mo no no ke: kursuri-uri (pt1)

[kaigou]

WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY! NOTE: some images missing, lost in journal-transfer


I'm going to start in an odd place: the xtian book of revelations. (No, stay with me on this one!) One of the few biblical-text classes I took in college was on this part of the xtian bible, and I took it mostly because it fit into my schedule & I liked the professor -- which means I've done a pretty good job of knocking a lot of the information out of my head, so don't bother asking. What I didn't knock out was the one crucial detail to comprehending the book, because it fascinated me then and still does. Not as a theologian or philosopher, but as a writer.

See, the thing about understanding that text is that it leans hard and heavy on Judaic symbolism, phrasing, and styles. Whomever wrote it -- whether you go for the John What's His Face theory or some other theory -- on a textual level, it's a masterpiece of reworked Judaic imagery. In some ways, to really see the depths of the symbolism, you first need to know Judaic symbolism inside and out. It's very much a case of someone who came from that culture (ignoring the issue of religion) enough that much of the cultural language, the connotations, were second nature.

I think of this whenever I try to read another culture's satire. A good satire, in a lot of ways, plays just as heavily on knowing a culture inside and out, such that you can get the sly references -- and that you know already the general state of things, what's reality and what's exaggeration. It's knowing context, on a lot of different levels. A Modest Proposal just sounds like an idiot's pomposity if you don't know the basic situation and have a pretty good handle on what was considered appropriate behavior/morals for that period in time. Some folks have told me that, for instance, Gintama is a marvelously irreverent satire on today's Japan. Unfortunately, the only jokes I get are the most obtuse and overt ones, because I just don't have a grasp on what-is-actual to know where the satire is hitting the mark (if any) and where it's beating down on it with a twenty-pound hammer.

However, I would disagree with the statement that you can only 'know' a culture by being a native-born member of it. Culture is a lot like language, well, actually, a lot like language. You can learn fluency in it, even if you'll always speak with a slight accent. You can move into a foreign/unfamiliar culture in your adult years, live there for twenty years, and while it's possible you may never feel truly 'at home', you will most likely be pretty fluent in the culture by then.

That said, it's still not easy. The hardest part is like reading satire: am I noticing this because it's supposed to be noticed? Or am I twigging on this detail because it unwittingly carries weight in my native cultural language? An example: a character wears an elaborate headdress, which I completely disregarded because I just don't have a cultural frame of reference for Big Things On Heads, with the exception of floppy gardening hats and Sunday hats. Later, I read an online discussion which noted the headdress was identical to those worn by prostitutes.

Before I'd even read another line, I'd immediately come up with what sounded (to me) like a perfectly reasonable explanation: obviously the character was low-class. Because where I come from, the only kind of people who have money and yet mimic the fashions you'd see on streetwalkers are the nouveau riche. It's like the worst stereotypes of the mafia wives, with their clashing animal prints and big hair and claw-like fingernails and clunky gold jewelry draped or dangling from ears, wrist, neck, even ankles.

And then I read the suggestions by those more familiar with the story's originating culture, who posited that it was supposed to indicate the character had prostituted herself for her social position. Oh. Oh. ...and that's the other risk when it comes to having a certain amount of cultural/linguistic skills but lacking true fluency. You take things way too literally, because things like metaphor and simile and (worst of all) colloquialisms just don't compute in the brain. They're intuitive things, like unexplainable jokes. You get it, or you don't; most of us in adopted cultures will spend our time a half-step behind the natives, even once we've memorized the meanings and trained our brains to insert a native-cultural equivalent.

(I spent my entire time in France coming to a full-stop anytime someone said it was "raining figs and plums" or whatever it was. Now, my stepmother does the same when I open my mouth, and even when I try to be more careful what I say, I still find myself saying crap like, "feel like I got dragged backwards through a keyhole, twice." Her eyes do that blink-blink-blink thing as she processes, and she's pretty damn near fluent in English, too.)

See, a big part of the concept of fluency is intuitive translation. When you've passed a certain mark in fluency, then you can intuitively grasp the implications of a statement even when the information is incomplete. You can fill in the blanks. Here, because the analogy is language, is an example of what I mean.

Parse the image.

Give up? Clicky.

Here's another. If you can get it instantly -- I mean before the image is even done loading -- then I'm willing to bet what's the dominant culture in your personal language*. If you read the words in complete and then get it, the culture in question has had a decent influence on you. More, surely, than the person who sees the image and goes, say, hunh?

Ready? Clicky.

All that is a longer version of the usual disclaimer, which amounts to fair warning. I am not fluent (quite yet) in the folklore and religio-social elements of Japan and its ethnic groups. What I can do is deconstruct and analyze, and maybe amuse myself in the process. Judging what's metaphor and what's literal is harder, and what's to be dismissed as "background color" or "generic filler" is even harder than that. So I'm not really going to, not at this point. I'm just going to sort through the images and toss out anything and everything I find or think of based on the imagery within the story, as well as any other imagery/folklore I've previously learned that might be relevant. Some of it might, some might not, some might be way off-base or the product of seriously thinking too hard.

Thinking too hard (and not in all the right ways) is the reason I can't read Chinese cursive.



