Impromptu commentary on the shadow | Hanekawa (Part 1 of Indefinite)

I haven't read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so there are certainly nuances to the old story that I am unaware of.

But for those of you who haven't read Monogatari or seen its anime adaptation, this might be a good place to start with trying to understand the character of Hanekawa Tsubasa, featured in the image above.

In a low resolution way, their stories share the same fundamental basis. We have one person, but some kind of split in personality. Or do we have "two people" in the same body? And is this ultimately some kind of commentary on mental illness?

Well, in one way, yes. You see, in the Monogatari series, author Nisioisin takes the real internal traumas of the characters and externalizes them in the form of apparitions. They are represented as monsters (hence why the first novel is called Bakemonogatari, with bakemono being a Japanese word that can be roughly-loosely translated as monster, and monogatari meaning story, for a portmanteau that's something like "Monstory" or "Ghostory"). This externalization of inner character is a useful storytelling device that saves the story from being a bunch of dialogue/internal monologue. Instead, we get action. Hanekawa's stress manifests itself as "Black" Hanekawa who assaults people, including her adoptive parents, to relieve pent up stress; I think a better way of phrasing this concept in an English-speaking context is Dark Hanekawa, since Black Hanekawa features ghostly white hair, skin, and yellow eyes. I think the term "dark" more directly refers to dark personality traits, rather than accidentally getting caught up in appearance.

To put it in Jungian terms, Black Hanekawa is her own shadow, the struggle of integration being dramatized. That duality is expressed in the image above, with Black Hanekawa and her "normal" self side-by-side. It is a duality that is found elsewhere in Jung, such as the concepts of the masculine and feminine. What happens to every character in Monogatari, EVERY character, is their shadow gets dragged into the light where it must be faced and dealt with.

Necessary Background Info: Japanese Mythology

As befitting of an impromptu commentary, this is going to be pulled from Wikipedia pages. However, I want to stress that I will be pulling what I think is most relevant in specifically understanding Hanekawa's condition and her trauma. The anime makes direct reference to the old Japanese folktales of evil cat spirits, as does Nisioisin's original light novel, so it's no coincidence. It's deliberate. Meme Oshino, a character in the series, refers back to this Japanese mythology to try and partially explain Hanekawa's situation.



The left image is an Edo period depiction of a nekomata, or cat yokai. The right is the depiction of an old play, with a bakeneko shapeshifting into a woman. This shapeshifting ability is common with both of these supernatural feline entities. The links for these are here and here, respectively.

What's the difference between the two? In a nutshell: "The distinction between them is often ambiguous, but the largest difference is that the nekomata has two tails, while the bakeneko has only one."

What's important for us is that our author Nisioisin seemingly draws some degree of inspiration from BOTH of these. Now I am going to cherry-pick Wikipedia quotes and share them below. Again, it's Wikipedia, so don't forget the salt.

Nekomata

"In the aforementioned "Tsurezuregusa", in addition to nekomata that conceal themselves in the mountains, there are descriptions of pet cats that grow old, transform, and eat and abduct people."

"Since the Edo period, it has become generally believed that domestic cats turn into nekomata as they grow old, and mountainous nekomata have come to be interpreted as cats that have run away to live in the mountains. As a result, throughout Japan a folk belief developed that cats should not be kept for long periods."

"In the "Ansai Zuihitsu (安斎随筆)" the courtier Sadatake Ise stated, "A cat that is several years of age will come to have two tails, and become the yōkai called nekomata." The mid-Edo period scholar Arai Hakuseki stated, "Old cats become 'nekomata' and bewilder people." and indicated that at that time it was common to believe that cats become nekomata. Even the Edo-period Kawaraban reported this strange phenomenon"

"It is generally said that the "mata" (又) of "nekomata" refers to their having two tails; but from the perspective of folkloristics, this appears questionable. Since nekomata transform as they age, "mata" meaning "repetition" is postulated."

"In Japan cats are often associated with death, and this particular spirit is often blamed. ... The older and more abused a cat is prior to its transformation, the more power the nekomata is said to have. ... Due to these beliefs, sometimes kittens' tails were cut off based on the assumption that if the tails could not fork, the cats could not become nekomata."

"Edo-period shamisen frequently were made using cat skins.... As for the nekomata's wearing geisha clothing, sometimes nekomata and geisha are considered related since geisha were once called "cats (neko)"[12] (the explanation for this, as far as I can tell, is that geisha commonly played shamisen)

Spoiler

Essentially, nekomata are supernatural, have abilities such as transformation, eat people and tend to prey on their abusers. Besides geisha playing shamisen, which were often made from cat skins, I think this is more a case of geisha being seen as cat-like, bewitching, sly, two-faced, etc. Not necessarily negative, although it clearly can be; simply put, it's taking cat characteristics and saying that they apply / can be used to describe geisha. And since we can see a running theme of transformation into *women* particularly, this applies to women in general, of which geisha were a subset. The female mind has been an enigma since time immemorial for men, and so we get these supernatural attempts at explaining their behavior, their being.

