In the contemporary society, manga or the Japanese visual novels became an integral part of propagating Japanese culture to broad audiences. The 1990s sparked an immense distribution of Japanese animation throughout the world. Even so, the manga published by the Japanese companies such as Shueisha and Kodansha became a high-valued commodity for all the ‘otaku’ fans in Japan and abroad. With the advent of the internet in the 2000s, these mangas became widely distributed amongst websites and even downloadable through scanlations made by the fans. One of the best mangas known throughout the world was the Rurouni Kenshin or Samurai X in the Western edition. It was a visual novel created by Nobuhiro Watsuki in the 1994 consisting of 28 volumes detailing themes about atonement, friendship, historical events, and subtle underrated romance between the characters.
Labeled under the chanbara genre this manga was aimed at the shonen demography or young boy’s aged 7-15 yet one vital aspect of the story that makes it unique from its counterparts and even in historical setting was the adaption of matriarchy and male domesticity. The manga was indeed a gender bender in a sense that most of the characters seemed to be more advanced in their time due to the nature of their actions and behaviors. Although the male leads emphasize stronger attributes such as power, speed, intelligence, and domination, to those who have read the manga will see differences in the way characters behave according to their respective genders. In this series, the male protagonist Himura Kenshin also known as the Hitokiri Battousai (Battousai the Manslayer) was a 28-year old rurouni (wandering swordsman) who slashed the corrupt Tokugawa regime through the Bakumatsu and served as the vanguard of the Meiji period. He harbors a dark and violent past, having worked as an assassin for the Ishin Shishi patriots, he murdered many people leaving countless deaths in his wake. After the rebellious phase of the Tokugawa regime in 1868, he wandered throughout Japan for ten years to atone for his crimes as a manslayer. After ten years, he meets Kamiya Kaoru, the young owner of the Kamiya dojo and the current heir of the katsujinken sword style called Kamiya Kasshin Ryu or the sword that revitalizes. Throughout the series, the two befriends former fighter for hire and a former member of the Sekihotai, Sagara Sanosuke, former opium dealer, Takani Megumi, and lastly, the former pick-pocket for the Shuei yakuza syndicate, Myojin Yahiko. In the story, the author features Kenshin as a humble and warm swordsman and mostly seen doing household chores around the Kamiya dojo. Although he claims to do these things mainly to help out Kaoru and to repay his stay in her dojo, it does not change the fact that this manga was actually promoting feminism quite subtly despite the violent sword battles.
Linking Yukiko Tanaka’s criticism against the Tokugawa regime to this manga, some information from Rurouni Kenshin’s narrative remains true to history and was not only imagined by the author to gain popularity of the female readers. In fact, opposed to the widely known belief, the Meiji period was actually empowering to the women community due to the government created institutions to promote female education as well as improve the rights of the women which had been once ignored during the Tokugawa period. In her narrative, it was part of the Japanese culture to model womenfolk as subordinates to the male sexes partly because of the strong Confucian influences on the Japanese culture. According to the Confucian beliefs, women were highly discouraged and forbidden to join or have any involvement on politics and other matters in the society; the society regarded them as weak and stupid due to their nature, yet the women back then were expected manage the family finances and make sure that everything will remain in control. (Tanaka ix-xii). In this respect, the Japanese women in the late 19th century fit Dickens’ description of a role woman: “ministering angel of domestic bliss.” (Dickens 440). However, what the Rurouni Kenshin provides the modern audiences was Japan’s transition from a feudal country to a modern society as it is now. Just like the female protagonist, Kamiya Kaoru, women in the Meiji period had the chance of acquiring a property of their own through inheritance. In the story, when Kaoru’s father died in the Seinan Wars, the young woman immediately became the sole owner of the kenjutsu dojo. Despite the lingering patriarchy, the fall of the Tokugawas gave rise to a small scale matriarchal domination of women especially in household; women can own their properties, education to model women as yamato nadeshiko, a flower native in Japan symbolizing the traits a woman should possess, a good housewife and mother. Tanaka’s criticism also emphasized that in spite of the minimal liberties given by the government to the women, she argues that the women’s rights were still subdued by the males.
“Under the Meiji law codes, women were once again allowed to own property but were still subject to the family head.” (Tanaka xi).
