CHARACTER STATS (BASIC/MAX)
精神
State of Mind
State of Mind
Somewhat Stable
攻撃
Attack
Attack
128 / 296
防御
Defense
Defense
128 / 296
回避
Evasion
Evasion
19 / 131
技術
Technique
Technique
48 / 328
天才
Talent
Talent
48 / 328
美
Aesthetics
Aesthetics
49 / 329
主題
Theme
Theme
44 / 324
真実
Realism
Realism
42 / 322
CHARACTER STATS (BASIC/MAX)
| ||||
| 精神 State of Mind Somewhat Stable |
攻撃 Attack 128 / 296 |
防御 Defense 128 / 296 |
回避 Evasion 19 / 131 | |
| 技術 Technique 48 / 328 |
天才 Talent 48 / 328 |
美 Aesthetics 49 / 329 |
主題 Theme 44 / 324 |
真実 Realism 42 / 322 |
PROFILE
「僕は尾崎門下生の泉鏡花です。清潔第一、不潔排除がモットーです」
落ち着いた外見とは裏腹に強気で相当な潔癖症。清潔な手袋を常に身に着け、素手で物を触ることを避ける。食事においても一度火を通したものをもう一度火に通さないと気がすまないようだ。師匠である尾崎紅葉に対して忠誠を誓っており、彼を批判するものは誰であろうと許さない。趣味はうさぎグッズを集めること。
"I am Izumi Kyouka, a pupil of Ozaki. My motto is cleanliness first, eliminate dirt."
He seems calm on the outside, but on the contrary, he is a fastidious germophobe. He perpetually wears immaculate gloves, refusing to touch anything with his bare hands. Even with regards to food, it seems he must reheat food before eating it even after it has already been cooked. He has promised undying devotion to his mentor Ozaki Kouyou, and will not forgive anyone who criticizes him. His hobby is collecting rabbit goods.
Trivia
This trivia is about the real-life writer the character is based on, written by our wiki's contributors. Please be critical about the following information and do not take everything as truth, especially any unsourced trivia. A good, trustworthy trivia has many accessible sources listed. If you have sources to provide or additions to make, please do it within our wiki's User Conduct.
- His real name was Izumi Kyoutarou.[1]
- He was born in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, where Tokuda Shuusei was also from.[1] They went to the same elementary school, but never really got to know each other until Shuusei became pupil of Ozaki Kouyou, who had been mentoring Kyouka for already about two years.
- Together with Muroo Saisei, Kyouka and Shuusei are known as the "three writers of Kanazawa".
- Kyouka's father had wanted his son to follow his footsteps as a metal craftsman. He brought home sheets of tracing paper for Kyouka to practice for this future career. However, he discovered that what Kyouka was fascinated with was not traditional images on metal craftswork, but certain pictures in his mother's personal diary. According to Kyouka's brother Toyoharu, Kyouka's favorite image was "of a pitiful young woman, tied to a tree and beaten".[2]
- Kyouka was generally interested in portraying only one type of woman. Reflecting his yearning for his dead mother, the women in his stories are doubly complicated, alluring and maternal yet subjected to violence and death. They are beautiful and tempting, yet pitifully oppressed while being divinely powerful. What Kyouka sought to portray was an ideal that the living would never reach.
- On the contrary, he resented the Meiji patriarchy, decried the inequalities of marriage that make life miserable for women, and spoke out against militarism and war.
- Though he despised the system and was especially contemptuous of businessmen who had wealth but no taste, he reserved great respect for the imperial family. It is said Kyouka would always remove his glasses, take off his hat, close his eyes, and utter a silent prayer whenever he passed by the Imperial Palace, whether in a train or bus.
- His first novel, Crowning Yazaemon was so poorly received that Iwaya Sazanami, the editor of the magazine it was printed on and a friend of Ozaki Kouyou's, received multiple disappointed letters asking for the story to be discontinued. He asked Kouyou to change to another writer, but Kouyou refused because it would be a crushing blow to Kyouka.
- The Holy Man of Mount Kouya, his best work, is often said to be his most understandable. His later works are remarkably more difficult to follow because of their fractured structure, vague motivations and expressions.
- The greatest instabilities of Kyouka's life were tied to the deaths of people close to him. His father's death in 1894 and subsequent financial burden drove him to consider suicide. His mother's death in 1906 arguably shaped his literary career. His grandmother's death later on shook him greatly. "I couldn't tell day from night," he wrote later on. "I never slept well, nor did I ever feel that I was wide awake. I had only the vaguest notion of who I was." However, it was during this time that he wrote some of his finest works, including One Day in Spring and The Grass Labyrinth.
