Summary and observations on Volume 8: New relationship drama for Sara and Suiren

This is the first of five posts summarising the volumes of Torikae baya that cover the period after the siblings’ big switch and before the manga’s conclusion. Something to bear in mind as we go on is that although I’ll continue to refer to Sara and Suiren as the characters we know, most people at court think that each sibling is the other – making everything a bit confusing!

At the end of Volume 7, Sara was working as Togu’s naishi no kami alongside San no Hime, and getting the first inklings that he might have a thing for the Emperor. That situation and its ongoing developments take centre stage in Volume 8.

Cropped panel from volume 8, page 79.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

Ahead of a party for the Tookanya festival (on the 10th day of the 10th month), Togu suggests that Sara could perform the koto for the Emperor at the event. In spite of Suiren’s best efforts to teach Sara previously, Sara isn’t much good at it, and sadly plays the flute by himself; the Emperor overhears this, remembers how Sara used to play, and turns his thoughts towards “Suiren”. His interest only increases following the party, where he catches Sara in his arms after a convenient gust of wind.

Despite this, Sara continues to deny having any romantic feelings towards the Emperor. He and San no Hime – who thinks the two naishi no kami are friendly rivals – prepare to dance to celebrate the Niinamesai ceremony, despite being older than the usual performers. Sara feigns illness to let San no Hime get the attention instead, but the Emperor is undeterred. The situation gets thornier, with Sara attempting to put him off by claiming to be unable to bear children, then avoiding him, which results in the Emperor declaring that he won’t allow any other man to marry “Suiren” – if he can’t have Sara, nobody can. To cap it off, the Emperor later sends Sara a gift of red maple leaves just after their time had passed, a gesture that reminds Sara of the unseasonally blooming cherry branch he once sent, and makes Sara realise he really does love the Emperor after all.

Meanwhile, the real Suiren just wants to be with Togu, but is in no position to make this happen. Kakumitsu convinces Suiren to meet again with Shi no Hime, who has now had enough of Tsuwabuki and his shenanigans, and is suddenly eager to have a “real” relationship with her husband. Suiren fights off her advances by admitting to having feelings for somebody inaccessible, but agrees to superficially maintain their marriage.

Of course, Togu hears about this and so that relationship becomes awkward too. And after Togu falls ill and goes to convalesce at her father’s home, Sara decides that a proper meeting between Togu and Suiren would cheer them both up. He organises an opportunity for a night-time visit at the end of the volume, but unfortunately an unwitting San no Hime once again demonstrates her security skills by catching Suiren and alerting the guards.

Some other details and stray observations:

• I noted once before that Saito expressed a preference for avoiding giving explicit names or job titles to original characters, but still ended up doing it a bit anyway. At this point in the manga, there is much more original material altogether, as it departs quite significantly from the post-switch story beats of Torikaebaya monogatari. With that seems to come a greater willingness to have a bit of fun, even with the aspects that Saito felt unqualified for. I feel the use of archaic vocabulary and historical spelling rules increases in this volume, especially in chapter titles (for example Episode 36 is titled 相逢, with the furigana あひあふ and read as あいあう), and it seems like dialogue also features older conjugation rules more frequently than before.

• The Niinamesai is an event connected to the rice harvest, and one where the gosechi dance is performed the next day. San no Hime is so eager to be one of the dancers because it offers a chance to catch the Emperor’s eye, and her strategy is so obvious that other women bring up Fujiwara no Takaiko, who performed the dance and later became Empress.

• San no Hime’s blatant attempts to get close to the Emperor also invite remarks that she should just be his naishi no kami instead – remember that explanations about the naishi no kami’s job usually assume that she serves the Emperor rather than the crown prince!

• One more point about San no Hime is that she aids in my efforts to track the timeline by saying in Episode 38 that she is 23 years old. Incidentally, she also suggests that this makes her a Christmas cake by the standards of the time.