Thus, the introduction of Himura Kenshin in the story completes the lack of supervising male character over Kaoru. Right after the wanderer saved her from death and possible rape from her father’s former student, Kaoru invites Kenshin to stay at the dojo as thanks since the swordsman seemed poor to rent an inn. In the manga and anime, this set-up appeals to the younger viewers as a rather friendly gesture of acceptance on Kaoru’s part; however, considering that the story was set in the Meiji Japan, Kenshin’s presence on the Kamiya dojo together with the addition of Sagara Sanosuke and Myojin Yahiko was a perfect example of Tanaka’s argument about women’s right to own property. Since Kaoru’s father died from war, the three males acted like her guardian and therefore, becoming part of the family head and eventually supervisors of the dojo. In addition, Kaoru and Megumi’s character does not fall within the Meiji period’s ideal woman; Kaoru works as a kendo instructor and considered one of the best martial arts teacher in Tokyo. On the other hand, Megumi’s family educated her in line of their family tradition of engaging into medicine. For their time, the characters of both Kaoru and Megumi can be seen as enlightened and advanced since Japanese women at that time had only limited educational and work opportunities unlike today. The implementation of The Fundamental Code of Education in 1872 had provided women with opportunities of gaining education however, with limitations on the subjects being taught. Two Meiji era schools established are the Tokyo Women's Normal School (1875) and the Meiji Women's College created in 1855 with the goals of educating women in the fields of home economics, English literature, and Japanese language. (Kiguchi 136-137). No woman practiced medicine like Megumi had ever practiced nor admitted as a doctor who practices the profession in the medical field. There was no woman in Meiji Japan that was like Kaoru who studied swordsmanship and works as a teacher educating males about the Kamiya Kasshin-Ryu. In this aspect, the manga becomes overly exaggerated in portraying women as capable female creatures since most of the jobs and education available for females were only limited to housework. Other female characters in the manga seemed rather more successful in life as opposed to the male characters in the story that seemed to rely much on the power of their female counterparts. Like for example, both the characters of Kenshin and Sano are seen by the majority of the fans as one of the strongest in the series, of course without the presence of Saito Hajime and Shinomori Aoshi. Yet they remain indebted as freeloader to Kaoru and Megumi who seemed to be both the providers of food and shelter to these men. Again, it was due to these aspects that manga fails to address the actual life situation of the respective genders; the manga greatly contrasts the reality since the men were nothing more than freeloaders without steady source of income. The characters of Sano and Kenshin fall from what was expected by the Meiji society from men. According to Ueno, in the Meiji period, women tend to remain and spend their lives working inside the house, building family, and taking care of the children. It was the males’ duty to have a job and provide the family with food on the table and income (cited from Tamari 9). In other words, despite their skill in fighting and intelligence, Kenshin and Sano when placed on the historical context, their characters fail to comply on the society’s expectations especially in the case of Kenshin who serves as a housemaid for the Kamiya dojo. In the manga, Kaoru embodies more male traits unlike Kenshin. The ideal woman in the Japanese society knows basic household chores and Kaoru never knew how to cook; Kenshin on the other hand, have a talent in cooking and doing the laundry. The ideal man is the one who can provide income and not the other way around. In other words, the characters of Rurouni Kenshin falls within the category of gender bender since the characters act different from what was expected of them by the audience. However, in Algoso’s essay, she argued that the existence of such arrangement was actually a response to the growing modernism in Japan. Therefore, the concept of sticking to the assigned tasks according to gender was no longer important in the Meiji period due to adoption of the philosophy called “han’in’nyo”, which explains the characters neutral attitude towards their respective tasks in the manga. Algoso notes that this pertains to the “intersexuality” became a common set-up to the rapid industrialization of Japan in the Meiji period. (Algoso 241-242). White also explained the situation of the family and women in the late 19th century Japan and the changes in family and gender tasks assignment was largely due to the Meiji Civil Code of 1898 a law that allows women to work in order to help their family; gone were the times confined in the houses. (132). Alongside modernism, women and men switched roles and went pragmatically depending on who have the capacity to work. In the case of Rurouni Kenshin, the male leads’ skills as swordsman were no longer needed in the peaceful Meiji era, in this respect; the switch on roles assigned to a specific gender becomes the role of the other enabling Kaoru to complete her duty both as a kendo teacher and a provider of income to the Kamiya dojo.
As a conclusion, the Rurouni Kenshin was a manga that was both historical and gender bender at the same time. The occasional matriarchal hints subtly embedded in the manga and anime provides the modern views with an opportunity to mock the patriarchal society of Japan and lift the role of women more than as weak creatures of the society.
WORKS CITED
Algoso, Teresa A. “Not Suitable as a Man? Conscription, Masculinity, and Hermaphroditism in Early Twentieth Century Japan.” Recreating Japanese Men. Eds. Sabine Fruhstuck and Anne Walthall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Web. Google Book.
Dickens, Charles. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. N.p: Accessible Publishing Systems, 2008. Web. Google Book.
Kiguchi, Junko. “Japanese Women’s Rights at the Meiji Era.” (n.d.): 133-146. Web. Soka University. Accessed 21 Apr. 2016. PDF File.
Tamari, Tomoko. The Meanings of Cookery: Everyday Life and Aesthetics in Meiji Japan. Diss. University of London, 2013. Web. Goldsmiths University of London
Tanaka, Yukiko. “Introduction.” This Kind of Woman: Ten Stories by Japanese Women Writers, 1960-1976. Trans. and Eds.: Yukiko Tanaka and Elizabeth Hanson. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982. Print.
White, Merry. “Change and Diversity in the Japanese Family.” Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society. Eds. Victoria Lyon-Bestor, Theodore C. Bestor, and Akiko Yamagata. Oxford: Routledge, 2011. Web. Google Book.