It's hard to say exactly how these things all start, but we seem to be more or less using myth, folklore, rumor, urban legend, superstition, "cat spirits" to explain away a variety of daily feudal phenomena. For feudal people in Japan, these explanations would've been sufficient. It's interesting that we can make sense of the world in this way, and it goes back to what I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about in regards to "truth" versus scientific fact.

Bakeneko

"The reason that cats are seen as yōkai in Japanese mythology is attributed to many of their characteristics: for example, the irises of their eyes change shape depending on the time of day, their fur can seem to cause sparks when they are petted (due to static electricity), they sometimes lick blood, they can walk without making a sound, their wild nature that remains despite the gentleness they can show, they are difficult to control (unlike dogs), their sharp claws and teeth, nocturnal habits, and their speed and agility.[4][5]"

"Many other animals appear as yōkai in old tales and display similar attributes: the deep tenacity of snakes, the ability of foxes (kitsune) to shapeshift into women, and the brutality of bake-danuki in eating humans depicted in the Kachi-kachi Yama folktale from the Edo period. However, cats figure in a great number of tales and superstitions because they live with humans yet retain their wild essence and air of mystery.[5]" (again, besides the feminine theme, I wish to point out this duality; with nekomata, it is the twin tails, and here it is the wild traits in conflict with domestication--duality is going to be a major component in the upcoming impromptu commentaries)

The mysterious air that cats possess was associated with prostitutes who worked in Edo-period red-light districts. This was the origin of a popular character in kusazōshi (among other publications), the bakeneko yūjo.[12]

(While I don't want to be that guy who insists there is always a deeper meaning for why the author made the curtains blue, this bit about prostitution is interesting in that it can be related to Hanekawa's shadow, specifically her sexuality, as opposed to her "pure" side that is normally exhibited--see images below)

Spoiler

"As with the nekomata, another cat-like yōkai which is said to evolve from a cat whose tail split into two when it grew old, there are folk beliefs across Japan about aged cats turning into bakeneko. There are tales of cats that became bakeneko after being raised for twelve years in Ibaraki Prefecture and Nagano Prefecture, and for thirteen years in Kunigami District, Okinawa Prefecture. In Yamagata District, Hiroshima Prefecture, it is said that a cat raised for seven years or longer will kill the one that raised it. There are also many regions where, due to this superstition, people decided in advance for how many years they would raise a cat.[13] Depending on the area, there are stories in which cats that were brutally killed by humans would become bakeneko and curse that human. Bakeneko stories are not only about aged cats, but also sometimes about revenge against cruel humans.[14]"

"The abilities attributed to bakeneko are various, including shapeshifting into humans,[15][16] wearing a towel or napkin on the head and dancing,[15][17] speaking human words,[15][17] cursing humans,[13] manipulating dead people,[13] possessing humans,[13] and lurking in the mountains and taking wolves with them to attack travelers.[5]"

"The legend that cats could speak may have arisen from misinterpreting the cat's meowing as human language; for this reason some would say that the cat is not a type of yōkai. In 1992 (Heisei 4), in the Yomiuri newspaper, there was an article that argued that when people thought they had heard a cat speak, upon listening a second time, they realized that it was simply the cat's meowing and that it was only coincidence that it resembled a human word.[4]

In the Edo period (1603–1867), there was a folk belief that cats with long tails like snakes could bewitch people. Cats with long tails were disliked, and there was a custom of cutting their tails. It is speculated that this is the reason that there are so many cats in Japan with short tails now, natural selection having favored those with short tails.[18]" (side note, but I feel like this can hardly be considered "natural" selection, especially after reading numerous times how the owners of cats, perhaps even people who just hated cats, were killing them based on these superstitions--about as naturally selective as the Holocaust)

---

Okay, so where am I going with all this? I thought this was supposed to be about an anime character while smoking a bit of dank Jung.

Well, the reason why I think this background information is important, is because we can't really completely detach the Japanese anime from its own culture and mythological history, especially when the author and the anime adaptation makes pretty direct reference to these ancient superstitions.

What Nisioisin does is he plays with these ideas of the supernatural. He uses them as a medium to externalize and explore INNER trauma and transformation, which we would normally not be able to "see" as it were.

It leads to all sorts of interesting questions, some of which have easy answers, and others which definitely don't. For example, what is possession, exactly? What does it mean to be possessed by one of these cat yokai, or possessed in general? Why is Hanekawa's personality so split? Is she bipolar? Is Meme Oshino alluding to bipolar disorder when he tells Araragi (paraphrasing) that Ms. Class President's apparition is a "new kind" of apparition, as if to suggest that it isn't possession in the old sense, but some newly discovered, little understood phenomena like a modern psychological illness?

These are all questions I am going to explore in true impromptu manner. One day, I hope to make a more thought-out YouTube video commentary on each character from this series, so this is an opportunity to just go wild and start getting all my thoughts out.

I'll leave you with this, because this is kind of the direction I think I want to go in the next part.



Comments, critique, questions, etc., are all encouraged and welcome. Thanks.