The manga this week
Red: Saishusho -- Asama Sanso no Tokakan
(Red: The last chapter -- 10 days at Asama Sanso lodge)
By Naoki Yamamoto (Kodansha)
Even when class should have been in session, the TV set in the classroom was left on. On that winter day of the year when I was a sixth grader in elementary school, the live TV broadcast was focusing on the siege of a mountain lodge in the snow, where several youths who had taken the lodge keeper's wife hostage were exchanging gunfire with riot police. One after the other, riot police officers were shot. The children as well as the teacher in the classroom were speechless, our eyes glued to the TV screen. On Feb. 28, 1972, the Asama Sanso siege concluded with the arrest of the perpetrators -- members of the United Red Army (Rengo Sekigun) -- and the freeing of the hostage. Total viewer TV ratings at that moment reportedly stood at 89.7 percent.
The manga this week is a faithful and detailed documentary about the 10 days from when nine young men first hid in the mountains from police, to when all of them were finally arrested, including the time five of them spent besieged at the lodge. This is the 13th and concluding volume of the "Red" series, which has been issued over a period of 12 years by the manga author and artist Naoki Yamamoto since 2006. Reading it from Volume 1 will give you the whole picture of an extremist student movement that shook Japan from 1969 to 1972.
The Asama Sanso incident happened more than 20 years prior to the Aum Supreme Truth cult incident. While these two are different in that the former was based on political ideology and the latter was perpetrated by a religious group, both incidents were committed by initially pure-hearted young people who had become intoxicated with the illusion of conducting a revolution, deviated from society and rushed headlong to their own destruction.
The amazing aspect of this series is that the artist provides no analysis criticizing the causes or meaning of the student movement. The storyline is hardly fictionalized. The turns of events are all described based on fact, and calmly reenacted in the drawings.
Yamamoto made just one striking artistic embellishment by attaching numbers, as if for footnotes, to some of the characters. In the concluding volume under discussion this week, three characters are numbered 16, 17 and 18. These numbers actually signify the order in which they die, a sign of foretold destiny. These numbers exist as the sole expression of Yamamoto's emotions.
This manga does not attempt to blow the whistle on or raise an alarm over problems in society. It is first and foremost a "manga about a group of young people" who seem to be no different from ordinary youths of their age. By positioning this manga in such a way, however, it succeeds in actually leaving deep emotions to linger after reading.
Finally, I was surprised to find out in this volume that one of those who were arrested and convicted is still alive on death row. In this respect, unlike the Aum incident, the Asama Sanso incident has yet to be truly concluded. When I was an elementary school student, I could not understand this incident and could only shiver in fear. Forty-six years later, the situation actually remains just about the same.
Ishida is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior writer whose areas of expertise include manga and anime.
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