Hokusai to Hara: Ukiyo-e to Anime

Looking back…

Anton: I came to study woodblock prints and thought I’d do my research in a museum. But one contact led to another and I ended up doing line drawing work at a manga publisher. Suddenly all those hours studying contours and negative space became unexpectedly useful. 
Arisa: Are ukiyo-e and manga different completely art forms? 
Anton: Different tools, same family resemblance. Ukiyo-e artists had to communicate movement, emotion, weather, personality, all with line. Manga inherited that confidence in line. Selecting which lines matter and leaving the rest out. 
Arisa: So manga is a descendant of ukiyo-e? 
Anton: I’d say so. There’s sequential storytelling, expressive faces, stylised motion, dramatic composition. Even the economy of line. Manga modernised it.
Arisa: So where does anime fit? If ukiyo-e becomes manga… does manga become anime? 
Anton: Often, yes. Anime takes manga’s drawn language and adds movement, sound, rhythm, timing. But there’s another interesting loop: sometimes anime reaches back into older Japanese art traditions. 

Hara Keiichi: Miss Hokusai

Arisa: Any recommendations? 
Anton: Well, the anime film Miss Hokusai. It takes the world and artwork of ukiyo-e artist Hokusai Katsushika telling the story through anime. Set in Tokyo’s Edo era. Feels modern and historical at the same time. Director was Hara Keiichi.
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Voice-over
Manga and anime are not for everyone. There have always been fans and detractors. But there’s something about the economy of lines in a woodblock print, a manga page, or animation frames, when lines express the essence of the story.

Lorna sees the Nenes

Lorna is taken to a club some years ago…

Sanae: It’s a small place but a bit special. They’re famous.

Lorna: What does Nenes mean?

Sanae: Sisters. 

Lorna: And look, a sanxian. 

Sanae: We say sanshin. Same, same.

Lorna: Snakeskin, right?

Sanae: Heart of Okinawan music. Came from China, of course, as you well know. Small venues suit Okinawan music. Good ramen here, too. Rich and garlicky. Try some?

Lorna: Ooh, yes.

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Voice-over

In Okinawa the Nenes were known for their harmony and ballad-style story-telling songs: the sea, fishing villages, longing, a bit of melancholy. Singing in small clubs creating community. Nice.

Charlie and Mamachari

Borrowing a bicycle…
Charlie: I need to pop down to the shops.
Hiroshi: うん、いいよ。うちの二台目の自転車、使っていいよ。Use my Mama-chari.
Charlie: A what? Sorry—did you say mama Charlie? My name?
Hiroshi: ちがうよ！ママチャリ。Mama-chari. Not your name! Means “mother’s bike”.
Charlie: Oh, like a shopping bike? Does it have gears?
Hiroshi: 三段だけ。でも坂道はちょっときついよ。Have basket and gears three.
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Voice-over
A totally practical Japanese bicycle… ママfor mother, チャリ short for charinko, link to “chariot” undetermined.

Steampunk coffee shop

Sign on a Kitsch street…

Hugo: Hmm. And are the coffee beans here ground by a dirigible?
Sophronia: I’ve heard the barista’s name is Percival and is famous for his froth portraits.
Hugo: It’s early, but I could go for a second cup. My stamina gauge is flickering.
Sophronia: Same. There’s a whole morning ahead. I need fuel for philosophical rambling and shoe shopping.
Hugo: I can imagine the taste: smoky, with hints of mahogany and existential dread.
Sophronia: Come on. We have to try it. It’s practically calling to us in Morse code.
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Voice-over
There are steampunk coffeeshops. Design elements: gears, cogs, exposed pipes. Colors: gold, browns, reds. Metals: copper and brass. Mixing retro with futuristic. Makes you wonder what Victorian coffee shops really did look like.

White Tanabata Rabbit

Tanabata, when wishes are written on strips of colored paper (tanzaku) resembling very narrow postcards. Tanabata celebrates the annual attempt for separated weaver Orihime and her cowherd husband Hikoboshi to cross the Milky Way to meet. In simpler times girls wished for better sewing skills and boys might wish for better handwriting. I guess the sewing skills wish was inspired by weaver Orihime but I am wondering how better handwriting might improve the life of cowherds like Hikoboshi." Contemporary thoughtful and odder wishes: "I wish it would never rain on Tanabata so Orihime and Hikoboshi could have more time together.” Or “I wish I had a cat the size of a horse I could ride on.”

