Long before Twin Peaks, Dallas and The X-Files came along to disrupt
Japanese watching schedules, the country had its own mega-series that brought daily
business to a halt and collected families, offices and baseball teams around the TV. It
was called O-Shin, and it was the long epic saga of a hardworking young peasant girl in
early 20th century Japan. O-Shin goes off to the city and becomes a slavey in a rich
household. She's despised and ill-treated as both a lower class servant and a woman, and
her life continues to be one of hardship and suffering even after she's married and
becomes a mother. Boy did O-Shin suffer. And the viewers lapped it up like custard. No,
don't ask me why. Never ask why. Maybe the Japanese are sadists who like to watch people
suffering. Maybe they're masochists who like to identify with people who are suffering.
Maybe they compare their currently unenviable lifestyle with O-Shin's virtual slavery and
feel better because their grandparents had it worse than them. Maybe they look at O-Shin's
virtual slavery and compare it with their unenviable but accustomed lifestyle and feel
smug at how far they've come. Maybe they just like to see people going around
bearing the unbearable, like they do: life as usual. I wouldn't know. I'm not Japanese.
But I was reminded of O-Shin when reading West End.
The O-Shin stand-ins in West End are the 'biological
androids', the demis. (The term jinzou ningen- man-made
human- changes meaning according to circumstance. It can be a mechanical android or a
biologically constructed being. The demis are the latter, but though humanoid their
biological roots don't seem to be human. They're made from something physically unstable
that melts into liquid if it doesn't ingest stabilizing drugs at regular intervals. Human
flesh and bone don't do that.) The demis come in two varieties, one of which seems to be a
demi of all work, the other of which is a highclass pet a la Ai no Kusabi.
It's unknown whether the demis exist to be sex partners to their owners or whether the
poor demis you see just happen to be used that way, and it doesn't really matter. The
demis' real purpose is to suffer for the readers' pleasure. The authors say as much at the
end of vol.1. This work has two themes, the afterword says, and one is 'ijime'- a term
that covers a wealth of unpleasant things from bullying to mistreatment to
straightforward torture. Yaoi version naturally includes rape. All of them happen in West
End.
Nora in her review gives the common western
reaction to all this: annoyance. 'The sheer pathos of the Demiuris became frustrating
after a while.' Faced with suffering, westerners demand that people do something,
if only killing themselves when it turns out there's nothing to do. (Faced with suffering,
the Japanese practise gaman and shinbou, those two varieties of patience that get you
through everything from Tokyo rush hour to the Kobe earthquake.) It's natural to get
impatient with endless suffering if endless suffering isn't your kink, but our reaction
reminds me of a German guy I knew in Tokyo to whom I lent some Eroica slash stories.
Helmut returned them to me in agitation. 'Don't these writers realize men can be friends
and not want to have sex?!' Naturally, I said, but the point of the slash exercise is that
the guys do have sex. He didn't see it. Not his kink. The point of the West End
exercise is that Tonami, the main demi character, suffers worse than O-Shin. Not my kink
either.
disrupt
Japanese watching schedules, the country had its own mega-series that brought daily
business to a halt and collected families, offices and baseball teams around the TV. It
was called O-Shin, and it was the long epic saga of a hardworking young peasant girl in
early 20th century Japan. O-Shin goes off to the city and becomes a slavey in a rich
household. She's despised and ill-treated as both a lower class servant and a woman, and
her life continues to be one of hardship and suffering even after she's married and
becomes a mother. Boy did O-Shin suffer. And the viewers lapped it up like custard. No,
don't ask me why. Never ask why. Maybe the Japanese are sadists who like to watch people
suffering. Maybe they're masochists who like to identify with people who are suffering.
Maybe they compare their currently unenviable lifestyle with O-Shin's virtual slavery and
feel better because their grandparents had it worse than them. Maybe they look at O-Shin's
virtual slavery and compare it with their unenviable but accustomed lifestyle and feel
smug at how far they've come. Maybe they just like to see people going around
demis. (The term jinzou ningen- man-made
human- changes meaning according to circumstance. It can be a mechanical android or a
biologically constructed being. The demis are the latter, but though humanoid their
biological roots don't seem to be human. They're made from something physically unstable
that melts into liquid if it doesn't ingest stabilizing drugs at regular intervals. Human
flesh and bone don't do that.) The demis come in two varieties, one of which seems to be a
demi of all work, the other of which is a highclass pet a la Ai no Kusabi.