Anime Time for Women
The Wind that Skimmed the River's Surface
This is an announcement.
We will arrive at the terminus, Kanazawa.
We will shortly arrive at the terminus, Kanazawa.
Please exit to the right.
Please make sure you don't leave anything behind on the shelves and seats when you leave the train.
We will arrive at the terminus, Kanazawa.
In Kanazawa, two rivers flow at the eastern and western sides of the town.
The Saigawa River, which is said to be male,
and the Asanogawa River, which is said to be female.
To the Tokiwa Bridge, please.
Okay, the Tokiwa Bridge.
My parents' home is close to where the Tokiwa Bridge crosses the Asanogawa River.
The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water sprout.
Down came the rain, and washed the spi-
That's amazing, he can speak English.
We've been in America all this time as my husband works there...
Is that so...? Are you from around here?
My parents' home is...
So you're bringing their grandchild with you.
How long have you been away?
Yes, five years.
Kanazawa has changed, hasn't it?
The station has become splendid, right?
Speaking of which, recently...
After graduating from high school, I went to a university in Tokyo.
Breaking away from my parents' expectations, I got a job in Tokyo.
I was attached to the town called Kanazawa,
but the complications also bore the same weight.
I felt that I wouldn't be able to leave again if I returned.
How old are you?
Four years old.
He's lively.
I realised I was pregnant right after I married a colleague from the company I worked at...
...and was immediately transferred to America.
I felt discouraged,
but in the end, I gave birth there and stayed there without going home.
Though the Asanogawa River is sometimes called the Woman River,
it's associated to a girl living wildly somewhere.
But now, both banks are hardened by concrete,
and the flow of the river is controlled.
This river now has her blouse buttoned up to the collar, tightly against her neck.
I wonder if she's been tamed to simply be unrefined.
I'm home.
Ah, Noriko, welcome back.
You're Motoki? I'm your grandmother.
How nice of you to come.
Come in.
Want something to drink? Is juice okay?
Yeah.
Nothing has changed in this house.
The teapots inside the cupboards and the positions of the teacups were still the same.
He must be tired from the long trip.
He slept a little in the train, though.
Where's dad?
At the workshop.
There are two tea parties that overlap.
Seven years ago, Dad resigned from the old Japanese candy store where he had worked for a long time.
As the owner had passed away,
he left the shop where he first made Western candy,
and built his own workshop in the garden of the house.
A store without a sign out front where you can only make special orders.
Even so, he still stayed true to the traditional way of making candy.
There were quite a few people that favour the candy my dad makes.
He makes candy shaped like the autumn leaves.
This is the candy he was best at.
By kneading dried persimmons inside the red bean paste,
it has a unique sweet taste.
When I was a child, I thought my dad had magical fingers.
I watched as he seemingly made various beautifully-shaped candies appear out of nothing,
as if it were a miracle.
There was one other person...
...whom I believed to have magical fingers.
You're home, Noriko?
I'm home.
Where's Motoki?
Sorry, he's tired, so he's sleeping.
I'll make him greet you properly later.
I see.
I prepared some of your favourite Kurikintsuba.
Really?
I'm almost finished with these.
Can you prepare some tea?
Okay.
Don't go.
I gazed. Somewhere in his skillfully moving fingertips,
kneading read bean paste into spheres,
was a memory of disgust.
I was always gazing.
The summer after I entered high school,
I started to work at the store where my dad was working.
Noriko-chan, can you get kuzu manju from the back?
Okay.
Dad, where are the kuzu manjus?
Over there.
I met my old classmate from junior high school, Hisao, again at the candy shop.
I couldn't immediately recall his name.
Could it be you two went to the same junior high school?
Did you? Hisao.
Sort of.
I don't know!
How cute.
In junior high, Hisao was a student who didn't stand out.
He always looked uninterested.
Almost as if it was too troublesome to have emotions.
Hisao came from an institution that handled children who couldn't live with their parents for whatever reason.
Because of that, he didn't continue school,
and learned by watching the craftsmen make candy.
I only talked to Hisao once during that summer vacation.
Did... the kuzu manjus sell today?
Everything was sold...
Why?
Nothing.
That evening I heard from my dad...
...that Hisao made the red bean paste for the kuzu manju today.
That was the first time I realised that was his smile.
I see... don't overdo it.
Nothing you can do about it, it's your job.
I'm sorry.
You just returned home and I'm just being noisy.
You should just take it easy. It's been a while.
How's Motoki? I see.
I'll call again.
When will Masayuki-san be coming here?
I'm not sure.
