Rurouni Kenshin: Tomoe & Yumi

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The two puzzlesome curiosities that don’t particularly fit into these pages anywhere else. So they got their own.

Yukishiro Tomoe

Snow white really would fit her so well–perhaps an audial pun is intended? Laine says tomoe, spelled this way, is hope; Selene says it refers to a circular comma pattern.

A mitsutomoe is a pattern motif that looks vaguely like a whirlpool, a circle divided into three (mitsu) comma-shaped drops (tomoe). There’s a nice page at http://www.mii.kurume-u.ac.jp/~leuers/trinity.htm with pix and a discussion of various possible interpretations within Shinto: the unity of the three realms of the gods, the three primal elements, and other fundamental sets of three. (Fox, tanuki, and weasel? Naaaaah…)

You can see mitsutomoe scattered all over the background in the second episode of the first RK OVA, while Kenshin is struggling with his ambivalence about you-know-who. In the Imperial treasures of sword, mirror, and jewel, the jewel (magatama) is also supposed to be a comma-shaped drop, or a necklace made of them. And to increase the polysemy, the etymology of _tomoe_ is apparently based on the concept of a sprouting seed, the same shape as a raindrop or a flame.

–Julie Lim (quoted by permission from personal email; many thanks!)

Making anything of this is problematic, since she has so little screentime. And she’s so bloody withdrawn. She could give Aoshi lessons in cool.

I’ve read several running debates over whether Tomoe is a sweet, misunderstood and confused girl, an ice cold traitor, Himura’s true love, etc. Myself, I incline to a sort of middle ground. We don’t see much of her, now, do we? And she’s certainly one of the most reserved characters in here. But my general impression is that she is in earnest when she agrees to become Himura’s “sheath.” Not that you can read anything off her face, but her body language when she brings in Himura’s blankets and he nearly kills her upon being startled out of sleep… it indicates some kind of realization to me. Now this could just be the realization that she’s not going to be able to cut his throat in his sleep, but it struck me more as the realization of what it might be like to be both that young and, bluntly, naive, and also that deadly.

The worst I can say about her is actually that she’s not honest with Himura. If she had truly called off her vendetta against him, she should have told him about it. Yes, it would have been hard. But true trust is better than false trust and if false trust is injured by admitting “hey, honey? I’ve been working for your enemies for months now but I’m not any more,” at least it leaves the field free for the development of true trust.

Actually, though, my analysis of their relationship is weakest when it comes to her reasons for love. I can see why someone like Himura, in the middle of that kind of chaos, would be drawn to someone like Tomoe who is so contained, stable, serene–the eye of the storm. But why would Tomoe, who is equally embroiled in that chaos, be so drawn to Himura? I can see where her realization that he’s an idealistic boy who’s being used rather ruthlessly by the people his ideals led him to accept as his leaders might let her forgive him for murdering her fiancé. But that done, what else might actively draw her to him? Does she like danger? Or innocence? Or is she one of those angels in the house who are irresistibly drawn to pain because making it better gives them a sense of self-worth? That would be the…traditionally reinforced option. Her jumping Kenshin, to put it bluntly, seems to be precipitated by the moment when they’re walking home in the snow, she falls, he helps her up, and tells her that he will protect her. So perhaps part of her attraction to him is that, after a rather trying period in which she has had to look after herself, probably for the first time in her life, she has found someone who will take that burden from her again. I’m inclined to think that any of these might be equally true, because Watsuki didn’t envision Tomoe as a developed character–she was merely a useful twist in Kenshin’s background and the excuse for he and Enishi to get into an extended fight.

All in all, I think Tomoe is the character who is left second-most-blank for us to fill in. The first, of course, being Tokio.

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Komagata Yumi

Now here’s a lady with a bit more fire than Tomoe. In a lot of ways, she’s just as mysterious though. What motivates this woman? I suppose the sappy way to put it is love, but it looks like an awfully complex version thereof to me.

She’s another character without a whole lot of background. We have no idea what led to her becoming a courtesan. She might have been sold into it by her family or by slavers; she might have chosen it for herself, as a way to an influential position supposing she didn’t come from an upper class family and couldn’t marry into influence. She certainly seems attracted to power. Consider her reactions, not simply to Shishio but to his steel-clad battleship. When he asks her if she will love it (the way she loves him, for himself not his body) she looks up all flushed and wide eyed and agrees that she does. That fascination, as a correspondent pointed out, lasts past death; Yumi is shown accompanying Shishio as he starts off to conquer hell. Then, too, she seems pretty impressed with Aoshi, when he says that he has abandoned all morals and limits in his search for strength. And she certainly seems to know all about what Shishio is planning. She’s not exactly behind the scenes or limited to some bower or bedroom; she shows up absolutely everywhere with him–at the hot springs, travelling, at the fortress. She’s more on the ball than any of the gentlemen of the Juppongata, excepting Soujirou who has his own problems. If she didn’t choose the life of a courtesan, she has certainly made the best of the cards dealt her. This picture is actually pretty darn representative. It’s Yumi front and center, the focus of attention and action, bending all the other figures around her.

Update 10/05: Hakucho reminds me that Yumi does say she chose to become an oiran, and took pride in her position until she was embittered by the legal hash following the Maria Luz incident. That incident led to Japan making rulings against slavery in their country or territorial waters, and was followed quickly by the Prostitute and Geisha Emancipation Act. That Act, however, was followed by a good deal of disorder in the sex industry and, under pressure from Britain in particular, was quickly hedged around with so many new regulations on prostitutes of all classes that the women’s situation was even worse than before. So just as much as she might like the idea of being consort to the new ruler-of-all, she might also like the idea of sending Meiji down in flames.

She does not, however, really seem to hold to Shishio’s own ideals; very few of his followers do. They tend to get caught up in his charisma and rely on his strength not their own; which, if we follow Shishio’s notions to their logical conclusion makes his followers lunch sooner or later. Yumi’s version is a bit different–she clearly does have her own strength. Nevertheless, she’s obsessed with Shishio and with helping him in both an intellectual and a physical manner. Whence, of course, her death.

Now that was stupid. Courageous, noble, honorable, all that jazz. But stupid.

I have to admit, though, if she had played the blind for Shishio’s sword out of her own conviction that his ideals were correct, I might not be as disappointed. But to do it, not because she thought he was right, but because she loved him? Beh. I can be as sappy as the next person but that makes my skin crawl. If only because I can’t possibly imagine Shishio reciprocating, even if he thought such an action was the only way to accomplish his goal of kuni tori. For one thing, he would never think that. His ideals don’t include things like self-sacrifice; it’s everyone for himself, which is what doesn’t seem to translate to his followers. (To paraphrase the great Lois McMaster Bujold: Individualists always do just fine in tyrannies, as long as they get to be the tyrants.) But back to Yumi.

In a backhanded way, I think she comes out of this as one of the greatest tragic, noble (idiot) heroes. She displays the strongest integrity, determination and courage of any of the Kyoto arc bad guys. She strikes me as a rather strange outcropping of the ethics of suicidal nobility, which most of this story really doesn’t endorse. Not that way. Curious that the representative is a woman. Not that it isn’t inside the bounds of traditional femininity, but she’s almost the only villain to display these values in the entire show. So, is this ethic being feminized? There’s a scary thought for the future.

So, lets look instead at something a bit silly. If you haven’t been there already, check out the Art and Language page. Have fun!