Classic Japanese love stories Summary
LOVE & ALLURE: Classic Japanese Tales of Romance is a manga series of stand-alone episodes. Each one retells a love story from Japanese classical literature, along with the eerie things that love calls up: oni (demons), living ghosts, serpents, vengeful spirits and the voice of a god. The stories come from Heian-period (794–1185) works such as The Tales of Ise, The Tale of Genji, The Izumi Shikibu Diary and the poetry anthology Goshūishū, from the late-Heian collection Konjaku Monogatari, and from Ueda Akinari's Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain), written in the Edo period.
From The Tales of Ise come three stories. In "Akutagawa," a man steals away a high-born lady and loses her in a storehouse. In "Is This Not the Moon?" a man longs for a lover who has moved beyond his reach. In "Azusayumi," a husband comes home to the wife who has waited three years for him. From The Tale of Genji come two episodes: the parting at the Nonomiya shrine, where Lady Rokujō chooses to end her love affair herself, and "Aoi," where her soul leaves her body and torments Lady Aoi. Izumi Shikibu, the poet, appears in two stories: her romance with the younger brother of her late lover, and the legend of a god at Kibune who answered her poem.
Ugetsu Monogatari supplies three tales. In "The Lust of the White Serpent," Toyoo is loved by Manago, a serpent in human form. In "The House Amid the Thickets," a man comes home after seven years to find his wife still waiting. In "The Cauldron of Kibitsu," a betrayed wife becomes a vengeful ghost. The series also includes the Dōjōji legend of Anchin and Kiyohime, in which a deceived woman turns into a giant serpent and hunts down a monk. Every episode follows the plot of the original text. Companion articles explain the poems, the historical background and what the manga changed.
Story summary
Episode 1She Asked 'What's That?' He Never Answered — The Tales of Ise: Akutagawa
In the mangaEpisode 1 of the series. After years of longing, a man runs off into the night carrying the woman he loves on his back. Along the way she keeps asking, "What's that?" He never answers her last question. When a thunderstorm hits, he hides her in an old storehouse and stands guard at the door until morning. At dawn, she is gone. This is a thousand-year-old story of an elopement, and of one question that went unanswered.
In the original mythThe Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari) is a Japanese classic, probably put together in the early Heian period (roughly the 9th to 10th centuries). Nobody knows who wrote it. It is a set of short episodes, and each one is built around a waka, a 31-syllable poem. Most episodes start with the same plain words: "Long ago, there was a man." Section 6 is called "Akutagawa" after a river in the story. It is one of the…
Episode 2She Chose to End It. Then He Showed Up. — The Tale of Genji: The Sacred Tree (Farewell at Nonomiya)
In the mangaLady Rokujō has decided to end her love affair herself by leaving for distant Ise. Then, just before she goes, Genji comes to see her. Through a bamboo blind they trade poems and talk until dawn. After that night she doesn't answer his letters begging her to stay, and she leaves the capital without looking back.
In the original mythLady Rokujō (Rokujō no Miyasudokoro, the widow of a former crown prince) has loved Genji for years, but the affair has brought her more pain than joy. After the death of Genji’s wife, Lady Aoi, people in the capital gossip that Rokujō will become his new principal wife. Instead, Genji’s visits grow rarer. When her daughter is chosen as the Ise Priestess (Saigū, an imperial princess who serves the great shrine at…
Episode 3I Fell for My Dead Lover's Brother — The Izumi Shikibu Diary
In the mangaA year after losing the man she loved, Izumi Shikibu has shut herself away—until his younger brother, Prince Atsumichi, sends her a sprig of white orange blossoms. A reply in verse sparks a love that survives rumors and lonely nights, and leads to a carriage waiting for her on a snowy night. But in the shadows, someone else quietly leaves the house.
In the original mythThe diary opens in the fourth month of the old lunar calendar. Its heroine, called only "the woman," has spent almost a year grieving Prince Tametaka, the man she loved, who died the year before. She feels the world is more fleeting than a dream. Then a young page who once served Tametaka turns up at her door. He now serves Tametaka's younger brother, Prince Atsumichi, and he has brought her a sprig of tachibana, a…
Episode 4I Lent Her My Umbrella. She Never Left. — The Lust of the White Serpent — Tales of Moonlight and Rain
In the mangaEpisode 4 of the series. On a rainy day, a timid young man named Toyoo lends his old umbrella to Manago, a beautiful woman soaked to the skin. She loves him with all her heart, but she is not human. Toyoo keeps running from her, until someone dies because of him. Then he decides to end things with the one he loved, by his own hand.
In the original mythIn Miwa-ga-saki, a fishing town in Kii Province (today's Wakayama Prefecture), lives a wealthy fishing boss named Ōya no Takesuke. His eldest son, Tarō, works hard at the family trade. His third son, Toyoo, does not care for fishing at all. He loves poetry, learning and refined city manners, and he studies with a Shinto priest in nearby Shingū. One day, on the way home, a storm drives him to shelter in a…
Episode 5The Night I Remarried, My Husband Knocked — "The Catalpa Bow" from The Tales of Ise
In the mangaHer husband left for the capital, and for three years The Wife Who Waited kept waiting. Finally she promises to marry The Faithful Suitor, the man who stood by her the whole time. That night, someone knocks at her door. It's The Returning Husband, home at last.
