Now for those of you out there who like anime, I recently picked up the second season of the Samurai Champloo television series. For those of you not interested in anime, I would recommend it despite your disinterest as I find it captures remarkably the true "both/and" nature which so characterizes Japan and which eludes most of us gaijin. In addition to this it also provides an interesting sociological look in to Japan, both past and present. To really highlight what I believe makes this show special I will turn specifically to Episode 22, Cosmic Collisions. I choose not to focus on the obvious homage to horror films with its zombie antagonists, but instead the rather grotesque reality these creatures seem to suggest (I will define the grotesque as the celebration of the transgressive) and the modern sociological implications posed.
In this episode Fuu, Jin, and Mugen, after eating some rather troubling fungi, find themselves trapped in an underworld run by a biwa playing poet named Shige who claims he is hunting for a treasure which is his birthright. Shige employs the three travelers to work offering them 10 percent of the treasure once it is found and keeps them happy by feeding them constantly. The trio soon discover that Shige actually employs an army of the undead and seems to believe he is in a period of time 500 years in the past.
The revelation of the lapse in years is of particular interest because, though the time has past, the three travelers and Shige all share the common interest of capitalist gain. This note echoes as this reveal ties early feudal Japan’s goals to that of a more modern, western influenced, late Tokugawa period. Despite the evolution of thought and time, the almighty dollar still seems to control the people and, amazingly, has the power to command the dead itself. This pertains directly to my suggestion that there is some sort of grotesquery occurring in the sense that there is evident celebration of material gain (the constant concern for money and food) and a general disregard for law (whether it be laws of nature or laws of birthright, etc.)
After this information is revealed, Shige learns that he is not actually heir to the fortune- he is in fact an imposter. This information troubles Shige, but only for a moment and he recommits himself to finding the treasure. As he does this a meteor hits the earth and he, the three travelers, and the army of the dead is wiped out in a giant mushroom cloud.
The surface of this image is of course directly connected to the atom bomb and World War II. However, upon further inspection of the circumstances it can be argued that this moment captures many eternal sentiments of Japanese culture. Firstly, the need to gain, despite right, can be directly related to the imperialist notions of capitalism and the nationalist sentiments leading up to the dropping of the atom bomb. This is not to say that the two are directly related (one caused the other) however there is definitely a suggestion that Shige is in a position where surrender is not an option and is destroyed by his own zeal. Like the Tokugawa in the Meiji revolution or Japan in World War II, it is Shige’s unrelenting faith in a lost, arguably unjust, cause which is ultimately the cause of his and his followers demise. Secondly, it must be noted that Shige is unaware of pretty much all of which is going on around him and ultimately is destroyed at the pinnacle of his selfish ignorance. Certainly this is a running theme in Japanese history’s rule.
The idea that the episode begins with a mushroom and ends with a mushroom is also interesting because it suggests a cycle in which man will ultimately return to nature if he abuses/manipulates nature. Despite Fuu’s warning that Jin and Mugen not eat all the mushrooms, they do so and perhaps it is their blatant expenditure of nature which flings them into their predicament. Shige goes against the very laws of nature by bringing the dead back to life. Ultimately they are all undone by a natural event (a meteor hitting the ground) and they are destroyed. While this is a natural event, it is true that it echoes an unnatural (man-made) event with the mushroom cloud. However, the atom bomb is a product of man’s attempt to manipulate nature, so the argument holds true.
To conclude I will go back to my initial conversation about Japan’s "both/and" nature. I go to the very end of the episode in which after the meteor hits it is observed by a man and a child in the distance. On the one hand, though there is a great tragedy that has occurred (our beloved protagonists have all been disposed of quite harshly), there is a sense that the man observing has learned something from this and that a wrong has been righted/ a balance of nature has occurred. So there are two simultaneous thoughts. In addition to this, we were told at the beginning of the episode that those who see a meteor fall are destined to have bad luck as stars are considered to be permanent. So does this mean that the man watching is now destined to suffer a fate similar to Fuu, Jin, and Mugen? AND a bigger and more bleak question: Is this a suggestion that the Japanese people are doomed to bad luck for witnessing the red star fall in Nagasaki and Hiroshima? In the end a message of hope and a message of hopelessness live dually together in our minds.
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