The third day of the school trip.
Nine o'clock in the morning.
124 Okazaki Enshōji-chō, Sakyō Ward.
Tsushima Kagami and the others got off the city bus at the "Okazaki Park Museum of Art · Heian Shrine Mae" stop.
At first they'd planned to take the subway, but it just so happened that there was a direct bus right outside the hotel.
So they decided to take the scenic route and enjoy the sights along the way through the city of Kyoto.
Before long, the group arrived at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.
The museum is built in the "Imperial Crown Style," an architectural fusion of Japanese and Western features.
It is Japan's second public art museum, established after the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and is also the oldest surviving public art museum building in Japan.
Later, Kyocera funded its renovation and, in exchange for a fifty-year naming right, it was renamed the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art.
After Tsushima Kagami led everyone in along with the other tourists, they came inside the museum.
The venue of the Yomiuri Calligraphy Exhibition was packed with a steady stream of visitors.
Even Yukinoshita Shizuku was visiting a large-scale calligraphy exhibition like this for the first time.
Everyone gazed with fresh curiosity at the entries inside the hall, each one mounted in a frame and displayed behind glass.
The whole exhibition hall was enormous. Inside, the organizers had not only invited renowned calligraphy masters and enthusiasts to give face-to-face guidance and interaction—
they had also set out brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones in quite a few spots, evidently as an interactive activity for passersby who felt the urge to try their hand at writing.
Tsushima Kagami noticed that most of the works were Chinese poems—Tang and Song verse.
They centered mainly on figures like Du Fu, Wang Wei, Jia Dao, He Zhizhang, Huang Tingjian, and Tao Yuanming.
One could tell these works all had a deep, traditional foundation.
They weren't much different from what he remembered back in his home country.
Besides these, there were also a great many works in the "harmonized style," combining kanji with kana.
On the whole, these weren't much different from traditional kanji calligraphy.
And then there were works written primarily in hiragana, which derive from the cursive forms of kanji.
Works of this kind flowed like drifting clouds and running water, carrying a certain ethereal, unfettered Zen quality.
This was largely because, ever since its founding, the Yomiuri Calligraphy Exhibition had strictly required that works center on the classical and the traditional.
The categories of works it accepted fell mainly into four major types: kanji, kana, harmonized style, and seal-carving.
The Mainichi Calligraphy Exhibition, led by the Mainichi Shimbun, by contrast leaned more toward modernist style and experimentation.
Speaking of which, one can't help but bring up Tsushima Kagami's own university major.
As an undergraduate, Tsushima Kagami had studied traditional Chinese painting, and in graduate school he had focused on the bird-and-flower direction of meticulous gongbi painting.
But traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy are inseparable disciplines—one even has to learn a bit of seal-carving.
And Tsushima Kagami had been studying calligraphy under his own grandmother since the age of five.
That counted as some twenty-five years of practice. He couldn't compare to those true scholarly families, to certain freaks of talent, or to the old-timers.
He couldn't claim the bearing of a famed master, but at the very least he could be considered to have properly entered the inner chamber, the real deal.
He was far better than the vast majority of teachers at calligraphy classes out there.
Back in his university days, he had often lamented his own Chinese-painting major precisely because of how calligraphy had developed in Japan.
The main point being that traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy were two equally important cultural treasures—and after both were transmitted to Japan—
Chinese painting, contrary to expectation, gradually declined and failed to flourish; in the Edo period it was displaced by ukiyo-e, and then became fertilizer for the growth of Japanese-style painting.
The wholesale Westernization of the Meiji era went even further—nearly everyone began studying Western painting techniques, and apart from a tiny number of refined elites at the upper rungs of society, you basically couldn't find a single Japanese person painting Chinese-style paintings anywhere in Japan.
But the very same kanji, because they had been preserved from the start and had become a tradition of "handwriting practice" beginning in elementary school—
not only did calligraphy fail to decline, but on the contrary, by absorbing and drawing upon the ideas and concepts of the Western painting schools of the time, it kept exploring and evolving toward modernity. Whether or not that counts as heretical departure from orthodoxy is another matter, but it really did develop and spawn many interesting variants, and so, ironically, it attained a whole new flourishing in Japan.
