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If this were a Disney story, you’d expect there to be a song by now. Well, in this scene, the mermaid sings a song lamenting her poverty. The lyrics are about loan interest, pawn shop markups, and rent payments, and are a parody of lines from Hirakana seisuiki, a popular jōruri play. The picture is full of clues to this play that close readers would have picked up on, in addition to the lyrics being a dead giveaway. The towel draped over the folding screen is printed with the crest of Segawa Kikunojō, an actor who won great acclaim for his portrayal of the play’s character Umegae. And the fishbowl on the veranda is labeled as being a replacement for a water basin, a key prop in the play. I’ll talk more about the theatrical connection in tomorrow’s post.

Heiji was poor to begin with, but a day came where he was especially in trouble because his rent was overdue, and he also had to repay a loan. The mermaid felt sorry for him and wanted to find some way to repay him for all he had done for her. But in this day and age, when even humans are struggling to make ends meet, how can a mermaid expect to earn a few coins? Having grown up under the sea, the obvious idea of making money as a freak show attraction never even occurred to her.

Singing: “Two eights is sixteen, that’s the interest on the loan. Two nines is eighteen, that’s the pawn shop’s markup. Four fives is twenty, that’s the rent. I can’t even afford a belt¹.”

1. This is a direct parody of lyrics sung by the character Chidori in a scene from Hirakana seisuiki. Chidori laments her lover’s poverty and tries to come up with a plan to help him pay off his debts—just as the mermaid is doing here. Ultimately, Chidori takes a job working as a prostitute named Umegae to earn extra money.

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Today we officially crack open part 2 of Hakoiri musume. Kibyōshi are often split into 3 or more volumes in order to increase sales. In the case of this book, each part is 10 pages long.

Each cover illustration gives a minor preview of one of the scenes from the story. I find them quite beautiful. Interestingly, the characters on the cover look different from the characters in the pages, which makes me wonder if the cover art of these editions was done by a different illustrator, perhaps during a later reprint.

Incidentally, here is one version of how the covers looked (courtesy The Gerhard Pulverer Collection):

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The illustration below gives us an idea of just how poor Heiji is, and sets the state for the troubles that are to follow. The walls of his home are crumbling, and some of the holes are patched up with old letters and wastepaper. He uses a footstool as a makeshift table. He is trying to feed the mermaid with chopsticks, but she doesn’t seem too excited.

As the Buddhist saying goes, “If one dog barks, ten thousand dogs will bark.” And so, the number of people coming to Heiji to ask for charms continued to increase. Heiji was embarrassed at first, but in the end it was easier just to play along than it was to try to explain the truth—that he had actually brought home a mermaid to be his wife.

Lying in bed together, the mermaid told Heiji about her life, and how her parents had thrown her away. Heiji felt bad for her. Various freak show owners and their ilk came to Heiji to inquire about buying the mermaid, but he refused to listen to them. He was determined to take good care of his new wife.

Heiji struggled to think of what he could feed her, until it finally dawned on him: mosquito larvae! But this was a mistake on Heiji’s part; he had confused mermaids with goldfish¹. She told him, “I don’t like that kind of food. I want to have rakugan or okoshi².” After all, she was the daughter of a carp³, so naturally she would be a gourmand.

1. Another little play on words: ningyo vs kingyo. Heiji tried to feed her fish food.
2. Rakugan are colorful sweets (and one of her mother’s favorite foods if you remember). Okoshi are rice or millet cakes roasted and hardened with sugar.
3. Because carp are the most beautiful fish, she wants to eat like a princess.

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Page 10 of Hakoiri musume is a strange one because it contains a mini-story that seems to have little to do with the rest of the story. It’s actually a pop culture reference to an event that took place in 1790.

There was a popular legend swirling around Edo that a fisherman named Tsuribune no Seiji encountered a yakubyōgami on his boat on the 24th day of the 5th month. Seiji offered a fish to the spirit as a gift. As a thanks, the yakubyōgami promised that he would not enter Seiji’s home and kill him. It told him to write a note on his door to signify which house was his. Shortly after that, paper charms with the words “Tsuribune no Seiji’s Home” written on them were being sold in shops all over the city. Today’s page is a direct parody of that fad.

It’s not hard to imagine that someone reading this book when it was published in 1791 would have found this part very amusing, even though it hardly makes sense to us today. Think how confusing it might be for people 230 years from now looking at articles from our time, and finding all these references to snapping fingers and killing half the universe, or anagrams like WAP. That’s similar to what we’re looking at here.

The ordinary folk of the world love to exaggerate everything they talk about, so that a needle becomes a stick, and a stick becomes a pillar, and so on. The rumors about how Heiji brought home a mermaid, for some reason, turned into this: “Heiji met a yakubyōgami off the coast of Shinagawa and treated it to one of his fish. As a thank you, the yakubyōgami told Heiji to write ‘Tsuribune no Heiji’s Home’ in his own handwriting on a paper charm and hang it on his front gate. The yakubyōgami promised not to enter that house.”

The story spread far and wide. Throngs of people flocked to Heiji’s home. They begged him to write them charms in his handwriting to hang on their own houses. He tried to explain that it was all a hoax, but nobody believed him.

Neighbors: “Master Heiji, please give me a charm!”

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Page 9 of Hakoiri musume shares a double-page spread with page 8. We see Heiji on his boat in his first meeting with the mermaid, and the start of their strange romance. It’s not exactly love at first sight, and it seems like a very weird match, but they both of their reasons to make it work.

The mermaid looked up from the deck and implored Heiji: “I just am a mermaid, nothing fishy. Please, would you make me your wife? Please, won’t you hold me and sleep with me? Don’t you like me¹?”

