Kenzaburo Oe

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Kenzaburo Oe (Japan, 1935)

"Kojinteki no Taiken/ Personal Matter" (1964) is one of the many books written by Oe that deal with Oe's own tragedy: his son was born with brain damage. The virtuosistic imagery of his descriptions shifts the existential angst of the protagonist to a different plane of reality. What could be merely a moral tale becomes a protracted hallucination as an ordinary man is forced to wander through a labyrinth of distorting mirrors and accept that pilgrimage as "normal" life in a normal universe. The protagonist grew up in an amoral or immoral universe of juvenile delinquents, while outside the Cold War rages on with its permanent threat of a nuclear holocaust, and he adopts a nihilistic and selfish stance. The novel is somewhat weakened by the happy ending that comes a bit abruptly.

A 27-year-old man nicknamed "Bird" buys an expensive map of Africa. His wife is giving birth at the hospital but he walks around the neighborhood as if he had nothing to do. He meets a transvestite. He plays an arcade game. He is cornered by a gang of teenage thugs and narrowly escapes. We learn that he got married at the age of 25 and spent four weeks getting drunk nonstop, and never graduated from college. He is dreaming of Africa when the hospital calls him to tell him that his wife had a baby but the baby has a horrible deformation: a brain hernia, i.e. the brain doesn't fit inside the skull, and most likely this means that the baby will be a vegetable, and may not live more than a few days. The obstetrician is excited to have witnessed a rare disease and starts talking to Bird about being eager to perform an autopsy while they are transferring the baby to another hospital that specializes in brain surgery. The doctor reassures Bird that both the baby and the parents will be better off if the baby dies. Bird leaves the dying baby at the hospital and visits his father-in-law who is a university professor. Informed of the tragedy, the old man doesn't seem shocked. He gives Bird a bottle of whisky. Bird suddenly thinks of an old girlfriend, Himiko, with whom he had sex only once. Himiko's husband committed suicide one year into their marriage. Bird heard gossip that Himiko sleeps around. Himiko lives in a messy apartment. She is obsessed with the poet and painter William Blake. Bird tells her that his son died, and starts drinking the whiskey. Himiko believes that there is more than one universe, and at every major juncture the universe splits in two. Hence, there is a universe where Bird's son is alive and well. Bird and Himiko remember when they had sex. They actually didn't succeed because Bird didn't manage to penetrate her vagina. Himiko now tells him that she was still a virgin. She didn't feel any pleasure that time and since then she has been trying to overcome her frigidity, going from orgasm to better orgasm. She feels that sex has been her only real job since she was a student. She leaves him alone to drive around in the night, and he falls asleep, drunk. Bird lectures at a cram-school. He vomits during his lesson in front of the students and is verbally attacked by a disgusted student who promises to get him fired. He is surprised to find out that his son is still alive and ready to undergo surgery. His wife is still unaware of what is going on. His mother-in-law favors getting rid of the baby. Bird tests the doctor and the doctor seems sympathetic to making the surgery fail. Nobody wants the baby to live. Bird, suddely aroused with sexual desire, decides that he is willing to beat and rape Himiko if she doesn't have sex with him. Bird finds a very willing Himiko, but she tells him that she could get pregnant. This turns him off. Himiko offers anal sex, which Bird performs ferociously. He realizes that she has become a sexual expert. The following day he makes the mistake of bringing grapefruits to his wife, who hates grapefruits. She tells him openly that she doesn't trust him with the life of their son. She senses that the baby's life is in danger and she does not trust that Bird wants to save it. She tells him that she wanted to name the boy after an old friend of Bird's, Kikuhiko. That was when Bird was still a small-time delinquent. Bird set out to find an escaped madman and eventually found him hanging the neck, whereas Kikuhiko got scared and gave up. That event somehow caused Bird to abandon his life as a delinquent and enroll in university. Bird leaves the hospital and sleeps again with Himiko. The following morning the principal of the school asks him to resign, which Bird does without trying to defend himself, although some students are ready to help him out and encourage him to lie. He has no desire to keep the job, although he has bills to pay at two hospitals and although this kills his dreams of traveling to Africa. He returns to Himiko's home and finds another former schoolmate, a fat annoying gossiping girl. Himiko tries to psychoanalyze Bird's mental state, reminding him that his father committed suicide. Bird is obviously wishing that his baby dies, and Himiko says it openly. When the annoying girl leaves, Himiko tells Bird that the girl is a pathetic loser and her girlfriend take turns at sleeping with her to make her feel better. Bird has lost any moral sense and doesn't find the news particularly shocking. He is equally unmoved when Himiko tells him that the Soviet Union just exploded a super-powerful nuclear weapon. Bird is paranoid that the doctor and the nurses are keeping his baby alive instead of letting it die. He visits the hospital again and learns from the doctor that the baby has survived. Bird cannot