An Analysis of Hisashi Inoue’s View on the Japanese Emperor in Yume no Kasabuta

Abstract

This paper analyses Hisashi Inoue’s view on the Japanese Emperor in Yume no Kasabuta (The Scab of the Dream, 2006). One of the themes of this play is the Japanese Imperial system. Before the end of WW2, the Emperor was considered sacred, and it was forbidden to depict him in the arts. After 1945, playwrights started to write about the Imperial system, but the Emperor rarely appeared in their works. In Inoue’s Yume no Kasabuta, the real Emperor does not appear. Instead, one character acts the role of Emperor Showa in a play within the play. This paper focuses on how Inoue depicts ‘the Emperor’ to clarify Inoue’s view on the Japanese Emperor. The outline of Yume no Kasabuta is as follows. The play is set at a mansion in the Tohoku region. One day, the residents of the mansion are informed that the Emperor will stay at the mansion during his nation-wide tour, known as ‘gyōkō’, after WW2. To welcome the Emperor, the residents and neighbours of the mansion decide to practice how to communicate with him. At this rehearsal, Tokuji Miyake, a former military officer, plays the role of ‘the Emperor’ and Kinuko Sato, a female teacher, criticizes ‘the Emperor’ for not taking responsibility for Japan’s defeat in WW2. In this paper, I analyse Inoue’s view on the Japanese Emperor based on the following two features of ‘the Emperor’. The first is that ‘the Emperor’ is a device used to depict the Emperor indirectly. This indirectness shows Inoue’s restraint in criticizing the Emperor. The second is that ‘the Emperor’ performs acts that the real Emperor did not actually perform. For example, ‘the Emperor’ accepts responsibility for the war and apologizes to the Japanese people. Interestingly, these acts by ‘the Emperor’ are what Inoue hoped the real Emperor would do right after the war. Additionally, Tokuji, who plays ‘the Emperor’, marries Kinuko. Inoue said that Kinuko began to love Tokuji after he played the role of ‘the Emperor’. That means Kinuko did not fall in love with Tokuji himself but with ‘the Emperor’ that he portrayed. This paper interprets the marriage as a symbol of the love between ‘the Emperor’ and the Japanese people. From the above analysis, I conclude that this play shows Inoue’s complicated views on the Japanese Emperor. On the one hand, he criticized the Emperor in this play for his lack of responsibility for the defeat. On the other hand, he could not depict the real Emperor directly and made ‘the Emperor’ get married to a Japanese woman. This marriage shows the love which might have existed between the Emperor and the Japanese people if the Emperor had apologized to the people.