I'm pretty sure the cursive is supposed to be the middle hanzi, but even that much I can only guess because the calligraphy site told me the meaning of the left-hand script is "home" -- and 'zhai' means "residence," not "home". But then again maybe it could be the one on the right. I don't know. I can't read cursive at all, and crazy Chinese fonts for Taiwanese scanlation groups drive me bonkers. It takes me easily an hour on a single character, just trying to parse out what it's supposed to be, versus the wackiness it looks like.

Eh, well. Thinking too hard is just one of the stages in gaining fluency. That said, my goal isn't really to end up fluent in Various Cultures 101. It's to use what I might learn from this analysis to turn it back on my own culture and see how it could inform native-born stories.

Okay, then. Best place to start is probably with the main character himself, the unnamed Kusuri-uri (medicine seller) of Mo No No Ke.

*If you found yourself reciting the next five or six words in a slightly sing-songy voice, consider yourself EPIC INCULTURATED. If you then spent the next ten minutes trying to find the entire copy online because you couldn't remember the rest of the phrase and it's bugging you like a bad earworm, consider yourself... well, free to do that, because it's what I'd probably end up doing myself. Pursuit of happiness and all that.

---

(If an image is a link, then you're seeing a smaller/LQ version, otherwise, what you see is it.)

Not so easy to find good overall visuals for this guy, but on the left is an image from a promo sheet, and on the right is the first decent full-length shot in the pilot series, the third arc in Ayakashi. (Image on the left will take you to larger of the same; click here for the entire poster.)



And since I guess the best place to start is at the top, here's a headshot.



First off, the cap. Colors? I don't know. Does purple carry a connotation of royalty/money in the east? I'm pretty sure it's cloth-of-gold (and the color yellow) that get the attention. And, for that matter, what's basically a headscarf doesn't seem to be common in any historical/drawn images I could find. Just not out there similar, with the exception of one-half of the head-covering worn by sohei, zen warrior monks from Mt Hiei.



The middle picture is more commonly dispersed on the 'net, but I found text that indicates it's a cap tied roughly, and then a second (separate) cloth is draped around the neck and face. The drawings are of two warrior monks prior to, well, whenever they put on the cowl. (Beats me.) While on the track of some unrelated piece of information, I stumbled over this. It's a man dressed (for tourist/event purposes, I believe) in traditional Ryukyuan garb to play the role of a guard.



I found another shot of a crowd on an Okinawan festival day, and it's pretty much a sea of purple caps. They all have a peculiar peak at the front of the forehead, but otherwise... yeah. It's a purple piece of cloth that falls over the forehead and is tied at the back of the head just at the base of the skull. Then, from the complete other end of Japan's ethnic groups, there's the Ainu, who wear similar head-wraps but tend to embroider them (and they're not in purple, from any of the pictures I can tell -- other colors, yeah, but not that one).

But both cultures seem to use this head-covering like what would make sense: that is, to keep your hair out of your eyes. Neither the Ryukyuan (Okinawa) nor the Ainu (Hokkaido) have hair that hangs down in their faces. Women sometimes have side-fringe, and men have sideburns if they also have beards, but the foreheads are almost always free of hair. So I'll come back to that in a moment.

It's not easy to tell from the images so far, but compared to every single other character who appears in the story (with the possible exception of two characters in the Bakeneko storyline), the palest face on the screen is consistently Kusuri-uri. And then there's the red eyeliner and those strange marks under his eyes. Following that notion led me to Kabuki...



...because although I've read that Mo No No Ke is heavily influenced by Noh, I also know that Noh uses a lot of masks, and Kabuki doesn't. The latter tends to use masks for limited purposes and the rest of the time goes with opaque facepaint. For certain roles, it gets even flashier. Hmmm.



Read up on Kabuki -- chasing the idea that maybe this is supposed to be a mashup of existing archetypes, which means his imagery contain clues. Could be; I went looking for Kabuki characters that have unchopped, longish/uneven bangs hanging down in the face. Weeping, insane, wild, what.

There's not a lot of easy-access info on Kabuki, but there is the Japanese Performing Arts Center site, which is incredibly invaluable for its glossary and its step-by-step dressing of Noh actor subsite. (Wow, and I thought wearing a quasi-corset for Shakespearean stage drama was bad.)

DÔJI 童子

Noh: A mask representing a young boy with the fairy-like quality of eternal youth. The smooth oval face, arched eyebrows, and lack of lower teeth all contribute to an overall impression of gentle good-naturedness. Dôji is very similar in form to the mask jidô, being distinguished primarily by a somewhat narrower breadth, more arched eyebrows, and lack of dimples on the cheeks. ...[Noh uses dôji when] the innocent features conceal a benign supernatural agent.

KASSHIKI 喝食

Noh: A mask representing a Zen temple boy in training who serves in the mess room and also entertains. The mask shows a youth of between 12 and 17 years of age, very sweet with a feminine attraction seen in the bangs and curl of the lips and dimples in the cheeks. The eyes are typical of young men's masks with slightly rounded pupils and the eyebrows rise up pertly. Two styles of bangs, either straight across the forehead ... or flaring out like a ginko leaf...