find the guts to remind the doctor that he wants the baby to die. Friends ask Bird to convince Bird's friend Delchef to return to his country: Delchef was visiting with a diplomatic delegation from a communist country and defected after falling in love with a Japanese girl, but this is creating a political incident. The friends are friend that they will get involved in a scandal, but Bird doesn't care and accepts to intercede. Delchef and Bird discuss briefly in broken English, and Delchef reaffirms his determination to remain with his Japanese girlfriend, although she doesn't speak English and therefore they cannot communicate. Delchef inquires about Bird's baby and, upon hearing that Bird hopes for its dead, Delchef reproaches him and writes the word for hope in his home language. Bird sleeps again with Himiko. He enjoys sexual pleasure with Himiko, a welcome change from the clumsy sex with his frigid wife. In the morning her father-in-law visits and suggests that Himiko sells the house and the two of them go on a trip to Africa. He has not seen Himiko so happy since her husband's (his son's) suicide, and is basically hinting that an African trip would heal both of them from their traumas. Bird has so far lived in the hope of receiving a phone call from the hospital announcing his baby's death. The phone finally rings and the doctor summons him at the hospital, but it is not what Bird expects: the doctors need his permission to perform brain surgery, but cannot guarantee success. Bird denies the permission and decides to take the baby home. Himiko suggests that they ask an abortion doctor to kill the baby. She confesses that, by reading the book and the map of Africa that Bird bought, she has become obsessed with Africa too. She wants him to kill the baby and divorce his wife, so they can leave together for Africa. Before they can go to the hospital, one of Himiko's disgruntled boyfriends steals a tire of Himiko's car and Bird has to install the spare tire. At the hospital Bird is required to record the name of the baby, and he picks the name Kikuhiko. It turns out that Himiko is familiar with a gay club with that name, and Bird suspects it is run by his old friend. Himiko is shocked by the inhuman look of the baby. As they drive away, Bird realizes that his wristwatch has stopped. The radio is broadcasting debates about the Soviet bomb. It is a stormy night. The baby starts crying. The drive to the clinic through the countryside is pure torture as they get lost repeatedly in the rain and the dark. Himiko almost loses control of the car when she sees a dead sparrow on the road and swerves to avoid it (an odd reaction for someone who has just decided to kill a human baby). Eventually, a police officer stops them because one of the car's lights is not working and tells them where the clinic is.

After delivering the baby to the abortionist who is going to kill it, Himiko and Bird head for Kikuhiko's bar. Kikuhiko recognizes his old buddy. And then suddenly Bird decides to take back his baby and approve the brain surgery. Himiko, how is already dreaming of the trip to Africa is devastated. Bird has realized that he has been running away from responsibility all his life and now wants to change. Himiko tells Bird that she's still going to Africa, but with the disgruntled boyfriend. The baby is operated and recovers well: it wasn't a brain hernia after all, just a benign tumor. Bird's father-in-law is proud of him: he gave blood for the transfusions and stood courageously by his baby. Bird wants to save money for his son and pledges to start a new career as a tourist guide, and his father-in-law tells him that it's time to abandon the nickname "Bird".

"Manen Gannen no Futtobo-ru/ Football in the First Year of Manen/ Silent Cry" (1967) is the tragedy of two brothers but also the tragedy of two Japans: the Japanese who still respect their traditions and the Japanese who find them stupid and obsolete. Historical background. John Manjiro was the first Japanese to live in the USA. When he was still a teenager, he was rescued when from a shipwrecked boat by an American whaling boat and taken to Bostson. He returned to Japan in 1852 having mastered the English language and the culture of the USA. Matthew Perry was the US admiral who in 1853 led a naval expedition (four heavily armed steam-powered warships painted black) to force Japan to open up (after more than 200 years of isolation). The Japanese government (the Tokugawa shogunate) employed Manjiro as an advisor and interpreter, elevating him to samurai status, and Manjiro helped to negotiate the "Convention of Kanagawa" (1854) which opened Japanese ports to US ships. The first Japanese embassy to the USA was established in 1860, signaling a new era of friendship. However, in the same year Japan was rocked by the assassination of the Tokugawa shogunate's prime minister Ii Naosuke and by the fire that destroyed Edo Castle. These events were so dramatic that Japan declared the beginning of a new era, Manen, in 1860. First Western professional photographer to establish residence in Japan In the same year the US photographer Orrin Freeman moved to Japan. The infiltration of foreign influences peaked in 1868 when the smaller imperial army defeated the larger shogun army using Western artillery at the battle of Toba-Fushimi. The Tokugawa shogun surrendered, imperial rule was restored on the whole of Japan, and emperor Meiji started the rapid westernisation and industrialization of Japan. The novel references events of the era but it is set in post-World War II, after Japan has been defeated by the USA and China in 1945 and an economic boom has further westernized Japan.
