“Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures

“DIMITRIE CANTEMIR” CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES ANNALS OF “DIMITRIE CANTEMIR” CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE AND METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING VOLUME XVII No.1/2017 This journal is included in IDB SCIPIO CEEOL ICI Journals Master List 2016 http://analeflls.ucdc.ro [email protected] ISSN 2065 – 0868 ISSN-L 2065 – 0868 Each author is responsible for the originality of his article and the fact that it has not been previously published. “DIMITRIE CANTEMIR” CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES ANNALS OF “DIMITRIE CANTEMIR” CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE AND METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING VOLUME XVII No.1/2017 “DIMITRIE CANTEMIR” CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY BOARD Momcilo Luburici President Corina Adriana Dumitrescu President of the Senate Cristiana Cristureanu Rector Georgeta Ilie Vice-Rector for Scientific Research EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Florentina Alexandru Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University Nicolae Dobrisan Corresponding Member of Cairo Arabic Language Academy and of The Syrian Science Academy Damascus Mary Koutsoudaki University of Athens Greg Kucich Notre Dame University Dana Lascu University of Richmond Ramona Mihaila Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University Emma Morita Kindai University Efstratia Oktapoda Sorbonne, Paris IV University Julieta Paulesc Arizona State University Elena Prus Free International University of Moldova Marius Sala Romanian Academy Silvia Tita University of Michigan Irina Mihai-Vainovski Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University Estelle Variot Aix en Provence University Paolo Villani Universita degli Studi di Catania Alain Vuillemin Artois University and Paris-Est University EDITORS IN CHIEF Angela-Oana Drăgan Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University Magdalena Ciubăncan Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University GUEST EDITORS Irina Holca Kyoto University Roman Paşca Kanda University of International Studies Carmen Tămaş Kobe University EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Dana Capriceru CONTENTS PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE JAPAN: PRE-MODERN, MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY. A RETURN TRIP FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST. LEARNING IN, ABOUT AND FROM JAPAN 1-3 September 2016 I. LITERATURE Adrian Bercea: The Strange Characters of the Night of the Milky Way Railway: An Attempt at Interpretation from the Point of View of Shamanism ............................................................ 9 Reiji Kohashi: From Literary Works to Comics in Japan: The Case of the Shonen-sencho (1958) by Fujiko F. Fujio .................... 22 Chikako Masuda: A Study about Hino Ashihei’s “Stone and Nail” and “Ghost” in Comparison with Mizuki Shigeru’s Comic “Urine” Based on Legends from the Kyūshū Region .......... 33 II. LINGUISTICS Keita Ikarashi: Semantic Role of the English Preposition In in Japanese Compounds .................................................................... 45 Ryohei Naya: An Innovative Use of Kudasai in Social Networking Services....................................................................... 62 5 III. CULTURE Maria Grajdian: The Return of the Feminine Woman or on what the Tale of Princess Kaguya (Ghibli Studio, 2013) and Frozen (Walt Disney Pictures, 2013) Have in Common ......... 81 Evelyn Adrienn Tóth: Ainu Belief System: The Main Animal Gods and the Rituals Related to Them ........................................ 102 Yuhei Yambe: “Geisha Girls Strike”: An Overlooked Aspect of the Women's Labor Movement in Modern Japan ....................... 123 6 I. LITERATURE The Strange Characters of the Night of the Milky Way Railway: An Attempt at Interpretation from the Point of View of Shamanism Adrian Bercea* Abstract: In this paper, I will concentrate on the main part of Miyazawa Kenji’s Night of the Milky Way Railway, which corresponds to the adventure of the main character, Giovanni, on a galactic train in a dreamlike state. During his fantastic voyage, Giovanni encounters various strange personae such as ‘the Bird Catcher’, ‘the three youths’ or ‘Professor Bulcaniro’ (the last being erased from the fourth and last versions of the work), each of them being small puzzles in themselves, with a role difficult to define. There was a tendency in previous research to focus on searching for the source of inspiration for these characters, when they were to be examined. However, the literature has not yet given an answer to the obviously necessary question regarding the role of these characters in the general context and why Giovanni needs to encounter them. Here, I will consider Giovanni's dream journey on the ‘Milky Way Railway’ as a shamanic initiation ritual and