Tsushima Kagami stood before a kanji work on a massive zhang'er-sized sheet, his gaze lingering on those bold, free-flowing lines.
It was the work of this session's Yomiuri Grand Prize winner—a four-panel cursive-script set, transcribing lines from the monk Kūkai's Fūshinjō.
The ink alternated between dry and moist, the lines flying about like dragons and snakes—truly an extraordinary sight.
"What do you think of this one?"
A gentle voice sounded close by his ear.
Tsushima Kagami turned his head and saw a middle-aged man of around fifty standing beside him, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, his gaze gentle yet carrying a hint of scrutiny.
"Very good."
Tsushima Kagami nodded.
"Though on the third line, the character 'fei'—the very last stroke was reined in just a touch too hastily."
"If there had been a bit more ink, letting that flying-white stroke spread out naturally, the momentum would have been even fuller."
The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows slightly, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
"You understand calligraphy?"
"A little."
Tsushima Kagami's tone was flat.
Yukinoshita Shizuku and the others nearby were also drawn over by Tsushima Kagami's sudden exchange and conversation.
"I had no idea Kagami knew calligraphy too?"
Sayuri, standing to one side, asked Yukinoshita Shizuku.
"Has Kagami ever written it at home?"
Ijichi Seika, Hiratsuka Shizuka, and Shimizu Nayotake all leaned in as well, looking toward Yukinoshita Shizuku.
Yukinoshita Shizuku thought it over and shook her head.
"That, no, he hasn't."
"But when he writes his novels..."
At this point Yukinoshita Shizuku paused.
The others, even more curious, urged Yukinoshita Shizuku to go on.
Yukinoshita Shizuku thought for a moment and said,
"Now that I think of it, when I help him transcribe his manuscripts, his kanji really are beautiful—but his hiragana look just like squirming bugs."
Hearing this, everyone turned again to look at Tsushima Kagami beside them.
The middle-aged man chuckled and, instead of pressing further, introduced himself.
"I'm a professor in the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University. My surname is Ogasawara."
Although Tsushima Kagami had no idea why this overly familiar Kyoto professor had suddenly come over to strike up a conversation with him,
out of politeness he still gave a slight bow.
"Hello, Professor Ogasawara."
"You must be young Kagami."
Just as Tsushima Kagami was wondering how the man knew who he was,
he saw Professor Kosaka, together with another middle-aged man, come striding briskly over through the crowd.
"Well, how about it, Ogasawara?"
"I told you Kagami would definitely understand calligraphy."
Ogasawara now turned as well to face Professor Kosaka and the other man.
Professor Kosaka also looked toward Tsushima Kagami and the group with Yukinoshita Shizuku beside him.
"I'm so sorry to have made everyone come out today just to keep an old man like me company."
"This is Professor Ogasawara of the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University."
"And this is the chairman of the Yomiuri Calligraphy Association, Chairman Taniguchi."
"And this here is the young Kagami I was telling you about."
Professor Kosaka introduced everyone to one another.
Tsushima Kagami and his group also exchanged greetings with Professor Ogasawara and Chairman Taniguchi.
"So, Professor Kosaka, was there something you needed when you called me here today?"
Tsushima Kagami asked Professor Kosaka.
Professor Kosaka said with a smile,
"Haha, nothing at all."
"I just figured, since you've got free activity time, young Kagami, you might as well come take a look at this calligraphy exhibition."
"And besides, I think your works are written so very, very well—surely your calligraphy can't be bad either, right?"
Tsushima Kagami hadn't expected that Professor Kosaka really had nothing in mind and had simply wanted to drag him along for company.
This reminded him once again of Kosaka Akane—whenever Kosaka Akane felt out of sorts, she'd make sure Sayuri couldn't be at ease either.
Truly grandfather and granddaughter, those two.
The Chairman Taniguchi beside them, listening to the two of them talk, also had his eyes light up.
"You understand calligraphy?"
"That's perfect, then. We've got a small exchange session coming up shortly, and several of the judging teachers will be there. How about it, young man—want to come write a few strokes with us? It's right over there at the hands-on area."