Porky and Bess

Porky picks up a package from Bess, an old acquaintance…

Bess: To Narita, Terminal 1, South Wing, Baggage pick up.
Porky: A suitcase disguised as a Totoro?  What’s in it?
Bess: This is a need to know only assignment. I’ll pick it up myself on Sunday.
Porky: Where to this time? 
Bess: Somewhere south. I’ll be gone a month. Usual fee?
Porky: You owe me the usual story. Where you went, whether the mission went well.
Bess: Deal. When I get back. A story told in metaphors.
Porky: And with a bunch of riddles to go with it.
Bess: Was it ever not thus?
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Voice-over
Porky delivers packages for clients who give him stories to write about. Bess is an agent who is has a delivery assignment every couple of months to a different country. Her instructions are always hidden in an anime character. They met years ago and now take on jobs not for money, but to time-travel. 

Origami Reading Woman

In a stationery store in a remote Japanese town…

Mariko: Just look at this. Stunning, isn’t it?

Shiho: Ooh, very delicate. What’s it called—‘夜長’? Night’s length? You think it’s a woman reading?

Mariko: Yes! Reading by the soft glow of an oil lamp, lost in her own world. Probably writing wistful poetry too.

Shiho: Or maybe she’s ploughing through Tale of Genji.

Mariko: Exactly! That kind of noble melancholy.

Shiho: You realize she’s made of rice paper, right? Drop her once and she’s confetti?

Mariko: Nonsense. I’ll swaddle her in bubble wrap and she’ll be fine. The shopkeeper said a friend made this. Possibly one of a kind. How can I not make it the crown jewel of my collection?

 

マリコ: これ見て。すごくない？

シホ: おお、すごく繊細。“夜長”って書いてあるね。夜が長い…読書してる女性かも？

マリコ: そうそう！油灯の下で、静かに読書中。たぶん、しっとりとした和歌も詠んでるの。

シホ: それとも源氏物語を読破中かもね。

マリコ: まさにそれよ！貴族的な憂いね。

シホ：…でもさ、この人、和紙でできてるよ？ちょっと揺れただけで紙吹雪よ？」

マリコ: 大丈夫！気泡緩衝材でくるんで、私より無事に移動できるわ。店主さんが言ってたの。知人の作で、たぶん一点物だって。これはコレクションの中心にすべきよ。」

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Voice-over
A woman reading into the hours when the world goes quiet. Rendered as origami. Who created this? An artist up a valley who creates stories out of folded paper?

Rainy Season Strategies

Avoiding humidity…
Hiroshi: You sleep like a cat, curled up, 
Hiroko: I nap a lot in the rainy season.
Hiroshi: I don’t sleep. 
Hiroko: And you don’t drink enough water.
Hiroshi: It’s rainy season. I osmose. Take in water through my skin.
Hiroko: How about summer in Hokkaido. Dry air, clean breezes.
Hiroshi: Ah, Hokkaido, I would reinvent myself. Drinking milk instead of water. Staying at a farm, where kind farmers give me miso ramen and a wool sweater.
Hiroko: Sweaters in summer?
Hiroshi: Hokkaido summers are mild. Perfect for light wool. Functional. Cozy. And you will have less need for napping.
Hiroko: But who will take care of the cat?
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Voice-over
Hokkaido being further north than Honshu with its hot humid summers, does have a cooler, more temperate climate, and no distinct rainy season. Might be worth trying for a summer. (Nemuri Neko by Hidari Jingorō).

Solitude or Spooks?

On moving from a rundown overgrown house…
Ricardo: Eventually, you stop noticing the mountains because you’ve spent too long staring at them.
Edwin: So you think it dulls one? That solitude becomes confinement?
Ricardo: It’s not solitude—it’s predictability. I came looking for peace, and I found it. But peace turns into stillness, and stillness into a kind of quiet resignation. After a while, you don’t try to reach goals. You settle. And the trees grow over the house. 
Edwin: It looks, er, charming.
Ricardo: Charm doesn’t fix a broken house. You move out and move on.
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Voice-over
Ricardo goes on to remark that Lafcadio Hearne understood places like this. The lingering ghosts, the superstitions... It is then that Edwin realizes it is the ghosts that are driving Ricardo out.

Eggplants and Butterflies

Fifty years on…

Harold: Never thought I'd see this place again. Almost no change. Look - the house still stands. Akiya now, huh?
Hiroshi: No one wanted it. The younger people have left. The old ones stayed, but they are fewer every year.
Harold: Same names. Hando. Ikeda. I used to greet them every morning. Eggplants! I used to grow eggplants in this very garden.
Hiroshi: Hando’s grandson plants them every spring. He doesn’t know why—just knew eggplants always grew here.
Harold: This was my place, my rhythm. Wake up, water the garden, drink tea in the quiet. And the butterflies. They still look the same. Generations on.
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Voice-over
Hiroshi remarks that there are so few people now. Cities pull them away.

