezu 2000:324).

As the first narrative arc of the series comes to a close, one must ask if any ontological possibilities remain in Umezu’s story. Does Umezu pose a negative critique of that dominating force, particularly from a Japanese point of view of alterity? On the one hand, peeling off Marilyn Monroe’s cardboard cutout image, Monroe the robot enacts a kind of gender-trouble that destabilizes the self-versus-other binary. Monroe could be said to create “gender trouble” and redefine herself (Monroe) as himself (Shingo). On the other hand, instead of displacing norms, Monroe/Shingo might have reinstated and reinforced those norms. Does Umezu use his manga to further push the agenda of what Butler calls the “phallocentric signifying economy,” seen across cultures that only serve to hide hegemonic forces behind invisible barriers of “naturalization”? By becoming Shingo, the newly-gendered robot might reaffirm an order inherent in heterosexual norms. These norms require compulsory heterosexuality, procreation, and establishing families. These things are required even if the actors only have liminal, undeveloped, mechanical, or even incorporeal bodies. Perhaps the most horrific aspect of Shingo is that even an outsider like Shingo with his non-normative body might reinscribe and reframe the very laws that the children helped the robot to transgress. Such is the terrifying tragedy that Umezu generates in his manga. Japanese can only leap off the Tokyo Tower or dress up as Marilyn Monroe in order to realize one’s own agency in otherwise stultifying social economy.

However, My Name Is Shingo must instead be read as a bold challenge to ontological assumptions about the subject, about gender, and about race. We can never escape those assumptions, but we can deal with them better if we read the spaces between ourselves and others more carefully and skillfully. Perhaps even a murderous robot in Japan can suggest some means of emancipation from gender and cultural norms. There is great irony in Monroe/Shingo’s final enunciation as the page closes down from the previous releases into a smaller one-page compression, fraught with claustrophobic tension as the focus is on the ugly pincer of the robot that exclaims “I too am human!!” (Umezu 2000:324). Gaining his humanity, the once-enlightened Shingo has been reborn as a dangerous and even sad mockery of the human. There can be no redemption for Shingo, because any “human” redemption is fraught with self-contradictions.

The rest of the narrative will follow the separate adventures of Satoru, Marin, and Shingo as they traipse all over Japan and other parts of the world, but they never find true connections like they once did in the Japanese factory. Umezu’s My Name Is Shingo shows that freedom for the self is difficult to hold onto as we enter human (Japanese) society, but perhaps we should remember the original connections we had with others before we matured. Those pre-naturalized and pre-human feelings might afford us a way to hold onto our authentic selves. Umezu visually imagines the selfhood we possess before our bodies are integrated into a larger unified being called human society. It is only when we find others who are similarly displaced, marginalized, and alienated, might we then imagine an escape from of the horrific world that was, for Umezu, Japan in the 1980s.

Notes

[1] The story ran from the April 30, 1982 (inaugural) issue of BCS through September 1, 1986. Only a year into its serialization, Shōgakukan began to publish the collected stories in trade paperback in a ten-volume set from 1983 to 1986. It was reprinted again in a six-volume set in 1996; again, in 2000 in a seven-volume smaller bunko set (the version I will use for this paper). A thicker four-volume set was published in 2003. Its latest version is the 2009, 2010 BCS UP! six-volume series. Full bibliographic details can be found in Takahashi, Umezu Kazuo ron, p. 432. Shingo’s multiple reprintings attests to the great popularity of this series. A recent exhibit of his works from January to March 2022 in Tokyo further speaks to the recognition of Umezu. There, Shingo was greatly featured with a component (“Zoku-Shingo” [Shingo-Continued]) that celebrated the manga’s long life. The exhibit ran from January 28 to March 25, 2022, in Tokyo’s high-end Roppongi Hills at Tokyo City View tower.

[2] Her name in Japanese is Marin and is written in English at one point as “Malin” on a party banner, but the name quite possibly is a pun on the “Marilyn Monroe,” the robot character soon to dominate the story.

[3] McCloud’s “six types” of panel transitions are “moment,” “action,” “subject,” “scene,” “aspect,” and “non-sequitur” (74).

[4] For a full discussion of this special type of panel layout, one that is heavily influenced from his days as a shōjo manga artist, see Holt (2019).

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004.

Holt, Jon and Elsa Loftis. “Unexpected Wins: Curating Comics and Teaching Manga from the Dark Horse Comics Collection.” In Comic Books, Special Collections, and the Academic Library, edited by Brian Flota and Rachel Miller. New York: ACRL Publishing, 2023.

Holt, Jon. “Type Five and Beyond: Tools to Teach Manga in the College Classroom.” In Handbook of Research on Exploring Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom, edited by Jason DeHart. New York: IGI Global (2022), 46–63.

Holt, Jon. “What You See Is What You Get: Visualizing Hypocrisy in Umezu Kazuo’s Manga Cat-Eyed Boy.” ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 10:2 (2019), https://imagetextjournal.com/what-you-see-is-what-you-get-visualizing-hypocrisy-in-umezu-kazuos-manga-cat-eyed-boy/.

Jamison, Leslie. The Empathy Exams: Essays. New York: Graywolf Press, 2014.

Kojéve, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Translated by James H. Nichols, Jr. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.

Kure Tomofusa 呉智英. “Essei: ‘Ai wa kyōki’—Gendai Nihon manga no chōten” エッセイ：「愛は凶器」―現代日本マンガの頂点. In Umezu Kazuo 楳図かずお, Watashi wa Shingoわたしは慎吾, Volume 1, 326–330.

Kure Tomofusa. Gendai manga no zentaizō 現代漫画の全体像. Futabasha, 1997.

McCloud, Scott. Mangagaku: manga ni yoru manga no tame no manga riron マンガ学：漫画によるマンガのためのマンガ理論. Translated by Shiina Yukari 椎名ゆかり. Fukkan, 2020.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Northampton: Tundra Publishing, 1993.

Natsume Fusanosuke. “The Functions of Panels (Koma) in Manga.” Translated by Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 21:2 (2021). Web. http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol21/iss2/holt_fukuda.html.

Natsume Fusanosuke 夏目房之介. Fūun manga retsuden: ima yomu manga 116-satsu 風雲マンガ列伝：いま読むマンガ１１６冊. Shōgakukan, 1999.

Natsume Fusanosuke. Manga wa naze omoshiroi no ka: sono hyōgen to bunpō マンガはなぜ面白いのか：その表現と文法. NHK Library, 1997.