YASEOTOKO 痩男 ["emaciated man"]

Noh: A mask representing a ghost suffering in hell. Lean flesh barely disguises the skeletal structure of this mask. Sunken eyes and weakly open mouth both turn down. The lack of lower teeth and thin limpid lines of hair add to the sense of impassiveness. The bland, earthy coloring appears bloodless. Only the metallic eyeballs highlighted with vermilion suggest an affinity with the superhuman. ... Yaseotoko is used by all schools of nô for men suffering in hell, either from having disobeyed the Buddhist dictate not to take life ... or who are obsessed with unfair treatment in life...

Also, in speaking of men's masks in general, the glossary notes that young men "generally have hair streaming down over their forehead or in clear-cut bangs."

If the color scheme in the opening shots of the first episode are meant as visual clue (green/black apparently have strong connections to kabuki theater) then if one reasonably assumes that kabuki remains popular enough to act as a visual metaphor... well, then. The only part I'm still confused about is whether vermilliion/red around the eyes indicates supernatural origins or natural; one entry says the use indicates natural/human, another (quoted above) seems to indicate that supernatural characters get the vermillion. The only thing that does seem fairly clear is that masks with metallic eyeballs are supernatural/godlike; humans have regular colors for eyes.

Whether "light blue" could be considered metallic in a culture where the majority of the population has intensely dark-brown eyes... I have no idea. A sadly shorter page on Kabuki terminology had these clues, though.

KUMADORI

Kumadori is the theatrical make-up to underline and enhance certain qualities of a kabuki role to the audience. Thus the audience got an easy to understand little helper to assess the character of a role. Both the pattern of a make-up and the colors have certain meanings. The pattern is never changed for a specific role.

* red - strength, passion
* indigo blue, black - fear and evil, worn by villains and demons
* green - ghosts, supernaturals
* purple - nobility

MIE POSES

Mie poses are an important part of kabuki and an indication of the dance origins of its performance. Basically mie poses are a freezing of a climatic moment in several rigid snapshots called mie. A mie pose is a highlight of a kabuki performance. And while the principal actor poses mie, the others on the stage usually stop their movements. The full attention of the audience and the actors is focused on the mie pose. Mie is considered as a challenge for each kabuki actor and can be played only by experienced performers.

That second one seems like a big honking clue that the dramatic pose Kusuri-uri strikes each time -- with all action immediately coming to a halt -- is a nod to a theatrical tradition. Thing is, it's similar to western-style, where a character will make an important announcement or dramatic final line and the lights go down for the end of the scene; what we don't really have in the west is a set position that goes along with it. I mean, other than the generalized ones like "says dramatically" -- not at all the same as, say, "bends left leg while balancing on right, holds right hand over head, crosses eyes" and so on.

Strength and passion for the character who's consistently deadpan; I suspect there may be a quiet pun in there, as well. Kusuri-uri is technically the hero of the piece, yes (and I read elsewhere that red outlining the eyes indicates a hero), but he's the most close-mouthed and self-controlled hero I can imagine. Most of the time!

All that on my mental tracks, and I still couldn't find any examples of kabuki makeup with vertical lines leading down from the eyes. But thinking intuitively, seems to me these would represent (if anything), tears. Like tear-tracks, ending with a tear, albeit a highly-stylized version. It's not like those are smile-lines, which would be horizontal, and there aren't any other lines on the face that indicate anger (between the brows) or frowning (around the mouth).

Well, there is that vertical line down the nose. Not just a simple vertical line, either; it starts thick -- like the width of a thumb -- and comes to a thinner point at nose-tip. My first intiution was this one, and I do say intuition because this is an image I've seen plenty in my lifetime, so it's easy-at-hand, mentally speaking.



That peculiar question-mark looking thing is supposed to be the first numeral: 1. Not necessarily as a number per se, so much as a pictograph of the one-ness of the universe, in Buddhist terms. It's the Buddha's eyes, complete with third-eye in forehead, which Kusuri-uri lacks. But visually, it's an amalgamation (I would posit) that references Buddhism but tweaked to Kabuki framework. (Another reason I think tracks-of-tears may possibly have some weight, but I'll get into that later.) Then, there's the lips -- upper lip is distinctly purple, and lower lip is unpainted/colored.

(a refresh to compare)



If I were inculturated in the ethnic folklore, here might be two images I'd have seen in my history books growing up that might be getting nods/tweaks. Or not. You judge. On the right is a geisha; only the lower lip is painted, traditionally (though apparently now both may be painted, but that's apparently modern?). On the left is a young Ainu woman, about halfway through the tattooing process.



That kind of tattoo was outlawed by Japan, and I'm not sure if the tradition has been reinstated or is only maintained by the very elderly now. Regardless, it started when a woman was young, gradually filling out the area around her mouth until by adult age it would be a streak across her face (strongly reminiscent, at a distance, of the original Joker's wide crease). The purpose is to prevent evil from entering through the mouth. On the other hand, Kusuri-uri seems to turn things upside down, or at least look at the world rather upside-down from the rest. He's often saying no (or yes) when characters around him think the reasonable option is the opposite. Maybe painting only the upper lip is the illustrator's way to indicate some kind of reversal.

Moving on down to the neck/chest.



