This is sort of FGB -- not news of the day, but a look at a book that, among other things, was the genesis of the series "Men with Men." It's actually a hybrid, of sorts: half review, half essay. It started off as a review of Satoru Ishihara's Kimi Shiruya: Dost Thou Know and got a little bit out of hand. The review that finally got written is at Green Man Review; you can find a brief general discussion of manga there, as well as the basic outline of the story.
For those who don't follow the link, the basics are: Katsuomi Hanamori and Tsurugi Yaegashi are competitors in kendo, as are their younger brothers, Masaomi and Saya. The story follows the courtship of Katsuomi and Tsurugi and, in a parallel secondary story, that of Masaomi and Saya.
This is an essay, not a review, and I'm not concerned with spoilers. They're here. They have to be, for me to discuss what I found so compelling about the book.
This book is built on metaphors, both the central image of kendo, the Japanese art of the sword (and I admire greatly the way the Japanese have turned so many things into an art and a ceremonial -- it's something we need more of in our lives) and others that essentially structure the various chapters. The courtship here is cast as a duel: both Katsuomi and Tsurugi are fiercely competitive young men, heavily invested in the sport, and each sees the other as his chief rival, in spite of their immediate attraction to each other.
This in itself has more than one layer. On the one hand, Ishihara has based the central metaphor, kendo, on one of the most important characteristics of relationships between men: whether you ascribe it to nature or nurture or some combination of the two, men are competitors -- for many men, perhaps most, that's a central part of their identities as men, whether we agree with it or not -- which makes a romantic involvement edgy, at best. It's that phenomenon, more than anything else, that explains Tsurugi's motivations, his resistance to "surrender," not surrender to Katsuomi, particularly -- his attraction to Katsuomi is as strong as Katsuomi's to him, that much is obvious early on -- but surrender to the idea that there must be a loser here: he, like Katsuomi, is trying to take control of the situation, not to change the outcome as such -- he doesn't want that at all -- but to hold onto his dignity. (Ishihara has stepped right out of the standard seme/uke pairing here; while that stereotypical role-playing may have some basis in Japanese gay culture -- and I don't profess to know -- the relationship developing between Katsuomi and Tsurugi is, I think, more immediately comprehensible to Westerners.)
That works naturally into the idealism of the sport -- and I mean that in its most literal sense. The ideals of sport in general are, aside from the benefits to health of physical activity, the main reason given for teaching competitive sports in schools: teamwork, sportsmanship, dignity in defeat and magnanimity in victory. Add in the warrior's code, with its emphasis on ideals we no longer encounter on a daily basis -- honor, integrity, mercy, purity of purpose, the kind of self-respect that must be earned -- and you begin to get a very good idea of where both Katsuomi and Tsurugi are coming from. It's this idealism that sparks the relationship between Masaomi and Saya, as well: after being shamed by his older brother for leaving Saya to the mercy of the bullies among the older students, Masaomi realizes that Saya understands the honor of the swordsman -- there are things he won't do, even to defend himself -- and out of respect for that and for his own honor, he must step in.
I can't stress enough the role that I see the Ideal playing in this work. It is, indeed, almost platonic. (And keep in mind, these are young men, and the young are still idealistic.) Underlying the surface action is a pure form of the story: on the one hand, there is no compromise on either side, the situation is yes/no, surrender/conquest. That is what Katsuomi is consciously reaching for because that is what he understands at this stage of his life; and that is what Tsurugi is rejecting. But as it develops it transmutes itself: after all, no one in his right mind wants that kind of relationship with another human being if you're going to call it "love." As Masaomi observes, they're reaching for something new, something, as it turns out, "beyond gender, beyond viewpoints," beyond that win-or-lose dichotomy: as it grows, they grow into it.
