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!!