Nureki Chimuo Archive

I just can’t seem to write it.

I can’t write the very first line.

It’s not that I’m being lazy.

I may be incredibly fickle, but I don’t think I’m lazy by nature.

I’ve never missed a deadline when asked to write a manuscript.

But this time, I’m at a loss as to where and how to begin.

I’m confused about my stance and attitude when I start writing.

I’ve calculated that once this manuscript is complete, it will likely amount to around 600 sheets of 400-character manuscript paper.

In other words, I intend to wrap it up neatly within that page count.

(Of course, I won’t know for sure until I actually start writing.)

Why can’t I write?

There is simply too much I must write about.

I became far too deeply involved with him.

I mustn’t ramble on.

I must portray Minomura Ko effectively and vividly. That is my duty. Not a single word or phrase can be wasted.

That being the case, the moment I begin writing is, after all, the hardest part.

I must establish my mindset regarding Minomura Ko’s art with an unwavering, clear stance.

Thinking only of that, I have spent the past few months constantly keeping my resolve to write strong, day and night.

For example, rehearsals for a new play by the theater company I belong to began a few days ago.

I cannot skip that play, I absolutely must participate.

With the new script before us, nearly twenty people are gathered in a single room.

As we read the script aloud, in the back of my mind, I am thinking about the opening line of “The World of Minomura Ko.”

The opening line. The opening line.

It never leaves my head.

Suddenly, a specific line, and the few lines that follow it, will come to mind.

But when it comes down to it, I can’t write it down.

I’m starting to feel a slight sense of anxiety.

Yesterday, I went to the Sex Industry Museum in Iidabashi to see the “Akiyoshi Ran: Phantoms of the Land of Pleasure Exhibition.” The subtitle of this exhibition is “The Unknown World of Akiyoshi Ran.” Of course, this, too, is closely related to “The World of Minomura Ko.”

After that, I saw the American film “Salt” at Piccadilly 1 in Yurakucho.

Since it was a film with good buzz, I was worried it might be sold out, but about a quarter of the seats were empty.

With my legs stretched out and my body half-reclined, I was able to comfortably admire close-up shots of Angelina Jolie’s face.

(It was a stark contrast to the auditoriums of the traveling theater troupe I visit once or twice a month, or sometimes two or three times, which are always packed to the brim with feverish people whose body odors swirl in the air.)

I discovered that if I apply slightly heavy makeup to Director Nakahara of the Sex Industry Museum, she ends up looking just like Angelina Jolie.

If I were to say something like this to her, she would instantly raise her willow-shaped eyebrows in indignation and say “Huh? What do you mean by that? In what way do I look like her?!”

So I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.

“Salt” was a spy movie with a bad aftertaste, full of deceiving, being deceived, deceiving again, and being deceived once more.

Of course, deceiving and being deceived is undoubtedly a form of pleasure, and since many dramas are built on that, I don’t dislike it.

However, when it’s done this thoroughly and realistically with such clever direction, it makes me think, “What a repulsive creature the human being is.”

It makes me think, “What a despicable country America is.”

And I find myself feeling, in a way that’s quite unlike my usual self, that, yes, human beings really do have to trust one another.

The female spy played by Angelina Jolie is in love with her husband, an entomologist who keeps venomous spiders, and that scene is the only one that feels a bit heartwarming. The rest is a relentless succession of cold-blooded, brutal scenes.

The heavy, realistic sounds of the gunfights are also unsettling. They resonate deep in my gut.

Anyone who finds pleasure in those intimidating sounds must be sick.

That’s it. At the tachi-e event coming up at the Yokohama History Museum, I’m going to bang on a drum made from a round, empty cookie tin covered in black paper.

Rather than those realistic “thud, boom!” sounds, the cheap “thump, thump, thump, thump, thump” of a tin and paper drum is what soothes the soul.

Even while watching “Salt,” I was thinking in the back of my mind about the opening lines for “The World of Minomura Ko.”

When the end credits appeared on the screen and the theater lights came up, I decided I would write “The World of Minomura Ko,” filled to the brim with love and kindness.

Actually, I don’t really like the expression “love” or the word itself.

Once you say “love,” human emotions, actions, interactions, absolutely everything, can be explained away with “love.”

When someone says, “This is love, too,” or “That’s love, too,” I feel as though I’ve somehow been convinced, and the person who said it feels satisfied as well, resolving the matter in a superficial way.

(I don’t think I’ve used the word “love” at all in this “Talking Theater.” I’ve been consciously avoiding it.)

It was quite some time ago, but there was a scholar named T.T. who published many books under the banner of “sexology.”

I heard the following words come from T.T. 's own mouth: “Reiko Kita is a man, and this man draws nothing but sadistic illustrations of women being tormented. This is because he has a past of being betrayed by women, and out of such intense hatred for them, he draws nothing but pictures of women being bound.”

T.T. has written similar explanatory notes in his own books as well.

(Needless to say, Reiko Kita is none other than Minomura Ko.)

Such popular misconceptions are still circulating in society today.

In this upcoming volume, “The World of Minomura Ko,” I must correct this error.

After watching the American film “Salt,” I found myself thinking…

I made up my mind.

“Love” is an ambiguous word, but it is, after all, a good one.

It brings peace to the human heart.

I decided to write the text for “The World of Minomura Ko” with “love” as its underlying current.

How Minomura Ko loved humanity, loved women, and honestly loved the desires of his own imagination.

He was a gentle man.

He was truly a man with a gentle heart.

He was kind to every woman, without discrimination, and possessed great tolerance.

Why did that gentle man take such pleasure in painting pictures of women bound and tormented?

If we simply interpret it as him, like that self-proclaimed sexologist, painting nothing but images of punishment out of hatred after being betrayed by a woman, the story becomes quite simple.

Far from being betrayed by women, I know of no other man who was as loved and adored by women as Minomura Ko. A man that gentle could never have been hated by women.

It was precisely because he was so gentle that he could draw female bodies with such delicate and beautiful lines. Far from being a sadist, when I watched him closely, he sometimes seemed like a slave serving a queen.

His gentleness was so extreme, that watching him from nearby, I grew angry and, unable to contain myself, once complained to him.

“Suma-san (Minomura Ko’s real name), you can’t do that. You’re being way too kind to a woman like that. She’s not the kind of woman who deserves your kindness. If you’re that nice, she’ll just take advantage of you.”

That’s right, I’ll paint that very kindness.

Leaving the Marunouchi Piccadilly, I slowly took the escalator from the ninth floor down to the first, and as I headed toward Yurakucho Station, I made that decision last night.

Because “Salt” was such a cold, deceitful movie, it actually stimulated me.

I will dig deep, deep into the “love” hidden in Minomura Ko’s art and make that my theme.

That is the only way.

Feeling as if I were clinging to something, I walked along thinking of nothing else.

I sat down at my desk with my posture straight and, as I wrote the first line, resolved to tackle this with all my seriousness this time.