In that intersection of the Ideal and what stands beyond it -- the competitiveness and the ideals of the warrior and the reality of learning to love -- lies the tension that supports the story and that provides the foundation for the relationship and the characters of the two men. Katsuomi is a "stampeding boar warrior," all power and speed, direct and unstoppable. He has the courage to lay all his cards on the table (as he does in one scene, when he tells Tsurugi "I've shown you everything I've got.") and the patience to wait for as long as it takes. Tsurugi is the wind, all grace and finesse, elusive but more than able to come back with a telling strike, sweeping through Katsuomi's defenses. And he has the will to play this game his way. Katsuomi may be the irresistible force, but Tsurugi is not an immovable object: in their final, climactic battle, Katsuomi screams at him to "stop dancing around -- stand and hold your ground." It doesn't only apply to the physical contest. (Tsurugi calls him a "log-splitter" and goes for the opening Katsuomi has left.)
Thinking about it, Kimi Shiruya is the most truly erotic yaoi I've read, in that Jungian sense of the erotic as a deep, fundamental drive that structures our relationships -- yes, sex is part of it, but there's much more. The symbolism of the central metaphor -- sword fighting -- is obvious, and one can easily imagine some of the dialogue, but that in itself is remarkable: in a genre in which everything is usually laid out plainly, this story moves by innuendo, by implication, ranging from blatant -- at one point early in the story Tsurugi says to Katsuomi, "I'd like to cross swords with you -- with real blades" (and you well know that the next kendo tournament is not the only thing on his mind: just look at his face) -- to extraordinarily subtle: there are many times when Tsurugi's response is no more than a barely lifted eyebrow over hooded eyes, the merest hint of a smile. And it's on their first meeting outside of competition that Tsurugi says to Katsuomi that he's going to breach his defenses -- just before we see Katsuomi thinking to himself "What if we were friends, closer than any others?" Given the layers of meaning in the dialogue, it's a revealing scene.
And they are friends. One thing that we must keep in mind: the two are rivals, not enemies. As the story progresses, we begin to understand that not only have they become friends, as we catch glimpses of their openness and honesty with each other, but we realize they have done so when we weren't looking.
There is a high degree of reticence in this story, not only in the absence of the nearly obligatory sex scene (which has led to the label "shounen-ai," about which more later), but in how much of the story is actually being shown to us: toward the end of the book, we begin to realize that there are events that we've not been privy to, and that a significant portion of the story has happened "off-stage." The primary example, if not the most subtle, is what I consider the key scene, a kiss shared on the night of the summer festival: we don't actually see the kiss at the time, we see some ancillary flashes -- a little tongue action, a hand parting a yukata to reveal a thigh. This scene -- witnessed by the two younger brothers -- echoes throughout the rest of the book, both as an image and as dialogue between Saya and Masaomi. (And it colors their relationship as much as that between their older brothers.) On a more subtle level, Ishihara has a knack for scattering clues throughout the story and then bringing them together with one well-placed scene -- or even a single frame, as happens with the Masaomi/Saya substory, in that case one that also reveals a great deal about Masaomi's awareness of his brother's situation and how his own echoes it: the two boys have been on the outs, and after their latest spat, which is completely Saya's doing, Masaomi's exasperated comment is "I'm probably going to have an even harder time than bro did." We already know that Masaomi knows what his brother has been reaching for, even if he doesn't completely understand it. Now he is beginning to see the shape of it. Saya, I think, is also beginning to understand: he's following Tsurugi's path, fighting to maintain some independence.
