The Tale of Hisashi

[hisashi-monogatari]

Hisashi Story: What is the plot?

Synopsis:

Daniel Yamamura is a ~25 NEET and hikikomori who spends his days alternating between arguing on forums, performing English-Japanese translations for pocket change, and stewing in boredom and existential dread. Suffering PTSD from a traumatic childhood upbringing, he’s withdrawn from the world and become depressed, and has cut off all former connections from his high school days, a time period he looks back on with a mixture of pain, regret, and nostalgia.

One night, after a heated argument gets him banned from yet another forum, he finally finds the energy to leave his apartment for the first time in days, and heads to the local 24-hour conbini, in a huff, to buy groceries. While out in the deserted midnight streets, he gets caught up in the middle of a fight between two godly spirits, one the local shrine guardian, the other an evil interloper, and dodges several brushes with death as he’s caught in the crosshairs. The evil spirits spots him and tries to possess him, so the good spirit possesses him first, binding their two souls together. The evil spirit escapes, while the good spirit, an albino dragon named “Ryuu”, brings him home, and explains the two are now bonded and must keep within a certain distance of each other, and that Daniel must help him in his work of keeping the area clean of impure spirits.

Daniel is less than enthused; he freaks out, and refuses while demanding Ryuu leave his apartment immediately. “Ryuu’s” manner turns icy. “Well, I’d hoped to do this civilly,” he says, “but you don’t have a choice.” So begins the long and dangerous path Daniel must walk with Hisashi to rid the region of evil, and find the strength to save both their lives in the process.

The plotline falls into two major “seasons” or Acts, with several arcs to each of them. The first “Season” is mostly a monster-of-the-week format, with Daniel and Ryuu (whom Daniel soon gives the name Hisashi) going around through the city and surrounding countryside fighting and banishing monsters and spirits, while occasionally interacting with both Daniel’s former classmates and overbearing family members, and acquaintances of Hisashi’s. Interspersed are recounted memories from Hisashi’s past as a being who’s lived for nearly a thousand years, and witnessed much of Japanese history, including several former romances on his part through the centuries.

The second “Season” delves much deeper into both Daniel’s and Hisashi’s childhoods, showing the child abuse Daniel suffered growing up under an narcissistic, vindictive mother and a feckless, unconcerned father, and the emotional and religious trauma developed from his oppressively Catholic maternal family. Depicted also is the oppressiveness of the ancient clan of dragons Hisashi grew up in, in Song-Dynasty Sichuan, and the various ways he acted out before being banished, and fleeing across China to Japan to avoid death at the hands of his family. Hisashi and Daniel work together to uncover the mystery of Hisashi’s origin, following the trail of breadcrumbs through China, meeting many spirits Hisashi hasn’t met in centuries, and reckoning with his past in hopes of saving his unstable life-force, all while also dealing with their growing relationship, and the strong yet complicated feelings each has for the other.

The major themes interwoven with the story deal with the pain of childhood trauma and how it affects people well into adulthood, and the love and relationships necessary to overcome that trauma so that it doesn’t swallow you; about finding the strength to endure when life seems bitterly hopeless; about finding ways to connect with others through common ground when finding connection seems hopeless.

This is a story I’ve been working on for years, slowly coming up with concepts and plot points since 2015, and the characters involved have evolved through many iterations. I imagine it as an anime series of high production values, with impressive fight scenes and gorgeous scenery, and trying to flatten it into a still comic is something I’ve greatly struggled with. Unfortunately, this story is a very difficult subject matter, and I’ve struggled to tackle it by myself, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write it on my own without help. But through the years I’ve felt a need to tell it, so I’m still holding out hope that help will come along someday, and I’ll finally get this story told like how it deserves.

[zsww-moved-to-pillowfort-deacti]

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beach party party boy

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Ah, yes, bishōnen, those androgynous heartthrobs. Shou considered their feminine graces, considered the classic blossoming roses adorning close-ups of their elegant mugs. And how did imposing, bear-like Hisashi, with his bulky mass and sharp, roughened looks, compare with such Yamato nadeshikos? Well, he mused, if they were like roses, then—well—Hisashi was honestly more of a thorny cactus. More specifically Saguaros, if he was remembering the name correctly. But he wasn't sure. Foreign languages were so tricky, he rued.

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Visit Original Link

Rerecorded the theme song. There's a couple mistakes I didn't catch until listening to it afterward, otherwise I would've fixed them. Just ignore them.

