The Strength of a Family

The smallest group of people that can be found the world over is often said to be the strongest. The bond that a family has is especially strong in the traditions held by numerous eastern countries. However, over time this insurmountable bond has been weakening, even in the Far East. This decline in the family structure is most readily seen in the various works in popular culture. In this Blossay, I will be taking a look at this decay from the very earliest representations of family until as recent as the eighties. I will be jumping to and from different groups, mostly due to Sandakan no. 8’s wide view of history. To start, the farthest back we as a class have seen is the beginning of Osaki’s tale in Sandakan no. 8.

With her tale beginning in a time set before the First World War, we see a poor family, one who has lost the father figure, and the mother must remarry in order to safe guard her children. But, to protect the honor of his family, Osaki’s brother runs away and takes her with him. However, they still cannot work hard enough to support themselves, at which time; Osaki sells herself into working across the ocean in order to help her brother buy back their old family home. Both acts of selflessness are by the women in the family, while the boy’s sole reasoning was most likely one of preserving his own family structure, not wanting to join with another. However, this is the last we see of blood related family, and instead come upon the new “Family” Osaki finds herself in soon enough.

As Osaki becomes older, she is forced into working as a prostitute. After her first time, she latches on to the one thing that she believes can redeem her; she was doing everything for her brother back home, so that he could succeed. Yet, as time goes on, we see Osaki begin to bond with other people, even with the farmer boy who eventually leaves her, as World War One begins. As the War continues, Osaki is brought to a new brothel, one where the matron, Okiku, keeps the girls closely knit, as a unit of family. This is even evident to the point in which Okiku is called “Oka-san” (Mother) by the girls in the house. In the time just before the Second World War begins in Europe, Osaki returns to Japan, free and with a purse filled with jewelry. She comes to her brother’s house, the one she helped pay for with her suffering. Yet he turns her away, afraid of the stigma and the possibility she could claim the house as her own. Osaki then retreats from her life as a Karayuki-san as she runs to Korea to start anew.

Now, the next part is not shown to us in Sandakan no. 8. Instead the years of the Second World War are seen in Barefoot Gen, where the first volume explicitly details the life of the Nakaoka family. In this story, we see the deep love held from the parents in ways that seem strange. The father hits his children, not because he dislikes them or is a bad parent, but because it is the way he can express just how wrong the children are when they do stupid things, like falling into the war propaganda, or by teasing the nice Korean man. Gen’s father fits the trope often seen now, where a manly man character can only speak his heart through his fists. Now this isn’t a fighting manga, but I feel that it fits him to a tee.

Gen’s mother is often willing to outright murder for the sake of her children, brandishing a knife at one point threatening the Chairman. Now, every male bystander writes it off as “She’s pregnant and not thinking straight,” I believe it’s just her true feelings showing themselves. Gen and his little brother are also willing to sacrifice dignity and morality so that they can get the food their mother needs during her pregnancy. The eldest daughter suffered humiliation, yet she remained quiet, knowing it would only trouble her family more. And after her father found out, he instantly stormed the school and made them rectify their mistake. The Eldest Son, back from college, has been tormented, and beaten at his work, because his father was a “Traitor.” Yet, even though he yells and screams at his parents, and the father beats him (Spouting off a very beloved line “I love all my children equally”), he decides to join the youth volunteer forces. This is done to save his family from being called traitors, and from being tortured by their neighbors. In the end, the father knows he is a dead man, after the atomic bomb devastates their home in Hiroshima, he forces Gen to take the mother out, to escape the flames racing towards them. Gen’s last act as a big brother, is to give the boat and promise to play even though he knew it was never going to happen.

As the War ends, Gen’s tale continues, however, as our class had, I will shift this paper to back to Sandakan for a second before continuing on into Tokyo Story. Osaki’s happy life in Korea came to an end. Her husband died in the return to Japan, her son, as soon as he married, shipped her off to live far away so that his family would never have to come across the stigma of a Karayuki-san in their house hold. This man proved that he didn’t care about his mother. In an interesting development, the Children in Tokyo Story also send their parents away. However, even this could be seen in a gentler light. Not only would the parents not be in the way of what’s going on in Tokyo, but they would also be given the time to relax, even if that ultimately made the elderly couple feel worse than they had. Even though the patriarch returned to binge drinking for a night, the daughter that had seen the worst of his behavior still gave him a blanket and a bed, even if it was one for him and his drunk friend too.