Natsume Fusanosuke. “Taniguchi Jirō wa motto hyōka sareneba naranai 谷口ジローはもっと評価されねばならない.” In Taniguchi Jirō: Egaku yorokobi谷口ジロー：描く喜び. Heibonsha, 2018, 76–79.

Natsume Fusanosuke. “Time to Re-Evaluate Taniguchi Jirô’s Place in Manga.” Translated by      Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda. The Comics Journal (August 12, 2021). Web.       https://www.tcj.com/time-to-re-evaluate-taniguchi-j

Szép, Eszter. Comics and the Body: Drawing, Reading, and Vulnerability. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2020.

Takahashi Akihiko 高橋明彦. Umezu Kazuo ron 楳図かずお論. Seikyusha, 2015.

Umezu Kazuo楳図かずお. Kyōfu e no shōtai 恐怖への招待. Kawaide Shobō Shinsha, 1996.

Umezu Kazuo. Watashi wa Shingo (My Name Is Shingo) わたしは慎吾. Shōgakukan Bunko, 2000. 7 volumes.

Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics. New York: De Capo Press, 2007.

Sakamoto Kiyoe

Lecture from Dartmouth workshop, December 2021

(Click "Watch on YouTube" if you'd like the video to play in a separate window)

Well then, everyone, let's welcome Professor Sakamoto.

I am Sakamoto. Thank you for the introduction and thank you for having me. I’ll share my screen.

00:50 - Great. Today I am going to speak about ningyō jōruri bunraku 人形浄瑠璃文楽　(traditional Japanese puppet theatre), a form of Japan’s traditional performing arts that has continued from the early modern period to the present day. Today I will discuss “embodiment,” such as how the puppets in theater are manipulated and to what extent the bodies of puppets can or cannot recreate the human form. This talk will focus on the puppet’s legs. 01:25

01:29 There may be people here today who do not know much about ningyō jōruri, so I want to explain a bit about what it is and about controlling puppets, such as the change from using one puppeteer to using three puppeteers, and what kind of form puppets have and the differences between male and female puppets. Then I’d like to explain the “embodiment” of the area below the knees, two terms known as the hagi 脛 (calves) and sune 脛・臑 (shins).

02:06 As for ningyō jōruri theater, it was registered in 2009 as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage–the three performing arts: noh, ningyō jōruri, and kabuki are all registered–but almost all puppet theater around the world is performed for children. Japan’s ningyō jōruri is a performance art intended for adults and this is one of its distinct characteristics.

02:39 Furthermore, since it’s an art that emerged in Osaka it’s still mainly performed there today, though it’s also performed in national theaters in Tokyo. Still, it’s fundamentally an art rooted in Osaka.

03:00 This image is of ningyō jōruri. In the present day typically three people manipulate one puppet’s body. Here, to the side of the person behind the puppet—this person, whose face is showing next to the head of the puppet, is known as the omozukai 主遣い (head puppeteer). They control the head and the right hand. They wear tall geta and the stage comes to about here, but the puppet can still be seen.

The other two people cover their faces and serve as kuroko 黒子 (stage assistants). This person on the right side, who controls the left hand, is called the hidari-zukai 左遣い (left puppeteer) and the person whose legs are all you see here is the ashi-zukai 足遣い (leg puppeteer) who controls the legs. The entire body of the puppet is moved through these three people. 03:51

In this photo, only the omozukai is showing his face and this kind of puppeteering is called dezukai 出遣い (unhooded performance). But there is also the sannin dezukai 三人出遣い (three-person unhooded performance) way of performing, where all three of the puppeteers have their faces showing. There are also instances when the omozukai becomes a kuroko, covering his face on stage.  04:10

04:12 This is how a large puppet is managed with three people. As for what jōruri itself is, today jōruri is seen as a general term for advancing a story through a melody. The one who narrates the jōruri tale is the chanter, known as the tayū, who typically narrates the voices of all of the characters by himself. 04:45

04:46 There is also shamisen music incorporated but the shamisen is not simply accompaniment. Rather, it serves to set the tone of the scene together with the story being performed by the chanter.

05:04 Together these are called the sangyō 三業 (three professions), divided into the three roles of the puppeteers, the chanter, and the shamisen. This is how ningyō jōruri bunraku is performed. 05:16

05:18 I mentioned that this puppet is very large and through moving the puppet it’s possible to convey a variety of very particular emotions.

05:30 This facial area is known as the kashira 首 (head). There are some eighty types of puppet heads, but I won’t be talking about those today, focusing instead on the puppet’s legs.

05:45 Of the jōruri that are performed there is a type known as jidai-mono 時代物 (historical plays). This is the main type of ningyō jōruri bunraku drama. It typically features historical subjects or legendary figures such those from The Tale of Genji or The Tale of the Heike that everyone in the audience would know even if the characters were in a brand-new story. Usually, historical plays are five acts. This is the principal kind of performance.

06:25 In contrast, there’s also sewa-mono 世話物 (domestic plays) genre on current events for the audiences in the Edo period.

06:35 For example, the boy next door committed a murder, or came into money, or there’s been an affair. These are the subjects of domestic plays that were a newly added genre to jōruri and these two genres of historical and domestic plays are said to be the two pillars of early modern drama.

06:58 In addition to these two types, there are also programs focused on the dance and michiyuki 道行 (journey) performances, known as keigoto or keiji 景事 (spectacle plays) that emphasize musical and dance elements.

07:13 Broadly speaking, ningyō jōruri bunraku is divided into these three themes.

07:24 This is an image published in the Edo period of the stage of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Sonezaki shinjū 曽根崎心中 (Love Suicides at Sonezaki). This was the very first of the early modern domestic plays that emerged. You probably know of Love Suicides at Sonezaki, but it’s the story of the double suicide of the lovers Ohatsu and Tokubei.

7:47 Over here Ohatsu is on pilgrimage to Kannon sites. We can see that a puppeteer named Tatsumatsu Hachirōbei is maneuvering Ohatsu with his hand under the hem and inside the puppet.

8:06 On the right side, the shamisen player and the chanter are seated in a line and here we can see that Chikugo no jō of Takemoto Gidayū’s house is the one who is the main narrator. Next to him there is someone named Takemoto Tanomo. They are narrating the michiyuki portion together.

08:28 As for whether there are single-person puppets anymore like the one seen here, today there are no longer protagonists controlled by one puppeteer, but among early puppets there were those called tsume ningyō ツメ人形 (side puppets) controlled with only one person’s hand beneath the robe.

