Jan 28, 2023
Keywords: Samsara, Rebirth, Demons, Filial Piety, Jizo, O’Bon, Anime, Manga, Sutra, Fox Spirits
The Buddha said, “Your mother’s offenses are deep and firmly rooted. You alone do not have enough power. Although your filial sounds move heaven and earth, the heaven spirits, the earth spirits, twisted demons, and those outside the way” — The Ullambana Sutra
Nekojiro Sou (2001): Samsara and Entering the Land of the Dead
This anime is not about eating soup made from cats, but about a recipe for living life even when we die. Indeed, we seem to live life in some sort of mystic sour soup at times.
Respecting and honoring the dead remain an important cultural aspect for the Japanese and Asian people in general. Many films and stories examine death and near death phenomenon. What happens when one dies or when one comes back to life?
Cat Soup is about the death and rebirth, samsara, of a girl. Many in the west, do not believe in reincarnation. To me, lile is about remembering, not learning. I meet people, who I knew in previous life. I met someone who I was married to in a previous live. She doesn’t remember me, so I leave her alone. We work at the same place. It wasn’t an accident that we ended up in the same state, same time, and same university. I do not want to impose on her life. She has her own worries and her own life now.
Tasuo Sato directed this strange short film based on manga series called Nekojiro by Hashiguchi Chiyomi (1967-1998), who committed suicide perhaps because of an unfaithful husband. The film examines the near death of Nyatta as told through the eyes of her younger sister, Nyako.
Basically, Nyatta, drowns and almost dies. Much of the film is about her journey into the land of the dead. Nyako is brave enough to follow her sister and bring her back. At one point, there is a Jizo figure who is walking her to the pure land or Buddhist paradise.
In one sense, Cat Soup is about Mokuren, another person who visited the land of the dead. Mokuren was the disciple of Buddha who loved his dead mother, but found out she was a hungry ghost living in hell. Buddha suggested that Mokuren give offerings to his mother while chanting.
Mokuren did more than that and actually entered hell to retrieve his mother. The O-Bon festival is a celebration of the love a son has for his mother. Indeed, it is a celebration of life where family members must remember the dead, all of the dead people. Even those without living family members must be respected and remembered.
O’Bon remains one of the most important holidays in Japan.
“They should vow to cause the length of life of the present father and mother to reach a hundred years without illness, without sufferings, afflictions, or worries, and also vow to cause seven generations of fathers and mothers to leave the sufferings of the hungry ghosts, to be born among men and gods, and to have blessings and bliss without limit.”
— The Ullambana Sutra
–Doc Nirvana
AKA Dr. WAYNE STEIN
[1] A version of these notes entitled “The Blood of Hybridity in Postmodern Cinematic Asian Vampires” was presented at the Popular Culture Conference in Boston, Massachusetts on April 4, 2007. A revised edition of this called “Enter the Dracula” will appear in a volume of essays about Dracula coming out next year.
In his essay, “Enter the Dracula: The Silent Screams and Cultural Crossroads of Japanese and Hong Kong Cinema” (collected in the book “Dracula, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms,” edited by Caroline Joan Picart and John Edgar Browning), Wayne Stein wrote of how kids in Asia “found themselves with a new likeness to imitate by copying the hopping movements of these zany vampires,” the jiangshi. I can confirm that my own spouse and her classmates were among those kids.
By Joshua Meyer/Aug. 27, 2022 12:00 pm EST
Ullambana Sutra. http://www.buddhasutra.com/files/ullambana_sutra.htm