This Way of Grief

In a previous chapter, I discussed the fate of Asako in the play Rokumeikan as a cautionary tale for Kyoko. But there is another cautionary tale for her much closer to hand, namely the life of her mother, Kayoko.

If we take the story of Sweet Blue Flowers as taking place in the early years of the twenty-first century, Kyoko would have been born soon after the beginning of the Heisei era in 1989. Kayoko would then have married sometime in the late 1980s, in the waning years of the Shōwa era and Japan’s economic boom.

Kayoko’s marriage was to some degree arranged. For many years she had been friends with her future husband, Akihiko. However, rather than confessing to her directly, Akihiko requested a marriage interview “behind her back,” as it were, asking her parents (or other relatives—Kayoko’s aunt is the only one mentioned). No one bothered to tell Kayoko about this (SBF, 4:60–61).

Kayoko’s marriage, and her subsequent relationship with her husband, are presented as adhering to patriarchal norms. Unlike the other weddings pictured in the manga, Kayoko is shown not in a Western-style wedding dress but wearing a white wedding kimono (shiromuku). Her headdress (tsunokakushi) symbolizes the effacement of her selfishness and jealousy (covering its “horns”) in favor of obedience and devotion to her husband (SBF, 4:62).

Before his marriage, Akihiko is portrayed as somewhat tentative and shy, but that is the last time we see his face: he appears obscured in Shimura’s depiction of their wedding (SBF, 4:62).¹ Like the father of the Sugimoto sisters, Akihiko has disappeared into his role as familial patriarch, and traditional attitudes downplayed before his marriage now come to the fore: for example, he prizes the fact that Kayoko was a virgin before her marriage (4:62–63).

These attitudes again become salient in the aftermath of Kyoko’s losing her way in a forest as a young child. For Kyoko, this is a major event in her relationship with Ko, continually referenced throughout the manga. Ko’s rescue of Kyoko is a metaphor for their relationship: Ko sees in Kyoko someone he can love and protect, and Kyoko is alternately grateful for his coming to her aid and upset that she needed it.

But for Kayoko, that same event marks the beginning of the unraveling of her relationship with Akihiko, as he accuses her of failing to protect his child (SBF, 4:65). Kayoko takes the blame on herself, and between Kyoko’s crying and her husband’s scolding, concludes that she is “truly an awful mother” (4:66).

Kayoko speculates that her shortcomings are why Akihiko grows distant. But as she herself recognizes, it’s more likely that he had simply grown tired of her and (as her sisters told her) preferred the company of younger women (SBF, 4:68–69).

Whatever the reason, it’s strongly implied that Akihiko essentially abandoned his wife and daughter to their own devices. He presumably continues his monetary support of Kayoko and Kyoko, including paying for Kyoko’s education. But we do not encounter him elsewhere in the manga.

Akihiko is not alone in distancing himself from his family. Ko’s (unnamed) father has also been absent for years (SBF, 2:50), and as noted previously, the father of the Sugimoto sisters shows up for Kazusa’s wedding (2:94) but is otherwise unseen, unheard, and unmentioned.

His wife Chie Sugimoto appears to accept this with equanimity, as does Ko’s mother. What distinguishes Kayoko and makes her the object of criticism by others is not being a wife mostly abandoned by her husband—this is portrayed as a normal state of affairs, at least for the class to which these families belong—but rather her reaction to it.

Although this is not made explicit in the text, Kayoko appears to have become severely depressed in the wake of her husband’s leaving her. We do not see her face in the first three volumes but only hear her conversations with Kyoko and Ko. It is not until volume 4 that we first see her in the present day (SBF, 4:67–71). She appears haggard and disheveled—a far cry from the young woman depicted before her marriage, and when Kyoko got lost in the forest (4:64)—although at this point in the story, she would likely still have not yet turned forty.

Kayoko’s troubles, in turn, affected her relationship with her daughter, as Kyoko’s emotions became a toxic stew of shame, guilt, pity, and anger: “I couldn’t stop her from breaking. It was Dad’s fault, but I couldn’t stop him either. I hate both of them. … My whole family is worthless” (SBF, 3:101, 3:103).

The situation was complicated by Kayoko turning to religion in her despair. In volume 2, Kyoko thinks to herself, “Mom has her own special god. One just for her. … Mom has her own special god … because she needed one” (SBF, 2:301, 2:324). In volume 3, we learn that Kayoko participates in a religious community of some sort. Kyoko again: “I learned that she and a lot of people I didn’t know were praying to God. And her God is a little different than the one I know” (3:100).²

What this difference might be exactly is never explained, but it was different enough from Japan’s traditional mix of Shinto and Buddhism, or the Catholicism of Fujigaya Women’s Academy, to upset Kyoko: “But that embarrassed me. It was my father’s fault … but I was ashamed of my mother. I thought she was pitiful” (SBF, 2:324).

Kayoko’s mental state becomes a topic of conversation for others as well. When Kyoko and her friends visit Ko’s family’s summer home, Akira overhears Ko’s mother expressing her opinion about Kayoko: “She’s sick. And I don’t like that sort of thing. … Any sort of complication.” In Ko’s mother’s mind, Kayoko’s troubles threaten to taint the previously-arranged union of Ko and Kyoko and the future of the Sawanoi line: “It looks bad for someone like that to join the family. I feel sorry for Kyoko, but … But what if she has a child?” (SBF, 2:50–51).

Again, though this is not made explicit, the reasonable conclusion here is that Ko’s mother (and others) think that Kayoko is mentally ill and shun her because of it. If so, this is consistent with what appears to be relatively more severe stigmatization of mental illness in Japan versus other countries. “In the Japanese general population, few people think that people can recover from mental disorders. … [The] majority of the general public in Japan keep a greater social distance from individuals with mental illness, especially in close personal relationships.”³

In a different story, Kayoko might have sought professional help. In Sweet Blue Flowers, Kayoko’s recovery, such as it is, begins when (after a long absence) Ko visits her, and then he and Kyoko reconcile (SBF, 4:69–72). After that, Kayoko throws herself into planning for their subsequent wedding, whatever objections Ko’s family might have had presumably having been overcome. Even Ko’s mother, who was previously so negative towards Kayoko and (by extension) Kyoko, takes note of Kayoko’s work and looks forward to seeing Kyoko as a bride (4:333).

And in the context of her social milieu and the expectations placed on her, Kayoko has every right to be satisfied and happy: whatever the state of her own marriage, she has achieved her long-time goal of seeing her daughter make a good match and can rest from her labors. However, whether Ko will be another Akihiko, and Kyoko another Kayoko, is a question left hanging in the joy of their wedding—a wedding where both Akihiko and Kayoko are presumably present but are nowhere to be seen.