Asia Times: NIPPON: Plot of a generic oriental potboiler novel


	April 6, 2000	atimes.com

Japan

NIPPON
Plot of a generic oriental potboiler novel
By Masuo Kamiyama

1. An unhyphenated American, Japanese or Japanese-American falls victim to a horrible crime in Los Angeles. The solution appears to be found in a cryptic message wrapped together with a samurai sword; Satsuma vase; netsuke; ancient scroll; jade amulet; sushi roll; or __ (please fill in the blank).

2. Knowing nothing whatsever about the Far East aside from use of chopsticks and speaking not one word of Japanese, the book's hero boards a plane for Haneda (if after 1977) or Narita (if before 1977) confident that he can succeed where professional law enforcement agencies failed in tracking down the culprit.

3. He calls on the US Embassy and is given a full briefing by the ambassador, one of the attaches or the CIA station chief. The briefing serves the purpose of telling the reader that Japan is a v-e-r-y complicated place, but gives the book's hero virtually no usuable information. In parting, he is warned by the embassy person to look out for Mr So and-So, who oversees 1) a huge manufacturing conglomerate; 2) a huge trading conglomerate; or 3) a huge crime syndicate.

4. Knowing in advance he can expect no cooperation from Japanese policemen, he goes to trace the sole clue, which is a matchbook from a bar in Tokyo's sleaziest bar district, Kabukicho.

5. While walking down a dark alleyway in Kabukicho, he is roughed up by several former sumo wrestlers and warned to ''leave Japan'' by the conveyance of his choice.

6. The hero is helped by a Japanese woman either of mixed ancestry, Ainu or former untouchable class, who hates her country for its rejection of her and wants to get back by helping a foreigner thwart the villain.

7. Later the hero meets a beautiful policewoman who initiates him the proper method of conjugal bathing. While she was sent to seduce him on the orders of her superior, she falls in love with the American and reveals what she knows about the crime and the people behind it. She killed in a shootout at the end of the book and dies in his arms.

8. Something violent happens on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) en route to the Osaka-Kyoto area.

9. A wild altercation occurs on the grounds of a shrine, a temple or a garden.

10. A man with a shaved head and robes of a Buddhist priest makes an appearance and reveals the solution to the entire mystery. He turns out to be another American who was once a US Air Force officer; CIA spy; Yakuza godfather or __ (fill in the blank), but gave up his life of testosterone-dominated aggression to achieve enlightenment.

11. At the end of the story the American departs with wallet and seminal vesicules empty, leaving the Japanese behind wallowing in their giri-ninjo (philosophy of relationships and obligations) while the situation remains hopelessly complicated and unresolved.

Note: All of the above must be in the story or the publisher will reject it out of hand for being too unreal.

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