The two brothers are polar opposites, and represent two sides of Japan after the war: Western-inspired modernity vs meek respect of traditions.
The older brother is merely the spectator of the human tragedy. He seems to be persecuted by a hostile fate. All his certainties collapse. The closest people betray him. As much as he tries to isolate himself, he cannot escape the ugly truth that surrounds him. Everyone in his family is dysfunctional: his wife is an alcoholic, his younger brother is a pervert, his sister killed herself, one older brother allowed a mob to kill him, the eldest brother was killed in the war, and their father died in mysterious circumstances; and Mitsu himself lost an eye.
The parable of the younger brother, instead, is a slow descent into madness, the consequence of a terrible act committed when he was a teenager and of an infatuation with an ancestor who may or may have not been a hero.
But the perception of what happened depends on whom to believe: what truly happened to the older brother? to the father? to their sister? And what truly happened during the uprising of 1860?

The story is narrated by Mitsusaburo Nedokoro, a 27-year-old married man, father to a son who has been committed to a mental institution. Mitsu lost one eye when schoolchildren threw stones at him. He walks down into the pit escavated to build his house's septic tank and meditates on his best friend who just committed suicide: the friend painted his head crimson, stripped naked, inserted a cucumber in his anus and hanged himself.
His friend had just been released from a mental institution, where he had voluntarily enrolled after returning from a US university. The Smiling Training Center was a place where patients were sedated all the time so that they would spend all the time smiling. One day his friend rebelled against a brutalizing nurse and was expelled. After supervising the cremation of the friend, Mitsu returned home to find his wife Natsumi drunk.
One year earlier, that very friend had accidentally met Mitsusaburo's younger brother Takashi who was in the USA as an actor in a student theater group whose goal was to apologize for their previous rebellious life as left-wing activists. Takashi confessed to Mitsusaburo's friend that he had contracted a sexual disease on his very first day in the USA. Right after that meeting, Takashi had disappeared, fulfilling his dream of traveling across the USA. Still sitting at the bottom of the pit, Mitsusaburo reminisces about his retarded sister, adopted by an uncle: she committed suicide.
A milkman rescues Mitsusaburo from the pit. Back home, he realizes that his fingers are injured: he has unconsciously tried to demolish the pit's wall so that it would bury him.
His brother sends a telegram that he is coming home after his long trip across the USA. Mitsusaburo and his wife Natsumi go to meet his teenage friends Hoshio (a boy) and Momoko (a girl) at the airport. The brother's flight is endlessly delayed and they have to spend a night in a hotel room, all four of them. We learn that Mitsusaburo's wife is an alcoholic. Takashi finally arrives. Mitsusaburo informs him that his best friend died and that he quit his job at the university. We learn that Mitsusabaro makes a modest living with humble translations from English to Japanese, relying on his wife's father for the house and for paying the mental institution. Takashi encourages him to change life and to follow him to Shikoku, the hometown of their ancestors. Takashi has been approached by a local rich man, known as the "Emperor", who wants to purchase the family's abandoned property. Takashi wants to supervise the dismantling. He also wants to find out what happened between their great-grandfather and his younger brother: the story they were told is that great-grandfather killed his younger brother and ate a piece of his flesh after the younger brother led a peasant revolt in the village. Takashi heard a different version of the story: that great-grandfather helped the younger brother escape. Mitsu thinks that great-grandfather's younger brother was a disgusting person, causing a pointless rebellion and then escaping like a rat, whereas his younger brother Takashi thinks that he was a hero, the leader of the farmers' revolt.
Takashi and his two teenage friends drive to the village while Mitsusaburo and his wife take the bus. Takashi meets Jin, the woman who is taking care of the family's property. The two brothers meet and continue the trip together. Takashi relates that he has found Gii the hermit still alive in the forest. They discuss the superstition that at night one could evoke with a whistle the Chosokabe.