The necklace didn't make much sense to me. It just seemed like a random decoration, so I went looking for mirrors instead. (These are made to hang on a neck-chain and are smaller replicas of originals that date from the the Yayoi culture.)



While 'mirror' can -- in Buddhist terms -- refer to the 'mirrorlike' clarity of Buddha and/or certain Boddhisattvas, and seems to have that implication based on events in the storylines -- it can also be just a cigar mirror. At least one storyline does have the mirror/pendant used as a literal mirror.

From there I ended up reading about the Imperial Regalia of Japan. Hmm. Well, he's got a sword, even if it's a bit peculiar, and he's got a mirror... which, according to Japanese legend, is called the Eight Hands Mirror because that's how big it is... and at least twice, Kusuri-uri's own mirror expands to that size, or larger. Last would be the necklace, which is made of magatama, jade carved into a kind of comma-shaped stone, with a hole through the large end to hang it on a cord. (Think of one-half of the zen interlocking circle; it's about shaped like that.)



The left is a modern recreation; the right is an archeological find. I still have no idea why red, what that means instead of green, but seems to me that viewed from above and/or straight on (and in the sense of illustration), a magatama bead would end up looking more like an inverted tear than anything else. Or in Kusuri-uri's case, an inversion of an inverted tear. Plus, beads. Granted, there is such a thing as red jade...

But anyway, you got your sword, your fancy expanding mirror, and your unusual necklace that might (or might not) be awfully similar to the still-popular magatama. Does it have to be a perfect match? Or does it only have to be perfect when you don't know the culture well enough to move with some amount of looseness? It's a lot easier to flex when you can be mostly intuitive on the nods you give to folklore and cultural myths -- it's like ruining a joke. When you have to explain, it just means you've screwed up.

(I am thinking of an urban-fantasy-or-similar genre story in which a character mentions pulling a knife out of a rock-cleft. That's the entirety of it, but if you were raised on British legends, that's all you need to say, ahah! Arthur reference! So it's a knife, not a sword, so it was a rock-cleft and not some honking half-mountain by the ocean. Intuitively, fluent culture-speakers jump to the proper conclusion and gauge it as close enough for spitting distance. Thing is, me not being fluent in this culture means I'm not sure if I'm in spitting distance or just spitting in the wind.)

However it goes, it seems the combination of all three -- plus purple-for-nobility (in terms of makeup) -- might hint at some kind of authority. I hesitate to say imperial authority because Kusuri-uri just doesn't come off like that... but all three together sure seem to me to holler out for being the regalia or related-regalia of imperial authority. Or skipping that and going right for divine regalia -- and Shinto, at that. (Although some sites note that the three jewels may also have Buddhist meaning. I'm sure.)

Even if he is just "simply" a medicine-seller, even if that's how he defines himself, he's got a lot of clues going in the opposite direction.

Onto the robe! Ah, the mystery dress robe. Here's an image with arms spread, to get a better idea of the coat/robe he's wearing:



Being animation, the angles (curved versus straight) tend to shift, but generally the hemline on the robe -- and the curves and fullness -- seem to stay relatively consistent. A rare shot of the hemline, and drawn like it's got the same padded-hemline as the heavy over-robes brides wear, whatever those are called... ugh. (Late at night, brain-dead.)



When it comes to clothing in animation, I'm always reminded of one of the first (and most important) lessons that kraehe ever taught me about historical reeanactment: a lot of the texts we had to go on for our time period (Jacobite Rebellion) were based on illustrations drawn by men travelling in Scotland. The men drew what they saw; most of the illustrations don't make sense -- because the men couldn't figure out how the clothing got that way. The illustrations reflect that.

One example I recall was a well-intentioned traveller who drew the Scottish women wearing what looked like plaid burkas. He didn't realize it was a single unit of cloth, up to nine yards in length and about 60" or so wide maybe, that was belted in such a way to create a skirt below the belt and a short cloak above, with a handy pocket in the back for carrying things thanks to the belt holding the fabric close to the body. (It's really a rather ingenious design, I think.) So most of this one guy's drawings make it look like all Scottish women were these ungainly hump-backed creatures in oversized dumpy plaid burkas.

That's what I think of, when I look at illustrations of garments. You have to start simple: what was the possible silhouette that served as inspiration, or as "closest real-life analogy the illustrator might have seen elsewhere"?

It's the basic outline of a garment, in the roughest terms, that we tend to recognize first -- but if the illustrator doesn't actually know how that outline is created, they're going to fudge some of the other details. But, like recognizing the US Constitution from three words, or picking out letters/characters based on hitting at least two out of whoever many specific points... ah, well, it's intuitive.

So I got intuitive, and here's what I found. (Click to see much bigger HQ version.)



I didn't find any decent shots of buddhist monks walking-while-wearing, or I'd've stuck those in, as well. Because a monk's robes -- thanks to either pleating all the way around or pleating along the sides (or in some Tibetan/Chinese robes, open side-seams to the upper thigh) -- gives this outline-visual of being rather belled in shape from waistline to hem. Most obvious when they're walking, and you see this gentle flare of the skirt-section with each step. Kimono/yukata (on man or woman) don't do that. They're not cut to do that, so the artist fudged.

