Sana Takeda

A Japanese artist currently working mainly for Marvel, Sana Takeda came to my attention for her collaboration with writer Marjorie Liu on the series Monstress. It's an intrically drawn, stark tale of power and pain, supernatural forces and a particular barbaric type of slavery, and is an extremely compelling read.

This review, in particular, struck me and deserves to be shared: “That tenuous space between survival and terror is where Monstress lives. It’s a comic book with mud in its blood, unafraid to be a swirling epic as well as a ghastly dark fantasy.” – Vox

Bonsai

A bonsai (盆栽, literally "plantings in tray")is a tree that is carefully pruned and shaped to remain a diminutive size while mimicking the style and shape of mature, full-size trees. The Japanese art of bonsai began in the 6th century, when Japanese diplomats brought back penjing (盆景, literally "tray scenery") from mainland China, though the Japanese repidly developed their own aesthetics for the art.

From Wikipedia: "Generally speaking, tree penjing specimens differ from bonsai by allowing a wider range of tree shapes (more "wild-looking") and by planting them in bright-colored and creatively shaped pots. In contrast, bonsai are more simplified in shape (more "refined" in appearance) with larger-in-proportion trunks, and are planted in unobtrusive, low-sided containers with simple lines and muted colors." (It seems, however, that different regions of Japan developed different styles - by the late 1860s Tokyo and Kyoto had different styles when it came to bonsai, and neither approved of the other.)

In Utsubo Monogatari (Tale of the Hollow Tree, year 970), Japan's oldest full-length narrative (a literary style comparable to the epic), there is a passage that illustrates the Japanese mindset in this point in history fairly well: "A tree that is left growing in its natural state is a crude thing. It is only when it is kept close to human beings who fashion it with loving care that its shape and style acquire the ability to move one."

One has to say, though, that Japanese aesthetics are manyfold and intricate, considered in Western society as more of a philosophy than anything else while within Japan they are considered an integral part of life. A key point of Japanese aesthetics is mono no aware, a concept originated by Motoori Norinaga in the 18th century, which describes empathy towards beauty. In his Shibun Yoryo (The Essentials of the Tale of Genji, 1763), Norinaga describes it as such:

For instance, if a man, viewing beautiful cherry-blossoms in full bloom, appreciates them as beautiful, he is aware of mono no kokoro or the heart of the thing. Being aware of the beauty of the blossoms, he is moved by it. That is, he is sensitive to mono no aware. In contrast, if a man, whatever beautiful flowers he sees, does not feel them to be beautiful, he is not aware of mono no kokoro. Such a man is never moved by the beauty of the flowers. That is to say, he is not sensitive to mono no aware.

In Japanese culture, a main point of life is to appreciate ephemeral things such as the cherry blossoms, and this certainly extends to bonsai, for which there are many rules. These little trees are trimmed and shaped to best reflect wabi-sabi, perhaps the most important of Japanese aesthetic ideals. This ideal concerns the elegance in imperfection, simplicity and age. In art books, it is typically defined as "flawed beauty". Being moved by wabi-sabi is to be sensitive to mono no aware, and I hope you feel a part of these concepts when admiring the below bonsai from the Japanese collection of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum.

Japanese Maple, in training since 1906

Hornbeam, in training since 1935

Japanese White Pine, training date unknown

These miniature trees are cultivated over decades, often more than a century, but I do have to giggle at the phrase "in training since"! An interesting turn of phrase to use for trees. It makes me think more of martial art than the art of careful trimming.

Makuragaeshi

Japanese folk tales have a lot of different ghosts and spirits, many of them geared towards silly or terrifying pranks (such as creating typhoons at funerals, luring humans off cliffs by rolling downhill in the shape of a sake bottle, or sneaking up behind women in the street at night and cutting off their hair). You can check out some of these strange and interesting monsters in these illustrations that describe their anatomy, and if you're familiar with Japanese tales you will be unsurprised to see that quite a few of them consume human souls. There are, however, differing tales in which certain spirits will be more or less dangerous: The Bisha-ga-tsuku, for example, is also said to simply pass you by if you invite it to.