I will categorise the characters he encounters by their role as conferred by the theory of shamanism. I will suggest a guiding theory to shed light on the mysteriousness of the characters in the story, stressing in this way the neglected importance of shamanism in Kenji’s works. Keywords: Miyazawa Kenji, Night of the Milky Way Railway, shamanism, initiation, spirits 1. Introduction Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933) published very few works during his life. The only two volumes he published were one of poetry, Spring and Ashura (Haru to shura), and one of children’s stories, The Restaurant of Many Orders (Chūmon no ooi ryōriten), both in 1924, at his own expense. Despite being almost unknown in the literary circles of that time, many of his works became popular soon after his death, especially due to Kusano Shinpei’s efforts, the first complete works edition being published starting from 1934. Up to the present, the studies related to Miyazawa Kenji developed in an exponential manner and the critics have found in his Master’s Student, Graduate School of Letters, Kansai University 9 works a very diverse world to explore. This world ranges from elements of the Lotus Sutra of which Kenji was an ardent reader, to many Christian literature motifs and elements of natural science. The author makes use of his abundant knowledge of legends and traditional beliefs, combining ‘the local’ expressed in the north dialect of Iwate Prefecture where he lived, with ‘the global’ materialized in his pursue of Esperanto. In the studies about Miyazawa Kenji, the following well-known words written by Takamura Kōtarō are often quoted. The one who possesses a cosmos within himself, no matter how distant the place he lives in is, he will always shake off the local existence. The one who does not possess a cosmos within himself, no matter how close to a culture’s centre he is, he will always live as a 1 local existence. (Takamura, 1995:228) Aside from the very interesting problem of centrality and localism, these worlds bring with them the question of what the ‘inner cosmos’ of Miyazawa Kenji actually is. When trying to answer it, the above mentioned elements of Buddhism, Christianity, natural science and so on, can, of course, be brought in as possible answers. However, these answers tend to remain fragmentary and some researchers2 wondered if there is something that connects all these elements, something more important that flows through all of Kenji’s ‘cosmos’. In consequence, some have turned their attention to the elements of Jōmon culture present in Miyazawa Kenji’s works 3 , and furthermore, some have pointed out the relation with shamanism as a heritage of an archaic culture, as I will briefly discuss below. There are several acquaintances of Miyazawa Kenji’s who related that he happened to fall in uncommon states of mind similar to a trance or that he had different unusual experiences (Taguchi 1993:208-225). Critics have speculated on his ‘shamanic consciousness’ and even placed him in the category of neoshamans 4 . Even when the problem was approached starting from the text and not from the author, most of the critics ended their discussion by paying attention to Kenji’s ‘shamanic consciousness’ 5 , failing to give a more detailed answer about the concrete elements of shamanism that can be ‘unearthed’ from the text. 1 Unless otherwise specified, the English translations are made by the author of the present article. 2 The ‘alternative Miyazawa Kenji theory’ suggested by Kuji Tsutomu (1995) or the ‘mystic and syncretic aspect of Kenji’s religion’ Ueda Akira (1985) discussed are such examples. 3 The studies made by Taguchi Akisuke (1993) and Tsunazawa Mitsuaki (1990) can be given as examples. 4 For example, Kamata Tōji in Sasaki and Kamata (1991) and Okabe Takashi (2009). 5 Kamata uses the expression ‘triangular structure’ sankakukōzō and affirms that Kenji’s mentality has a ‘triangular structure’ formed by the ‘shaman consciousness’ shāman ishiki, the ‘Ashura consciousness’ shuraishiki and the ‘bodhisattva consciousness’ bosatsuishiki, the first one “being concealed in the depths 10 Started in 1924, the Night of the Milky Way Railway is Miyazawa Kenji’s longest work. It was subject to a lengthy process of revision of about eight years and it was left unfinished. It might be thus adequate to consider it as the work that best expresses the ‘cosmos’ mentioned above and probably the most appropriate subject for investigating the elements of shamanism in Kenji’s work. Although the Night of the Milky Way Railway was referred to in connection with shamanism a few times, Giovanni was associated with the image of a shaman very late, in 2006, when Okabe Takashi stated very clearly that ‘Giovanni is made to carry the role of a shaman’ (Okabe 2006:70). This is due to the reasons discussed above, corroborated with a preconception about shamanism as an occult thing (Taguchi 2000: 44). Nevertheless, aspects essential

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