A monk's hemline, too, is just about exactly the same length as Kusuri-uri's. In fact, if the illustrator was going on the monk's robes being "kinda the same thing as everyone else wears," then basically the illustrator tried to take a straight-sided kimono and force it into an entirely different structure.

To have that happen, that mean the front hemline has to split open in a way that I can't seem to find any other (historical) illustrations indicating kosode would ever have been worn. But you would have to split the front lines like Kusuri-uri's are, to create the extra give around the hips and backside and get that soft belled shape.

Plus, notice the sleeves on the Tibetan robe, which look awfully similar to the way Kusuri-uri's are drawn -- you'd think that eventually the illustrator, especially for the arms-spread-open bits, would draw definite right-angles for the sleeve corners, more like a traditional kimono/happi/etc. But the sleeves are pretty consistently curved to some degree, at least a little, and Tibetan Buddhism seems to be the only silhouette that has this feature.

The Tibetan robes also overlap in the front, but not nearly to the extreme degree as the modern hakama/kimono, from what I can tell. At most, it extends to just shy of the hip, or even a little closer to the middle-point. It's just a hand's width overlap at least.

On top of that, Tibetan and Chinese sleeves aren't usually open along the back seam (against the torso) but sewn as a solid unit, similar to western jackets. Some Japanese monks did leave a gap under the arms and down the back of the sleeve -- not entirely but a minimum amount, to allow more flexibility in the garment than they'd get with entirely-closedup arm-seams. (I guess gussets weren't lucky to be a parallel invention, even if it seems like an obvious concept to me.)

Here's a close-up detail of one of maybe four scenes total that indicate any kind of opening in the back sleeve.



More often than not it's shown as solid, and that really stands out when at least once per episode, Kusuri-uri waves his arms dramatically and the camera takes full advantage of the motion, framing the action from slightly below -- which gives that torso-to-arm area a lot of focus.

Another note about buddhist robes: traditionally they're to be sewn from fabric donated to the monk. (At the very least, this was supposed to always be true of the overgarment drape many buddhist monks wear, which if you're familiar with Inuyasha you may recall Miroku wearing that black thing that seems to just be a large blanket half-wrapped around him, that's what I mean.) But from the zen buddhist monk's robe you can see the robe itself is a bunch of colors, although the sections of cloth were skillfully used to get some kind of pattern. In other words, a fanciful bright multi-colored garment might not have been out of the question, albeit curves being a lot harder for the average person to patchwork, but hey.

---

However, it's late and this is going to have to wait to be continued for when I have more braincells, and more sleep. In the meantime, I leave you all with the admission that never again will I ridicule those Naruto cosplayers for having to wear fishnets with their quasi-ninja quasi-historical garb.

This is why.

Live and learn, even if that does mean learning Japan was goth liek woah, centuries before it was cool.

Comments

[recession.livejournal.com]

While I have nothing of real input to say that may help in the least - part of which is due to me being on my cell phone instead of a computer making research hard - I once again feel the need to say:

I love reading your posts, especially ones like this. Not only do I tend to step away (click away?) with all sorts of new knowledge, I feel like I get to know you a bit better too.

I think I should be watching this series too. It looks really bright and colorful... like Gankotsuo was. (Yes I butchered that spelling.)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to spell that series, either -- but I've heard plenty of folks compare the two, visually. I dunno. That's much of the reason I didn't watch Ayakashi when it first came out, or Mo No No Ke, because Gank-whatever's visuals gave me a freaking headache. It was like, "woo! new technology, so we must use it for the sake of using it because we have the applications so we might as well!"

Maybe there were underlying thematic elements to the illustrations in Gank-whatever, but I couldn't get everything to hold still long enough to give a damn. (That, and I love the book enough to admit that no movie or television show is ever really going to ever come anywhere near close enough to do the story justice. It's just not a filmable story, because what makes it so fascinating is exactly what would make it so boring onscreen.)

However, Mo No No Ke's imagery is much more cohesive, and there's a lot of traditional animation in there to balance the technology. In fact, the technology is pretty intense throughout it but it's subtle at the same time. No in-your-face about it. Skillful use, if you ask me.

Wait, get to know me? Uh oh. Damn it! And here I've been hoping I've been fooling everyone successfully and they'll stick around a little longer. Damn it all.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

"They all have a peculiar peak at the front of the forehead"

Oh, like this?

cf Phrygian Cap -- this is the sort of thing that gives rise to phenomenological theories, on the idea that it's unlikely to have been by historical contact between Mithraism and Ryukyu/Okinawa.

Maybe. It's true there were Persians in Alexander's army who arrived in South Asia, not to mention trade along the Silk Road. So it isn't inconceivable that it was by transmission. OTOH, someone who knows more about the finite number of ways to make a titfer out of a piece of cloth might say it's a case of parallel development.

This is what makes comparative studies complicated, and -- pomo neo-Marxist politicization aside -- makes some people deny the viability of comparativism at all.

(And yes, this is much more interesting than studying for my Philosophy exam.)

PS: That's not fishnet, it's Kevlar! };-Þ

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I thought Phrygian caps were knitted, not sewn. Uh. Not really sure. but they look like skiing caps!