8:45 On this puppet of Ohatsu there are no legs, but not because she’s a female puppet. Rather, it’s because she’s a tsume ningyō, which is handled by one person.

08:57 From the early days, puppeteers worked with single-person puppets, but puppets of men, called tachi-yaku, had legs early on and the style was that two people (an omozukai and someone handling the legs) would control the puppet.

09:17 Female puppets were done with no legs.

09:25 There are many theories as to why three puppeteers came to be used, but typically it’s said to be linked to the play Ashiya Dōman ōuchi kagami 芦屋道満大内鑑 (A Courtly Mirror of Ashiya Dōman).

09:41 This story incorporates the mysterious birth of the diviner Abe no Seimei. A fox turns into the Princess Kuzunoha and saves Abe no Yasuna, who takes her as a wife, and Abe no Seimei is born. But when the real Kuzunoha appears, the fox entrusts Seimei to Kuzunoha and Yasuna, returning to Shinoda forest. In the fourth act of this play, this woman in the palanquin is the real Princess Kuzunoha and the one sitting next to her is Abe no Seimei.

10:20 He’s called Abe no Dōji at the time. In this image, Kuzunoha and the young Seimei are being saved by the lowly attendants called yakko 奴.

10:33 This yakko’s name is Yokanbei and the other palanquin-bearer is a fox who shapeshifted into a yakko. Here, the one on the left, the burly servant, is actually the fox that copied the appearance of Yokanbei and he’s called himself Yakanbei, punning on the word yakan, meaning “fox.”

11:15 This figure in the background is the female fox, disguised as Kuzunoha. She has the other fox, Yakanbei, save Kuzunoha and the young Seimei when they were being attacked by a group of bad guys.

11:40 Since the two men face the audience and they need to form a mirror image, with Yakanbei bearing the palanquin with his left arm while Yokanbei does the same with his right arm, this is said to be the origin of the puppet being manipulated by three puppeteers. So the explanation is that there needs to be someone to handle Yakanbei’s left arm, that is, the third puppeteer.

12:01 In this scene the servants are also revealing very large legs. This is the first play where three-person puppets were used and they also bare these vigorous, manly legs.

Now, let us spend a few minutes watching how puppets are actually manipulated by three people.

12:44 Today puppets are categorized into tachi-yaku 立役, onna-gata 女方, and kokata 子役. Tachi-yaku is a general term for the roles of men, roles other than that of female onna-gata puppets or child kokata puppets. Onna-gata are, as the name suggests, the female puppets, and as you can see, the difference is that the onna-gata has no legs, whereas the tachi-yaku does have legs.

13:18 All male role puppets come with legs, unless they are the tsume ningyō.

13:25 First, in order to demonstrate that the male protagonist tachi-yaku is an important figure, he is handled in such a way as to make the movement of the legs clear by opening the legs widely and striking poses.

13:37 Whether they are a warrior or a townsperson, a performance gains a lively feeling from decisively handling the puppet’s legs.

13:44 On the other hand, the puppets of women do not have legs, so you can see that the scale–this combined area–bulges out and expands a little, and this area is called the fuki ふき (turned back hem). Through the skillful movement of the fuki one is able to convey a feminine refinement.

14:12 Also even though female puppets don’t have legs they often do poses like kneeling.

14:17 For this the ashi-zukai makes a fist inside the kimono and makes it look as if there are knees. Thus, the puppeteer conveys femininity by creating an impression of legs under the kimono.

14:35 I’d like to take a moment to look at the puppet here. I’m going to change screens to please wait a moment.

15:02 Okay. This is a female puppet. The puppet is moving gracefully and the hem area is manipulated like legs so you understand that they’re moving.

15:27 If you remove the kimono, they’re moving the doll like this. Using their fingertips the ashi-zukai conveys the image of walking using the legs–well, the hem.

15:38 Moving the “legs” is done by moving one’s fingers this way.

16:03 Okay. I’d like to show one more female puppet standing knee position. Please wait a moment.

16:22 It looks as if the leg is inside the kimono but under this is the puppeteer’s clenched fist.

16:36 With this he’s made a standing knee form.

16:42 Now I’d like to compare it to the tachi-yaku puppets.

17:08 He’s striking a pose. The ashi-zukai also makes the noises of the feet.

17:32 I think the puppet’s gestures are expressed very skillfully here.

17:38 Okay, well, I will go back to my slides.

17:54 Okay. Do female puppets never have legs? Here I’ll talk a bit about how occasionally some of them do. This is the Tenmaya Tea House scene from Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Tokubei is hidden under the floorboard and it’s the scene where he conveys to Ohatsu that they’ll kill themselves, performing love suicides (shinjū) together.

18:21 And over here actually Ohatsu has a leg. If you look at this part, you can see just a bit of Ohatsu’s ankle.

18:31 The ankle is attached only for this scene, where Tokubei brings her ankle to his throat and gestures to his lover that he is prepared to die.

18:50 Ohatsu’s puppet appears without legs for all the other scenes.

18:56 Furthermore, this is a spectacle play called Ninin kamuro 二人禿 (Two Girl Attendants to a Courtesan) and it has two cute girls who are employed by a courtesan. These young attendants, called kamuro 禿, will become courtesans in the future. These two kamuro come out and play hane-tsuki (Japanese badminton) and enjoy themselves. Their puppets do come with legs.

19:22 They also have tall clogs known as pokkuri 木履. These pokkuri have a very tall platform and they come out wearing them.

19:30 Having these legs makes them appear very lovely and in order to convey this they come out wearing pokkuri. So the kamuro puppets, too, have legs attached.

19:44 There is also a character known as Otsuru who appears in the work Keisei Awa no Naruto 傾城阿波鳴門 (The Infant Pilgrim) as a girl who is going on a pilgrimage. This image on the right is not from the Bunraku Theater’s website. But similar to the kamuro, the girl on a pilgrimage also comes with legs to indicate her youthful charm and vibrancy.

20:15 That said, not all female puppets on a pilgrimage appear with legs attached. This is from Act 8 of Kanadehon chūshingura 仮名手本忠臣蔵 (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers) at the “Bridal Journey” act. Kakogawa Honzō’s wife Tonami and daughter Konami are heading to a place near where Konami’s fiancé lives and they see Mt. Fuji as they’re traveling. But even though they are outdoors in this scene they still have no legs because they are of elite samurai class, while Otsuru is a commoner.

20:46 So although the girl on a pilgrimage had legs attached to her puppet while traveling, there are none on these elite women.