Heiji replied, “I’d love to hold you and sleep with you, but as they say, ‘When you go in with a fish in your arms, you go out with a fish in your arms².’ So it would be bad luck.”

But then he thought about it for a moment and he said, “Trying to find a wife at my age would be absurd³, but the really absurd thing is that you, a fish, have managed to hook me, a human, with that pick-up line.”

1. These lines are written in a way that resembles Bungo-bushi, a style of song and dance accompanied by shamisen that was super popular at the time. She’s basically squirming around, doing a sexy fish dance, and acting excessively flirty as she says this. Bungo-bushi was eventually deemed too erotic by government censors, and was banned. Here’s an example of what Bungo-bushi sounded like.

2. Heiji is misquoting a line from The Book of Rites by Confucius. The real quote says that wealth gained through improper ways will be lost through improper ways as well. Heiji’s somewhat scrambled version is a pun of mispronunciation, as “wealth gained” (takara sakatte) sounds like “holding a fish” (sakana dakatte). The pun doesn’t translate well, but in Japanese it’s a real groaner.

3. The phrase Heiji uses to mean absurd is “tails and fins”—another fish pun, but it doesn’t translate into English well. The “hook” pun he uses a moment later translates quite nicely though.

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This is where our story changes timelines. Everything we’ve read so far has merely been backstory—the main character’s origin story. Today, we meet the titular mermaid of the book, the hakoiri musume herself. Fast forward several years, and she is now a young (mer)woman. Put Urashima Tarō and Orino out of your minds for now.

You’ll notice my mermaid is pretty similar to Kyōden’s image. That’s because this is one of my favorite illustrations in the book. Notice how, despite not having arms, her hair curls under her chin like a supporting wrist, playing coy. Genius! I didn’t want to change it much because I think Kyōden’s mermaid is just perfect.

It wasn’t until many years later that the mermaid was seen again, by an old fisherman from Hacchōbori, Kanda named Tsuribune no Heiji¹. One day Heiji was fishing in the harbor of Shinagawa. All of a sudden, a female monster with disheveled hair leapt out from the water and on to his boat. She was chewing on something. Heiji was frightened out of his wits. It was none other than the mermaid born between Urashima Tarō and the carp, who had grown up in Shinagawa Harbor.

The mermaid was now 17 or 18 years old; right at the bloom of youth for human girls. Her face was beautiful, like a combination of Rokō, Mangiku, Tojaku, and Gunyatomi in onnagata makeup². Despite having the body of a fish, Heiji couldn’t help but think she was actually kind of attractive.

1. His name literally means “Fishingboat Heiji,” which isn’t so much of a pun, but I find it amusing—it reminds me of characters like Steamboat Willie or Popeye the Sailor.
2. These are stage names of popular kabuki actors at the time. They were famous for their beautiful onnagata styles (when a male kabuki actor plays the role of a woman). Rokō was Segawa Kikunojō III, Mangiku was Yamashita Mangiku I, Tojaku was Iwai Hanshirō IV, and Gunyatomi was Nakayama Tomisaburō I. Contemporary readers would have recognized the names and seen their posters around the city, so this is kind of like celebrity name dropping by Kyōden.

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If there is anyone left who doesn’t yet think that Urashima Tarō is a jerk for cheating on Otohime with a prostitute, today’s post will fix that. In the illustration below, the signpost near Urashima Tarō reads, “Right: Genbē Channel, Left: Tennōzu.” It’s oddly specific about where this page’s events take place. Tennōzu is off the coast of Shinagawa, a place which was famous for sillago fishing. Today it’s a stylish and artsy downtown waterfront neighborhood.

I love that the fish nightwatchmen have lanterns. It’s just like how the people at undersea Nakazu’s sideshows were wondering if the clam mirage was a candlelight projection trick. There seems to be no acknowledgment that fire won’t work underwater, just like we’re asked to accept that people with fish on top of their heads = actual fish. Maybe I’m just weird, but that always makes me laugh.

Urashima Tarō knew that if Otohime’s father the Dragon King ever found out about the child there would be big trouble, so he secretly threw the baby away into the sea.

“Ah, if I didn’t belong to the Dragon Palace’s court, I would raise you myself and put you in a freak show in Fukiyachō or Ryōgoku. I’m sure I could make some money that way… It’s such a shame, but I have to throw you away. When you grow up, take care not to get caught by one of the bad freak shows!”

Some fish nightwatchmen who were patrolling the sea nearby heard the baby mermaid’s cries.

“Hey, I can hear a baby! Hurry up and bring the lantern over here!”

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Like yesterday’s page, today’s page is full of absurdities. Kyōden’s hyperbolic metaphors for the depth of love between man and fish are splendid, and feel more like something that was written today than over 200 years ago.

The love between man and carp was deeper than the toilets at Shinagawa-juku¹; deeper than the wells at Kōjimachi²; deeper than an indigo cloth which has been died indigo again. They seriously considered running away in secret and starting a new life together… until one day the carp became pregnant. Urashima Tarō was completely at a loss over whether to keep the child or not; but eventually, Orino gave birth to a baby girl. Because it was the child of a man and a carp, it was born with the body of a fish and the head of a human. In other words, it was a mermaid.

1. Shinawaga-juku was one of the famous 53 stations along the Tōkaidō road that connected Edo to Kyōtō. The toilets at the station were built out over the water and emptied straight into the sea far below.
2. Kōjimachi was an area of high elevation, so the wells had to be dug deep. The phrase “the wells of Kōjimachi” was a figure of speech meaning extremely deep or even bottomless.