Our Fathers
Throughout Japanese Culture, texts that we have been reading and movies we’ve been watching have had numerous interactions between parent and child or older and newer generations. Each work had its own unique relationship cast between the two generations. Often, the stories depict negative effects upon the newer generations because of the older generation. Tokyo Story had a gap between the generations that resulted from then change in times. In Cruel Story of Youth, the parents had very little to do with the children which resulted in them running wild in a time of political upheaval. The Silent Traders provided a few different parental figures who each had a unique impact on the newer generation. The parents and teacher in The Family Game each had a strange opposing effect on the child until one ultimately displaced the other completely. The older generations is seen as acting upon the newer generations in several unusual and traditional ways in Ranma 1/2. The psychological struggles in Neon Genesis Evangelion directly result from the older generations interactions with the newer generation. Mononoke Hime showed a multitude of struggles between generations, parents and children and some were even the newer generations’ effects on the older generations. The older generations’ thoughts and actions directly impacted how the newer generation thought and acted in each of the texts.
In Tokyo Story, an elderly couple visits their children and their families and sees how different the new generation has become from the elders time. Prior to the story, World War II had occurred. The war was started by the older generation and had crippled the newer generation that was stuck fighting the war. The war caused many of the young men in the upcoming generations to be killed off leaving a bad taste in the mouths of the youth. In the beginning of the visit, all of the children seem to be following tradition and are honoring their parents, but as the story progresses their actions start to diverge from the older generations expectations. This can first be seen when the children, in order to progress with their own lives, send their parents to a distant hot springs for a few days. The place where the parents are staying turns out to be too loud for them so they return after just one night much to the dismay of their children who act overly inconvenienced by their parent’s return. This gap in ideals had resulted from the war in which the newer generation suffered. The prime example of the older generations effects on the newer generation are dramatically depicted in the character of Noriko. She is a widow that lost her husband, the son of the parents, who has yet to move on and remarry. The parents are shown the most kindness by her, but at the same time urge her to move on which would mean leaving the family of the parents. As she fondly calls them mother and father, they passive aggressively refer to her as “stranger” in order to get her to move on. The effects of this is ultimately displayed in the final scene when Noriko is talking to Kyoko and tells her that she too will eventually begin to act selfish and no longer return to visit the parents. At one point in the film, the father goes drinking with some old friends and they discuss their thoughts on the newer generation. The militaristic looking friend, who represents the old generation most explicitly, expresses his strong disappointment with his son and the newer generations. The father agrees that the newer generation isn’t like his generation, but still thinks it could’ve been worse. Overall, the parents were of no effect on the newer generation and the neither side really tried to bridge the gap that was formed between the two.
As time progressed, Japan shifted into a time of political and ideological upheaval. The most affected by the turmoil the changes cause was the newer generation. In Cruel Story of Youth, students were seen protesting which would never have happened in the time of previous generation. Makoto is a young woman who gets sucked into the changing times in the worst way possible before she succumbs to it. She rebels against the older generation by getting a punk boyfriend, smoking, drinking and other things that the older generation wouldn’t approve of. This may be because her father has adopted an American style and doesn’t discipline or have much of anything to do with her. Also her older sister, who had already made many of the mistakes that Makoto makes during the film, tries too hard to control Makoto and keep her in the ties of tradition. The older generations kept trying to control the new generation which just caused them to try even harder to break away from the traditions of the past. The exact opposite occurs in Seventeen where the newer generation was sought after to lead the rest of their peers by the older generation. The main character of the story, “seventeen”, gets sucked into the rightist movement and changes from an awkward youth into a violent one. I feel like the older generation ended up just using the newer generation to accomplish the goals of the older generation and that “seventeen” turned out to be nothing more than a puppet filled with the negative feelings of the old generation. While the older generation had nothing to do with the characters in Cruel Story of Youth and left them to perish by their own means, the older generation used the newer generation as an implement in its arsenal in Seventeen and caused a vicious beast to be created.
The Silent Traders is a story crafted around a park, Rikugien, where the narrator lives with her ten-year-old daughter and five-year-old son. There are several parental figures that have different effects on their children. The first is the narrator’s father who died before she ever knew him. Since she never knew him, it causes her to ensure that her children have a memory of their father who doesn’t want much to do with the narrator and her kids. When the kids see their father, they become very quiet and don’t interact with him, but instead stick to their mother. Since they hadn’t seen their father in years, the children couldn’t really remember him and are more frightened of his presence. The father disinterest causes his children to avoid him and they will likely not remember him as anything but “a shadow in a photograph.” Another parental figure is the narrator’s mother whose actions cause the narrator to want to leave home as soon as possible. After her brother’s death, their mother ceased interacting with the narrator and they only saw each other at mealtimes and barely spoke. The lack of all contact from older generations caused the narrator to be resentful or her mother and to fear Rikugien where her mother had “disposed” of a dog she liked. Another short story, Fuji, has a father that leaves his wife and young son to go to college miles away for four years. He was able to back once a month, but on his first return visit, his young son had forgotten his face and ran from his father. In both of these stories, the father’s absence causes the children to shy away from their father and even other men.