20:57 Additionally, the well-known character from the Tales of the Heike, the shirabyōshi dancer Shizuka, does not have legs, even though she is not a highborn figure (Note: this is probably because Shizuka is an archetype of mature feminine ideal, as Yoshitsune’s favorite concubine).

21:02 Non-elite women can have legs even if they are adults. There is the Chikamatsu Monzaemon play Heike Nyogo-no-shima 平家女護島 (The Heike and the Island of Women). In the “Kikai-ga-shima 鬼界ヶ島” (Island of the Devil’s Realm) act there is a female diver named Chidori and she has legs.

21:21 The Heike and the Island of Women is also based in the Tale of the Heike’s episodes on Shunkan’s exile, which was adapted into the noh play Shunkan 俊寛, among others. The noh play is based on the “Kikai-ga-shima” act of this puppet play.

21:34 Chidori, who is not a character that appears in the Heike, is a fisherwoman/diver who catches shellfish and such from the sea to make a living.

21:48 In this play, Chidori became the wife of the courtier Naritsune, who had been exiled to the island of Kikai-ga-shima along with Shunkan. When Naritsune talks about his wife Chidori and tells Shunkan how she dives into the ocean to catch shellfish, he does so in an explicit and erotic way.

22:10 Her legs also come up, saying that she “catches red clams and holds them between her thighs.” This emphasizes that she’s a diver—a woman with alterity—and as the name of the Kikai-ga-shima act is also known as “The Diver’s Dialect” and “The Diver’s Farewell” act, Chidori is the central figure.

22:36 Chidori is depicted as an exotic being who speaks “the diver’s dialect.” The jōruri audience watching this play would speak the Osaka dialect with the Kansai pitch-accent, given that it’s an Osaka stage. But Chidori’s is different; her utterances are narrated with the slightly exotic Kyushu pitch-accent.

23:04 There is a scene where the pardon ship has arrived and Naritsune is to return to Kyoto, the capital. Because she cannot join him, she stamps the ground and laments. This gesture to express extreme frustration is called ashi-zuri. It’s this scene on the right. I am not sure if we can say that Chidori has legs so she can do the ashi-zuri per se. It’s more significant that her legs entail Chidori’s exotic alterity.

23:30 Given that Chidori is a barefoot diver and performs ashi-zuri, she’s different from the aforementioned kamuro.

23:48 This is the dancing number from a spectacle play called Dango-uri 団子売り (The Dumpling Sellers). In this there’s the wife O-usu and the husband Kinezō and they are pounding mochi together.

24:07 O-usu has legs attached because she is a dumpling seller, a commoner, and also because she dances along with her husband. Evidently, it’s typical that the audience only see onna-gata’s ankles or below, as opposed to the male puppets, who reveal their legs up to the knees or higher.

24:37 In other words, for a female puppet, there is no showing the calves and there is absolutely no showing thighs.

24:48 Even when female puppets come with legs, including calves and thighs, they’re just sticks and not made to look like realistic parts of the legs. They are not effective in visually conveying women’s legs. Women’s calves are either expressed through words or suggested by shapes of the kimono (created by the ashi-zukai’s hands).

25:09 From here I’m going to talk about calves (hagi) and shins (sune). As I stated previously, these terms refer to the area below the knee. Though both words have existed since premodern times, today we no longer use hagi alone though it is used as part of the compound fukura-haki 脹脛 (lit. plump calves).

25:38 Generally, the calves are the fleshy, soft part of the back of the leg, while the shins are the front area with bone. Both are part of the lower leg but their roles are very different.

25:55 So the supple part is the calf and the hard part is the shin.

26:06 Looking at calves next, Tosa nikki 土佐日記 (Tosa Diary) provides an example from the classical period. Tosa Diary is a story of traveling by boat from Tosa in Shikoku to return to the capital of Kyoto.

26:21 Occasionally the passengers lodge at a port and rest, and when they arrive at a place called Murotsu there’s a scene where the women bathe with their clothes on.

26:36 They show their entire calves as they’re bathing and it depicts calves as a suggestive spectacle.

26:45 In the Kokin wakashū 古今和歌集 (Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times), too, there is a poem where it’s written that the poet shows his calves to cross the heavenly stream.

26:53 The term tsuru-hagi 鶴脛 (crane legs) appears. This refers to showing legs by hiking one’s kimono up, which makes legs look graceful like the legs of a crane.

27:10 There’s also the kohagi form of the kimono, which is a little shorter than tsuru-hagi but also suggests making one’s calves look elegant.

27:25 It’s actually the story of Kume the Hermit from Konjaku monogatari-shū 今昔物語集 (A Collection of Tales from Times now Past) that created a kind of iconic image of calves. This episode is also mentioned in Tsurezuregusa 徒然草 (Essays in Idleness).

27:40 The hermit sees a woman doing laundry with her calves entirely exposed—that’s this scene here. It depicts Kume the Hermit seeing the whiteness of the woman’s calves, losing his ability to fly, and then crashing.

28:00 Since the medieval period, hagi therefore implied women’s white calves and, as with the depiction of the hermit’s loss of his powers, they came to be seen as alluring.

28:15 Well then, what about ningyō jōruri? Here I’m discussing Komochi yamanba 嫗山姥 (The Mountain Hag with Child), a puppet play by Chikamatsu.

A former courtesan known as Yaegiri describes a fellow courtesan as wearing a white kimono and also having her calves exposed. So her calves are described in words, with the woman turning and revealing her bare calves.

28:50 In actuality, her calves never appear on stage. In the play Honchō Nijūshi-kō 本朝廿四孝 (Japan's Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety), too, to describe the psyche of a traveling woman, the narrator uses the imagery of “calves of snow.”

29:00 In another play, Hidaka-gawa iriai zakura 日高川入相花王 (Sunset Cherry Blossoms on the Hidaka River), Anchin and Kiyohime—Anchin is a monk and Kiyohime is the daughter of a government official—after she realizes that Anchin does not lover her, she chases after him to the Hidaka River. The narrator remarks, “as she pursued him with a single-minded woman’s heart, she even gradually exposed her calves.” Because she cannot cross the river as a woman, she turns into a serpent to pursue Anchin in her infatuation.

29:23 Here the calves are narrated using this phrase of “gradually exposing her calves,” though this does not mean that we can see the calves of the distraught Kiyohime and in fact she appears in the play as a woman without legs.

29:45 Her hair is disheveled but we can’t see her legs and they’re only suggested in words.

29:52 As with the term tsuru-hagi, women’s calves (hagi) are associated with those of a crane, but in ningyō jōruri, this idea is not represented visually, with the lower part of the legs from below the knee being absent for female puppets.

