#japan loneliness

[ladamania]

“On the 6th Day of the 2nd Month of the First Year of the Kampo era. Taking a moment of my free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat. It arrived by boat as a gift to the late Emperor, received from the hands of Minamoto no Kuwashi.

The color of the fur is peerless. None could find the words to describe it, although one said it was reminiscent of the deepest ink. It has an air about it, similar to Kanno. Its length is 5 sun, and its height is 6 sun. I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long.

In rebellion, it narrows its eyes and extends its needles. It shows its back.

When it lies down, it curls in a circle like a coin. You cannot see its feet. It’s as if it were circular Bi disk. When it stands, its cry expresses profound loneliness, like a black dragon floating above the clouds.

By nature, it likes to stalk birds. It lowers its head and works its tail. It can extend its spine to raise its height by at least 2 sun. Its color allows it to disappear at night. I am convinced it is superior to all other cats.”

- journal entry of 22-year-old Emperor Uda on March 11, 889 CE and earliest record of a cat in Japan [x]

Black Cat (detail) by Hishida Shunso, 1910 [x]

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (Naomi Kawase, 2001)

[zegalba]

Takato Yamamoto: 'Picture of a Ghost : Chilling Loneliness in the Dead of Night' (2020)

[coppolaposting]

to be cared for.

[lostinmac]

Somewhere on Earth (2001)

Dir. Kiseki Hamada

[afza147]

Ep3 What Comes after Love (5)

😔

[hellish-cruelty]

Sofia Coppola on the set of 'Lost in Translation' (2003)

[eye-and-ear-scapes]

[denizeyuruyen]

"Ne kadar hızlı koşarsan koş

ya da ne kadar uzağa gidersen git

yalnızlığın peşinden gelecek."

🎬 Call Me Chihiro (2023) 🇯🇵

[caimitos]

saw a post about projecting your ethnicity onto a character and started missing vespa ilkay. so so bad

[bones-ivy-breath]

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (tr. Jay Rubin)

[kazumasdiary]

so in case 2-1, menimemo has this line:

“ Nobody here in Japan knows anything about it! They don't know that the guy never made it to England! That he died on that steamship! And that he'll never- “

and then in case 2-3, susato says this:

“Our government tried to cover the fact up, it seems. They erected a grave on the cliffs by our home town...”

so, if there’s a grave, but no one else knows about kazuma’s death . . . were susato and mikotoba the only ones at kazuma’s funeral? did he even get a funeral at all?

and- what must that have done to susato? with one friend dead, and the only other person who knows an ocean away, alone and surrounded by secrets that everyone knows but no one will explain

did they tell her to keep quiet? presumably she would have at least mentioned it to rei, and from there it probably would have spread to the rest of the university. did they tell her that she couldn’t? that she couldn’t say anything about kazuma’s death?

when susato comes back, she says she’s done keeping secrets, and it’s not a stretch to say that’s probably because of the things that have been kept from her. but maybe it’s also, just a little bit, because she’s spent the last four months lying about her friend’s death, and she won’t do it anymore.

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

School in the Crosshairs (Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1981)

[zegalba]

Takato Yamamoto: Chilling Loneliness in the Dead of Night (2020)

[fredliest-catch]

[lostinmac]

Open House (1998)

Dir. Isao Yukisada