Ango Sakaguchi

Ango Sakaguchi (坂口 安吾, Sakaguchi Ango, October 20, 1906 – February 17, 1955) was a Japanese novelist and essayist. His real name was Heigo Sakaguchi (坂口 炳五 Sakaguchi Heigo).

Biography

From Niigata, Sakaguchi was one of a group of young Japanese writers to rise to prominence in the years immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II. In 1946 he wrote his most famous essay, titled "Darakuron" ("Discourse on Decadence"), which examined the role of bushido during the war. It is widely argued that he saw postwar Japan as decadent, yet more truthful than a wartime Japan built on illusions like bushido. (The work itself does not make any claims about the meaning of decadence.)

Ango was born in 1906, and was the 12th child of 13. He was born in the middle of a Japan perpetually at war. His father was the president of the Niigata Shinbun (Newspaper), a politician, and a poet.

Ango wanted to be a writer at 16. He moved to Tokyo at 17, after hitting a teacher who caught him truanting. His father died from brain cancer the following year, leaving his family in massive debt. At 20, Ango taught for a year as a substitute teacher following secondary school. He became heavily involved in Buddhism and went to University to study Indian philosophy, graduating at the age of 25. Throughout his career as a student, Ango was very vocal in his opinions.

Aoi Bungaku

Aoi Bungaku Series (青い文学シリーズ, "Blue Literature Series") is a twelve episode anime series featuring adaptations inspired by six short stories from Japanese literature. The six stories are adapted from classic Japanese tales. Happinet, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, McRAY, MTI, Threelight Holdings, Movic, and Visionare were involved in the production of the series. Character designs were provided by manga artists Takeshi Obata (eps. 1–4, 7–8), Tite Kubo (eps. 5–6, 11, 12) and Takeshi Konomi (eps. 9–10).

Stories adapted

Free-ranging dog

A free-ranging dog is any dog that is not contained. The term encompasses various loose categories relating to the ownership, behavior, and descent of such dogs, including wild dogs, feral dogs, stray dogs, street dogs, and village dogs, as well as dogs allowed to come and go freely by their owners. It sometimes overlaps with the polysemic term pariah dog. The term is used when distinctions of ownership are irrelevant. These dogs are put either in a pound or in a shelter.

Rural versus urban free-ranging dogs

Ecologists find it important at times to distinguish between urban free-ranging dogs and rural free-ranging dogs. The distinction can be important as the ecological impact of, and evolutionary pressures on, these groups can be quite different.

Village dogs

Rural free-ranging dogs that rarely if ever leave a settlement are called village dogs. They are considered neither wild nor feral, and have less impact on the surrounding ecosystem than other rural free-ranging dogs. They pose a different set of environmental pressures than feral or wild dogs, or even free-ranging farm dogs. Experts on the behavior of early and primitive dogs have also noted interesting physical and behavioral differences between village dogs and other more feral free-ranging dogs. For example, village dogs tend to be smaller and occur more often alone or in pairs.

Osamu Dazai

Osamu Dazai (太宰 治, Dazai Osamu, June 19, 1909 – June 13, 1948) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō and Ningen Shikkaku, are considered modern-day classics in Japan. With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai’s stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His books also bring about awareness to a number of important topics such as human nature, mental illness, social relationships, and postwar Japan.

One such literary work, Ningen Shikkaku, has received quite a few adaptations: a film directed by Genjiro Arato, the first four episodes of the anime series Aoi Bungaku, and a manga serialized in Shinchosha's Comic Bunch magazine. While Dazai continues to be widely celebrated in Japan, he remains relatively unknown in the United States with only a handful of his novels available in English.

Life and Career

Dazai was born Shūji Tsushima (津島修治, Tsushima Shūji), the eighth surviving child of a wealthy landowner in Kanagi, a remote corner of Japan at the northern tip of Tōhoku in Aomori Prefecture. He spent these early years in the Tsushima mansion with some thirty people. Despite coming from very humble beginnings, the Tsushima family quickly rose in power and after some time, became highly respected across the region. Dazai's father, Gen'emon Tsushima, became politically involved and was offered membership into the House of Peers. This made Dazai's father absent during much of his early childhood, and with his mother, Tane, chronically ill after having given birth to 11 children, Tsushima was brought up mostly by the family's servants.

Ango

An ango (安居), or kessei (結制), is a Japanese term for a three-month period of intense training for students of Zen Buddhism, lasting anywhere from 90 to 100 days. The practice during ango consists of meditation (zazen), study, and work (samu(作務)).

Ango is typically held twice a year, the first period from spring to summer and the second period from fall to winter. The word ango literally translates as "dwelling in peace"; the summer ango is referred to as ge-ango and the winter period is u-ango. Additionally, some monasteries and Zen centers hold just one ango per year.

Concerning Zen practice in the United States, author Ellen Birx writes,

See also

Notes

References