Thoughts from Episode 29: The world beyond the capital, the cast beyond Sara and Suiren

A more typical post today, going over Episode 29 and having a little look at how the cast of the original story expands in Torikae baya.

Suiren, now looking just like Sara used to, is ready to go looking for her brother… except she doesn’t know a lot about going about as a man, riding horses, etc. But with some help from some servants who knew her as a child, she hides away in a palanquin and searches around Heian-kyo. There’s no sign of Sara at Aguri’s home, nor at Saemon’s, but at the latter she spots Tsuwabuki and realises he was Shi no Hime’s secret lover.

Meanwhile, Sara is in Uji, encouraging Tsuwabuki to check on the poorly Shi no Hime and generally getting tired of his nonsense. Suiren and her entourage also come to Uji and ask around for a man who looks just like Suiren. Little do they know that Sara is having a stroll nearby with Torako and Toramitsu! Sara gets worked up after seeing a performance involving a tengu, then collapses in pain – but not before making eye contact with Suiren by pure chance. Of course, neither understands what they’ve just seen, and so Suiren departs, believing that Sara is nowhere to be found.

Plenty happens in this chapter, and we get nods to ongoing themes – Suiren’s discomfort in trying to take on a masculine role, Tsuwabuki’s naïve dreams of a happy family with as many wives as he likes, the seemingly mystical connection between Sara and Suiren, even a tengu! – with some striking visuals along the way. I’ll have more to say about these things later, but today, I want to return to an old topic and talk about the cast of Torikae baya.

The source material doesn’t introduce a lot of specific characters, and even fewer by a consistent name or identifier. Most of them appear in the manga too, in some cases being given nicknames in addition to their changing ranks. The most obvious examples are Sarasoju and Suiren, whom we might have some difficulty recognising at this point in the story, with Sara staying at Tsuwabuki’s villa dressing in women’s clothes and Suiren searching for him while dressed in men’s clothes.

But of course, manga is not the same as a (mostly) prose narrative from the Heian period. In totally verbal storytelling, only the plot-significant characters really need to be mentioned, and the reader’s imagination can fill in the blanks with as many background figures as one might expect in the busy palace. But unless you go all closeups all the time, a manga adaptation needs to show the Heian court in action, so a handful of characters just isn’t enough!

Sara imagines Akimasa and Tadasuke’s reaction.

Panel from volume 4, page 7. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

That means some characters from the original story have new, expanded roles, such as Togu, Umetsubo, and to a lesser extent, people like Aguri and Saemon. In addition to those, though, are many, many more. Some character designs reappear, suggesting they are meant to be the same person showing up again and again. I asked Saito about whether she had names or titles in mind for any of the unidentified background characters, and she indicated that she avoided doing that as she didn’t feel confident enough about the time period to get it right when going beyond the source material. But she does name new characters sometimes. The danger of getting details wrong is often mitigated by having the identified characters be true one-offs whom we never hear from again, but there are quite a few who are recurring characters.

The most prominent of these so far are probably Tachibana no Akimasa and Minamoto no Tadasuke, the Lenny and Carl of Sara and Tsuwabuki’s work lives. Their purpose in the story is to demonstrate that Sara is well-liked at court and has friends who aren’t Tsuwabuki: they show up at social events, and theirs are the faces Sara pictures in Episode 16 when he worries about people’s reactions if they were to learn of his secret. They appear several times, and Akimasa is also integrated a bit more into the goings-on of the Heian court, turning out to have a job as a high steward (式部 の 大輔 – shikibu no taifu) under Shikibu-kyo no Miya.

A few named minor characters appear in Episode 29. Torako and Toramitsu arguably appear in the original story – there are brief mentions of children of the siblings’ wetnurses – but otherwise they’re pretty much new characters. Torako in particular plays a fairly substantial role, continuing to serve Sara even long past this point in the story.

Pictured: Suiren (dressed as Sara), Gyuomaru, Jiroemon, Hayabusamaru, another guy.