Yesterday I came across a spirit called Makuragaeshi,  which translates to "pillow flipper" or "pillow mover", and thought it was too neat not to share. It's a ghost that haunts specific rooms in a house, and the main thing it does is - you guessed it - flip people's pillows while they sleep! They may also run through ashes and leave dirty footprints all over the house, or sit on a sleeping person's chest to squeeze the air out of their lungs, or, in some of the more sinister tales, steal someone's soul while they're unconscious.

The Japanese do like their soul-stealing spirits.

The Makuragaeshi is generally said to take on the form of a small child dressed as either a Nio (Buddhist guardian), a monk, or a samurai, of which I chose to illustrate the second. Dirty footprints lead up to the bed, where a girl sleeps restlessly, the Makuragaeshi pressing down on her chest as it removes the pillow from under her head. A small smile curves the prankster's lips as the girl's breathing becomes labored... Whether or not it also steals her soul is left to your imagination.

[Edit 07.10.2015: I found out today that the origins of the words "nightmare" and "Alptraum" (English and German, respectively) are of a creature that would sit on the chest of a sleeping person, putting pressure on their lungs and giving them bad dreams. The original word, "mahr", is Germanic, and an "alb" is a demon or elf. How neat!]

Ashikaga Takauji

That's the name of the founder and first shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate. (The name is pronounced Taka-u-ji, with emphasis on the U and all A sounds pronounced "ah".) A Shogun, which literally means "military commander", was a hereditary military governor in Japan and the de facto ruler of the country, despite officially being appointed by the emperor (Tenno, 天皇, "heavenly sovereign"), and a shogunate is a dynasty. The Ashikaga shogunate is also known as the Muromachi period of Japan, which followed the Kenmu Restoration.

Takauji's rule began in 1338 and ended with his death in 1358; he was a descendent of Emperor Seiwa, the 56th emperor of Japan. According to famous Zen master and intellectual Muso Soseki, Takauji had three qualities: First, he kept his cool in battle and was not afraid of death; second, he was merciful and tolerant, and third, he was very generous with those below him. It seems that Ashikaga Takauji was rarely called by name in contemporary chronicles, but referred to as "great shogun" (Ō-gosho, 大御所).

However, the man's reputation is not quite so clear-cut, for he based his shogunate on betrayal. Japan was in restless times, the Emperor Go-Daigo having been exiled from the imperial capital, and Takauji was sent by the Kamakura shogunate to quell the unrests in Kyoto as they reached the level of a civil war. Disillusioned with the Kamakura shogunate, Takauji joined forces with the banished emperor and began fighting against the shogunate. With the downfall of the shogunate, Emperor Go-Daiyo became the de facto ruler of Japan, beginning the Kenmu restoration. This was an attempt to bring the Imperial House back into power, thus restoring a civilian government after almost a century and a half of military rule, but the restoration failed rapidly. The samurai clans were unhappy with the reestablished imperial court, and Takauji switched his support from the emperor to the rebels, allying himself with several clans and seizing Kyoto with his forces. After Emperor Go-Daigo fled, Takauji installed Emperor Komyo on the throne and was soon named Shogun.

This had the result that there were two emperors at once - Emperor Go-Daigo in the Southern Court, and Emperor Komyo in the Northern Court. This came about because after fleeing Kyoto, a very weakened Go-Daigo agreed to a cease-fire and handed over the Imperial Regalia to Ashikaga. Once he was safely esconced in Yoshino, Go-Daigo loudly claimed that the Imperial Regalia Ashikaga had used to enthrone Komyo were in fact forgeries, meaning that Komyo wasn't in fact the legitimate successor to the throne. The Southern Court is considered the legitimate sovereignty, but later Japanese sovereigns were descended from the Northern Court, which is also known as the "Ashikaga Pretenders". (The current Japanese imperial family is descended from the Northern Court.)

