Chihayafuru
Manbow Papa
by SUETSUGU Yuki
as a "BLKC comic" published by Koudansha
7 volumes (on going)
Don't get fooled by the embarrassingly girlish appearance of
the book cover. This manga is an extremely well written sports
manga with pile of traditional Japanese cultural references,
poetries, morals, friendship, passion, love triangle and
much more. Give a try to the first volume AT ANY COST.
Sorry, this post is LONG.
[ Story ]
When Chihaya is in 6th grade, Arata is transferred to her class.
Classmates tease him for his strong local accent, but Chihaya
covers him and becomes a friend afterwards. The school has an
annual event of Karuta game and Chihaya has some experiences
of it. Arata invites her to play Karuta but Chihaya loses the
game and gets only one of 50 cards. Arata is a grandson of a
Karuta master and Arata himself is a class champion of the
National Karuta competition. So, Arata is quite impressed by
Chihaya's getting one card from him and says her, "I think
you have talent for Karuta". Chihaya is very pleased and wants
to be a better player. Her friend Taichi becomes their company
because of his rivalry to Arata. But soon they are separated
by their circumstances.
Four years later, Chihaya becomes a student of a hischool.
As her elder sister becomes a fashion model, Chihaya also becomes
a tall beautiful girl but she talks and behaves like a boy and
is called a "useless beauty". Chihaya has been trained for Karuta
ever since then, and now is a quite competitive player. She
establishes Karuta club in the hischool with four members
including Taichi and is dreaming of playing a match with Arata
before long. She also wants to be a queen of the National
Karuta competition as Arata once suggested her. When she confronts
the current queen who is as young as Chihaya the first time,
however, she can do almost nothing but give a serious impact
to the opponent that the queen will never forget.
[ Karuta : the game ]
Karuta [carta: Portuguese] was invented in the Edo period and
was a popular game during the period. As a play for New Year's
vacation, it was still popular half century ago. Now, at least
in Tokyo, it's almost forgot and I only watched the Queen match
in NHK BS as a New Year's event.
There are 100 cards in a set of which every card has a bottom
part of a tanka [Japanese short poem] from Hyakunin Isshu
(see below for further details). Pick 50 of them at random and
each of two players takes half of the picks. Sit against the
opponent on tatami. Align the cards in front of them. A reader
sings a top part of a randomly picked tanka from a complete set
and the players try to take the card of the bottom part of it
faster than the opponent. A game ends when one of the players
clear up his/her cards from own side.
There are cards that can be determined by the first sound/syllable.
For example, sa, su, se etc. And needs six sounds at maximum.
For examle: asaborakea, asaborakeu. If a player picks a correct
card from own side, the player's total amount of cards decreases
by one. If a player picks a correct card from opponent side, the
player sends a card from own side to the opponent side and own
total decreases by one. If a player picks a wrong card, the
opponent sends a card to the player. Thus the player's total
increases by one and the opponent of it decreases by one making
two cards penalty to the player. There are 50 "kara uta" that
has no match at the begining. So the possibility of finding a match
in the players' cards is 50:50. It can be true throughout a game.
The number of sounds needed to determine a correct card is ever
changing as the tanka are ever spending. The players must keep
track of the changes in mind.
Before the reader begins to read the first waka, players are given
15 minutes to memorize all the positions of 50 cards spread in
own sides and the opponent's side. A player can rearrange cards
in own side anytime for any reason. It may confuse the opponent.
But it can also confuse the player him/herself. So, be careful.
There are many tactics to win a game. For example, to have a rigid
arrangement schema of cards that reduces the cost of memorizing
the position of a lot of cards. Some arm movements to guard your
cards and/or attack opponent's cards.
Actual matches seen on TV looked more like Kendo than a card
game. Players move too fast to follow by our naked eyes.
A sharp sound bursts everytime players hit a card and tatami.
A game needs about an hour to finish. A player must be an athlete
to fight for several games a day.
[ Hakama: Japanese Clothes]
Japanese traditional sports and games have discliplines players
to follow. Hakama is the formal Japanese clothes for them. Although
Karuta isn't an exception, players wear more casual outfit when
it's allowed because Hakama disturbs the action of the play. In
the manga, members of the Team Chihayafuru sometimes wear Hakama
because Kana-chan's mother runs a Japanese Clothes shop. Chihaya
and Kana-chan look gorgeous when they are in Kosode and Hakama.
[ Oumi Jingu : the Jinja ]
Because Oumi Jingu enshrines Tenji Tennou who wrote the first
waka of Karuta, it's been the center of Karuta competition for
a long time. Oumi Jingu is located about 8km east of Kyoto and
near the south end of Lake Biwa that is the largest lake in Japan.