Spy Family in the Onsen Manga Room

Late back...

Ken: Sorry. I dropped by the hot spring after work - needed a reset.

Louise: Fall asleep in the bath again?

Ken: Ha! No, but I felt so relaxed that I stopped by the manga library and guess what I found - Spy x Family!

Louise: Oh, good one! Did you start from the beginning or just grab a random?

Ken: Yeah. Random. One of the Eden Academy arcs. That family is seriously something else.

Louise: And not just the spy stuff. The way Loid balances saving the world and pretending to be a normal dad is hilarious. And Yor? A gentle wife who also happens to be an assassin? What a mix!

Ken: I think what caught me off guard most was Anya—she’s this cute, innocent-looking kid, but the fact that she’s secretly telepathic and keeps misinterpreting everything Loid and Yor do? Absolute gold.

Louise: And her obsession with peanuts. I think she’s the heart of the story - her reactions make everything twice as funny.

Ken: Yeah, I didn’t expect it to be this quirky. One moment, it’s action-espionage, next, it’s Loid panicking about parent-teacher conferences.

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Voice-over
Recommended way to end an onsen soak by flipping pages in a manga. 

Noodles, Noise and a Vulnerable Voice

Argument over ambience…
Fred: Noodles? Kyushu Ramen, big, cheerful place.
Carl: Hmm. Loud? My hearing’s not what it used to be, and I have to raise my voice. How about Midnight Diner? Shinya’s noodles are good.
Fred: But don’t you miss the energy of a buzzing restaurant? 
Carl: Maybe when I was younger. Now, I prefer restaurants where people don’t have to shout just to place an order.
Fred: Okay. But doesn’t you ever feel it gets too quiet in a place like Shinya’s?
Carl: Nope. It’s less stress hearing the person across the table and tasting my food instead of trying to ignore boisterous braying and bellowing.
Fred: Fine. Let’s go to your quiet noodle place. If we find it too quiet, I can hum a tune.
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Voice-over
Croakiness creeps into the vocal box with age. Carl could benefit from some voice therapy. Like vocal training exercises such as humming and breathing, treatment like diet and hydration, environmental factors like stress and sleep.

Sōseki meets Hearne in Kumamoto

A curious symmetry as H departs for Tokyo, S arrives.

Hearne: It is not an easy place to settle. There is a loneliness.

Sōseki: I’ve only just arrived and do not sense desolation.

Hearne: Not desolation, a persistent stillness. As if the mountains brooding. The trees are listening. And the mists veil ghosts.

Sōseki: Well, I come here in search of solitude. Balm for my spirit. I have read your accounts, though I take them with both admiration and caution. But surely not all phantoms are malicious?

Hearne: Not malicious, no—but they are insistent. I once encountered a noodle vendor by the roadside near Suizenji. The hour was late, the fog low. He had no face. And yet he bowed courteously, and vanished.

Sōseki: A faceless vendor? A tale to chill the ink in one's brush. But you have always had eyes to see what others cannot—or will not.

Hearne: Be wary where you walk alone.
Sōseki: And I mean to walk often. These mountains—Aso, Kinpō—they beckon like pages yet unread. Perhaps if I write, it shall be to give voice to the stones, not the spirits.

Hearn: A noble ambition. But the stones have long memories, and they may speak of things you would rather forget. Japan is beautiful, but a beauty layered with sorrow.

Sōseki: What land is not? But I have grown weary of cities and the endless disquiet they bring. Perhaps the sorrow here, being older, is more honest.

Hearne: Honest, yes. But unyielding. Do not expect comfort from it. I found no companions in here—only watchers. The people are courteous, but the silence is not benign.

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Voice-over

Sōseki notes that Hearne is a foreigner in Japan, just as Sōseki himself was a foreigner in England which gave him a deep loneliness. They part with mutual respect, Hearne cautioning Sōseki he may wake one morning and find himself not in the year he thought it was, nor in the skin he assumed was his. Sōseki replies that he shall write to anchor himself drawing a distinction between them that Hearne walked through mists; and he, Sōseki will seek stone paths to walk.

White Rabbit, Golden Week

Three white rabbits celebrating Golden Week as samurai, singer and shaman are on a quest to admire azaleas on a mountain hike. May the month of May be merry, barbecue bring briskness to our gait, and fluttering carp herald lashings of luck.