I dunno about those caps, but "tying a square piece of fabric around your head" has got to be parallel development because there's just only so many ways you can do it. Variations, sure, but overall, kinda limited to get really wild about it.

It just might be Kevlar. Made from seaweed, probably.

[branchandroot]

Monk makes more sense than most things. And his spread out sleeves look a whole lot like eyes, don't they? Complete with the red makeup.

My first thought, when you discuss his paraphenalia, though, was: sword, mirror, jems--Amaterasu's three treasures! Which goes back to the imperial thing in a way, but those three are often tossed in to indicate mystical power in general.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

My first thought, when you discuss his paraphenalia, though, was: sword, mirror, jems--Amaterasu's three treasures!

Which is what the Imperial Regalia is supposed to be, uh, with a few *cough* replacements due to mishaps between then and now. Right. But still! Yes, which is why I figured one could read that as "divine" just as much as "imperial" -- the way, I guess, Westerners would be more likely to see Excalibur as an indication of mythic stature instead of as connection to the actual, current British crown.

Then again, in reading up on the regalia, I saw several animanga mentioned that have tapped into that concept -- but most of those I've not seen. (Gets used a lot in the mahou-shojo genre, and I am so NOT up on that, thanks.) The few I have seen, I bet I missed the notion completely because I just didn't have a reference for seeing mirror + sword + necklace and thinking, ooohhh, divine/mythic.

As for robe: yeah, it's eyes all OVER the place.

[joisbishmyoga.livejournal.com]

The padded-hem coats are uchikake, and were required noble overrobes until Edo, hence why they're still required for brides.

I can't tell about the wrist-side of Kusuri-uri's sleeves, but I've read that the sharper the angle at the bottom, the more authority the wearer has? Which is why women's sleeves are always more curved at the bottom-wrist-side than men's, and furisode moreso than tomesode (unmarried vs. married), and children's moreso than furisode. (The only exception seems to be miyamairi first-month kimono, which are draped over the baby like a cape rather than seriously worn.) So the sleeves actually look backwards-young woman-casual to me.

Which brings me to the point you made about his lipstick, that he turns expectations upside-down etc.... maybe that's why his collar is pulled so far back from his neck and his obi is tied that way? Both are feminine styles.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Sharper the angle at the inner-corner, you mean? Oh, wrist-side. From the angles where Kusuri-uri has his arms spread and it's a head-on image (several of those but I grabbed this screen shot soonest and went with it) the wrist-side corner is definitely close-to-square. Any curve is minimal; it's the inside curve that's much stronger -- to the point that in some movements the sleeves almost look bell-shaped rather than rectangular.

(I've also seen seven or eight cosplay examples by now, and I have to say that those sleeves seem to have nearly every cosplayer completely baffled; there's a different design/angle on every costume, poor things.)

The collar back from the neck & the obi just scream feminine tags (per gender identification) -- but I'm getting into that in the next post. It kind of deserved more attention on its own.

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

Re Japanese costume -- I'm sure you've bookmarked Kass's site (https://www.reconstructinghistory.com/articles.php?c=8&w=103&r=Y) already? (Japanese stuff about halfway down)

The eyes are interesting. I've always been interested in them -- on boats, in peacock tails, etc. I used to doodle flying eyes in my notebooks. Hm...

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

HAHA yes, I was just there a few days ago trying to track down examples of historical garments to compare the outlines, see if anything rang a bell to the illustrated version.

Yeah, we have a huge thing about eyes, as humans. I can't think of a culture that doesn't have superstitions, images, and whatnot related to eyes. Though the purpose shifts -- from the Greek "evil eye" (use of, or protection against) to the Buddha's "third eye" (mystical powers, etc)... but still, always the eyes have it, eh.

[(Anonymous)]

Not to mention the various animals that have fake eyes to fool predators, etc.

"The eye is the window of the soul"...

The eyes on this guy's robes remind me of peacock eyes, in particular. Does the stripe on the nose have anything to do with animal markings, btw?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I would be really surprised if the markings were animalistic. I can't think of any Asian mask/art that uses marks as animal-indication. Usually it's hair, dress, maybe colors used, and the ubiquitous cat-ears if we're talking about modern portrayals. I'm not saying it couldn't, but the major theme that I can tell is that of drawing on all sorts of Japanese folklore/etc, and when there's an animal-element is when you get masks like the one in the 4th arc.

Given all the other implications, I'm pretty certain by now that it's a riff on the Buddha's eyes, especially with all the strong hints of Shingon Buddhism in the visuals. On the other hand, what I'd really like is a full artbook from the character designer (also the head animation director and one of the conceptual developers!) to explain how & where & why each element came into the picture. WAH.

[aoi-shu.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you are reading a tiny bit too much into things. Tho a kabuki cue seems most logical here, whole show is made as a performance, a lot of elements including even western stress the feeling.

But if you want to relate to Kabuki - Onnagata were to shave the head into an adult hairdo - so they covered bald patches with purple scarves that imitated lustrous hair. With time it mutated into a small hat like thing, which looks nothing like that Kusiriuri is wearing though, but if you like the idea?

Purple is royal color, also it is most spiritual color, but for Kabuki actors it was a way to disguise what looked ugly to patrons who wanted to bed them. With time it became a real fetish too.