Panels from volume 6, page 118. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

We’re introduced to Suiren’s male servants too. One is apparently Sara’s former stable hand, and he introduces himself as Gyuomaru, while another is called Jiroemon. Suiren’s mother picked out these two and three other unnamed guys specifically because they knew Suiren as a child, and it’s possible these also correspond to the vague “wetnurse’s children” from Torikaebaya monogatari, but they’re effectively new characters. And besides them, this chapter mentions other people in passing, like Kakumitsu’s wife/Shi no Hime’s mother – who later makes a brief appearance – and Jiroemon’s aunt, a maid named Hiiragi. We even learn that Sara’s old horse is called Hayabusamaru!

While not every chapter has quite so many recurring or named characters, it’s fair to say that Saito does expand on the core cast more than she thought she dared to. And I think it’s for the best! It just wouldn’t be very interesting if an adaptation in a visual medium like manga didn’t show a bit more life in Heian-kyo, so adding these supporting characters is arguably just as important as showing all the historical architecture and beautiful clothes.

I’ve been meaning to put together a chart of the characters and their relationships at some point, a bit like the ones that already exist in the manga volumes. Of course, including everyone would make it much more complicated than the existing charts, and that’s what’s stopped me so far… but I still want to do it one of these days!

Thoughts from Episode 28: Suiren makes up her mind

Following the previous chapter’s visit to Uji to check in on Sara’s depressing storyline, we get the conclusion to Suiren’s dilemma in Heian-kyo. Everyone at court now knows that the Emperor has requested Suiren as a wife, so Suiren returns from her brief absence to give Togu an explanation. Togu assumes she has accepted the Emperor’s proposal and offers congratulations, having made an effort to get over her previous jealousy.

But that isn’t really why Suiren has come! They have a conversation in private, while a dramatic storm conveniently shields them from eavesdroppers. After a roundabout conversation during which Suiren says she wants to leave and go looking for Sara, she finally reveals her biggest secret, even opening her robes to prove it to the disbelieving Togu. Togu faints, and when she wakes up she thinks Suiren is already gone – but she’s actually hung around to formally announce her departure. Leaving Togu distraught, Suiren finally makes her big exit, then goes to her parents to have her hair cut and put on Sara’s clothes, ready to begin the search for her missing brother.

Panels from volume 6, page 107.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

It says a lot about Torikae baya that the complex relationship between Suiren, a young woman harbouring a big secret about her personal background, and the adolescent Togu – who is also importantly her boss – is the healthiest romantic pairing in the story by a pretty big margin! Crucially, this is also a point where the manga diverges from the source material – not in the fact that it happens at all, but in how the characters and their relationship are portrayed.

Rosette F Willig, the translator of the original Torikaebaya monogatari into English, makes the case that the story effectively has just one main character, the chunagon, who is “played” by the two siblings one after another. The “sister” takes on the role until the situation becomes untenable, then the pair decide in Yoshino to switch places, so the “brother” then takes over. One impact of this is that the naishi no kami’s storyline is not explored in much detail. The “brother” simply becomes the naishi no kami, is smitten by the female Togu, and then can no longer continue in the position on account of having almost immediately impregnated her. Switching places to become the new chunagon is an easy decision for this version of the character, who takes quickly to life as a man, and isn’t even that devoted to Togu once other charming ladies become available!

Torikae baya’s Suiren is quite different, and plenty of time is devoted to showing that. Her shyness isn’t just a phase that she quickly grows out of, though her confidence does grow through her work as naishi no kami. And whereas her 12th-century (or thereabouts) counterpart’s attraction to Togu appears as some kind of masculine “instinct” coming to the surface, Suiren is instead shown to be scared that that could be the case. For example, in Episode 26, she panics after kissing Togu and says to herself: “I held Togu-sama as a man would.” It isn’t taken for granted here that she would want to live a man’s life given the choice, and she only takes Sara’s place when she feels she must.

When I wrote about Tsuwabuki finding out about Sara’s secret, I explained that Saito took what happens pretty quickly in Torikaebaya monogatari and expanded on it, with the effect of exploring characters’ emotions and changing how it all comes across to readers. The same thing basically happens in this case: instead of Togu finding out everything at once, her relationship with Suiren slowly develops, until Suiren reveals her secret and leaves, apparently never to return. This makes the characters more interesting, their storyline more romantic, and the overall plot less focused on how great it is to be a Heian gentleman.