Kangakukan building near by the jinja is used as the hall of
the competition.
[ Waka : Japanese Song/Poetry ]
The oldest book of waka, the Japanese song/poetry, remained til
today is "Man-you shuu" that consists of 4,516 waka written in the
mid 7th to mid 8th century. Man-you means ten thousand leaves.
It's still a rich source of basis of Japanese mentality and sympathy
for the beauty of the wild nature. In the Pacific war, soldiers
sometimes carried a Man-you shuu along the battle fields. The book
might remember them the homeland and the origin of their existence.
The Karuta uses 100 complete collections of waka of Ogura Hyakunin
Isshu (Hyakunin Isshu for short) that compiled by Fujiwara-no-Teika
in the 13th century. Teika personally selected one for one poet from
the fortune of waka of 600 years of accumulation.
Teika also wrote a thick diary in which he described the super nova
of 1054 that is now the Crab Nebula. According to the diary, it shined
brighter than Venus, can be seen in a daylight and stayed in the sky
for six months. As he was born in 1161, the article must be hear-say,
though.
There are several fixed formats for waka. Hyakunin Isshu has only
tanka that has fixed number of sounds or syllables in the format of:
5-7-5 (top part) 7-7 (bottom part)
In the manga, Chihaya finds her name in the following tanka:
by Ariwara-no-Narihira (mid 9 ct.)
Chihayaburu
Kamiyo mo kikazu
Tatsuta-gawa
Karakurenai ni
Mizu kukuru towa
Even in the dramatic age of deities,
Nobody could have ever see,
Tatsuta river gets woven by scarlet,
Of fallen leaves like this
In Hyakunin Isshu, a kana sometimes don't have a dakuten
[special sign for "dakuon"] but acutually should read as a
dakuon. Likewise, "Chihayafuru" in the tanka should read
"Chihayaburu" as I wrote above. Tanka of Hyakunin Isshu are
sorted by ascending order by the years the tanka written.
The first tanka is:
by Tenji Tennou (7 ct.)
Aki no ta no
Kariho no io no
Toma wo arami
Wa ga koromode wa
Tsuyu ni nuretsutsu
In a temporary hut,
To guard the autumn rice field,
Having the rough roof of straw,
My sleeves is getting wet by the rain
The last tanka is:
by Juntokuin (13 ct.)
Momoshikiya
Furuki nokiba no
Shinobu nimo
Nao amariaru mukashi narikeri
On the edge of an old roof,
I find some Shinobu [recall] grass growing,
That reminds me of good old days,
How much I can recall,
Still how less than too much
In the manga, waka otaku Kana-chan's favorite song is:
by Nukata-no-Ookimi (7 ct. wife of Tenji Tennou)
Akane sasu
Murasaki-no yuki
Shime-no yuki
Nomori wa mizu ya
Kimi ga sode furu
Going through the field of purple grass,
(Of vermilion,)
The private field of my lord,
If the guard saw you waving sleeve to me
It's thought that "you" means her ex-husband. "Akane sasu"
is a makurakotoba that is a prefix or a kind of an article
for "murasaki" [purple].
Although it's one of the most famous waka ever written,
it wasn't selected in Hyakunin Isshu. It's thought that
Nukata-no-Ookimi was a shaman and sang songs to pray for
many occasions. She is one of the most important poets in
the early years of Man-you. One of her possible praying
song is:
Nikitatsu ni
Funanori sen to
Tsuki mateba
Shio mo kanainu
Ima wa kogi ide na
To embark at Nikitatsu,
Waiting for the moon,
Now it appeared and the tide is fine too,
Let them row the boat to leave
In the manga, variety of waka are used effectively to
add poetic atomospher to scenes and to describe the
feeling of characters.
Manbow Papa
> There are 50 "kara uta" that
> has no match at the begining.
Sorry, it's "kara fuda" meaning "empty card".
Anyway, it's New Year's Day today.
And I offer you my favorite waka from Hyakunin Isshu.
Hisakata no
Hikari nodokeki
Haruno hi ni
Shizu kokoro naku
Hana no chiruran
As the sun light is gentle
In a day of Spring
Why are the cherry blossoms
Falling so hastily
A happy New Year to all of you.
--
/ Ishikawa Kazuo /
Manbow Papa
Check the site at:
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/japanology/index.html
This is an episode of a regular TV program "BEGIN Japanology"
to explain foreign people a variety of aspects of the Japanese culture,
both traditional and modern. Lately, the program introduced
Katana [Japanese sword] and Sentou [public bath] for example.