Marks are interesting and since the whole show is somehow reminiscent of Kabuki performance.. can probably be traced to that along with very bright colors. Kabuki costumes were usually outrageously bold and colorful - one needed to see them offstage x well.. they were performers after all - trend setters. But the form suggests to me the usual commoner/lower class dress you can frequently see in movies and animes.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to wonder if I should put disclaimers about philosophical deconstruction on the top of a post so folks know ahead of time that taking everything apart is kinda the point. Heh. I know, I know, it's a bit more extreme than most folks are used to.

Oi, the strange little cap that looks like a, hrm, now I can't remember the name. Like a beanie-cap without the beanie? There's an image in a later post of a young man wearing something like that, and I was wondering! Coolness.

Purple's only a royal color in the west because of the scarcity of the dyestuff that created the color. I wasn't sure if there was a similar issue in Asia that would prompt purple to be rare/expensive there, as well. (Although it does seem that nearly every culture on this planet has some kind of sumptuary laws, cripes.) The combination of low-class form and bright colors or outlandish fabrics is so classically theatre, any theatre.

I mean, I remember seeing Porgy and Bess and thinking, wow, that's... the most fabulous gorgeous dress of... RAGS, sheesh! that I've ever seen. *eyeroll*

[aoi-shu.livejournal.com]

Purple (murasaki) is an important color in Japan, it is connected with aristocracy.

http://www.printsofjapan.com/images/Toyo.%20III%20-%20onnagata%20with%20bag%20string%20in%20mouth.jpg
purple thing on his forehead, but it was scarf in the beginning.

here you see it as a part of a wig - the tradition had been so specific and had strong erotic connotation, so it became even symbolically present on onnagata wigs.

put a disclaimer... but it seems to me you put together too many things. but i won't criticize you. it's your right.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

"put a disclaimer" -- do you mean, put one in there or did you mean to say "but a disclaimer"? DUH reread, and got it. heh.

Eheh, thanks for the info on the onnagata -- what would that be, headpiece? -- the pictures I've found aren't always that clear. Ink shading and whatnot, I mean, and while it's clear there's something on the head, in the other images I've found (online, and in my own books, sheesh) the purple shades more into black and it looks like maybe it's a fancy headband. Or something.

There's something fascinating about how we (as humans) connect certain trivial things with strong erotic connotations, that linger even after the original reason is long gone.

[aoi-shu.livejournal.com]

I researched onnagata for my masters and plan on continuing this research. It's a kind of weird cap - I saw it on one movie *live* so to say - looks pretty ridiculous, and quite like what you see on this wig. since young actors prostituted themselves in order to live or gain better roles, this purple cap was like a sign of attainable pleasure after a while. Tho bakufu ordered to cut the beautiful hair in order to diminish the boys sex appeal, but the purple cap instead of signaling the ugly part just became a different kind of SIGNAL ^^; people... *shakes head*

Having left such imprint and even remaining on the wigs it also kinda offers in insight into the appeal of onnagata - as a compound of both sexes instead of a weird stage surrogate for female. Which it was - I mean androgynous.

Androgyny had been a huge turn on in Japan from earliest times... modern culture turned the erotic aspect of it upside down with women becoming the consumers on a large scale which also points out different sociological and psychological phenomena. but it's too long to write out here^^;

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

That last bit reminds me of a thesis/essay I found online (no idea where now, sadly!) that I scanned before moving on because it wasn't in the area I was focusing on for research. But it was basically arguing that the recent trends in Japanese popular literature (towards women being more interested in reading M/M stories) was a function of women seeking stories in which they could set themselves in one of the romantic roles (a common approach for pretty much all readers), but that in this case the lack of gender-based roles between two men meant that the woman-reader was able to read a romantic story without all the over-heavy layerings of her society's expectations. Like, having a job (or not), getting married, having children, the ticky-boxes, I guess.

Which is completely different from the US/Western world, where romance does not necessarily equate with "whole lotta social expectations coming down hard on the woman". Makes me suspect the Western-reader's interest in M/M romance is very different from the Japanese-reader's interest, which makes me wonder about the storytelling paths taken in each culture's respective written-for-female-audience M/M romance sub-genres.

Although that's mostly an academic musing in the back of my head, because there's a lot about the gender-issues in Japan that, well, bore me to death. Really. Or maybe it's not that so much as that I just find the strong gender-roles so... stullifying, perhaps? If not suffocating. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can put up with it.

Someone on my flist was passing along a news article, a few days ago, about a Japanese company that's hired a local stray cat as its stationmaster/mascot at one of its unmanned stations. One of the higher-ups was quoted as saying, "this cat is the only female in a managerial position."

Yeah, my jaw dropped. If I were a woman working for that company, I would not be pleased to read that. I'd be pretty offended, possibly, as well.

Which means I can get storytelling cross-cultural, because a lot of it's universal. It's aspects of the culture behind the story that leave me boggled. I just don't grok it, really, and I may never.

Eh, well!