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recent art. OC Hisashi

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old art of Hisashi, ca. 2018-19

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idea: yokai drinking Coca-cola out of Sakazuki cups

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Visit Original Link

Recorded this so it's only piano, no singing, and to include a couple additional ideas I had for the song. I'm really proud of this song, even though I don't have any lyrics for it yet.

Note: I wrote this song myself.

[hisashi-monogatari]

Shoutarou rubbed his arm, eyes uncertain. "Um, you can use my bathroom, if you want."

Hisashi smiled blithely. "Thanks, but I'd rather just piss off your balcony."

Shoutarou made a face of exquisite appallment.

"I'm joking."

[corvidcall]

None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Further reading:

Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine

[hisashi-monogatari]

Daniel wants to get involved in helping restore old houses. He researches and applies for a position at several organizations, but is turned down. He receives permission to observe for a day at one site though, and he and Hisashi drive out to the countryside to the house being restored. Once they get there Hisashi observes the workers for a few minutes, then starts chiming in about the construction methods, the various joists and joints and thatching and so on, revealing he has intimate knowledge of how old houses were constructed. He's offered permission to help out, but says only if Daniel can help too. They're reluctant, so he says he'll supervise Daniel, and then they relent. Daniel and Hisashi work hard during the day, and feel worn out in an honest way by sundown. The entire group go to a restaurant for dinner, and Daniel and Hisashi are invited along.

Possibility: Hisashi learns traditional construction methods while living as a monk at a monastery in the 15th or 16th century. The monastery is struck by lightning and burns to the ground, and Hisashi helps in the rebuilding process due to his strength, and learns construction methods in the process. When part of the town burns in a winter conflagration later on he helps rebuild the people's houses, again due to his strength, and learns secular architectural methods as well. He continues living at the monastery until it is attacked in war and is entirely burned and destroyed. He tries to save people from the fire and kills enemy soldiers, then flees with the survivors into the forest. He hunts boars for them so that they can eat, which angers them as they're vegetarians, but they accept the meat due to the trying times.

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Character idea: handsome kitsune man who's running a dating/marriage scam, dating 33 women at once and getting money and gifts from them

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With the depopulation of Japan's villages, surviving yokai begin moving into them and forming their own new communities

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Shoutarou had never been a fast pooper, to the annoyance of every adult who had ever supervised him for any length of time in his childhood. He would go to the wash closet and proceed to spend ten or fifteen minutes inside, drifting away in distracting beautiful cogitations, and that was in his elementary school days when he was young and spritely. As he grew and departed his milk years his dietary sensitivity also grew, and from sixth grade onward he would often spend twenty or forty minutes on the toilet expelling watery, burning diarrhea as his gut was wracked with sharp stabbing pains that reduced him near to tears. After this the wash closet would reek for a quarter-hour, and Shou would limp from the closet to wash his hands while feeling like a kicked dog, as his sisters shot him scathing glares whenever they had been kept waiting, for now they must wait longer for the toilet to air out.

All this stood in contrast to Shou's friend Shin’ichi, a neighbor and schoolmate who sometimes came over to Shou's house in their grade school years. Shin-chan could poop at a rate of two turds per seccond, with little waiting time in between bursts, so that he could be finished in as little as two or three minutes, especially if he didn't bother with such banal annoyances as wiping or washing his hands. Shin-chan would come out of the bathroom and Shou’s mother would ask him if he’d washed his hands. “Yes,” he’d lie, and she would scowl and order him “Go wash your hands!” in a tone that allowed for no argument. Shou would watch these standoffs with an innocent, artless, stupid air utterly lacking in judgment or opinion, placid and uncomprehending, with all the serenity of Buddha and none of the understanding. His germophobia would only come many years later. This speed in the bathroom which Shin-chan exhibited Shou's father referred to as "turbo-shitting", a phrase which mortified Shou's mother to no end and which always set her to scolding her husband. Perhaps this had also, in some small way, contributed to their divorce, Shoutarou thought flaccidly as he mused on this from the dubious comfort of his 20s.

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Daniel thought about that special Japanese delicacy of apple slices peeled to look like rabbits. He had had them occasionally at friends’ houses, and his mother had made them once or twice when he’d subsequently begged her to to make the charming dish, but he had never had them himself beyond those times. Neither of his parents were good hands and were untalented in delicate maneuverings, nor were they skilled in the culinary arts. Daniel reminisced about his childhood meals. His father’s specialty was “blaster dogs“ - hot dogs boiled until their ends exploded. Only then could his father be sure they were cooked thoroughly enough to eat. That hot dogs are nearly universally sold pre-cooked was evidently lost on him.

[nobrashfestivity]

Hasui Kawase, The Pond at Benten Shrine, Shiba