Blogging about my Torikae baya manga translation project.
Summary and observations on Volume 10: Machinations and calculations
Volume 10 distinguishes itself from most previous volumes by explicitly taking place over a limited period of time. We begin fairly soon after Tango no Sekku – which occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month – Togu reveals that she plans to step down after a ceremony at the end of the 6th month, and this volume ends before that has happened. So that means that a lot needs to fit into six or seven weeks!
Volume 10 distinguishes itself from most previous volumes by explicitly taking place over a limited period of time. We begin fairly soon after Tango no Sekku – which occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month – Togu reveals that she plans to step down after a ceremony at the end of the 6th month, and this volume ends before that has happened. So that means that a lot needs to fit into six or seven weeks!
Sara and Ginkaku.
Panel from volume 10, page 48. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan
Much of the excitement involves the arrival of Ginkaku and Yuzuru, and Sara’s efforts to find evidence of Ginkaku’s misdeeds. Yuzuru, as we heard last time, is a little-known prince whom Shikibu-kyo no Miya has proposed as a potential new Togu. And when he attends court for his first audience with the Emperor, followed closely by the monk Ginkaku – his other political backer – it turns out that Yuzuru is a young boy. Sara, who is sure that Ginkaku is the same monk he overheard cursing a protective amulet in Kurama, is tasked with training the clueless Yuzuru until he is fit for the job of Togu. Despite Sara’s suspicions about Ginkaku, it appears that Yuzuru and Shikibu-kyo are only pawns in the monk’s plot, and Sara becomes something of a parental figure to Yuzuru, an orphan.
Throughout, Sara has to deal with being closer to the Emperor than ever as his naishi no kami. As I mentioned previously, working as the Emperor’s naishi no kami was a popular route to his bed, and in these chapters, the Emperor is perfectly happy for everyone to assume this is exactly what is going on. This bothers Sara, but when he realises that Ginkaku sees him as a threat, he decides to plant a rumour himself that “Suiren” (as nearly everyone knows Sara) is pregnant. The Emperor is initially angry, assuming this means Sara is sleeping with someone else, but then even more openly flirtatious after learning it was a ploy.
The ploy nearly works, but ultimately backfires: Ginkaku anonymously tries to poison Sara, then bribes one of Sara’s attendants to terminate the alleged pregnancy (by pushing him off this kind of bridge). Sara doesn’t manage to show the poison to the Emperor, and that attendant tells Ginkaku that Sara has a suspicious scar. Ginkaku combines this knowledge with some information from the bitter Umetsubo, and concludes that “Suiren” used to be “Sara”…
While all this is going on, Sara contacts Yoshino no Miya. Yoshino is shocked to hear the intrigue, as Ginkaku is someone who played a major role in getting him expelled from the capital years before. He therefore seeks out Suiren, who is living in minor exile herself in Ashiya, under the name Fujiwara no Tsukimitsu. Suiren is unwilling to return to Heian-kyo while she might still harm Togu’s reputation, but she does go to Kurama in search of evidence. And around the same time Ginkaku is threatening to reveal Sara’s big secret, Suiren finds an extremely evil-looking demon skull – but can she get it to the capital?
Other observations in this volume, which got me triangulating a lot of things:
Togu’s imminent retirement puts San no Hime in a tough spot, since an ex-Togu has no naishi no kami. One option is to follow Sara and becomes the Emperor’s naishi no kami – she was, after all, quite open about her desire to “produce” a future Togu herself. In the time since, however, she has become very attached to Togu, and now that she feels the Emperor has abandoned her, she has gone off him completely. As a result, she no longer sees Sara as a love rival.
I mentioned that Yuzuru is a young boy, but how young? I’d estimate that he’s younger than the current Togu was when she was instated, given his innocence and inability to quite understand what title he’s been given (親王 – imperial prince). I had thought Togu had to be between 9 and 12 when she began, since the scandal that probably led to her birth was ほんの十数年前 (“only” ten-plus years ago) in Year 18. But I was recently re-reading Episode 13, where she says she previously met Yoshino ten years earlier. Yoshino is surprised she remembers, so it would have to be an early memory, but she does specifically recall his premonition that she would become Togu, so I doubt it happened before she was, say, 3. All of this to say that I think her starting age (in Year 14) must be at the very top end of my previous estimate, making her 12 or even 13. And Yuzuru is therefore… 9? 10?
Related to that, we learn some more about that scandal. Yoshino and Ginkaku both studied in China, and it was Ginkaku’s jealousy over the Chinese Emperor’s esteem for Yoshino that then led him to encourage rumours about Yoshino and Suzakuin’s wife. This is one point where the timeline vis-à-vis real-world history doesn’t quiiite add up. Yoshino was apparently a kentoshi (遣唐使), an envoy during the Tang dynasty (up to 907 CE – the last missions there were even earlier) and he specifies that it was the Tang Emperor who liked him, but Ginkaku went to China during the Song dynasty (from 960 CE). Yoshino probably isn’t old enough for that kind of time gap, and he surely isn’t old enough if people are reading The Tale of Genji (written in the early 11th century). If the “Tang” term was being used in a generic sense for China in general, it might’ve worked, but these specific details make it a definite anachronism. On the bright side, this hazy sense of Yoshino’s personal history lends the character another layer of mystique!
At the same time, we get some new details about the imperial line. When Togu first talked about Yoshino in Episode 12, she said he’d been the third-in-line to Suzakuin’s predecessor. He later described himself as Suzakuin’s cousin. Now, when he speaks about Ginkaku, he refers to Suzakuin’s predecessor by the name Anraku (安楽) and specifies that he was Suzakuin’s father. Also, when Shikibu-kyo first brought up Yuzuru’s name in Episode 45, the Emperor knew Yuzuru to be the son of Sadayori (貞頼), the eighth prince of Kyogoku (京極), one more Emperor back before Suzakuin. Quite where Yuzuru fits in would depend on how Kyogoku and Anraku were related – remember that it doesn’t have to be father-son – but it’s clear that he’s far from the frontline in terms of potential successors. When I made the character chart recently, I couldn’t fit in every connection, but since then I’ve been thinking it might at least be useful to try and recreate the imperial family tree to go along with that chart and the timeline – so maybe that will happen at some point!