In the original mythLike many episodes of The Tales of Ise, this one starts simply: long ago there was a man. He lived out in the countryside with a woman, and from the context they were living as husband and wife. He said he was going to the capital to serve at court. The two were sad to part, and he left. Then he did not come back for three years.
Episode 6Every Night, I Dream of Striking a Woman — The Tale of Genji: "Aoi" (Lady Rokujō)
In the mangaEpisode 6 of the series. On festival day, proud Lady Rokujō goes unnoticed by her lover Genji, then is publicly humiliated by his wife's retainers. That summer, one spirit refuses to leave Genji's wife, Lady Aoi, and every time Lady Rokujō sleeps, she has the same dream.
In the original myth"Aoi" is Chapter 9 of The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the Heian court, in the early 1000s. The chapter opens with a change of reign: Genji's father, the Kiritsubo Emperor, gives up the throne, and Genji is promoted to Commander. A new Kamo Priestess (the Saiin, a royal princess who serves the Kamo Shrines) is chosen. Before she takes up her duties she goes to the river for a…
Episode 7Gone Seven Years. Her Lamp Still Burned. — Tales of Moonlight and Rain: \"The House Amid the Thickets\"
In the mangaA man leaves his wife, swearing he'll be home by autumn, and sets off for the capital to sell silk. One reason not to return piles on another until seven years have gone by. When he finally reaches his village, it's buried in grass, and only his house has a light in the window.
In the original mythThe story takes place in the village of Mama, in Katsushika District of Shimōsa Province, near present-day Ichikawa, just east of Tokyo. Katsushirō comes from an old family that used to be well off. He hates farm work, and his carelessness has left the household poor, so his relatives look down on him. He wants to restore his standing. A Kyoto merchant named Sasabe no Sōji comes to the area every year to buy…
Episode 8One Night, She Was Suddenly Out of Reach — The Tales of Ise: "Is This Not the Moon?"
In the mangaLast plum season, a man visited her every night, until one night she was suddenly moved somewhere he could never reach. A year later, on the same plum-scented night, he steps into her room once more.
In the original mythThe Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari) is a collection of roughly 125 short episodes. Each one is built around one or more waka, the 31-syllable poems of classical Japan. Nobody knows who wrote it. It took shape over the early-to-mid Heian period, roughly the 9th and 10th centuries, and Episode 4 is one of its best-known pieces.
Episode 942 Nights. Do Not Open the Door. — The Kibitsu Cauldron (Tales of Moonlight and Rain)
In the mangaBefore the wedding, the shrine's sacred cauldron is struck for an omen, and it stays silent. Isora is deceived by her husband Shōtarō, and her devotion is trampled. For forty-two nights she waits outside the door where he hides.
In the original mythThe tale is set in Kibi Province (in today's Okayama Prefecture). Shōtarō, the son of a farming family named Isawa, hates farm work and spends his time drinking and chasing women. His parents hope a good marriage will settle him down. They arrange for him to marry Isora, the daughter of Kasada, chief priest of the Kibitsu Shrine. She is described as beautiful, devoted to her parents, and skilled at poetry and the…
Episode 10The Kind Lie That Turned Her Into a Serpent — Dōjōji: Anchin and Kiyohime
In the mangaA widow guarding her home alone falls for a young monk passing through. He sidesteps her feelings with a gentle lie: "I'll stop by on my way back." Then he takes another road home. After waiting and waiting, she becomes a great serpent, chases him down, and coils around a temple bell. In the end, prayer sets both of them free: the one who lied and the one who hated.
In the original mythTwo monks, one old and one young and handsome, are on pilgrimage to Kumano, a group of sacred shrines in the mountains of southern Japan. In Muro District of Kii Province, they stop for the night at the house of a widow who lives with two or three maidservants. The widow is drawn to the young monk the moment she sees him. That night she comes to where he is sleeping, tells him how she feels and asks him to be with…
Episode 11He Stopped Writing. The Dark Wrote Back. — Izumi Shikibu: Fireflies at Kifune
In the mangaIzumi Shikibu, a poet still waiting for a lover who has stopped coming, leaves her waiting room one summer night and heads for a mountain stream in the hills north of the capital. Seeing her own soul in the fireflies that fill the dark, she composes a poem, and from deep in the darkness a voice answers. This is the story of a thousand-year-old love poem and a reply whose sender no one knows.
In the original mythThe source is very short. The Goshūi Wakashū is the fourth imperial anthology of Japanese poetry, presented to the court in 1086 and compiled by the courtier Fujiwara no Michitoshi. Its final book contains a section of poems about the gods, and there, side by side, are two poems: one by Izumi Shikibu, a famous woman poet of the Heian period (794–1185), and one said to come from a god. In most modern editions they…