• Her sister Shi no Hime sends Tsuwabuki away with his tail between his legs early in the volume. He is, of course, the father of both of her children, and he refers to the newest child as Sakuyahime. However, when Shi no Hime meets Suiren (believing she is being reunited with Sara), she calls the child Tamakohime, and says she alone named her – another (frankly deserved) punch in the gut for Tsuwabuki!

• Sara is inspired to offer Togu and Suiren a meeting together after stumbling upon Suiren’s writings and realising that they show the strength of Suiren’s feelings towards Togu. Not for the first time, it sounds like Suiren is basically writing the same story we’re reading, or something very similar.

Thoughts from Episode 35: Naishi no kami

I’m back for the final chapter before the volumes I’m skipping over! (I explain that plan a bit more here) At this point in the story, Sara and Suiren are settling into their new roles as each other, but there’s a catch: their personalities seem to have changed since before they went missing. Men at court think that “Sara” is no longer as bright and fun as he was, and suspect it is because of Shi no Hime and Tsuwabuki’s affair; meanwhile, the returning “Suiren” doesn’t seem like the modest, ladylike individual San no Hime has heard about. Now fearful of raising suspicious, both Sara and Suiren take extra care about how they come across as they deal with the drama of this chapter.

And what is that drama? In Episode 32, there was an intruder in Togu’s quarters, resulting in San no Hime coming in as a new naishi no kami, and this time, they get a lead on who the intruder could be. Sara first seeks Suiren’s help, before revealing the investigation to San no Hime, and in the end, the two naishi no kami work together to catch the perpetrator.

During a party to celebrate their success, San no Hime gets lightly wasted on Fushimi’s finest* and tells her new friend Sara about her childhood and how she only came to live with her father in Heian-kyo after her mother died. She also reveals that she dreams of marrying the Emperor and finally providing him with a male heir – and though Sara is nice about it, he begins to have conflicted feelings.

Since returning to the palace, Sara has had to contend with the fact that another naishi no kami is already there. In Episode 34, his strategy for dealing with the Amatsukitsune – with assistance from Suiren and Yoshino no Miya – helped him get accepted by Togu, and this time his working relationship with San no Hime improved. At the end of it all, both Sara and San no Hime remain in post as Togu’s naishi no kami.

So what is a naishi no kami? I haven’t really said much about this, other than that the naishi no kami (尚侍) is an attendant that Willig called the “Maid of Honour” in her translation**. The naishi no kami obviously plays a big part in Torikaebaya monogatari, being the job of both main characters one after the other, and later in the manga, Saito even has Sara become the naishi no kami to somebody else. It’s an important role, and not one that Saito would’ve expected readers to know much about, so she uses the manga volume afterwords to provide some extra information.

Chart from volume 4, page 184.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

First, in the Volume 4 afterword, we see a chart broadly dividing court positions into different ministries and ranks. Kami (長官, but also spelt with other kanji depending on government ministry) refers to those people in the highest positions in each section. And on the next page, Saito goes on to clarify that the naishi no kami is the kami of an office called the naishi no tsukasa. They were between the junior fifth rank and junior third rank at court, and there could be up to two of them. They had responsibility for relaying the Emperor’s messages, and with time, the position became nearly as important as the Emperor’s consorts, often being a pathway for young women of influential families to become consorts themselves.

The Volume 10 afterword, coming just after Sara’s new appointment which I hinted at earlier, offers more detail about what the job entails. A bit like a senji, the naishi no kami was like a private secretary to the Emperor. She would present him with proposals from ministers, then record his decisions, and she would inform others of his requests. But she also had other responsibilities like helping him with eating and bathing, and as kami of the naishi no tsukasa, she kept the other palace ladies in check.

Much of this matches what happens in Torikae baya. Though Suiren (and then Sara) is employed as naishi no kami not to the Emperor but to his planned successor, we see a lot of these other details, and they often impact the story. For example, Suiren’s early anxieties relate to the expectations of the job and the ideas people have about it. She worries about being able to take responsibility within Togu’s staff and is embarrassed about the prospect of providing more intimate assistance. She becomes a target of Umetsubo’s jealousy, and the Emperor does eventually seek to make her one of his ladies. As Sara takes over the job and then moves to another similar post, these same kinds of challenges rear their heads again. And even that throwaway point from the Volume 4 afterword about the number of positions available turns out to be significant when he runs into the other naishi no kami San no Hime!