The death in the family serves to show just how much these kids cared about their parents. Even the busy doctor, who had very little time for his own children, still managed to take the time off needed to get all the way back to the family home, and even spend time there for a few days. The seemingly cruel Shige cries, and stops working in her hair salon to come. Tokyo Story, does however, show just how many times the children, now in Tokyo, see it. Shige still makes her advance upon her mother’s clothes, the youngest son hadn’t made an effort to see them before they returned home, and for the most part we don’t even see Kyoko, as she’s still back home, being a teacher. The only one who makes sacrifices, and stays the longest with Shukichi is the now widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko. However, the Decay goes further along.

The decline of the Family continues steadily throughout the course. From this post war period, I will jump all the way to the eighties, taking a long look at Family Game. In it, we see the final throws of what has become the family. The father, so focused upon work, he merely doesn’t care about the family, not even the wife who still (For some reason) loves him. He focuses on making his sons do the same, highlighted at the point in the beginning when they meet the tutor from hell, when he declares his name, and how he was a studious boy, and entered Seibu high. Of course, the father uses this as ammunition against Shigeyuki, hoping in some twisted way that his self-righteous anger could even begin to move the middle schooler’s heart. Of course, the Mother is a push over, both to her husband and her sons, as illustrated when she goes to visit the school in place of her son, and is completely torn between deciding Jingu, like Shigeyuki was, or Seibu, as her husband commanded. However, things are even more broken down than this. The family welcomes the Tutor into their family, as if to make him a third son, or even as seen later on, a replacement for the father, who has already totally hidden in his car.

The Tutor was clearly an agent of the director. One to show just how screwed up the system really is, by turning it upside down. The boy is taught, not to be a student, but to how to be a man. Instead of teaching him what he didn’t know, he was forced to do his work, improving his grades instantly. He was taught to fight for himself, which proves useful in the fight in the field, as well as after the penultimate food fight. Yet even his growth is crushed underneath the satirical iron fist that is Yoshimoto. The ending of the movie may confuse westerners who are not entirely familiar with the premise, even upon my first viewing of The Family Game I had no clue what the fight meant. But over time I’ve come to realize just what the food fight represented. The parents were so disconnected from what was happening now, that the dinner was ruined long before the father noticed. I do believe that the mother noticed sooner, but most likely during the time that Yoshimoto was overflowing her wine glass. I had also begun to realize just when the actual fight starts (After the fifth time watching), and come to the realization that the last supper scene was actually a condensed version of the movie. The father had a prominent(ish) role at the beginning, but soon tapers off as he begins eating. Yoshimoto immediately starts clanking his silverware, chewing on his food like an animal, and even pushing and moving Shigeyuki a bit as the dinner goes on. Then, just after that, he begins picking up his salad by hand and ripping it apart and eating it, symbolically at the same time he was beating Shigeyuki for the Yuugure incident. The sibling fight that begins to happen after Yoshimoto starts squirting the Mayonnaise around is about the same time in the fight as Shinichi began to become a delinquent in the film. Then time at which the mother calls upon Yoshimoto to (Symbolically with the Soy Milk) take over for the father in the film (In getting Shigeyuki to go to Seibu), is the same timing that he pours the wine for her. Of course, by the time the father finally realizes what is going on, it coincides with when the last supper would be happening during the plot re-enactment of the dinner. The family is then beaten, broken down, and the dinner destroyed, symbolically ending the film. After which, the family silently works together, in a twistedly communal solitary manner. They clean working together, but have no words for each other, and each has their own space on the small floor to work on, no single one person overlapping areas other than to throw away a broken plate or two.

I hope I was clear in describing just how well the destruction of the ideal family happened over the course of the semester, but in a way, I wish no one would agree with me.