Off hiking a mountain track. The same track that Natsume Sōseki took when he was writing Grass Pillow (草枕 Kusa Makura) in 1906: “Walking up a mountain track, I fell to thinking… Approach everything rationally, and you become harsh. Pole along in the stream of emotions, and you will be swept away by the current. Give free rein to your desires, and you become uncomfortably confined. It is not a very agreeable place to live, this world of ours.”

White Rabbits Brave Blossoms

 

What have blossoms bravely blooming in the Japanese spring got to do with rugby you may ask? Well, the Japanese ruggards team is called the Brave Blossoms. It seems an unusual juxtaposition, but gets your attention. And maybe sympathy. WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT!

Minamata Mercury Poisoning

Recognizing a scene in an old photo …

Dennis: That’s the Chisso plant in Minamata isn’t it?
Antonio: Sharp eye. Yes. 1973.
Dennis: Wasn’t that the time Eugene Smith was documenting the Minamata-byō?
Antonio: He was photographing the mercury poisonings a couple of years earlier. 
Dennis: They got compensation, didn’t they?
Antonio:

It took years. The company didn’t recognize that it was their waste-water that poisoned the bay, got into the shellfish and fish. The company remained defensive deceptive and aggressive so when I was trying to take a photo of the plan, like with Eugene, the guards rushed over and demanded the negatives. I avoided that by escaping.
Dennis: Did you interview any victims?
Antonio: Three. Heartbreaking stories, they were. 
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Voice-over
By March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognized as having Minamata disease[3] and over 10,000 had received financial compensation from Chisso (Japanese government figures).

Up climbing

Moving house…
William: It’s on the fourth floor. Time to "up climb".
Andrew: Good to hear you’re not "down climbing" any deeper than the basement you're moving out of. Affordable?
William: I only have a suitcase of clothes, a skeleton set of cooking pots, plates, cutlery, and my drinking mug. 1DK is enough.
Andrew: And your ukulele! 
William: Yes, my sanity-saver. It keeps me from going bonkers in a small apartment.
Andrew: But seriously, have you crunched the numbers?
William: Numbers, schmumbers! I'll make it work. Who needs a big place when you have the heart of a minimalist and the soul of a musician.
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Voice-over
William might have to resort to busking to help pay the rent. But with a ukulele?

Kimono and Hiking Boots

Costume contrast…
Mari: Zori or geta are prescribed protocol. Hiking boots jar the aesthetic.
Haru: Unusual, yes. Perhaps it’s for practical reasons, like she’s got to get to tea ceremony across a muddy field and will change when she arrives.
Mari: Maybe.
Haru: Could be a statement. About blending or diversity. To give it a woke flavor.
Mari: I’ve seen sneakers.
Haru: The young are experimenting. Like using kimono silk for totes.
Mari: Oh no!
Haru: At least she knows how to tie the obi. 
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Voice-over
Might be called postmodern, Might be called a farce. It’s a stretch to see the older generation following such fashion trends. But the young are pushing new boundaries.

White Japan February Rabbit

Feb 1-2: skiing, 

Feb 2-3: soaking off the sunburn in an onsen,

Feb 2: throwing beans so the tax office gives a refund (a setsubun invocation). 

WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT

Naoshima or Kyushu

Planning the next trip…
Yoko: Ferruccio, we need to decide on our next trip. Should we go to Naoshima or Kyushu? You’re not still obsessed with those oversized pumpkins and spotted teapots?
Ferruccio: Haha, yes, Naoshima has gone a bit overboard with its so-called “art.” How about a trip around Kyushu, remember? 50 years ago? When you were SUCH a good navigator!
Yoko: Oh, playing the nostalgia card? But Kyushu does have a charm that Naoshima’s “art” could never replicate.
Ferruccio: Maybe Kyushu hasn’t quite yet been overrun with tourists taking selfies with fake art. Amakusa, Kagoshima, Nagasaki?
Yoko: Amakusa would be quiet, with those great coastal views and hidden Christian churches. I could take pictures and show church friends. And we can stay in a traditional ryokan with unique dishes and a hot spring.
Ferruccio: Sounds good. Maybe we’ll even have some quiet evenings to rest.
Yoko: Making some new memories travelling in Kyushu. It’s never too late.
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Voice-over
The Amakusa islands have several hidden churches and are known as the "islands of prayer". During the Edo period (1603–1868), when Christianity was banned, Christians lived in hiding on the islands. Sakitsu Church itself (pictured) was not a hiding place for Japanese Christians during the period of persecution, as it was built later, in 1934. However, the village of Sakitsu, was a significant refuge for Hidden Christians (Kakure Kirishitan) when Christianity was banned.