horizontal as well as vertical

[asakiyume]

We're watching The Makanai (舞子さんちのまかなないさん; Maikosanchi no makanai san）on Netflix; the present-day story of two sixteen-year-old best friends who leave their northern Aomori town to go to Kyoto to train as maiko (pre-geisha). One of them, Sumire is exceptionally suited to it; the other, Kiyo, isn't--but Kiyo finds her feet as the makanai, the cook, for the house.

In the episode we saw the other day, the mother of the house is walking with a male friend, and she's talking about all the good-luck charms and talismans she has all over the house. "Isn't that kind of burdensome?" her friend asks. And then she gives such a great description of why it's not, and how she feels:


(Apologies: since screen caps aren't possible from Netflix, these are my photos of the screen, so the quality is not great)

"No, it sort of feels like they're protecting us"


And then she reflect on how it's different from the way the ancestors protect people:
"It's not exactly an ancestral kind of protection either."


So then her friend suggests maybe it's a special protection of Kyoto's history. I love how she rejects this theory with just a tilt of the head and an expression. Same when he suggests it's somehow a function of time:

"maybe it's Kyoto's history..."


uhhhhhh


"Or time?"


uhhhhhh


And then she describes how she feels it works:

"It's not just vertical, but horizontal as well?"


"And it spreads diagonally too, like this"



"What would you call that?" she asks. And then, as he tries to think of an answer, she tells him he has a piece of food caught between his teeth, and like that, the description of a web of protection is left behind.

I love everyday beliefs like this.

Later on there's a hilarious moment when Sumire asks the accomplished geisha Momoko, whom she's been assigned to as a helper, what Momoko was praying for earlier in the day, when Sumire happened to see her at a shrine. Momoko is super sophisticated and a very cool cucumber--but in that moment she's tired and drunk. Nevertheless, she comes up with the perfect answer:



"What were you praying for?"


"There can be only one thing" (Actually she says, "Kimatte iru ja nai ka"--"It's set/fixed/preordained, isn't it?")


"World peace"


I howled! The staple of beauty pageant contestants; the good-girl answer. And she says it so languidly and cynically ... and then pulls her eye mask down:



In another entry maybe I'll talk a little about Kiyo, who manages to be preternaturally sweet without being cloying--I have theories about why, or at least, why for me she hits that balance.

Comments

[anna_wing]

I like 'agricultural policy reform', myself.

[asakiyume]

As a thing to pray for? That's a good one! You have to be sure your prayers are *not* directed to a trickster god or spirit, though--or else they may promote the actuation of an even worse policy.

[athenais]

This sounds like a good show!

[asakiyume]

I'm really enjoying it! It holds my interest while at the same time being very low key and mildly funny. I don't know how things will develop, but if it keeps up as it's begun, it's absolutely what I love.

[sartorias]

Heh! I saw that series on Netflix . . .

[asakiyume]

Now you know a little more about it ;-)