30:11 In contrast, for sune (shins), they appear in phrases like doro-zune 泥臑 (muddy shins) or sune o itameru 臑を痛める (to walk laboriously [until one’s shins ache]).”

In the Tanshū tete-uchiguri 丹州爺打栗 (Great Chestnut of Tanba) play, Kinpira, the son of Sakata no Kintoki, drinks his father’s lifeblood and, as a result, Kinpira is reborn as a man with shins 100 times stronger than before.

30:40 Here the term “shins” appears used in relation to men. When it’s used for women it’s usually for elderly women.

31:05 Finally, looking at the play Natsu-matsuri Naniwa kagami 夏祭浪花鑑 (The Summer Festival in Naniwa), it says “I want to break the arms and shins of that shop manager!”, showing that the shins are the hard, bony area of the leg and become the direct object of verbs like “to smash” or “to break.” Again, sune normally refers to the shins of men.

31:27 Sune also often refers to the shins of men when they’re bared.

31:35 These are gauntlets and shin guards, armor attached to protect the body during a battle.

31:45 The sune-ate 脛当て, or shin guards, are armor for the area below the knee but only for the front side.

31:56 Among male characters otoko-date 男伊達 are particularly masculine. A typical otoko-date is Danshichi Kurōbee from Natsu-matsuri Naniwa kagami and he often shows off his shins, which are bared in order to demonstrate how very manly he is. He is depicted as that kind of character.

32:17 The otoko-date is cast as a heroic figure who saves the weak. Even though it represents a commoner, the otoko-date embodies a powerful man who would be an ally and his shins are shown to imply his masculinity.

32:34 In this scene, Danshichi is washing off the blood of the villain he has just slayed and his entire legs are being shown.

32:42 For men the legs are shown more often than not. But it’s men of the commoner class who tend to expose their entire sune. Albeit not warriors, such masculine men are very chivalrous people and routinely and firmly show off their legs to the audience.

33:03 Would there be any men of the warrior class who expose their sune? This is a comedic character named Sagisaka Ban’nai. A retainer of Kira Kōzuke-no-suke, Sagisaka appears in The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. He is a bit of a goof and plays a comic relief role.

33:34 The character comes out like this, exposing his shins. At the knee area he has these thin pieces of cloth attached known as sanri-ate 三里当て, an accessory that in and of itself suggests this is an absurd character.

33:58 So this indicates that, in the case of a man of the warrior class, the shins are shown on a comedic character.

34:08 Now, I would like to recap what I have explained in this lecture, which centers on the legs of jōruri puppets. In the history of the Japanese language, the term hagi, as seen in its traces in the word fukura-hagi, denotes only the supple area of the leg with muscle, and sune refers to the bony front side of the leg that, like an arm, can be subject to breaking.

34:36 In ningyō jōruri, hagi are associated with the white and supple part of a woman’s legs. They are not shown on stage but are always hidden under kimono, being only described with words.

35:01 In contrast, sune are the actual body parts revealed on stage, as men of the commoner class often expose them. Depending on the role, there are differences in whether male puppets show their sune or not.

35:12 If a heroic otoko-date character shows his shins to the audience, it is a sign of his mightiness, whereas if it’s a warrior that does that, he is likely a humorous character.

35:30 I also spoke of how female puppets typically do not have legs. The exceptions I introduced are the kamuro girls, the young commoner-class woman on a pilgrimage, and the diver-woman Chidori.

35:48 When legs are used, depending on the part of the leg as well as the status and gender of the character, the meanings of the legs can change.

36:08 With this I’ll end my talk. Thank you very much.

Springboard Japan Translates (Vol. 2): “CorpoRealities in Japan”

Sachi Schmidt-Hori

1. Introduction

Since the first issue of Springboard Japan Translates, “Kinship and Labor,” came out in the summer of 2021, many things have evolved and changed about this platform. Yet here it is—the second issue of Springboard Japan Translates! This time, I have chosen the theme of “CorpoRealities in Japan” and will present a variety of voices, perspectives, and images pertaining to the notion of corporeality, as it is broadly conceived and represented in literary and visual media or experienced by people in society. I hope that these collective voices, perspectives, and images will help us think of the not-so-straightforward relationship between our selfhood and our physical existence in the world—what is perceived as our corporeality.

We are meaning-making creatures, and it is only human nature for us to make assumptions and judgements when we first encounter our fellow humans. And we do so based primarily on visual cues. Granted, as educated adults living in wealthy countries, we have been taught that it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover and beauty is only skin-deep. We also know that lookism, racial profiling, body-shaming, the politics of “passing,” etc., are all serious issues in our societies. But it is also true that our effort to raise awareness on these issues makes us hyperfocus on the corporeality of others and our own.

Speaking of our own corporeality, it’s important to note that because we cannot see how we exist in the natural environment, our self-image is inevitably mediated by the implicit and explicit feedback we receive from others. A mirror, a camera, or even a camcorder cannot capture a “real” and comprehensive picture of how we appear to others. In essence, our face and our name exist for others for the purpose of identifying us. Our face is the fleshy counterpart of our name, and our name is the linguistic counterpart of our face. In tandem, these signifiers function as our ID, though we are not the sum of our face and our name.

Those of us living in highly industrialized, democratic societies are constantly juggling two conflicting ideas about the body. On the one hand, we think that our physical body is extremely sacred and must be dignified and protected at all times. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the English language treats “-body” as a shorthand for “human,” as in somebody, anybody, nobody (cf. “-thing”). On the other hand, we think that the body is vulgar and grotesque, as well. We refuse to be equated with our body, which is purportedly a mere vessel that contains something loftier like our personhood, mind, intellect, and virtue. We think our rational, cultured mind possesses and controls our body, not vice versa.

I have always been fascinated by the conventions of how premodern Japanese literature communicates the relative age, gender, socioeconomic class, and even personalities and dispositions of fictional characters to the audience through describing their physical traits. Not only did the people in premodern Japan tend to judge a book by its cover, but they also believed in the circular logic of “a lowly man looks lowly, so if a man looks lowly, he must be lowly.”

