Summary and observations on Volume 12: From Ginkaku to Genkaku

After the 10th and 11th volumes dealt with the rise and fall of Ginkaku over one tumultuous summer, we move to autumn and winter and see the lasting effects of his efforts to upset the Heian court. At the same time, the story’s climax starts coming into view as we near the final volume.

A mysterious smoke affects the capital.

Panel from volume 12, page 95. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

Now that Ginkaku has been banished from the capital, he places curses on everyone he can think of. Illness soon spreads through the court, and Marumitsu is also taken out of commission after bandits attack his carriage – though Suiren luckily returns just in time to save his life.

Last time, Sara’s secret – that is, being Sara and not Suiren – was in danger of unravelling, and that situation now goes from bad to worse. The Emperor has figured out who he really is, but is still unsure who the current “Sara” could be. Ginkaku is in contact with Umetsubo and has told her that “Suiren” has the scar that Sara received in Episode 5. She hopes that the absence of Marumitsu – and, briefly, Sara – will let her father enjoy the limelight, but after Sara quickly returns, she takes matters into her own hands and has her attendants try to disrobe Sara. This plot fails, though, and when the Emperor hears about it, he asks her to leave the court for a while, purportedly for her own good.

The big story in the latter half of the volume is the emergence of another monk, Genkaku. Astute readers will correctly predict that he is connected to Ginkaku, but he nevertheless charms the likes of Kakumitsu with his reputation for healing spells. However, he casts other spells too, one of them causing the Emperor to have a fever; while Sara tends to him, a white snake appears and bites Sara, resulting in a romantic moment where the Emperor unambiguously discovers Sara’s scar, but says nothing, suggesting that he holds no ill will towards Sara for misleading him.

Another of Genkaku’s spells puts Yuzuru into a murderous trance. Sara avoids harm because the Emperor has entrusted him with the crystal ball seen in Episode 3, and when Yuzuru goes for the Emperor instead, Sara and Shikibu-kyo no Miya together see off the threat. Yoshino no Miya, who has been doing work at court despite his previous objections, arrives and says he must perform a counter-curse against Ginkaku. Finally, Yoshino carries out the ritual, Genkaku wakes up, realises what has happened to his banished master, and vows to carry out Ginkaku’s plans himself.

One more batch of stray additional points:

• You might be wondering what Tsuwabuki has been up to, as we haven’t seen him for a while! After saving Shi no Hime from being married off to an old man in Sumiyoshi, he has indeed made an honest woman of her. His relationship with Suiren is still awkward, and he still has no idea she isn’t really Sara. Consequently, he panics and prevents her from having to take part in an activity that involves being partially bare-chested. He also can’t fathom why his colleague, who he thinks of as secretly being a woman, would want alone time with the former Togu.

• That apparently risky activity, by the way, is the Iba-hajime, an archery event which came up once before in Episode 19. I wrote previously about how the inclusion of these ceremonies lets Saito share some of her background research with readers, as well as demonstrating the passage of time. Showing this same event coming up a second time tells us that exactly two years have gone by since Episode 19, when Sara was still agonising over his terrible love triangle with Tsuwabuki and Shi no Hime.

• We only know Umetsubo, but it’s no secret that the Emperor has multiple wives. When he sends Umetsubo away, he finally refers to them specifically, noting that the ladies of the Kokiden, Raimeiden and Fujitsubo have already left to avoid getting sick. Earlier, when the Emperor talked with Suzakuin about adding another lady to the lineup in Episode 44, it was mentioned in passing that a new recruit would be wife #5 – that is consistent with the new information, so we now know who all his existing wives are.

• Given that Ginkaku is still wreaking havoc, it might seem strange that he didn’t receive a more… permanent punishment. But when the Emperor brings this up, Yoshino says that a dead Ginkaku could have been a greater threat. This makes sense when you remember that people of the time believed in vengeful ghosts. It makes me think of Sugawara no Michizane, who was banished after a hitherto successful court career; when natural disasters in the capital followed his death, he became enshrined as Tenjin to placate his spirit.

• There haven’t been quite so many poems coming up in recent volumes, especially ones taken directly from Torikaebaya monogatari, given that the manga follows the original story far less closely at this point. Volume 12 does have a little bit of poetry though: when Yoshino hears about Sara’s conflicted feelings towards the Emperor in Episode 59, he recites an apt poem from the Kokin wakashu, and Suiren sends Mitsuko a poem from the original story in Episode 56. The latter is somewhat recontextualised, and that’s a phenomenon I think I might return to in a later post…

And with that, we’ve got through the last of the volumes that I’m not translating (at this time) and we’re now facing the final stretch. The next blog post, probably coming in a couple of weeks, will concentrate on Episode 61!