[aoi-shu.livejournal.com]

it is my theme indeed, I also compared western and Japanese MM for female audience fiction. I'ts very interesting and complicated. Since it doesn't bore me, I can tell you there is a lot to it. There are a lot of myths about Japanese society, there are a lot of truths harsher than myths, there are a lot of crap that is happening beneath our noses but we don't notice, but get outraged when country is *exotic* to us...

but since it's not your thing I wont bore you with it ^^.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I think I should specify that feminism-in-Japan is so far behind the western world in development, that partly I feel like "hey, just catch up already!" and partly like "okay, but I'm busy dealing with the crap in my own culture." Which makes any interest/info about women-in-Japan purely academic, on many levels. Something to read about, maybe be aware of, but not a pressing personal issue. Heh, I have enough trouble navigating the waters of being friends with several recent-immigrant Japanese women, and the fact that even when we're all speaking English, it's pretty obvious to me that we're not always all having the same conversation. It gets exhausting, sometimes.

there are a lot of crap that is happening beneath our noses but we don't notice, but get outraged when country is *exotic* to us...

This, I didn't get. What do you mean, exactly? Like the tendency for humans to do the "we're fine, here, but OMG look at how bad those people are!" -- the redirection of fussing about someone else rather than dealing with issues at home?

I may be opposite to that, then, because the true focus of any interest on my part for foreign cultures is in exploring how such cultural differences may inform an understanding of my own culture. It's like the old adage that to best learn your own language, study a foreign language. And it's true; I learned more about English from learning French, and then even more about English when studying Mandarin. Wow. There are verb forms in English and crazy sentence structures that I took for granted (and don't really recall every studying, though I 'spect we did at some point in grade school) -- and thanks to French and Mandarin classes, I know what those are now.

I actually learned the differences between "if I were" and "if I was" in MANDARIN class. What the hell!? And I never knew that the proper structure is I shall/you will/he will, we shall/you will/he will until I studied French. (Now I hate all those elevator signs, because "elevators shall" is INCORRECT. Grrrrr.)

So I do the same, but with cultures, now. Like, folklore: the more I study how other cultures view their Other, and the patterns in their folklore, the more I learn in turn about how the US' dominant culture -- and my own Deep South heritage -- uses and adapts folklore. That might sound odd on the face of it, so let's just say it has a lot to do with hermeneutical deconstructionism, which I can say NOW, since I've (finally) provided a glossary-of-sorts. WAH.

[aoi-shu.livejournal.com]

I meant that same things can be happening in our culture, but we don't notice it - but when we are pointed at foreign country with the same issue we goo *oh, these barbarians* ^^, so amusing to see that at times.

I see you have a different field of interest, it's ok.

I see your point.

[aoi-shu.livejournal.com]

on a lighter not - I think his dress when he FLAIRS his arms dramatically simply takes on a shape of a butterfly. Which is pretty symbolic thing in itself. The patterns provide the wing pattern of a butterfly sort which is pretty common but i dunno how it is called^^; Butterflies appear in the show as well. and in Japan they are souls of deceased.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

in Japan they are souls of deceased.

same for several South American cultures, too, and -- hrm, can't remember the tribe -- at least one of the Plains Indians tribes. I'm thinking, hrm, Crow, but I can't recall. It seems to be connected to the fact that moths/butterflies aren't always differentiated, and moths going to flame creating connection of butterfly+flame... and the element of butterflies being such delicate creatures, too. China has folklore around "those who die young and beautiful" coming back as butterflies; I've also found Japanese symbology that sees butterflies as connected to the feminine/female, per delicacy, grace (even shorter lifespan).

Which adds a nice kick to the notion that "boy, that medicine seller has a REALLY long life," considering the emphasis in so many cultures on butterflies having connection to short life and/or death. Heh. Longest fricking lived butterfly ever, baby!

[ma-shi-ma-ru.livejournal.com]

this is so friggin' cool 8D

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Heh, thanks!

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

Utterly fascinating--there was some of this that I picked up on (particularly the imperial regalia thing :D) but the Buddhism refs...well, that *is* quite interesting at that. :3

(And damn it, this is definitely brain fodder and reminding me about refs I saw with another of my loves involving twin-souled entities and Buddhist imagery. :D)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

"brain fodder"

Yeah, that's it, exactly.

The headwear...

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

Its been a while since you wrote this but I've found it very interesting. I'm currently working on a kisuri cosplay so I've been researching things as well. I thought I would share something I'd picked up from "Kabuki Costume" by Ruth Shaver. Its about the headscarf.

Its called a zukin (zu-head,kin-cloth/bag). They are not that unusual in kabuki and purple is one of the more usual colours they come in. There are different forms of it (from covering just hair, covering the entire head to shoulders, and from being flat or sticking out).

As regards the characters that wear them its noted that its never just an accessory. They always have a pratical use "if not always an honest one". They are used to keep off dust (presumably when when working?), stay warm in cold weather, "or to prevent recognition". There is a slight suggestion in the book that unless the colouring of a zukin is blue (which signifies gentle characters) it may suggest a more deceptive or a diguised character (in Kabuki).

It may be just me but in my head this seems to say it may signify him disguising his intentions a bit to other characters in the anime. As its remarked in one episode (the ship one by the woman) whose side is he on anyway...Or it cold just signify he is a practical character...

You may draw your own conclusions but I thought I would share :)