As Volume 7 comes to an end, everything is basically in place for the latter parts of the story. Suiren is now “Sara”, working as a court official, and Sara is now “Suiren”, established as one of Togu’s two naishi no kami. There is an ongoing movement to unseat the current Togu – taking power away from somebody ill-equipped for it in the eyes of her opponents, or relieving her of a great burden in the eyes of her allies – but still no real alternative. And finally, Sara is starting to wonder whether his admiration for the Emperor is really just respect for his former employer.

But I will not be translating volumes 8-12, at least not for this project. With that in mind, rather than doing generally one blog post per chapter, I’ll write a few posts covering the plotlines of one volume at a time, with some observations along the way. And hopefully, I’ll soon fit in a chance to put up the big character chart I’ve been threatening to make!

*I do realise that sake production in Fushimi came later, but just let me have this one!

**Interestingly (and surprisingly!) Willig’s translation was recently republished, this time without the previous title of The Changelings. The old one was out of print for quite a while, so this is a good chance to read it.

Thoughts from Episode 25: The Heian rumour mill

We’ve reached the final chapter of volume 5, and as usual, it ends on a dramatic cliffhanger! But before that, it resolves the cliffhanger from last time. Kakumitsu has just discovered that his granddaughter was fathered by Tsuwabuki, and so he confronts Shi no Hime about this. Long story short, he kicks his pregnant daughter out of the house, along with her existing child and her attendant Saemon.

Meanwhile, Togu is being weird around Suiren after their awkward moment alone together last time. To make matters worse, the Emperor, worried about Sara and the impact of his disappearance on his family members (remember that the siblings’ father Marumitsu is basically the prime minister!), asks Togu to have Suiren join him on a boating trip. Suiren does attend, but sits behind a screen in near total silence while Marumitsu reminisces emotionally about Sara and Suiren’s first meeting.

However, when Suiren returns from the day out, she learns that Togu is in a foul mood. Suiren goes to see her and finds out that Togu was convinced that “boating” meant “boating 😏😏😏” and the prospect of Suiren not coming back that night upset her for some reason. The two get closer and closer, and finally kiss.

Once again, Sara is nowhere to be seen, except in flashbacks, and so we continue to see the sweet situation between Suiren and Togu develop. It’s worth noting that although there is also a relationship between their counterpart characters in the original Torikaebaya monogatari, the way it’s portrayed in this manga is different in some important ways – but that’s a topic I plan to delve into a bit later.

Panel from volume 5, page 159.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

What I want to focus on today is another thing that Episode 25 shows a lot of: rumours. While Saito devotes a lot of attention to the main characters and providing them with more complexity than they have in the source material, there are many aspects of Torikae baya that help to convey the atmosphere of the Heian court – from careful depictions of locations to a range of seasonal events. And another example of that is the significance of the rumour mill in characters’ lives.

Let’s go through some relevant cases from this week’s chapter. Kakumitsu had no idea that Shi no Hime and Tsuwabuki had had an affair until Shi no Hime’s sister Umetsubo decided to tell him about the latest hot gossip. Once he disowns Shi no Hime, it only spreads more rumours: men and women of the court are quick to conclude that Sara vanished as a result of his wife’s infidelity (not that they’ve figured out who the other man was). Soon, Togu’s other attendants are prodding Suiren about the topic, and even the Emperor hears “awful rumours” (心ない噂) relating to Sara. And of course, when he invites Suiren to join him on his boat, the Emperor must know that this will make people’s imaginations run wild too, especially since Suiren’s grandfather has been advocating for the Emperor to take her as a wife for months at this point. Even Marumitsu’s story about Sara and Suiren as children – despite being about an event the readers are familiar with – is something he didn’t witness himself, so he can only report what he heard from a servant who was there at the time.