Jin is 45 years old, is married, has four sons and is extremely fat, and is somehow condemned to eat even more. Jin reminds the brothers that the ashes of their older brother, S, are still at the temple. We learn that there is no sex between Mitsusaburo and his wife. Mitsu and Takashi argue again about their memories. Takashi thinks that the younger brother met John Manjiro. Mitsu thinks that's impossible. They travel to the temple and admire the painting of hell that great-grandfather donated to the temple. Their memories differ even about their older brother S. Takashi thinks that he remembers the day S was beaten to death, and gives a detailed gruesome description of the corpse invaded by ants, but Mitsu remembers that he went out of his way to make sure that Takashi would not see the corpse at all. S was killed by Koreans of a nearby village in revenge because his buddies had killed a Korean during a raid. Takashi thinks that S was a leader and died a heroic death, while Mitsu thinks that S was not a leader and that he volunteer to be killed in order to satisfy the Koreans.
One day all the kitchens of the valley are found dead. They either starved or froze. The villagers are in trouble because the chickens were raised on land owned by the "Emperor" and so they owed him part of the business. Takashi is asked to mediate for them. Takashi leaves to meet the Emperor and Mitsu and his wife learn that the Emperor is the owner of the supermarket and he is actually a Korean. Mitsu is offended that the villagers bestowed the title of "emperor" to a Korean, thus insulting the Japanese emperor. Worse: that Korean used to be one of the Korean men taken there captive to cut wood for the Japanese, but later he saved money and got rich. This Korean was in the Korean village when the Koreans killed S. Mitsu learns all of this from the priest of the temple. The priest paints a picture of a decaying village. There is another mystery in the family: Mitsu's and Takashi's father died while he was returning from China, where he used to spend several months for work. Their mother knew how he died, but she refused to tell and now she's dead. Takashi comes back after making a deal with the "Emperor": he had to cremate all the dead chickens to avoid that people started eating them. Takashi has learn the Emperor's story and his probable involvement in S's death and vows to join the young men of the village who despise him.
Mitsu hardly remembers his eldest brother, who was in college when their father died and then left college and was drafted in the army and died two years later. S instead wasn't drafted: he volunteered to go to war.
The villagers are ashamed of what their forebears did in 1860 when they rose up against the lord. There are multiple versions of the events of 1860. Mitsu's mother told him that the peasants applied for a loan from the lord of the clan. When he refused, the Nedokoro family offered the money but the villagers didn't want to pay the interest and rebelled. They attacked the homes of the wealthy and even great-grandfather's home, but great-grandfather had a gun (a rarity back then). Great-grandfather's younger brother had personally negotiated with the lord and then personally led the revolt.
A local historian (a retired schoolteacher) has found no proof of what truly happened, only that the lord of the clan had imposed an unpopular tax.
Mitsu wants to finish the translation started with the friend who killed himself. He has to re-translate what his friend had done because his relatives burned all his papers. The book is the autobiography of a naturalist.
The temple priest brings Mitsu the diary of his eldest brother, a diary of his years in the army.
The priest has his own version of what happened in 1860. Great-grandfather was the richest superintendent of the region. An agent from the other side of the forest, from Kochi (perhaps a wandering monk, perhaps a samurai), talked his great-grandfather and his brother into rising up to the lord. The priest of the time colluded with them. After five days and nights of rioting, great-grandfather's brother escaped to Kochi, changed name and became a high government official, and the tax was abolished. The rebels who refused to end the rebellion sheltered themselves in great-grandfather's barn (the "kura-yashiki"). Great-grandfather found a way to trick them out and they were beheaded. Only his brother escaped, and so was considered a coward and a traitor. The priest speculates that the younger brother was frustrated that so many Japanese were traveling to America following John Manjiro but he couldn't, and his anger was exploited by the stranger, the priest and his older brother. The priest also speculates that S sacrificed himself in the summer of 1945 perhaps to atone for the vile betrayal committed by great-grandfather's brother in 1860.
Mitsu remarks that Takashi too seems influenced by the uprising of 1860. They give S's diary to Takashi hoping that it will help him calm down. It is a war diary full of atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers.
Mitsu is still haunted by the image of the deformed baby that they left at the institution. He admits to himself that they left him there because they were disgusted by that grotesque being. Mitsu feels guilt and shame for abandoning his disabled son, but quite simply he and his wife are not strong enough to deal with that "monster".
