The dragonflies? I'll have to look those lil' guys up-- as an initial lead, there's a very nice pic of one of them here (http://thebugbrothers.blogspot.com/2005/11/japanese-red-dragonfly.html).
Is there some pomegranate-specific symbolism in Japan? I know it's a common symbol of fertility in the West, but I'm not sure if that carries over thataway; mostly I'd just considered that to be relatively generic symbolism of seeing the unripe fruits charred by the flame into a too-early appearance of ripening, and then being destroyed.
WRT the miscarriage, I'll have to steel myself to watch the OVA again-- I'm always emotionally wiped out afterward-- but iirc the last time I did, I tried to catch what Tomoe was saying in the original Japanese dialogue right there; instead of the (as you point out) very symbolically-suggestive English subtitle text of "We tried to hard to make them grow", I *think* she only said the single word, "Sekkaku...."
It's possible that the same intention is still behind it, considering how indirect and nuance-based Japanese semantics can be, but "sekkaku" is simply a word that indicates the unfortunate futility of a task despite the special effort that was put into it. Same sentiment, but no specific words of reference to small growing things that died too soon. The lil' drowned seedlings are still sitting there right in front of them as the obvious reference, though, so I'd still consider the miscarriage hypothesis to be viable, so to speak.
Before that theory came up, I'd generally thought of that scene as a symbolic hybrid of foreshadowing/flashback, considering Kenshin's reassurance that despite the rain, at least half of the plants should still survive. At that point in the narrative, her past connection to Kiyosato hasn't yet been confirmed, but of course the betrothed couple has ended up with one of them dead and the other one struggling to survive; by the end of the OVA, the situation has been reversed with Kenshin as the sorrowing survivor.
(Sudden thought-- rain drowning the crops = the "bloody rain" of carnage from Battousai?)
The best clue to Anji's original sect would probably be a close look at the Buddha statue that was in his temple, and checking for the closest postural matches (probably at Onmark) to the main statues at the most prominent major temples. I keep forgetting to check similar leads about the Buddha statue that's behind Tatsumi toward the end (and seems to morph into Kiyosato for Tomoe, shortly thereafter), because jeez, who can concentrate on the scenery at that point?
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ninetydegrees
Re: KenshinxTomoe
on 2007-09-26 08:30 pm (UTC)Is there some pomegranate-specific symbolism in Japan? I know it's a common symbol of fertility in the West, but I'm not sure if that carries over thataway; mostly I'd just considered that to be relatively generic symbolism of seeing the unripe fruits charred by the flame into a too-early appearance of ripening, and then being destroyed.
WRT the miscarriage, I'll have to steel myself to watch the OVA again-- I'm always emotionally wiped out afterward-- but iirc the last time I did, I tried to catch what Tomoe was saying in the original Japanese dialogue right there; instead of the (as you point out) very symbolically-suggestive English subtitle text of "We tried to hard to make them grow", I *think* she only said the single word, "Sekkaku...."
It's possible that the same intention is still behind it, considering how indirect and nuance-based Japanese semantics can be, but "sekkaku" is simply a word that indicates the unfortunate futility of a task despite the special effort that was put into it. Same sentiment, but no specific words of reference to small growing things that died too soon. The lil' drowned seedlings are still sitting there right in front of them as the obvious reference, though, so I'd still consider the miscarriage hypothesis to be viable, so to speak.
Before that theory came up, I'd generally thought of that scene as a symbolic hybrid of foreshadowing/flashback, considering Kenshin's reassurance that despite the rain, at least half of the plants should still survive. At that point in the narrative, her past connection to Kiyosato hasn't yet been confirmed, but of course the betrothed couple has ended up with one of them dead and the other one struggling to survive; by the end of the OVA, the situation has been reversed with Kenshin as the sorrowing survivor.
(Sudden thought-- rain drowning the crops = the "bloody rain" of carnage from Battousai?)
The best clue to Anji's original sect would probably be a close look at the Buddha statue that was in his temple, and checking for the closest postural matches (probably at Onmark) to the main statues at the most prominent major temples. I keep forgetting to check similar leads about the Buddha statue that's behind Tatsumi toward the end (and seems to morph into Kiyosato for Tomoe, shortly thereafter), because jeez, who can concentrate on the scenery at that point?