Original Volume VI Afterword

Well, Volume Six is finally in the bag.

The plan was to wrap things up after one more, bringing the total to seven. But after reading the draft of Volume Seven for the serial publication, Mr. T arched his brows and said things like, “So this is Volume Seven.”

The guy who for some unfathomable reason got a love letter from one of my readers. Who apparently didn’t give a damn about me, the writer. Nothing I said made a dent, so eventually I stopped sparring with him.

“How about you swap him for a female editor?” I implored, going over his head to the managing editor.

But instead of hopping right on it, now Mr. T comes calling practically daily.

Thinking this was rather odd, I made another call to the head honcho. This time, listening carefully, I swore I could hear echoes of Mr. T in his voice.

Come to think of it, when another editor answers my phone calls and tells me to hold on a minute, I’m sure I can hear them laughing under their breath. I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that the entire editorial department has been yanking my chain, forwarding my calls to Mr. T whenever I ask for the chief.

Perhaps Mr. T was promoted to managing editor and didn’t tell me! And the next time I started grumbling about going on a writer’s strike until I got paid, he’d throw out his chest and say, “Don’t be an idiot. I’m the one in charge!”

(And what would happen if he did?)

Now that I think about it, what Mr. T does doesn’t seem in line with what normal “editors” are supposed to do. And here we return to the subject matter of the Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. 5 afterword.

I’ve already recounted how Mr. T received a love letter from one of my readers. A short time later, the time came for writing the serialization and Mr. T visited my humble abode again. I know this is an anxiety associated with newbie authors, but I became overly aware of what my editor was up to in the next room.

Concentrating my attention on the manuscript in front of me, or wasting time watching a video of Toya-san’s Big Fat Diary (produced by me), I couldn’t help thinking anxiously, “What the hell is he up to?”

I imagined that the door to the next room was cracked open and an eyeball was peering at me. If he was on the phone, I imagined him bad-mouthing me to the illustrator or the printer. If the room fell silent, well, maybe he just went and hanged himself. Hear snoring and I’d be seized by the impulse to plant a smelly fish on his chest and sic the cat on him.

My head was filled with a hornet’s nest of thoughts.

This day, though, the aura emanating from Mr. T’s room was different than usual. I can’t really explain how, except that it was.

Normally he would have been marking up manuscripts and doing galley checks. After that he’d read or watch TV or take a nap. Noticing that he’d departed from this routine, I crept to the door and peeked in. Mr. T was writing something. Not with his normal red ballpoint, but with a fountain pen. And with an unusually serious look on his face.

He was applying that fountain pen—not to a manuscript or lined paper—but to what looked an awful lot like fancy stationery. Thanks to the small room and the size of the characters he was writing, I could read the kanji he’d just finished: love.

What the hell?

Perhaps a reply to that love letter. Having seen the evidence of her passions—and in possession of her address and photograph and phone number—Mr. T was sending her an answer.

“Hey!” I called out. Mr. T started at the sound of my voice and hid the letter under a notebook. “What are you cooking up in there?”

“I’m not cooking up anything. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

“What wrong idea? Who said anything about wrong ideas?”

“You saw?”

“Your love letter?”

“You’re jumping to the wrong conclusion.”

“About words like love, you mean?”

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“I’m not going to launch an investigation. I’ll settle for an address, phone number, and photograph.”

“No way.”

This was not, I assure you, the defiance of a man rising to his chivalrous duty in defending a woman’s honor, but of a lion guarding his harem.

In the end, Mr. T didn’t show me his reply, or an address or anything else. A few days later at a Kadokawa bookstore signing in Yokohama, I met the woman in question.

But I can just as well reveal her identity next time.

For now, there’s something else I need to put down in black and white.

I believe it was around that time that I was going through the motions working on a manuscript while watching a late night movie, She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum (1955), directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. This wasn’t one of the later versions with Michiyo Yasuda or Momoe Yamaguchi, but the original starring Noriko Arita.

Movies this tragic are rare these days. The movie is a reminiscence of youth, the story of two young (even adolescent) lovers during the Meiji period, the victims of their feudalistic families, torn apart as they become attached to each other. The wife is ultimately rejected by her husband’s family and returns home to die from a broken heart.

That alone should not have been the end of the world for him. Though having lost his true love, this young man still had his whole life ahead of him. While holding her memories in his heart, he could have led a full life, perhaps happily remarried.

But as I have noted, this is a movie about reminiscences.

And these reminiscences belonged to a worn-out old man played by a then middle-aged Ryu Chishu (perhaps best known for Tokyo Story). Glowing on the television screen were the beautiful mountains of Shinshu. Yet projected against that scenic backdrop was no evidence of the lively youngster and his tale of loss.

From Ryu Chishu’s appearance, we can easily surmise a life—a world—hemmed in from the start, without a future in sight, whose only redeeming feature is its ordinariness. To be cruelly direct, we can see where this brief and beautiful love is headed straight from the beginning.

Her bitter tears are guaranteed to put us through the wringer (making the viewer feel literally wrung out), and I can’t say this sort of entertainment is my cup of tea. And yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

While spinning this story of hopeless despair, youth and spirit poured forth from the screen. Keisuke Kinoshita was forty-two at the time and in his prime. In 1954, he directed Twenty-Four Eyes. In 1957, Times of Joy and Sorrow, and The Ballad of Narayama in 1958.

The vision of the creator is fully realized on the screen. A movie is truly a living thing. From the cool and concrete lyricism of the scene on the wharf from which the protagonist leaves the town as a young man, to the decrepit old man walking along a country road, the film comes alive with life.

When the older brother (Takahiro Tamura) brusquely tells him, “Tami-san is dead,” the tears well up. And her death scene makes them fall like rain. It’s been a long time since I’ve cried watching a movie. The movies I usually watch are just movies.

Anyway, as if to prove that God is dead and the Devil lives, halfway through the broadcast peals of loud laughter utterly unbecoming to the moment erupted in the adjoining room, and continued even as the old man visited her grave in the closing scene.

Needless to say, I flung open the door, breathing fire. “Huh?” said Mr. T. There were tears in his eyes, too. But not from grief. I looked at the television screen. It was a television special featuring the 1980s comedy trio B-21.

“I-I-I—” I stammered in a rage. “I can’t believe you’re watching that!”

Mr. T grinned. “Here you go,” he said, handing me the marked-up manuscript.

I snapped, “You know, I’ve been watching She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum. Try to exercise a little self-control.”

He stared at me. “And?”

“It’s a classic! You and your big mouth completely ruined the mood!”

“Yeah, but these B-21 specials are such a hoot.”

The conversation was going nowhere so I marched back to my room. Thinking back on it, even now I still get pissed off. Sending that guy a love letter! Starting a fan club (proposed, supposedly) for him! No need to tell me the world was spinning out of control!

Well, next time I’ll spill the beans about the writer of that letter and her encounter with me.

Don’t miss it!

In this volume, the story takes several bold new turns. Setsura loses trusted allies and defeats a powerful enemy. Shinjuku welcomes a new character to its teeming stage.

Will Demon City fall into the grips of a living darkness, or vanish in a deadly rainbow of destruction? The story continues and the looming resolution beckons. Until that day, I intend to keep my faithful readers turning the pages. I hope you enjoy the read!

Hideyuki Kikuchi (while watching Vampire’s Kiss)

March 17, 1991