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Some Japanese names roll off the tongue. Hikaru no Go. Houshin Engi. Otona no Mondai. Even the long ones: Zankoku na Kami ga Shihai Suru. Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi. However: Hyakki Yakou Shou does not roll. The sound of it will turn an English speaker puce. Hence it's Cent Démons from now on.

I shall write Cent Démons fic eventually, when I've reread the series in its entirety (in Japanese- can't wait for the French) *and* Garth Nix's Abhorsen as well, because the correct way of handling Aoarashi is, I think, somewhere in there. Not that too much should be made of parallels, no doubt. But as a fanfic character I see Aoarashi with 'snare and delusion' written all over him. He's the kind of creation that western writers want to do things with that are not in his nature or conception. When we play paper dolls (I date myself, don't I? Barbies, then) with Japanese characters, I fear we'll want to dress him in a witty Mephistophilean frilled shirt and those hawt Miltonic Satin pantaloons and add a drooping pink bow from, oh, Ariel I assume: Mine would, sir, were I human-- but I'm not, oh bitter bitter woe is me at being denied the bliss of possessing a human soul. My own human soul, not one I happen to have eaten for breakfast. "I feel Aoarashi *should* be an ambivalent spirit aspiring to humanity malgré lui, even if all the evidence says he isn't,' to paraphrase one school of fandom that irks me mightily.

The challenge perhaps is to write a ghost story or a weird tale or a whatever, the same way Ima does- as the forefront events happening against a backdrop of social comedy. Much of the social comedy comes from the juxtaposition of the mundane accepted and the irrational otherworldly and the attempt to treat the inconveniences of the latter with the coping mechanisms of the former. Ritsu must pass his entrance exams. As a consequence Ritsu is attacked by a host of gloomy bogles that make the air in his house unbreathable. The ancient curse of the Iijimas appears again- juku!

I'm torn by this approach. My French half thinks social comedy is the best balancer these peculiarly insane stories could have, and there should be more of it. My English half is outraged at this frivolity in the middle of a serious blood-curdling genre. What next? Comic song and dance routines with the birds? (Yes. Drunken birds.)

My ponderings on possible stories to tell so far have only brought up the implied parallels of Aoarashi slumming among the humans- "your world is fascinating- your customs and your food- I learn something new every day"- and a westerner playing the Theme Park Japan game. ("Your country is fascinating- your customs and your food- and your bois/ girls are HAWT!!!') The twist might be that while the gaijin lacks what to the Japanese is common sense (often another name for common courtesy) he might well be possessed of- OK, use the French- 'une certaine sensibilité aux esprits.' But maybe not Japanese ones. Must go bone up on NFLD folklore to see what's there besides ghostly lighthouse keepers.

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Most Chinese stories I've read are about Aoarashi X Ritsu, but none of them rings true to me. But hundred ghosts is hardly blood-curdling -- the genre of strange tales in Japan is not quite the same as the genre of ghost stories in the West, no? The emphasis is on the strange, maybe sometimes it's scary, but other times it's merely imponderable. Like the creature reciting the sutra as it strode down the moonlight road. I wonder what Ritsu would make of it, if he would make anything of it.

The psychological situation of Aoarashi and Ritsu would be fascinating if done right but I don't know as I trust us to do it right. We're talking a form of slavery here, and westerners lose their heads when that subject, or anything that suggests it's a metaphor for that subject, comes into the room. Anything but fierce resentment from Aoarashi and miserable guilt from Ritsu gives us the icks. Any suggestion that Aoarashi might have been a kind of pet is probably worse. (Yeah, *she* can do it, in a humourous afterword. We can't.)

Foreign from our modern mindset, but alas not foreign enough, is the notion 'It's often as intelligent as us and it even vaguely looks like us sometimes, but it isn't us and it *is* dangerous. The biggest and baddest of the lot *will* hurt you and you must be strong enough to subdue them or die.' Because while that might be kappa or trolls under bridges in Japan, it sounds terribly close to East LA gangs from the view of white denizens here. Is why I need to see what Nix did with it.