Takauji himself is one of the most controversial figures of Japanese history, often seen either as a great soldier and a charismatic leader or a traitor, opportunist, and villain. You can read a thorough and extremely interesting account of the battles, political situations and people the man found himself surrounded by here, and while his shogunate was one of the weakest in Japanese history, Takauji is considered one of Japan's greatest samurai figures.

Also, his name is AWESOME, and the entire reason why I started reading up on him to begin with.

Vocaloid

As put on the official website, "Vocaloid is a technology for singing voice synthesis developed by Yamaha, and the name of this software application. The software allows users to input melody and lyrics in order to synthesize singing. In other words, with this technology, singing can be produced without a singer.".

Luka, Gumi and Miku, three of the most popular Vocaloids.

This software started out small, but had a huge boom in popularity when Hatsune Miku was introduced, a female singer with two very long blue pigtails. Her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita, and her name can be read as meaning "first sound future" (hatsu 初, ne 音, miku ミク (a nanori reading of mirai 未来)).

By now there are many, many songs online created by using one of the various digital singers, with some very prominent songwriters, producers and illustrators in the community. The video below, with music and lyrics by Nem, vocals by Vocaloid singers Gumi and Kagamine Len, and art by Tama, is really fun. It has English subtitles, so check it out! The song style is not for everyone (it really does sound synthetic), but the animation is so sweet. It's called "Ah, It's a Wonderful Cat Life":

Now, there are a bunch of artists who cover these songs, and they go by the name of Utaite. However, I'm not very familiar with those artists yet, having only heard a few covers, and the only one I really know is 96neko (96猫), pronounced kuroneko. She has a rather deep voice, which is pleasant (and a bit odd) after listening to high-pitched synthetic singing. It's easy to find compilations on youtube - here's a 1 hour compilation of some of her covers (with videos):

There's also some very good fanart out there, so I've been having a lot of fun exploring in the past few days! I have some more "serious" tabs open, too, so you may next hear about Gilgamesh, sakko (a Japanese geisha hairstyle or German men's jacket, depending on the language you speak), or even flight tickets. Finally booked my flight to the States today, after much poking around. I suppose music's a more interesting topic to post about, but maybe I'll point out the top websites I use. For now, I leave you with vocaloids!

Japanese Tea Ceremony

The other day I started reading up on the Japanese tea ceremony. It's such a complex and interesting tradition that I rapidly found myself caught up in it, reading about the tools, phrases, and of course, the tea.

The complex ceremony evolved due to the scarcity of tea from the Nara to the Heian period (794-1192), making tea a valuable and treasured beverage. From then on, the tea ceremony evolved until reaching the level of detail and sense of ritual that it has today. (Read about the influence of the Samurai and zen monks on the tea ceremony here!)

Called chanoyu (茶の湯), the Japanese tea ceremony is the ritualistic preparation of matcha (抹茶), powdered green tea. There is another, less common style using sencha - loose tea leaves like the ones we are familiar with. This tea ceremony is called senchado (煎茶道).
Matcha, however, is made from shade-grown tea leaves that are steamed and laid out flat to dry; as a result they crumble somewhat, and at this stage the tea is called tencha (碾茶). Tencha is also supposed to be very delicious, but if the tea leaves are taken and de-stemmed, de-veined, and ground, then you end up with matcha - a fine, vivid green powder that has great health benefits. One glass of matcha supposedly equals 10 glasses of regular green tea in terms of nutritional value and antioxidant content. Impressive!

If you had a look at the kanji (Chinese symbols), you'll have noticed that each one contains the kanji 茶, cha, which means tea. Japanese people will respectfully call tea "o-cha", as O is a prefix that shows respect. "O-cha" in Japan tends to refer to green tea, and Western black tea is commonly referred to as "koucha" (紅茶), which literally means "red tea".

Interestingly, matcha has experienced a surge in popularity outside Japan, being sold the world over in matcha lattes, chocolates, cakes, and a variety of other forms. If you should want to try matcha yourself, there's a very thorough and interesting review of matcha brands here!

The tea ceremony, however, remains an integral part of Japanese culture. 