Along these lines, people in premodern Japan also believed that changing a person’s exterior caused an internal—and fundamental—change. For instance, in medieval times, aristocratic ladies who entered into the nunhood usually cropped their trailing hair at the shoulder length instead of shaving their heads like male priests. Yet some highborn nuns took the full tonsure right before their deaths. Back then, women were thought to have transformed into men by assuming a male hairstyle, as the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and Empress Jingū did so, according to the mytho-histories of Japan. By shaving their heads, nuns, too, acquired the status of a male priest, which supposedly increased their chances of attaining rebirth into the Pure Land. Another example is the concept of becoming an adult. Today, one’s legal status instantly switches from minor to adult when one reaches a certain, somewhat arbitrarily chosen age. Outside of the legal framework, we posit that a child gradually grows into an adult according to the biological clock. In premodern Japan, however, a child became an adult by undergoing a coming-of-age ritual, which usually accompanied modifications of his or her appearance (hairstyle, makeup, clothing) and personal name. If becoming an adult hinged on such corporeal transformations, not altering one’s corporeality meant never entering into adulthood. Thus, in medieval Japan, those who were born into the outcast class permanently remained nonadults, even when their bodies became wrinkly or they hair turned white.

In December 2021, I organized a workshop “Embodiment: Representations of Corporeality in Texts and Images of Japan” at Dartmouth College. Due to the pandemic, some participants joined via Zoom, including the guests of honor, Professor Kanechiku Nobuyuki (Waseda University), who gave a wonderful online poetry workshop, and Professor Sakamoto Kiyoe (Japan Women’s University), whose keynote lecture titled “The Calves and the Shins of the Bunraku Puppets” is shared on this platform.

Two additional contents in this issue were born out of the “Embodiment” workshop, as well. One is Prof. Jon Holt’s (Portland State University) paper on Umezu Kazuo’s horror manga Watashi wa Shingo: “I Am a Japanese Body, My Name Is Shingo: Umezu Kazuo’s Fleshy and Mechanical Bodies.” In this essay, Holt discusses how a bulky and innocently violent robot acquires something akin to human consciousness and how Umezu conveys this chilling process by zooming into the robot’s corporeality.

The other is a post-workshop conversation “The Three-Way Girl Talk: Sachi’s Conversation with Japan Studies Scholars Kimberly Hassel and Junnan Chen.” At the workshop, Dartmouth graduate Kimberly Hassel, now assistant professor at the University of Arizona, presented her paper titled “Digitizing Women’s Worlds: Gender, Participatory Culture, and ‘New’ Mediatic Assemblages in 5G Japan.” Kimberly’s kōhai and PhD candidate at Princeton University, Junnan Chen, gave a paper on the relationship between the hypermediated urban environment and the coding of femininity in late 1960s and 70s Japan through an analysis of Oshima Nagisa’s film, The Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970). Though we looked back on the workshop to a degree, we mostly shared with each other what we had been up to since the workshop. Our conversation shines a light on some of the things that many graduate students and early-career faculty, especially women and minority, experience but don’t necessarily openly discuss. Ultimately, this conversation provided us with an opportunity to reiterate our mutual admiration and support for each other’s career.

Two items are corporeality-related essays that were written independent of the Dartmouth workshop. Prof. Yoshikai Naoto (Doshisha Women’s University) contributed a short piece on kaimami, a literary device that normally takes the form of a man’s peeking at a noble lady and his subsequent courtship for her. This highly romantic, elegant trope of the Heian courtly tales can be easily misconstrued as illicit perversion by modern readers and, indeed, Prof. Yoshikai talks about the challenge of explaining the aesthetics of kaimami to his well-meaning international students. In any case, what’s most significant about this short essay—I should also note that Prof. Yoshikai has a monograph on this topic (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru [2008])—is that kaimami is not so much about the mundane action of looking per se. Rather, this literary trope evolved from the ancient belief in Japan that seeing was a quasi-magical, causative force, similar to uttering words (kotodama).

The second non-workshop-related piece is a Japanese translation of an essay by Prof. Vyjayanthi Selinger: “War without Blood? The Literary Uses of a Taboo Fluid in Heike Monogatari,” originally published in Monumenta Nipponica (2019). Prof. Selinger makes a compelling case as to why the Tale of the Heike goes to such great lengths to avoid mentioning blood, unlike many other military epics of Japan. I am very excited to be able to share this eye-opening essay with Japan scholars who do not have easy access to the original piece in English. I would also like to thank Prof. Bettina Gramlich-Oka, the editor-in-chief of Monumenta Nipponica, for giving us permission to translate “War without Blood?” and share it on Springboard Japan Translates.

The second issue of Springboard Japan Translates is missing one work, an essay that was going to be written by the late Mark Bookman. The photographer Peter Weld kindly provided captions for Mark’s photos he took as well as a short remark on the photoshoots. I have been working on a bilingual essay collection, Why Study Japan? (Bungaku tsūshin, 2023), to which Mark contributed an essay before his untimely passing. I will quote myself from the epilogue of the edited volume:

Regrettably, I must share extremely sad news with my readers. Mark Bookman, who authored “My Life as a Disabled American in Japan: Intersectional Barriers and Inclusive Imaginaries,” passed away on December 16, 2022. The last time I saw Mark was August 2022. That day, I arrived at Odaiba Marine Park station of the Yurikamome Line. One year had passed since the conclusion of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics (which was delayed for one year due to the pandemic), the area looked eerily quiet. My photographer friend Peter Weld and I went to visit Mark’s apartment in the futuristic Odaiba neighborhood to discuss a collaborative project for the “Springboard Japan” website. I remember clearly that it was a particularly hot and humid day and that Mark, Peter, Mark’s caregiver (a Nepali gentleman whose name I cannot recall), and I constantly switched back-and-forth between English and Japanese. Even though the windows of Mark’s apartment were shut, and the air conditioner was on, the cicadas’ cry reverberated across the entire place and the four of us kept wiping the sweat off our faces. I never dreamed that this was going to be the last time I would see Mark in person. Four months later, he departed this world at age 31. Japan Studies lost a talented young scholar-educator-activist who was truly beloved and respected by so many people.

I would like to thank everyone who helped with the “CorpoRealities in Japan” issue of Springboard Japan Translates. In addition to the authors/speakers/photographer of the original pieces, I received assistance with translation, editing, among other things, from Prof. Vyjayanthi Selinger, Prof. Paula Curtis, Ms. Saki Hirozane, Mr. Jason Saber, Mr. Yuanhao Chen, and, last but not least, my wonderful husband Roy Schmidt.