Some remarks about humor, generally an integral part of yaoi, although not always successfully incorporated: although the first parts of Kimi Shiruya are pretty much dead-on serious (with small flashes of comedy), in the last two chapters, from which the book takes its title, Ishihara turns playful (and a bit surreal), and it's once again a multi-layered thing: we are introduced to Katsuomi's coach, whom he calls the bear, who is actually portrayed in several frames as a bear, and who as a hobby collects folk tales -- even telling Katsuomi during one tournament to go ahead and lose, already, he wants to get to the storyteller's house that day. And we begin to realize the extent to which Katsuomi and Tsurugi are playing: something has happened in this relationship, it's arrived at a new stage. There's more comfort here, and although there's still quite an edge, it's become part of the game. Katsuomi is still following his "I'm naked before you" strategy -- nothing to hide -- while Tsurugi, from being enigmatic and resentful, has become almost kittenish, quite openly flirting with Katsuomi, goading him to take advantage of the situations Tsurugi creates -- itself a strategy. I think it's here, in these last two chapters, that a designation of "shounen-ai," which originally described a genre that was focused on the romantic aspects of same-sex love, eschewing sex, and was likely to incorporate references to art and literature, becomes convincing. (There's a wonderful scene in which Tsurugi and Katsuomi are lying on the deck watching the stars and quoting Kenji Miyazawa at each other -- all the more revealing when you realize that Miyazawa was noted for his children's books. Then Katsuomi says "I'm going to kiss you," to which Tsurugi responds "No. You can't control yourself." The kiss happens, of course -- the third kiss in the story, and the first that we actually see taking place, and Tsurugi, now supine on the deck, says "I told you not to." It's a terrifically romantic interlude, relaxed and playful in spite of the verbal sparring. One reads it with a sense that, in everything but the act, the two have become lovers.)
Ishihara notes that Kimi Shiruya took three years to complete, and the drawing reveals that in its variability and changes in character design. All things considered, I don't see it as that important. What's more germane is the way in which the illustrations and narration support this very reticent story, adding information in subtle ways that builds an amazing resonance. There's a wonderful sequence in the beginning of "Dost Thou Know, Part 1" in which Katsuomi is eating a ripe tomato right off the vine, marveling at how sweet it is, unlike the tomatoes that come to Tokyo, picked green to ripen in transit. The drawing somehow moves seamlessly through humor, sensuality, and an almost pristine purity within a metaphor that goes straight to the core of the story: the sweetness of fruit allowed to ripen in its own time. The contrast between the purity of that scene and the dense, violent activity of the final duel between Tsurugi and Katsuomi is amazing: the figures in the duel take on an almost sculptural weight, and Ishihara imbues the scene with a vivid sense of motion, reminding us once again of where these two men are coming from: fierce, aggressive, and determined, but finally, as it turns out, recognizing that they are equals and that victory for one is victory for both.
That comes home in the final scene, when Tsurugi, who has left kendo to focus on his studies -- he's starting medical school -- asks Katsuomi, "Why won't you call?" He is honestly puzzled, and we realize that the game is over, but that Katsuomi was so caught up in it that he didn't realize it.
One thing I've noticed about many manga, and particularly yaoi, is the degree to which the story will reach beyond straight narrative. There are, I think, two facets to this. One is narration, usually from the point-of-view character, rendered as captions aside from word balloons, and providing not only psychological insights but a context that I can only characterize as "poetic" -- there are things happening in the places between the words and pictures that the narration often brings out into the open. The other is a basic concept that seems to permeate all Japanese art: evocation. The artist evokes an image of the event, rather than portraying it. Ishihara uses these to great effect in the last two chapters, combining them in the repeated motiv "Dost thou know my heart?" and "Do thou knowest the tropic land within my heart?" It adds not only another level of meaning to the story, strongly reinforcing the romantic elements, but brings a dimension to Katsuomi that we might otherwise never have suspected. Ishihara applies that in the final scene as well, with a bit of irony that is almost palpable: Katsuomi has been so focused on the dream, on the game, that it comes as a shock to him to realize that the game is over and the dream has come true -- and, in fact, that what he wanted was always his.
There's always a question when looking at a work like this: how much of this did the artist put in there and how much did I supply? Let me state in my own defense my belief that if you only look at the surface of any work of art, you're missing most of what's there. My feeling in this case is that it's all there in the book, although I'll grant that a lot of it comes from me -- Ishihara doesn't spend time talking about men's self-images -- but that's where the book led me. I may, in fact, have only scratched the surface -- there are so many details, so many almost-hidden connections, so many delightful discoveries along the way that one can easily read Kimi Shiruya again and again for the pure pleasure of spotting them. The bonus, I think, is that one comes away with new insights into life and the way it works.
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