I found it fascinating to read about the chanoyu (tea ceremony with matcha), and watched this video showing tea being prepared for two women. It takes a little while for things to be set up, so if you skip to 5:30 you'll see the woman preparing the tea (called a Teishu - the host of the tea ceremony) carefully folding a cloth napkin to wipe the lid of the container holding the matcha powder. The way she folds the cloth with slow deliberation into a shape that reminds of origami, then wipes the lid with careful strokes in the shape of the letter ko, こ, is captivating. Each gesture is clearly choreographed, the weight of tradition behind it.

Also of particular interest to me are the phrases and expressions used during the ceremony; it's a choreographed conversation between the Teishu (host) and Shokyaku (main guest), with only occasional comments between the guests. The Shokyaku, regardless of how many guests are present, is the only one to speak with the host.

Then, there are the items that the guests carry on them - if in the video you skip to 11 minutes, you'll see the younger guest pull a napkin out of the overlap of her kimono at chest height, proceeding to use it as a sort of dish to eat one of the provided candies. I was so surprised when she pulled the napkin seemingly out of nowhere!


There is a lot more to say about the tea ceremony, but these are the main points that were interesting to me. I definitely want to enjoy a proper cup of matcha someday! If you want to read more about the chanoyu, I highly recommend the webside www.japanese-tea-ceremony.net.

Yamato Nadeshiko - the ideal Japanese woman

Yamato Nadeshiko is a Japanese aesthetic and cultural concept defining the perfect woman. It has its basis in the Confucian concepts of Feudal Loyalty (Li) and Filial Piety (Hsiao), and the main characteristics of a yamato nadeshiko are loyalty, domestic ability, wisdom, maturity, and humility.

“Yamato” is one of the more poetic names for Japan, similar to “Eire” for Ireland, while “Nadeshiko” is the name of a wildflower (Dianthus superbus) native to not only Japan, but also parts of Europe. The kanji for the term, 大和撫子, translate into English as “caressable child” or “wide-eyed barley”. (Not sure how flattering the barley term is!) 

In anime and more, a properly portrayed yamato nadeshiko will have a subtle touch of iron, unwilling to let circumstances hurt the ones she cares about or distract her from her goals or missions. A poorly done yamato nadeshiko will often appear as what tvtropes.org refers to as an “Extreme Doormat”, or a character who is “silent and submissive without the inner strength of a true yamato nadeshiko”. 

Historically, most nadeshiko were noble women with traditional upbringings, and as many came from samurai clans they had some martial skills, typically trained at least in the use of the naginata (a polearm with a slightly curved blade at the end), if not more.

Konoka Konoe from Mahou Sensei Negima!

I found it interesting to go through the examples on the TV Tropes page, and though I didn’t know many of them I certainly agreed with the ones I recognized! Of interest to most people I know would be the mention of the concept in Mulan: “Men want girls with good taste, calm, obedient, who work fast-paced. With good breeding and a tiny waist.” Mulan herself has some of the characteristics of a yamato nadeshiko, possessing the looks and the devotion to her parents, and her core of steel is shown in taking her father’s place in going to war not for glory or any reason but to spare her father’s life and the family honor.

From the anime section I had to smile at the mention of Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess, Hinata from Naruto, Tomoe from Rurouni Kenshin, Konoka from Mahou Sensei Negima!, and several other manga/anime characters; in the literature section I was overjoyed to see a mention of the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce, in which the Yamani women (the Fantasy counterpart culture for Japan) are known for their politeness, stoicism, and carrying weapons that look like decorations (such as war fans, called “shukusen” in the books).

 
Interesting to read in comparison to the concept of yamato nadeshiko is the concept of the "Proper Lady". Mainly retaining a Victorian British mindset, the Proper Lady is gentle yet strong, incorruptible and intelligent, witty and well-mannered, and typically upper class. Examples would be Disney's Snow White, Margaret (Meg) from Little Women, Penelope (Odysseus' wife) from The Odyssey, and Pygmalion/My Fair Lady, which is all about how one becomes a true lady.