To me, yes, Asian strange tales often read just strange, but isn't their point to be scary and chill you on hot nights? which people who eat humans may be if they're human themselves, but 'eaten by tigers!' sends no shivers down my spine. The horse-headed Buddhist youkai is indeed imponderable, but he's a figure glimpsed for a moment, beyond understanding. The things Grandad plays mah jong with are very here and now and WYSISYG; the cent démons who follow Whoever into the gardens in the Seimei story are the same. When these common or garden variety youkai interact with humans there's not a touch of strangeness about them, let alone mystery or romance. They're youkai, and as imponderable as earwigs or cockroaches.

You know, I've never read Nix. Should I? The Japanese strange tales I guess are for sending a chill down your back, not the Chinese Strange Tales, which are just that, strange and imponderable. Even the ones about lovely flower spirits usually still end on a note that something is not quite right.

But do Aoarashi & Ritsu give you the icks? It doesn't seem that way to me. So what do you really think of their relationship?

The Sabriel trilogy has its momemts. Should I send?

Aoarashi and Riku... teases the corner of the brain. Because the real emotional interaction was so obviously Aoarashi and Kagyuu, of whom Riku is only a pale reflection, in Aoarashi's mind and possibly in Ritsu's own.

And what was between Aoarashi and Kagyuu? I can make it a straightforward Blog Against Racism paradigm: Kagyuu enslaved Aoarashi, Aoarashi has the ambivalent reaction one might expect: 'he took away my freedom but by knowing him I gained so much new experience I would never have had otherwise, was it worth the loss of my freedom or wasn't it, I haven't decided.'

So I come at this from two directions: the trope of 'Ritsu is always second best', not the subject of Aoarashi's hatred nor of his love either: in a situation where Aoarashi is all the father he will ever have and so Ritsu is entitled to have his undivided interest, either for good or for ill. I can get quite weepy about that one, hormonal as I am. Always trying to *matter* to someone because... well, because he looks like the person who matters to you and whom you matter to, only you he isn't and you don't. Ever, because he isn't your father and you aren't his master. He looks after you because he has to: and so you put aside your wishes and hopes and accept that, well, at least he'll see you don't die.

But if you disappoint him by not being your grandfather, equally he must disappoint you by not being the father you were entitled to, just a simulacrum. That was perhaps the most unfrgivable thing Gramps did, if you look at it in a certain light.

And from Aoarashi's pov- once again I'm reminded of Zhen He, serving the man who castrated him and serving him well, and (western us have to wonder) for why? Surely not for what he is, because he's your life's enemy: unless the paradigm is, anyone who could do *that* to me is worth my respect. Because there's nothing else one can afford to feel? I never know. Aoarashi lives in a world where simultaneously weak rule strong, and that's natural, and the weaker hate and resent the stronger for being strong, and that's natural too. Bleak by western standards, because there's no one you can ever actually *like*; but possibly just the stuff of everyday life to Japanese youkai.

Hmm, brough Nix with you when you come. I doubt if I'll get to read anything up until the wedding, except for Hundred Ghost 13, which just came from yesasia. ^__^

I think everything you say is true about Aoarashi, but the most important point is that though it may seem bleak by western standards, it's really just stuff of everyday life, so the emotional state is different. The analysis doesn't matter, it's about how they feel and carry on day to day. Which I think is why the Chinese writers always do fail with this series, because the Chinese writers are generally a moody and pessimistic lot, and they just don't get that Aoarashi is in spite of everything really a rather cheery character.

Though I don't quite get the part about Zhen He. It's true that some eunuchs in the imperial palace are sold into it, but there are also quite a few who choose to do it. It's pretty prestigious to work for the imperial household, and certain they pay well. And it's quite strange to hold the emperor personally responsible for it. It's just part of how things work -- if you want to be a servant in the palace you had to be castrated. The emperor had no say in it.

Ahh. So we ignore the icky parallels between Aoarashi's essential slavery and our own miserable history of slavery and posit another model: where indeed strong subdue weak and the weak(er) cope, and occasionally cope cheerfully. Absent is the moral notion that enslavement is wrong; it's as wrong as typhoons and earthquakes. That's the way the earth operates, that's the way people operate.

Zhen He's castration wasn't his own idea or his family's. He was a member of a non-Chinese tribe that the Chinese decided to subdue. They conquered the tribe, killed all the men, and had all the boys castrated to become palace eunuchs. Short story- the Emperor murdered Zhen He's family and tribe. Athenians on Naxos. Nazis and Jews. Tutsis and Hutus.