Takashi mentions traditions to Mitsu's wife Natsumi who then asks Mitsu for details. The valley holds a yearly Bon festival during which the spirits of the forest march in procession from the forest to the town, led by great-grandfather's brother. They then perform a Nembutsu dance in the garden of their house. Takashi is training a football team, an action reminiscent of when in 1860 his great-grandfather's brother trained a group of young men to stage the revolt, and one day that team rescues a child who is about to drown. Takashi becomes a leader of the community. An official who witnesses the event with Mitsu tells Mitsu that there hasn't been a Nembutsu dance in five years because nobody lives in his house anymore. The dance has to be performed in the garden of their house, the old Nedokoro house, but nobody lives there anymore. The official tells Mitsu that Takashi secretly sold to the "Emperor" not only the house but also the land, which Mitsu had no intention of selling, if nothing else because Jin's family is still using it. Takashi must have made more money than he admitted, and used some of the profit to fund the football team. Mitsu starts packing to return to Tokyo, realizing that he has been used by his brother. His wife decides to remain: she has become interested in Takashi's group. It starts snowing and Mitsu cannot leave. He decides to move to the "kura-yashiki" to be alone. But then he realizes that his depression is personal, independent of external events. Mitsu is stuck in his existential crisis. Takashi's group moves into the house.
Mitsu realizes that his exile to the "kura-yashiki" will last several days because it keeps snowing. One day he spots Takashi running naked in the snow and even rolling in it, and having an erection, and then walking into the house with Momoko. On New Year's Eve Mitsu witnesses Takashi describing the violent uprising of 1860 in terms that make his group of young people laugh. They rejoice at the stories of killing and rape. The young thugs who led the rebellion forced one village after the other to join. Eventually the villagers started hating them. Takashi's version of the facts removes great-grandfather's brother from the leadership of the revolt. Alone with Mitsu, Takashi talks about the "absolute truth", which is death. The friend who killed himself told the absolute truth. Takashi wants Mitsu to be by his side when he will "tell the truth".
Mitsu spends his days working on the translation in the "kura-yashiki" while Takashi brainwashes his young men in the main house, On New Year's Day, Jin comes to pay respects: after all the deaths, Mitsu is now the head of the Nedokoro family. She doesn't know that Takashi sold the entire property including the house where her family lives to the "Emperor". Four days later Mitsu heads to the village to make a phone call but all the lines are down: the snow damages the lines and the young men who should repair them are now busy training with Takashi. Mitsu witnesses a strange spectacle: two drunk fighting each other in silence in the middle of the street, and a group of women standing in front of the Emperor's supermarket watching them without saying or doing anything. Later he hear a commotion coming from the village and finds out that Takashi caused it: the "Emperor" had a policy that good customers were entitled to a free article, but Takashi has made sure that it became a riot, with everybody stealing at will. The villagers were struggling after the failure of the chicken business.
Later at the house Mitsu sees Takashi beating a young man who doesn't defend himself and learns that it is punishment for having violating the rules of the group: he had tried to rape Momoko. The young man is banned from the house and walks to the forest towards Kochi like the traitor who had betrayed the rebels in 1860. He almost dies and is rescued by the hermit Gii. Later Takashi admits to Mitsu that he wants to replicate the uprising of 1860.
Takashi and his thugs are now in control of the town. Takashi has a band play the Nembutsu music. Mitsu learns from Jin that Takashi's young men forced every family to join in the looting. Jin herself is happy about it because she dislikes the Koreans. Mitsu tries to reason with her, that the Koreans didn't invade Japan: it was Japan that enslaved them and imported them. Nonetheless, Jin hates them and is happy that Takashi is robbing the "Emperor". The whole village is in a state of excitement. Mitsu needs kerosene for his stove and walks to town. He wants to pay the supermarket for the kerosene but the supermarket is now controlled by Takashi's men. Mitsu briefly confronts his brother Takashi. The two are now on opposite political sides. Takashi dreams of starting a nationwide uprising. Mitsu thinks he is delusional. There are also rumors that the Emperor is assembling his own gang to take on the village, and the housewives who looted the supermarket want Takashi to destroy the photographs that he took of them.