So why does this matter apart from providing atmosphere? I think it’s helpful as a reminder of how things operate in a political environment like the imperial court, and how that impacts plot developments. It’s a lot easier to say “these misunderstandings could be avoided if people just talked to each other!” if a story is set in a school or something, but remember that this is the government. You can expect people to have hushed conversations not just because they love a bit of relationship gossip, but also for the sake of behind-the-scenes political shenanigans. And when a lot of people aren’t really expected to see one another directly, it’s no wonder that hearsay is all they know.

This point about politics will only become more significant in Volume 6 and beyond. You may remember that some people are unconvinced by Togu’s aptitude for her position because she’s a girl. The growing movement to remove her soon becomes a major plot point – and I might even have some more to say about that next time!

Thoughts from Episode 22: A busy New Year

After a stunned silence following Sara’s bombshell reveal last time, Tsuwabuki becomes quite excited about the prospect of them having a baby together. He tells Sara to “go back” to being a woman (😬) and suggests they get married. Sara, realising that Tsuwabuki is dreaming of a scenario where he can take both his pregnant partners as his wives, then claims that the story about the pregnancy was just a test, and departs.

A new year begins, and with it comes many important court ceremonies. Sara’s interactions with the Emperor inspire him to persevere as a court official, until one Buddhist ritual where a monk announces that something unclean is present. It turns out a dog has entered the hall, but this doesn’t quell Sara’s worries that if he remains at court, it could have disastrous karmic effects.

Sara goes to Aguri, his old wetnurse, to tell her about his situation and request her assistance. He plans to quit his job, have the baby, then decide on what to do in the future, but doesn’t want either Tsuwabuki or his parents to know. Then, when Sara returns to court to begin his final weeks as a nobleman, he’s so uncharacteristically flashy and charming that Tsuwabuki is convinced something is out of the ordinary, and goes to seek answers from Aguri himself.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a little overview of the forms of marriage (and divorce) available to Heian aristocrats. That comes up briefly in this chapter too, when Tsuwabuki casually proposes to Sara. The situation he wants to create – whether he’s consciously aware of it or not – is what I called the third type of marriage, where the lucky man installs his wives in his own residence. In the afterword where Saito explains the different types of marriage, she also specifies that this is what Tsuwabuki longs for. It’s the kind of setup that the protagonist eventually enjoys in The Tale of Genji, tying in with what we know about Tsuwabuki’s efforts to live up to that particular ideal of masculinity.

Now, apart from marriage, another area of Heian court customs that shows up in a big way in this chapter is seasonal ceremonies. New Year is important in the palace calendar, and this is true today as well, even if it’s now based on the Gregorian calendar instead. A series of rituals took place over the first few weeks of the year, keeping everyone at court busy, especially the Emperor himself.

Several court ceremonies following New Year.

Panels from volume 5, page 55. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

How these events are presented in the Torikae baya manga varies somewhat. Sometimes, as with a few of the ceremonies in this chapter, Saito provides a representative moment along with a heading giving the name of the event. For more plot-significant examples, we’re treated to many more views of the ceremony taking place, and there may be a sidenote explaining what it was about – one case of this is the Komahiki ceremony back in Episode 2.

Sometimes, Saito goes a little further, not just showing the event taking place and giving its name, but also providing lengthier narration to explain what the ceremony entailed and why it mattered. She does this with, for example, the Iba-hajime, an archery contest in Episode 19, as well as the Go-saie, the big assembly of monks and priests where Sara begins to panic this time around.

Here's how I translated the explanation of the Go-saie:

The Go-saie was a vital ceremony where important monks of the six Buddhist sects

met to discuss and give sermons.

Except on occasions where an Empress reigned,

only men were permitted to take part.

Now, the story would work just as easily without this explanation. We’re told that the Go-saie is a no-girls-allowed event, but the way the scene pans out, that becomes pretty clear anyway. But having those explanations does add something! The inclusion of the seasonal events themselves gives a sense of the passage of time and a flavour of Heian court society, and it shows the degree of background research involved in writing the manga in the first place. By also giving these occasional descriptions of ceremonies – as well as things like the afterwords that go into more detail about specific cultural details like marriage customs – Saito reveals more of that research, and brings in an educational dimension too. She had to learn a lot to put Torikae baya together, and in reading it, we can learn a lot too!