The film The Family Game followed a family of four whose younger son required tutoring to get into a good high school. The tutor they hired was the unconventional Yoshimoto who was the opposite of a traditional Japanese tutor. He often teased and pushed Shigeyuki around as a way of getting him to study harder. Yoshimoto effect on Shigeyuki is that he becomes more self sufficient, but Shinichi becomes rebellious and his grades drop because his brother is getting all the attention. The parents are just as problematic when dealing with their children because neither of them can relate to their children or other people. The father goes to work then drinks after work so he doesn’t interact with his kids that often. He only really sees his kids at the dinner table, but that is not much because they all face the same direction and there is little conversation. Also the mother is unable to control her kids because she is overly passive. Without the understanding and help parents, the kids are left on their own to deal with their school work which is what put Shigeyuki in the position that he was in. Ironically, it is Yoshimoto that does the family the most good with his unorthodox ways. Yoshimoto represents a different generation that had strange effects on the other old and new generations alike, but ultimately forced the two generations back together. This is clearly seen at the end of The Family Game when the entire family is in an inward facing circle cleaning up the mess. Another story with an untraditional tutor is Japanese Entrance Exams For Earnest Young Men where the tutor tells his student to think of tests as a game with rules. Another different generation is teaching the newer generation how to beat the system and stray away from the older generations ideals.
Look at the position of the different generation. It has come between the new and old generations.
In the anime Ranma ½, the older generations are represented by the fathers and the spirits that curse Ranma and his father. Ranma and his father Genma are cursed from falling into ponds where creatures had previously drowned at a Chinese training ground. The past generations’ curse causes Ranma to turn into a girl whenever he is splashed with cold water and Genma to turn into a panda when splashed. This causes problems for the newer generations because pandas cannot speak which leaves Genma in an awkward state when he publicly transforms as he cannot communicate with those around him until he transforms back. Ranma is in an even worse state as he changes sexes which causes all sorts of confusion not only psychologically, but also socially. As the series progresses, Ranma’s transformation kind of confuses him on his own true self and at one point he even gets amnesia and believes that he was originally a girl. When he changes in public, his classmates and other people don’t realize that the two Ranmas are actually the same person. The two fathers arrange for the marriage between Ranma and Akane who are both adamantly against it in the beginning. An arranged marriage was more common for the past generations and had become sort of outdated in the time of this show, but the older generation has complete control and sends Ranma and Akane through a confusing engagement. The entire show radiates the older generation’s disapproval of the younger generation while poking fun at arranged marriages which are a thing of the past.
The psychological struggles of several youths during apocalyptic times yield strange interactions between the old and new generations. In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shinji, Rei and Asuka pilot giant mechs against giant invading life forms know as Angels. Shinji had been abandoned by his father at a young age and in the first episode, his father calls him back because he “needs” Shinji to pilot the mech and defend New Tokyo-3. His father is only using him to accomplish his own desires which send Shinji through psychological turmoil after every encounter with an Angel. Rei was created by Gendo, Shinji’s father, and is extremely antisocial to the point where Asuka consistently refers to her as a puppet. Once again, Gendo only uses her as a means to an end which is also the cause of her social ineptness. Asuka on the other hand is completely self sufficient and always tries to go it alone to impress people and get them to recognize her as an adult. In her past, her mother stopped recognizing her and eventually hung herself with the doll that she replaced Asuka with. The problems with her mother are what cause Asuka to be stubborn to a fault. All of the characters from the older generation have faults that only cause the newer generation more harm and serve to isolate them in their psychological trials. Another similar manga is Urusei Yatsura in which a young man, Ataru, is chosen to save the world. The older generation uses Ataru as a means to save the Earth from invasion and as the deadline approaches even threaten to kill Ataru and his family. The older generation negatively affects the younger generation in both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Urusei Yatsura.
As two of the older generations wage war on each other, the younger generation must shoulder the burden of ensuring the survival of the balance of nature in Mononoke Hime. Ashitaka is a young man who gets caught in the middle of a battle between men and gods, but doesn’t want the destruction of either side. As the battles rage, he tries to ensure the safety of all. The position the older generations put Ashitaka in cause him to struggle to decide the fate of everyone while his body is slowly destroyed. The humans, led by Eboshi and Jigo, expect him to assist in the killing of the deer god which he is completely against. Moro, the leader of the wolf clan, expects him to act like a human and selfishly save himself which he does not. In the end, both sides are saved by Ashitaka, but at the cost of the deer god’s life. Another character that is impacted by the older generations is the wolf girl, San. Raised by Moro, she lives to kill Eboshi and would throw her life away to do so. At one point Ashitaka stops her and Eboshi from fighting because it could only end with one or both of them dead. The older generation uses San as a means to an end in their war. Until she meets Ashitaka, she didn’t even hold any value to her life. The older generations cause the newer generation to have to struggle to survive, but together they are able to overcome the difficulties in the end.
In many Japanese works, the older generations cause difficulties for the newer generations. The older and newer generations were just too different after World War II which caused the gap in understanding between the two in Tokyo Story. The youths of Japan were either ignored, like in Cruel Story of Youth, or used, like in Seventeen. In both The Silent Traders and Fuji, the absence of one parent causes abnormalities in their children. In The Family Game and Japanese Entrance Exams for Earnest Young Men, a chaotic generation was introduce and it then tried to push the new generation away from older generation’s ideals. Ranma ½, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Urusei Yatsura all depict the new generation in a situation that was caused by the older generations, but they are expected to deal with. The new generation is stuck between two sides of the older generation and doesn’t want to pick a side in Mononoke Hime. All of these stories were made after the war and display the change in interactions between the generations that occurred as a result of the war. The newer generation was resentful of the older generation because they had been left a mess that wasn’t theirs to deal with. As a result, the newer generation became more selfish and less interested in the ideals of the past. Now that generation has become the older generation and a new newer generation has risen. The interactions between generations today will be greatly influenced by the past.