Momoko, traumatized by the kid of tried to rape her, is living with Natsumi in the main house. The priest discovers an envelope entrusted to the temple by the Nedokoro family. It contains an account of a later uprising, written by grandfather, and letters from great-grandfather's younger brother that traced the evolution of his life: helped by an agent to flee the village, he hooked up with his role model John Manjiro and worked on his whaling boat and moved to the USA, where he became a wise old man with no more desire for violence. Hoshio is the next to rebel against Takashi. The reason is that he catches Takashi making love to Natsumi. Mitsu now knows for sure that Natsumi and Takashi are lovers. In fact, Takashi himself told Hoshio to tell Mitsu. Hoshio also relates that Natsumi stopped drinking alcohol. Takashi himself comes to tell Mitsu that he intends to marry Natsumi. Mitsu calmly predicts that Takashi's uprising will fail and he will be deserted by everybody, and that he will end up living a mediocre anonymous life like great-grandfather's younger brother. However, the following morning Natsumi comes to wake up Mitsu and Hoshio (who know sleeps in the same room with Mitsu) because Takashi has tried to rape a girl and killed her, and the villagers are coming to punish him. His thugs have deserted him.
Natsumi feels humiliated that her new lover would try to rape another woman. Mitsu, however, doesn't believe that Takashi is capable of killing. Mitsu tells Takashi that he's lying, that the girl probably died in an accident and Takashi is assuming responsibility because he wants to be considered a murderer. Hoshio further testifies that the girl had a crush on Takashi: there was no need for him to rape her. The only witness to the murder is the hermit Gii, who is notoriously mad. Takashi is convinced that the villagers will come to lynch him. Armed with a gun, he hides in the "kura-yashiki", like great-grandfather's brother did after betraying the rebels. At the same time, he proclaims that he wants to be lynched. And then he confesses to Mitsu that, when he was 17, he had sex with their half-wit sister, and eventually she got pregnant. She was forced to have an abortion and to get sterilized. The following day she killed herself. She never told the family who got her pregnant. Mitsu is now devastated by this new truth. Takashi wants to be killed for that crime and Mitsu thinks that taking the blame for the girl's death is way to make sure that the villagers will kill him. Mitsu however tells Takashi that most likely the villagers are not capable of lynching him. Then Takashi kills himself. Mitsu finds his suicide note, just one line: "I told the truth".
Mitsu receives two job offers: one to become a university lecturer (his old job) and one to be an interpreter for an African expedition. Hoshio and Mom depart and Hoshio has decided to marry her. The Korean tycoon (the "Emperor") arrives, escorted by five men. He amicably reopens the supermarket and doesn't press charges against anyone. The villagers quietly return the appliances that they stole. Mitsu meets Sun-gi Paek (the Emperor's real name) at the house when he comes to start the demolition. Mitsu asks that Jin and her family be allowed to remain a little longer in their house, and Paek accepts. Paek also explains that nobody knows who killed S: Koreans and Japanese were fighting each other in the village and S was killed in the chaos. While demolishing the "kura-yashiki", Paek's men discover something that Mitsu didn't know: there's a cellar under the house. The cellar was clearly inhabited at some point in the past. Mitsu has the revelation that great-grandfather's younger brother spent his life in the cellar, and the letters that he sent to his brother were simply delivered by hand, not mailed, and they invented a life that never was. Mitsu now remembers that grandfather left behind the account of a later uprising in 1871. It occurs to Mitsu that the leader of that second uprising was great-grandfather's younger brother. Grandfather's account simply talks of an unnamed stranger as the ringleader, but obviously the villagers would not have trusted a stranger, they would have trusted the former ringleader. And this time the uprising succeeded: without a single person getting injured, they succeeded in humiliating the politician in charge to the point that he killed himself. Then great-grandfather's younger brother went back into self-imposed imprisonment for the rest of his life. This sheds a completely new light on great-grandfather's younger brother. He never betrayed his ideals. Mitsu tells his wife that Takashi had no reason to be ashamed of his ancestors, and his wife turns against him, accusing him of having led Takashi to suicide by making him ashamed. His wife is unaware of Takashi's incestous relationship with the sister and Mitsu doesn't tell her. His wife is pregnant with Takashi's child and has decided to keep the child. Mitsu returns to the temple to relate his discovery to the priest and to admire again the painting of hell made by great-grandfather. The priest tells Mitsu that Takashi's uprising was not a complete failure because the villagers have discovered the will to organize and take responsibility. Natsumi repents and offers Mitsu to start all over again, even taking back their deformed child while raising Takashi's child. Mitsu accepts. Natsumi tells him to take the job in Africa, the adventure that Mitsu has always avoided.

"Torikae Ko/ The Changeling" (2000)