『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』第２号「日本の身体観」刊行によせて

シュミット堀佐知

はじめに

２０２１年の夏に『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』の第１号「家族と労働」を世に送り出してから、瞬く間に２年の月日が流れ、このプロジェクトにもさまざまな変化が訪れました。当初は２人で始めたプロジェクトでしたが、現在は、私が単独のディレクターとして運営しています。本業の合間を縫っての作業なので、蝸牛の歩みではありますが、やっと第２号「日本の身体観」(CorpoRealities in Japan)をお届けできることになりました。今回は、文学・演劇・映画・漫画などにおける人物の「肉体」「姿」「装い」やロボットの「本体・パーツ」の表象、そして人々が社会で生きていく上で体感・体験する「からだ」に纏わる声・視点・イメージを紹介します。これらの声・視点・イメージを通して、私たちが「自己」と「外観」の複雑で多義的な関係性に気づき、考えるきっかけになればと思います。

人間は世の中のあらゆる事象に意味や価値を付与したがる生き物であり、私たちは他人に遭遇した際、その未知の誰かがどのような人間であるか、無意識のうちに憶測してしまいます。その憶測の根拠は主に視覚情報です。先進国で育ち、よい教育を受けた私たちは、人を見かけで判断しないという社会性を身に付けます。そして、容姿（顔・体型）に基づく差別、racial profiling (特定の人種グループを標的にした捜査や、特定の人種グループを事前に排除する雇用のシステム)、passing（トランスジェンダーの人や、複数の人種グループに属する人が、特定のグループのみに属すよう判断されること）の問題について学んだりします。しかしながら、そのような問題への意識を高めようとする努力は、私たちが自分や他人の身体性に過度な注意を払ってしまうという、逆説的な結果ももたらしています。

自己身体観を考える上で重要なポイントは、私たちは、自分の「真の姿（外見）」を知り得ない、ということです。従って、私たちの抱く自己身体観は、他者が私たちに直接的もしくは間接的に送って来る、さまざまなフィードバックを元に形成されているのです。私たちは鏡を見なければ、自分たちの顔を見ることはできませんし、たとえ鏡を使ったとしても、その顔は左右が逆になっているだけでなく、誰かにカメラを向けられた時のように、多少緊張感を伴った表情をしています。言わば、私たちの顔と名前は、単なる私たちの所有物ではなく、他者の利便ために存在しているものだと言えます。顔写真は名前の身体版で、名前は顔の言語版で、この２つが一緒になると、私たちの「身分を証明」してくれる便利なツールになります。でも、実際は、私たちは「顔プラス名前」だけの存在ではありません。

現代社会に住む私たちは、「からだ」というものについて、全く相反する２つの考えを抱いています。まず、私たちは人間の体を神聖なもので、常に尊厳を以って扱い、保護されるべき存在だと考えています。人間と身体を同一視する考えは、英語のsomebody, anybody, nobodyという語にも表れています（cf. something, anything, nothing）。その一方で、私たちが肉体を賤視し、グロテスクなものだ考えていることも事実です。肉体は、より高尚な精神・知性・倫理観などを納めるための「容器」とされ、自己を身体と同一視することは憚られます。「理知的」で「洗練された」精神が、「直感的」で「原始的」な肉体を所有・操縦しているようなイメージを抱く人は多いかもしれませんが、肉体が精神を所有・操縦していると考える人は非常に少ないでしょう。

日本古典文学の作品を読むと、登場人物の年齢・性別・社会階級・性格などは、たいていその容貌や衣服の描写によって読み手に伝えられています。昔の人々は、実際に、自らの衣服や髪形や装飾品などによって、自分たちの身分を明示していましたし、他者の気質・知性・能力などを外見で判断することが悪いなどとは、まったく思っていませんでした。「卑しい人は、卑しい外見をしている」だけでなく、「あの人は外見が卑しいから、内面も卑しいに違いない」という循環論法も文学作品から読み取れます。

「あの人は外見が～だから、内面もそうだ」をさらに一歩進めると、「外見を変えると内面（本質）も変わる」になり、実際、前近代の人々は、そのように考えていたようです。例えば、昔の貴族女性は出家をしても「尼削ぎ」と呼ばれるおかっぱ頭で済ませる場合が多く、頭を剃る人は少数派でした。しかし、そのような高貴な出自の尼さんでも、臨終の直前に剃髪をする人は、少なからず存在したようです。その背後にあるのは「変成男子」という概念で、成仏が難しいと考えられていた女性でも、男性に変身すれば、成仏できると考えられていたようです。女性が男性に変身する方法は、ずばり、髪を男性用の髪型に変えることで、記紀神話にも、アマテラスや神功皇后が、「みずら」という男性の髪型を結うことによって、一時的に男性性を獲得した様子が書かれています。臨終間際の尼さんたちが真似た髪型は、「坊主頭」つまり完全剃髪です。そして、女性の剃髪を「男に成す」と表現する記録も残っています。

もう一つ例をあげると、「大人になる」という概念があります。現代社会では、法律で（かなり恣意的に）定められた特定の年齢に達すると、誰もが一夜にして未成年者から成人に変身します。法律上の「未成年・成人」の区別は二者択一ですが、通常は、子どもから大人へのゆるやかな変化は、生物学的発達であると考えられています。法的身分と生物学的発達に共通しているのは、人間は生きている限り、本人や家族の意思とは無関係に、不可避的に成人する、という考えです。しかし、前近代の日本では、「大人」というのは、通過儀礼によって獲得する地位でした。儀式に参加し、その過程で髪型・化粧・衣服・名前などを大人のそれに変え、子どもは成人とみなされたのです。逆を言えば、「河原者」と呼ばれる、社会の周縁に属していた人々は、通過儀礼を経ることはなく、白髪の老人になっても「わらわ」「童子」と呼ばれる、子どもでも大人でもない身分の人々でした。

日本古典文学を研究していると、現代・西洋的な身体観が普遍的ではないことがよくわかります。そこで、「からだ」の問題をより学際的に、より広い歴史的なスパンで考える機会をもちたいと思い、２０２１年１２月、ダートマス大学にて“Embodiment: Representations of Corporeality in Texts and Images of Japan”というワークショップを開催しました。パンデミックのため、主賓である早稲田大学の兼築信行先生・日本女子大学の坂本清恵先生と、遠方からの発表者はズームでの参加でしたが、過去にダートマスで開催した対面でのワークショップに決して引けを取らない、実り多き会になったと思います。兼築先生は短歌創作ワークショップを担当して下さり、受講者に作歌の歓びを味わう貴重な機会を与えてくださいました。坂本先生は「文楽人形のハギとスネ」という非常に興味深い基調講演をしてくださいました。その映像は、講義内容の英訳と一緒に本サイトに掲載されていますので、是非、授業などでも活用ください。