In most parts of the world that calls for a little resentment and grudging service, not to mention possible life-long depression and PTSD. Zhen He seems to have gone for service and devotion and the manifestation of his undoubted brilliance, and I wonder if that's because his psychology was completely different from what the west expects (which I'll believe) or if there's another explanation (work my way up to Admiral and I get out of this goddamned palace and aboard my own ship where dammit *I* call the shots.)

I was reading the result of a poll of world happiness, and again compared to other countries with comparable wealth and education the East Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea) came out worse. There is such a thing as a cultural temperament, isn't there? What I don't get about the Japanese though is that if they're generally so genki, how come they polled so low? Sometimes I think maybe the Japanese can manage this trick of being unhappy yet trying their genki best to be happy.

I didn't know that about Zhen He, but even given all that he seems remarkably well-adjusted. In generally eunuchs, if they want vengenance and power go about it in palace politics and back-stabbing etc etc. If he wanted to get out and exact revenge against the hans there are many many other methods. Building your own fleet is really one that comes to mind.

There is such a thing as cultural temperament, yes. My view is that Japanese genkiness is just the flip side of Japanese pessimism and negativity, just as American hedonism is the flip side of American puritanism. That's why Japanese genki and American hedonism feel fundamentally wrong to me: it's not the cheerfulness of a genuinely cheerful people like the Italians, or the sensuality of a genuinely sensual people like the French, it's a slightly neurotic reaction to what one is convinced is The Way It Is.

In Japan's case it works rather well in practice. Maybe the world is a howling wilderness but you put a cheerful smile on your face so as not to inconvenience other people and do your best at whatever you're doing even though it's probably pointless in the end: but in the doing at least you can be happy and efficient. This contrasts rather strongly IME with let-us-say the Russians. The Russians I've known have all been as gloomy as the stereotype says they are, and might as well all be carrying signs saying 'Why fucking bother? Piss on you anyway.'

And I note that the Japanese fondness for bright cheerful characters who are 'akarui'- without a dark thought in their heads, and from a western pov frequently without cerebral processes entirely- looks to me like the way Christians feel about natural saints. This person doesn't even have to try to be the thing we're all desperately aiming for. She doesn't have to strive to hide her negative feelings/ sinful thoughts, she simply doesn't have them in the first place. Oh fortunate she!

With regard to Abhorsen, are you thinking of Mogget? Because if so, I can see the concept/connection.

The only true parallel I can think of offhand. Magicians & onmyouji bind supernatural creatures to them and force them to do their will. In general the supernaturals are just wandering about minding their own business when some magician snatches them for convenience or from curiosity (and I forget which it was in Nix.) Resentment seems natural and Aoarashi has his resentments, tempered by the intriguing position he finds himself in. The tanuki in the drowned girl story has nothing to temper his resentment, and one sees what happens.

There are some charming passages between Seimei and his shikigami, but the freedom a flower has is limited, and being turned into a shikigami that can move about might be considered a lovely adventure in one's too-brief life. Aoarashi's life isn't brief, and he may for the moment settle grumblingly into his role as Ritsu's protector because Ritsu hasn't bound *him* and he still gets to enjoy himself. But one notices that little exchange where calamity happens and Ritsu wonders what to do and Aoarashi is all for calling 911-- just how serious *is* that, and Ritsu's 'Maybe you've been in that shape a mite too long?'

If you haven't read Abhorsen yet, then I can tell you that Mogget's identity and the reason for binding him do come up in that. I will say that it wasn't done just for the magician's convenience or curiosity, and yes, there is a great deal of resentment. But we do have another parallel here, in that he has become seduced by shape and form and physicality.

I did read it, but three or four years ago, so I need to check on why he got bound in the first place. The resentment I remembered- one could hardly not- as well as the thing that worked against it. I'd always thought the, umm, habit of being would prove a temptation to any reasonable youkai, and wrote a YYH Kurama story posited on the chance of it happening there.

If I remember correctly (should probably reread it myself) he objected to the other seven of the nine and their plans for creation, and thus got bound into it. Total agreement on the habit of being. It's very hard to lose.

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