Bloom into Yasuko

When last I discussed Yasuko Sugimoto, she had graduated from Matsuoka Girls’ High School and left Japan to study abroad. We might think that her part in the story had come to an end, but she makes a reappearance in volumes 3 and 4. Now a university student, she appears to be almost a new person, with her long hair and stylish outfit—“amazingly elegant” (SBF, 4:240).¹

One could see this as the result of Yasuko suppressing her “masculine side” and trying in her newfound femininity to conform to prevailing heterosexual norms. However, I think this is a misreading of the situation. As Yasuko herself explained (in interior monologue), her past “princely” demeanor was an act, something she seemingly put on in an attempt to conform to people’s expectations of her and emulate her sister Kazusa’s “tough personality” (SBF, 2:110–12).

With Mr. Kagami’s marriage to Kazusa, Yasuko’s emotional breakdown upon meeting Mr. Kagami after Wuthering Heights, and her breakup with Fumi, Yasuko’s attempt to play the prince was exposed as a fraud. One might then ask: if Yasuko is not a “girl prince,” what is she?

The answer is simple: she is a person who is much more comfortable in her own skin and more able to express her true personality now that she no longer labors under the strain of playing a role not suited to her. She looks comfortable in her new outfits, much more so than in the men’s shirt, tie, and pants she wore to Kazusa’s wedding, looking for all the world like a high-school otokoyaku (SBF, 2:72–73). She’s able to laugh at herself and her past foibles, jokingly telling Shiho not to fall in love with a teacher (4:335). And she appears happy in her life in England, shopping with Kawasaki for presents for Kazusa and her baby (4:22–23).

Yasuko’s maturity shows itself most clearly in her interactions with Akira when Akira visits Yasuko and Kawasaki while on the Fujigaya class trip to England. After she broke up with Fumi, Yasuko confided in Akira regarding her crush on Mr. Kagami and her behavior towards Fumi (SBF, 1:347–49). Yasuko now returns the favor, listening to Akira express her concerns about her relationship with Fumi and offering her kind words and reassurances (4:252–54, 4:266–67).

If Yasuko was at times a “bad senpai” in her dealings with Fumi, one could equally well call her a “good senpai” in her relationship with Akira. But characterizing their relationship according to a senpai/kohai framing seems unnecessary to me. Both in their past conversations and in their current ones, Yasuko and Akira seem to be interacting as relative equals, speaking honestly to each other without regard for social conventions.

There’s one more question worth asking about the “new Yasuko.” To echo Shinako’s rude questions when Fumi visited Yasuko (SBF, 1:309): Is Yasuko a lesbian? Is she bisexual?

Shimura (very deliberately, I think) leaves this question unanswered. Certainly, Yasuko’s former schoolmates expect that Yasuko and Kawasaki, the Heathcliff and Catherine of Wuthering Heights and now roommates in England, are also a couple. See, for example, the newspaper article speculating on their relationship and Kyoko’s comments to Yasuko (SBF, 2:143, 3:188).

Readers of Sweet Blue Flowers could also be forgiven for thinking this. But Shimura undercuts this expectation by showing that Kawasaki has acquired an English boyfriend—now occupied with ministering to her while she’s sick with appendicitis (SBF, 4:336, 4:338).

So, where does that leave Yasuko? She is in an envious position: intelligent, attractive, and wealthy, she now adds to those attributes a newfound maturity. Yasuko’s parents do not seem to have tried to force her sisters into particular life choices. Given that she’s the youngest daughter, it’s probably even less likely that they would do so to Yasuko. The box in which Yasuko was formerly trapped was one that she had constructed herself. Now that she has escaped its confines, she is free to simply be herself.