"I only know a little, just high-school level."
"Then I won't mind if it looks bad."
Tsushima Kagami had meant to decline.
But Chairman Taniguchi laughed again.
"Hahaha, the tourists are all writing too."
"Good or bad doesn't matter—it's the taking part that counts."
Tsushima Kagami looked at the tourists nearby—there were adults, children, and elderly people, who would now and then, on passing by, feel the urge to pick up a brush from the table and casually dash off a couple of strokes on the calligraphy hanshi paper laid out for them.
In the end he gave a light nod.
"Fine."
The hands-on area was set up in a corner of the exhibition hall, several long tables lined up in a row, fully stocked with brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones.
A few judges were chatting idly there, and when they saw Chairman Taniguchi bringing someone over, they all nodded in acknowledgment.
Chairman Taniguchi made the introductions.
"This is Professor Murakami of the Tokyo University of the Arts, this is Mr. Tanaka of the Mainichi Calligraphy Association, and this is..."
After both sides had once more made introductions and exchanged greetings,
Professor Ogasawara, smiling, pushed Tsushima Kagami to the front.
"This young Kagami just now critiqued the Grand Prize work—he said the very last stroke of the character 'fei' on the third line was reined in a touch too hastily."
The several judges exchanged a glance, and Professor Murakami smiled.
"Oh? Someone who can spot that point is no layman."
"I imagine you come from a family with scholarly roots."
"Young man, care to show us your skills?"
"You flatter me—I'm just scribbling at random."
Tsushima Kagami demurred politely once more.
He had no choice but to be modest—after all, even if he poured out the skills of a lifetime, he was still an amateur.
He couldn't match these old-timers who had written professionally for so many years.
Really it was just a matter of scribbling something passable and getting it over with.
He came over to the table at the side.
On the table was spread a sheet of premium painting xuan paper, the ink already ground.
Tsushima Kagami stood before the table, quietly regarding that blank sheet, while on the brush rest beside him lay brushes of various kinds.
Tsushima Kagami picked up a Nara brush, made in Nara Prefecture, its tip crafted from wolf-hair.
He held it in hand and got used to its feel.
Then he thought about what to write.
At this moment Professor Kosaka and the other professors and judges also stepped over to the side, watching with great interest.
They were rather curious just how much capability this high schooler—so favored by Professor Kosaka—actually had.
A professor from the University of Tokyo standing nearby also asked Professor Kosaka,
"Kosaka-san, is this young Kagami a relative of yours?"
"You seem to think very highly of him."
This remark prompted everyone else to turn their heads and look over as well.
Professor Kosaka merely laughed.
"Haha, a relative he is not."
"But if it were possible, I'd actually love for him to come to the University of Tokyo and enroll in my department."
Hearing Professor Kosaka say this,
everyone roughly understood that this young fellow named Kagami must have so impressed Professor Kosaka with his literary attainments.
Still, no matter how good one's literary attainments, that didn't necessarily mean one could write well in calligraphy.
And those seated here were not only all professors of the Faculty of Letters, they were also directors of the calligraphy association.
As the saying goes, each profession has its own specialty—at least in this regard, even Professor Kosaka was no match for them.
Meanwhile Yukinoshita Shizuku and the others stood off to one side, listening to the chatter among the professors and judges.
"Oh no, what if Kagami gets cornered by these old fellows?"
"That look in their eyes."
"It's like they're already poised, any moment now, to take the posture of elders and give Kagami a good rapping-down."
Sayuri, clutching the spot next to Yukinoshita Shizuku, asked about Tsushima Kagami in a low voice with a furrowed brow.
"They're all professors and judges, after all."
"They've surely seen plenty of mediocrities and geniuses in their time."
"They shouldn't go out of their way to pick on Kagami for no reason—he's someone they've only known a few minutes, after all."
Hiratsuka Shizuka said from the side as well.
"Who knows, maybe Kagami writes even better than those professors?"
Ijichi Seika said just then.
Everyone turned their heads to look at Ijichi Seika, with an expression that said, you've really got some nerve.
At that moment, a sudden rumble of thunder rolled across and split the sky.
