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The theme of sacrifice in Japanese pop culture / lit

7/24/18

Very quickly, while Ichiro is sleeping...

I'm currently following Umino Chika's super-popular manga/anime 「三月のライオン」(March Comes In Like a Lion) which has been such a huge hit despite some very heavy themes. During the first season, I was drawn to the main character's struggle with his status as both an orphan and a genius shogi player, who makes more money than his high school teacher as a professional player. This season though I am more interested in the work's theme of sacrifice.

The show's more drab characters most clearly illustrate this theme. Particularly, Shimada Kai and Yanagihara Sakutaro. Kai is in his thirties and Sakutaro is in his sixties, and both have given up a lot to play shogi on their level.

Kai has stomach ulcers, a failed relationship, early signs of aging. Sakutaro has many physical ailments, seems to be single, is the oldest active A-class player. As they square off, both have flashbacks to what they have lost in order to keep going. Beautiful imagery, dripping with metaphor, over the top, to balance out the very slow and boring aspects of the game.



It's interesting to watch/read this work while also reading Life of a Party Member, by Kobayashi Takiji, who was a member of the Japanese Communist Party at a time when it was illegal, when being  so much as a liberal could get you locked up. Very different politics of course, but similar themes. Kobayashi's main characters, like Umino's, struggle to reconcile the sacrifices that they continue to make in order to reach a higher level. Both sets of characters are based on or inspired by real-life individuals. In Kobayashi's case, his main character is an avatar of himself, and like his fictional characters, he made the ultimate sacrifice.



Kobayashi's main character struggles to convince others and even himself that these are not sacrifices but rather proofs of the ruling class's cruelty. In March, there is no one to blame for the sacrifices except each character's own ambition. Knowing that this might be a useless question, I still wonder, which is worse? Which is better? Having someone to blame? Having no one to blame but yourself?  Kobayashi was murdered (tortured to death) by government police before he could really flesh out these themes in his own body of work, but Umino continues to ask and explore different answers.

Both Umino and Kobayashi try to cast the question in terms not of "sacrifice" but of discipline, both self-discipline and discipline of others. If I get the chance I will go into this in the next post...

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