Thoughts from Episode 20: Sara tries (and fails) to leave his wife

After making way last time so that Shi no Hime and Tsuwabuki can be a regular couple, Sara concentrates fully on his Kamogawa rerouting job. The workers expect an aloof nepo baby, but are amazed to see him getting hands-on as he tries to push his worries from his mind. He returns after a few weeks (I think!), is congratulated on the efficacy of his work, then goes to his parents to declare his intent to divorce Shi no Hime.

Sara’s mother anticipates Kakumitsu pulling some trick, and sure enough, he isn’t interested in hearing Sara’s explanations. During a carriage ride to Kakumitsu’s residence, Sara tries inventing plausible reasons for wanting a divorce, but his wily father-in-law deflects them all, and when they arrive, we learn why: it turns out Tsuwabuki’s done it again, and Shi no Hime has another baby on the way! This is proof, in Kakumitsu’s eyes, of Sara and Shi no Hime’s undying love.

They have a celebratory feast, and just as Sara is about to have a serious face-to-face talk with his wife, the smell of alcohol turns his stomach and he runs out to the balcony. Moments later, Shi no Hime runs out too, due to morning sickness, leading Sara to have a terrible, terrible realisation.

Sara’s talk of leaving Shi no Hime during this chapter and the previous one might make you wonder quite what their marriage situation actually is. If you cast your mind back to Episode 7, readers got quite a clear impression of how a marriage was formalised in the Heian period. Sara had to visit Shi no Hime for three nights in a row and have their union acknowledged by her father, Kakumitsu. But what next? What does their marriage – and others – look like? And what would it mean for them to split up?

Saito evidently also thought this would be confusing for readers, as she includes an afterword in Volume 6 about Heian period marriage customs. She reiterates that a marriage was declared not through a bureaucratic registration but through three consecutive visits and a feast. This is followed by an explanation of three marriage types:

1.      kayoikon (通い婚) or “duolocal” marriage, where the man and woman continued to live separately after marriage. This was the most common arrangement, and such relationships would continue on the basis of the couple still liking each other.

2.      shoseikon (招婿婚) or “uxorilocal” marriage – also called mukoirikon (婿入り婚) – where the groom, especially one with less wealth or status, joined his bride’s household. This is the situation for Sara and Shi no Hime in Torikae baya.

3.      shosaikon (招妻婚), a subtype of “neolocal” marriage (meaning that the couple live in their own new home), where the fabulously wealthy man has his wife or wives come to live in his mansion. This is normal for the Emperor, but we also see it in the case of Marumitsu, which is maybe modelled after the many wives in Genji’s Rokujoin residence in The Tale of Genji.

So, as we’ve established, Sara and Shi no Hime’s marriage is the second type. Sara is effectively part of her family (well, they were already first cousins*, but I mean part of her household). That is where he would normally reside as long as he and his wife are having no problems, but as we know by now, they do have problems.

In that case, what can they do? Saito doesn’t go deeper into this side of things, but as I understand it, much like marriage itself, divorce wasn’t a very formalised thing. It seemingly happened quite often – Sei Shonagon of Pillow Book fame is said to have been divorced even before she began writing – but there were no forms or legal processes. Especially for marriages of the first type, it was probably sufficient for the couple to simply stop seeing each other. However, it’s a bit more complicated for Sara, as he lives with Shi no Hime. He can announce his departure and leave the house, but as a nice young man, he wants to persuade his father-in-law that this is a responsible choice. But unfortunately, even when he pretends that he’s found a new lover, all Kakumitsu does is ask him not to have more than three women at once.

Anyway, although there’s one more angle on this in the Emperor’s interest in inviting Suiren for a type-3 marriage, this is as far as I’ll go on the topic of marriage and divorce for today. So with that, I’m afraid it’s time we go our separate ways…

*this was normal!!