The tourists inside the museum instinctively raised their heads, only to realize all they could see was the ceiling.
"Goodness, that thunder scared me half to death!"
"How is there even thunder in this season?"
Sayuri, coming back to herself, patted her chest and said.
"This must be winter thunder."
"Good thing we brought umbrellas when we headed out."
Yukinoshita Shizuku chimed in as well.
Ijichi Seika also said,
"Yesterday it was sunny and mild, and today it looks like it's about to pour."
"If only it had poured yesterday and the trip had been canceled."
Ijichi Seika was still feeling guilty about having made Tsushima Kagami draw two of the worst fortunes yesterday.
While the group was chatting away.
Tsushima Kagami at this moment suddenly dipped his brush into the ink, and once the brush tip was thoroughly soaked,
he began to write—from top to bottom, from right to left.
[The thunder god rumbles faintly, piercing the clouds; should the rain fall, then will you, my lord, stay?]
[The thunder god rumbles faintly, yet though no rain falls, I shall stay—if you, dear one, would have me stay.]
What Tsushima Kagami had written was precisely the "Thunder God Tanka" from the Man'yōshū.
It is also the very one that later appeared in Makoto Shinkai's The Garden of Words.
[A faint clap of thunder, clouded skies—perhaps rain will come; if so, will you stay here with me?]
[A faint clap of thunder, clouded skies—even if no rain comes, I will stay here with you.]
Only, this had gone through several rounds of translation.
Because the waka in the original Man'yōshū was written using kanji.
Back then there was as yet no hiragana or katakana.
Everything was recorded using kanji to represent Japanese pronunciation, with the kanji serving mainly a phonetic function rather than a semantic one.
For this reason it is also called [Man'yōgana], the forerunner of both hiragana and katakana.
Just as Tsushima Kagami was wondering which poem to write, he happened to hear the thunder.
And this "Thunder God Tanka" suddenly surfaced in his mind.
So, without minding whether it was fitting or not, he simply wrote it out in the Yan style that he was good at.
After all, no matter what he wrote, those few old-timers were going to critique him anyway.
He might as well just scribble something and hurry up and be done.
At this point the professors, the judges, and Yukinoshita Shizuku and the others all came over to look.
Every one of them was utterly bewildered.
Although it was all kanji, and read smoothly enough, something nonetheless felt faintly off.
The several professors and judges, too, shifted from Tsushima Kagami's calligraphic attainments to this verse that looked like a Chinese poem, their brows knitting slightly.
Seeing this, Tsushima Kagami felt a lurch in his heart.
No way?
He had written this "Thunder God Tanka" precisely because he'd previously learned that the Man'yōshū existed in this world.
But only now did he recall that he'd overlooked one problem.
There are over four thousand five hundred waka in the Man'yōshū.
What if it wasn't the Man'yōshū itself that had vanished, but rather that some of those four thousand five hundred-odd waka had vanished—and the "Thunder God Tanka" was precisely one of them?
Tsushima Kagami suddenly felt he'd inexplicably gone and shown off again, and overdone it at that.
Just as Tsushima Kagami was thinking up some excuse to hurry off and make his escape first.
There came a sharp slap—a large hand landed squarely on the writing desk, blocking the way right in front of him.
Everyone followed the sound and looked toward this Professor Ogasawara of the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University, who specialized in poetry and was also a member of the calligraphy club.
By now he was sprawled entirely across the desk, with not a trace left of his refined, scholarly bearing from moments ago.
His whole being radiated a fierce glint in his eyes, panting heavily, his face flushed red.
In one hand he held a brush, writing something like annotations off to the side.
While his mouth muttered and murmured nonstop.
It was not until Professor Kosaka and Chairman Taniguchi gave the seemingly possessed Professor Ogasawara a few pats
that he abruptly spun around to face everyone and, pointing excitedly at that piece of writing on the desk, declared,
"It's an ancient waka!"
"It's an ancient waka written in Man'yōgana!"
____
👻🔥Whant more?: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Naruto: Is it reasonable to beat up an Otsutsuki with Hamon, right?
Let's reach these milestones together:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 free chapter for all readers