- He fell in love with a geisha and intended to marry her, but his mentor Kouyou was vehemently against it and asked him to break relations with her. Out of respect, he did not marry her until Kouyou had died.[1] This later became the inspiration for his story A Woman's Pedigree.
- Kyouka, Tokuda Shuusei, Yanagawa Shunyou and Oguri Fuuyou were called the Shitennou (四天王, "Four Heavenly Kings") of Kouyou's students.[2]
- Many young writers like Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, Satomi Ton, Tanizaki Junichirou etc. were big fans of Kyouka, and at times they would gather together to drink and enjoy geisha.[2]
- Satomi Ton notes in several pieces of his writings how stormy relationship Kyouka and Shuusei had. Kyouka would behave even violent around Shuusei if the latter dared to say anything negative about Kouyou, as Kouyou remained important figure to Kyouka even after death and despite how Kouyou had refused to let Kyouka get married. In his work The Two Writers, Satomi brings into light a case he had heard about from a friend Yamamoto Sanehiko (the owner of publication company Kaizou). Kyouka, Shuusei and Yamamoto had gathered together at Kyouka's house on work-related business. Talk about late Kouyou was brought up and Shuusei made a comment about Kouyou's death how he had died of stomach cancer because he had been eating too much sweets, which infuriated Kyouka how he dared to speak about their mentor in such manner. Kyouka jumped up and attacked Shuusei by pushing him down and punching him. Yamamoto had to go between the two men and take Shuusei away from the scene. Apparently later Shuusei had cried in the car on their way back home.[3]
- He was obsessed with cleanliness, and disliked many animals like rats and dogs. He also wouldn't eat anything raw, or share things (for example eating utensils, smoking pipe) with others if there was a chance of coming into close contact with other people's germs.
- Hirotsu Kazuo, who had been an acquaintance with Kyouka since childhood through his father Hirotsu Ryuurou, a friend and fellow Friends of the Ink Stone author with Ozaki Kouyou, writes in his memoirs The Footsteps of Time how as a little boy he had been playing with Kyouka in the Hirotsu family's house. Kyouka picked up and took small Kazuo to the garden to observe some insects and other small animals found in the garden, but a frog above them on a tree branch had urinated and hit Kyouka's hand. Freaking out, Kyouka let down Kazuo and ran to wash his hands. Kazuo recalls this was one of his earliest memories regarding that house's garden and Kyouka's cleanliness. This incident is also something that Kyouka remembered for a long time, and had even brought it up in a party in celebration of Satomi Ton's new publication, where Kyouka and Kazuo met again since the times when Kazuo had been a child.[4]
- According to Komura Settai, he was afraid of dogs due to his fear of getting rabies.[5]
- Kyouka's craving for collecting rabbits originates from his belief in the superstitious nature of things: Kyouka was born in the year of a Rooster, the opposite of the Rabbit zodiac. It is believed that collecting goods with the opposite zodiac sign brings good fortune.[2] Moreover, his mother also had told him to cherish rabbit trinkets.[6]
- One of his favorite foods was Tofu which he would boil until it became soggy.[7] He also was fond of different kind of vegetables (minus broad beans that caused him stomach ache), selected small fish and anpan (a Japanese sweet roll filled with red bean paste). The only meat he could eat were well prepared poultry and selected seafood; he never ate red meat.[8]
- He died at age 65 due to lung cancer.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Modern Japanese Novelists - A Biographical Dictionary, John Lewell, 1993
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Similitude of Blossoms - A Critical Biography of Izumi Kyōka, Charles Shirō Inouye, 1998.
- ↑ 二人の作家 (Futari no Sakka, "The Two Writers") by Satomi Ton in 文豪とアルケミスト文学全集 ("Bungou to Alchemist" Literature Collection), Shinchousha, 2017.
- ↑ 年月のあしおと 上 (Nengetsu no Ashioto - Jou, "The Footsteps of Time - Volume 1"), Hirotsu Kazuo, Kodansha, 2020.
- ↑ 泉鏡花先生のこと ("About Izumi Kyouka-sensei"), Komura Settai. Retrieved from Aozora Bunko.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/泉鏡花
- ↑ 湯どうふ (Yudoufu, "Boiled Tofu"), Izumi Kyouka. Retrieved from Aozora Bunko.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 文人悪食, Arashiyama Kouzaburou. Shinchousha, 2017.