Public romance in Japan (1) – an introduction –

Did you know that the “Star Wars” story is very much influenced by Japanese period movies?
It is a famous fact that the movie was directly influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s period movie, “The Hidden Fortress” (1958), as George Lucas himself once confessed this. In addition to several direct resemblances of scenes between the two movies, we can also find many similarities between “Star Wars” and other Japanese period (Samurai) movies:
(1) Luke Skywalker is wearing “Kimono”-like attire.
(2) The warriors in the movie fight with swords, namely by lightsabers, in a manner similar to the use of Japanese swords rather than fencing ones.
(3) The hero tries to help a princess.
(4) The existence of a supporting character who is skillful but a little bit nihilistic (namely, Han Solo).
(5) Emphasis on something spiritual rather than physical, in other words, the “Force.”
The characteristics mentioned above are not just limited to the Kurosawa’s movie, but are commonly-used motifs in most Japanese period (Samurai) movies.

Movies started showing in Japan in 1896, and the first movie filmed by a Japanese crew appeared in 1898. Most of the first Japanese movies were period (Samurai) movies, probably more than anything else. One of the most famous movie directors at that time was Shozo Makino, who produced more than 300 period (Samurai) movies. “Ninja” is now quite famous worldwide, but it became so popular more or less for the first time in Japan by Makino’s period movies.

What I would like to introduce in this blog is “public romance” in Japan. In Japanese, we call it “大衆小説”, literally literature for common people. It is usually translated into English as “popular literature”, but let me use “public romance” to describe the works of novelists such as Kyoji Shirai, Shiro Kunieda, Jiro Osaragi, Eiji Yoshikawa, and so on, from around 1920 to 1945. These authors’ romances were widely used for the early-stage period movies.

NHKの囲碁の「新春お好み対局」


NHKの「新春お好み対局」を視聴。(1月3日放送)
内容は、
1. 「プロ VS. アマ ルーレット碁対局」
  吉原由香里6段 対 きたろう(俳優)
2. 「脳内プロ・アマ混合ペア碁対局(13路盤)」
  小山空也3段 対 大西竜平3段
3. 「プロ・アマ・AI囲碁混合ペア碁対局」
  林漢傑 七段、AI(DeepZenGo)開発者:加藤英樹
  戸島花(タレント) 対 山田彩(タレント)
の3種類の対局。
1.は途中でルーレットを回して、勝てば白黒逆に出来るというもの。結果は、一度ルーレットで逆にしてもらったものの、きたろうが吉原由香里6段に2回も負けたというものでした。
2.は13路のペア碁ですが、プロは目隠し対局というもの。将棋での目隠しはプロならある程度可能だと思いますが、囲碁の場合は13路でも無理ということが証明されてしまいました。小山3段はそれでもかなり正確に打っていましたが、大西3段が何度も間違えて、穴を出られて突き抜かれたり、アタリを継がなかったりで、碁になっていませんでした。
3.は19路のペア碁で、プロアマとAIとアマという組み合わせです。DeepZenGoにとっては、1回毎にアマの手で読みをリセットされてしまい、また30秒しか無いというのは不利かと思いましたが(私は天頂の囲碁7と対局する時は、天頂の囲碁7側を60秒の設定にしています)、結果は戸島花とDeepZenGoのペアの勝ち。戸島花ちゃんは囲碁講座のアシスタント終了時に初段の認定を受けましたが、その時はオマケ的な初段だと思っていましたが、今日の打ち方を見たら手所で実に正確に打っていて、初段は伊達じゃないなと思いました。