坂本先生の基調講演以外にも、このワークショップから派生したコンテンツがあります。１つはジョン・ホルト氏（ポートランド州立大学）による論文「『わたしは真悟』：楳図かずおの描く日本(人)の肉体と機械仕掛けのボディ」です。ホルト氏は、モンローと呼ばれる、残虐性を秘めた工業用ロボットが、人間の自我にも似た意識に目覚めるプロセスを描写する際、楳図がどのようにその機械仕掛けの「ボディ」に迫り、表現するのかという点を、さまざまな理論を応用しつつ、解説してくれています。

もう１つは、ワークショップの半年後に行われたズーム女子会の会話に基づく「日本研究女子鼎談――シュミット堀佐知、キンバリー・ハッセル、ジュナン・チェンによる日本研究をめぐる『よもやま話』」です。ワークショップでは、ダートマスの卒業生であり、２０２２年秋からアリゾナ大学の助教授に就任したキンバリーさんは、現代日本における女性たちのSNS文化についての論考を発表してくれました。そして、キンバリーさんのプリンストン大学院の後輩であるジュナン・チェンさんは、大島渚の『東京戦争戦後秘話』の分析を通じて、映像を媒介した都市空間と６０年代後半～７０年代の日本における女性性表象の関係について論じてくれました。この鼎談の中で、私たちはワークショップを振り返りつつも、話の中心は、ワークショップ以来の近況です。アメリカのアカデミアという、精神的・肉体的タフさが要求される環境において、大学院生・助教授・准教授という立場の差はあれ、マイノリティ女性が経験しがちな、さまざまなチャレンジについて、オープンに話しています（非建設的な愚痴ではありませんよ）。この会話を通じて、もともと親しかった３人の絆は一層強いものになったように感じます。是非ご一読を。

ワークショップ関連ではない、「身体観」に関するエッセイも２本所収しています。１つ目は、同志社女子大学の吉海直人先生による「垣間見」に関するものです。現代日本語でも、「垣間見る」という動詞として馴染みのある概念ですが、吉海先生の考察によれば、垣間見を文学作品の重要な装置に昇華させたのは、かの紫式部なのだそうです。平安時代の貴族女性は几帳や御簾や扇子で常に顔を隠していたので、男性がそのような姫君の姿を物陰からちらりと見ただけでも、大事件だったのかもしれません（もっとも、平安時代の貴族が実際に「垣間見」を行っていたかは疑わしいので、あくまでも物語の装置として考えるのがよいでしょう）。しかしながら、現代人にとっては、垣間見は「プライバシーの侵害」「のぞき」など、否定的な評価を招きがちです。吉海先生によれば、特に海外からの留学生に、垣間見の美的感覚を分かってもらうのは難しいのだそうです。吉海先生は既に『「垣間見」る源氏物語―紫式部の手法を解析する』（2008）という研究書を出版なさっているので、興味のある方は、是非そちらもご覧いただきたいのですが、垣間見を正しく理解する上で一番重要なポイントは、前近代日本において、「見る」という行為は一種の呪術的な力を秘めており（これは発話行為が言霊を発動させるという考えに似ています）、垣間見もそのような伝統の流れを背景にしている事でしょう。

２つ目は、２０１９年に『モニュメンタ・ニッポニカ』誌に掲載された、ワイジャヤンティ・セリンジャー氏の研究論文の日本語訳「無血の合戦？：『平家物語』における血穢と血の表象」です。セリンジャー氏は、中世・近世日本で成立した多くの軍記物語の中でも、『平家物語』が例外的に血への言及を避けているという不可解な現象を取り上げ、深い考察をもとに、その謎を繙く説を展開しています。セリンジャー氏の評論のような、優れた人文学研究が出版されても、多くの日本の研究者にとって、英語の学術論文を入手したり読破したりするのは、簡単ではありません。今回、「無血の合戦？」を本サイトで提供できることになり、とても嬉しく思います。翻訳を許可して下さった、『モニュメンタ・ニッポニカ』のベティーナ・グラムリヒ＝オカ編集長にも御礼申し上げます。

『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』第２号に寄稿が予定されていたにも関わらず、実現できなかったエッセイがあります。それは、去年の暮れに急逝した、マークブックマン氏のものです。そのエッセイとペアで掲載する予定だった、ブックマン氏の日常を記録する一連の写真は撮影を終えており、本サイトには、それらの写真を、カメラマンのピーター・ウェルド氏によるキャプションと、ウェルド氏が寄稿してくれた短い文章と一緒に掲載することにしました。私は文学通信から今秋出版予定のバイリンガル・エッセイ集『なんで日本研究するの？』の企画・編集を担当しており、マークさんはそちらのプロジェクトにも参加して下さっていました。以下は、私が執筆した『なんで日本研究するの？』のエピローグの一部です。

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最後に、残念なお知らせがある。「アメリカ人障害者として日本で暮らすこと」を寄せてくれたマーク・ブックマン氏は、本書の完成を待たず、２０２２年１２月１６日、帰らぬ人となった。マークと最後に会ったのは、２０２２年の８月である。その日私は、ゆりかもめの「お台場海浜公園」駅に降り立ち、東京オリンピック・パラリンピックから１年が経過してすっかり閑静になった駅周辺を見回しながら、彼のアパートを訪れ、「スプリングボード・ジャパン」ウェブサイト上での企画について打ち合わせをした。窓を閉め切っているにも関わらず、蝉の声がアパート一面に鳴り響き、屋内で座っているだけでも汗が滲んでくるような猛暑日だったことと、マーク、カメラマンのピーター・ウェルド氏、マークの介助者であるネパール人男性と私の４人の打ち合わせが、英語と日本語の混ざった会話で行われたことをよく覚えている。まさか、この日が、マークとの最後の対面になるとは、夢にも思っていなかった。この日から約４か月後、マークは３１歳の若さでこの世を去ってしまった。さまざまな人々の期待と尊敬と憧れを背負い、研究・教育・社会運動のすべてにおいて、若きリーダーとして活躍し、家族と友人たちに深く愛されていた彼の急逝は、悔やんでも悔やみきれない。

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『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』第２号「日本の身体観」を完成させるにあたり、多くの人々の力を借りました。コンテンツを提供して下さった方々はもちろん、翻訳や編集、その他の作業を補助して下さった、以下のみなさまにも、厚く御礼申し上げます（順不同・敬称略）：

ワイジャヤンティ・セリンジャー
ポーラ・カーティス
弘實紗季
ジェイソン・セイバー
陳元鎬
ロイ・シュミット