Thoughts from Episode 15: The secret’s out (sort of)

This chapter, the last one in Volume 3, sees recent plot threads come to a head. Sara has just been promoted to Middle Councillor (chunagon, 中納言), but he now strongly suspects that the father of Shi no Hime’s child is Tsuwabuki. While he attends a celebratory party, Tsuwabuki is with Shi no Hime at that very moment, and as usual seems to be thinking mainly about Sara. When Sara steps away from the party, he overhears Tsuwabuki and Shi no Hime, confirming his fears.

Some time later, once the cherry trees are in bloom, Sara speaks with the Emperor, who it turns out vividly remembers what Sara told him during the eclipse incident (now a couple of years earlier). After the Emperor says “nothing will change while you merely wait on a miracle” and a bit about acting for other people than oneself, Sara makes a big decision.

Sara invites Tsuwabuki to a tiny room and reveals that he knows the truth about the baby. In an emotional conversation, he offers to leave Shi no Hime so she can be with Tsuwabuki, but Tsuwabuki can’t accept this. Eventually, Sara gets so annoyed with his irresponsible attitude that he changes his tune and announces their friendship to be over. This is an even worse outcome for Tsuwabuki – who is in love with Sara – and so… he accidentally admits that he is in love with Sara. Confused and angry, Sara goes to leave, and in an attempt to stop him, Tsuwabuki inadvertently grabs his chest, potentially discovering Sara’s secret.

Things in the story were already going badly wrong before this point, but mostly behind closed doors. Episode 15 is where it all really starts to unravel. Aptly, the title is “Secrets” – though I’m not quite satisfied with this translation. The original title is 秘め事 (himegoto), which does mean “secret”, but it also happens to include the sound “hime”, homophonous with 姫 which basically means a girl or young lady in the context of the Heian court (for example Shi no Hime, “fourth daughter”). I feel like this double meaning is deliberate, given that it could apply to both of the “secrets” in this chapter: the true parentage of Sara and Shi no Hime’s daughter, and Sara’s hidden identity. Perhaps at some point I’ll manage to come up with a new title that reflects all of this!

Panel from volume 3, page 172.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

On a different note, I want to say a bit today about changes to the original story of Torikaebaya monogatari. First of all, even though Saito does a lot to make the characters sympathetic and interesting, she doesn’t change an awful lot in terms of the major plot points. Now, some of those plot points could seem quite cruel to our protagonists considering their characterisation in the manga – sorry to spoil a story that’s been out for about 800 years, but the siblings don’t get to continue living in their initial roles! – so what does Saito do about this in Torikae baya?

The main thing she does is, instead of changing where the plot ends up, she changes the way that it happens. I wrote before about the recurring tengu appearances as a great example of expanding a small point in Torikaebaya monogatari in interesting ways, and it’s similar with some of the big plot developments. Whereas the discovery of the chunagon’s secret in the original story happens very fast, the manga breaks it down and spreads it out over multiple chapters.

An important effect of this is that it lets us see more of how the characters feel. In Episode 15, Sara takes the initiative to go and speak to Tsuwabuki, making the difficult decision to end his marriage so that Shi no Hime can have a fulfilling relationship with a man who loves her. He also makes the conscious choice to tell Tsuwabuki that he knows about the affair. As the scene plays out, Sara’s cold determination gives way to anger. Finally, after a moment of shock for both him and Tsuwabuki, he flees, scared about what has just happened, but also still unsure what Tsuwabuki is actually thinking.

That’s quite a lot of material that doesn’t appear in Torikaebaya monogatari! However, the ultimate outcome is the same in both versions of the story. Saito could have changed these plot points entirely, but she didn’t, and so I would rather characterise these adjustments not as fundamental changes but as additions or expansions.

And on that note, I’ll leave it until next time, where the situation goes from bad to worse!