He might not even be able to come, as he's says he's loaded with work.
What?
You're using the local dialect.
Your sister's family has also come.
Eat as much as you want.
You like Tainokaramushi right?
All the things that Noriko likes.
You went all out didn't you, Mum.
Wow, what a feast!
I'm digging in!
You're such a polished girl, Noriko-chan.
What do you want to eat, Motoki?
Kintsubo.
You already ate that.
I want to eat more.
I see. Were the kintsubo your grandfather made good?.
Yeah.
Eat some of the things your grandmother made as well.
Now then, don't hold back and eat as much as you want.
You were in America, Motoki-chan?
Can you speak English?
How old are you?
Four!
Ah, he understood it!
As expected from my daughter!
Hey, what did he say?
That he's four years old.
Happiness was taking it's most understandable form and spreading right before my eyes.
What kind of expression would they make if I tell them now that I want to divorce my husband?
Come play at our house too.
Okay.
Nothing has been cleaned up inside the house though. It's sloppy.
Young girls long for nice western clothes in the city.
Is hoping to catch a guy with good conditions such a foolish thing?
When I was young, it was my pride to have a pretty and intelligent older sister.
But when she went to university, got a job and married in the home town,
she became more and more of an ordinary girl.
Such that you wouldn't even notice her if you passed her in town.
My being similar to my sister was only imagination.
Let's leave this town.
My determination was slowly increasing.
I continued to work at the candy shop until my final year of high school.
Hisao was gradually getting better at making candy.
Even so, his reputation was far from good.
It's because he isn't really sociable.
He's somehow hard to approach.
It's a little difficult to work with him.
He didn't know even one trick to be loved by someone.
Rather, he looked like he preferred not to be loved.
How pretty.
Hisao made these.
Eh? Hisao did? It's hard to tell.
He's getting better and better.
Sometimes his fingers captured my gaze.
Unlike my dad's, his fingers, like those of a delicate girl who doesn't stand out,
flexibly and subtly continued creating shapes.
When that happened,
I felt my will collapsing, and a sense of defeat spread deep in my body.
As I had hoped, I would enter a university in Tokyo,
and the last day of my three years at the candy shop came.
Here.
What's this?
Try it for me.
Ah!
How is it?
What is this?
I'm asking whether it's good or bad.
It's delicious.
The red bean paste isn't sweet. Potato?
No, it's something more refreshing.
I used a lily bulb.
A lily bulb?
I was told by the master to try to create something new.
By my dad?
Yeah.
It's good, really!
I see...
You'll be going to a university in Tokyo?
Yeah.
The wind that skimmed the river's surface carried the mellow fragrance of summer.
The air was suffocating and thick with tension,
almost enough to stop you in your tracks.
Feeling like something troublesome would happen if I stopped moving my feet,
I earnestly continued walking.
It was after starting the life I had longed for overseas...
...that I started feeling something like a distortion in the life with my husband.
While wavering in the life I couldn't get used to,
we realized that we had lost interest in each other.
My husband lusted after his work as one would lust over a woman,
and I only cared about my son and my appetite for food.
Sneaking out of bed at night,
I would eat and vomit over and over again.
Whether my husband had noticed it or not, he didn't say anything.
Going out in the wide world, working, marrying,
I was supposed to have accomplished it all...
Mama.
Yeah, it seems like a cat came again.
The kitchen is in bad shape. We'll be taking a walk.
We'll be taking a walk.
Mum. That must've been a raccoon, a raccoon!
For you, mama.
Thanks.
Motoki, we'll be taking a taxi, okay?
Where are we going?
There's someone I want to see.
Five years ago, before going to America, thinking I'd at least be dutiful to my parents,
I stayed at my parents house the three months before the wedding.
It was by chance that I met Hisao.
Ah.
It's been a while.
It's really been a while... Ten years?
So it's here.
I heard from my dad that you started your own shop.
Yeah. There was someone who funded it.
A senior from the institution that raised me...
Welcome.
Hmm... Kingyoku. In a box, please. A big one.
Yes.
Thank you very much.
You've become quite sociable.
That's because it's a service business.
What about "that"?
"That"?
The manju you made using a lily bulb.
Ah, I stopped.
I see.
Want to try it?
Eh?
Kingyoku.
I'll buy it.
I only slept once with Hisao.
Five years ago. It was raining that day too.
The wedding was getting closer,
and I somehow remembered his white slender fingers.
I want to sleep with you.
Will my room be okay?
It's okay like this.
Don't go!
Don't go.
It's been a while.
Yeah.
Visiting your parents?
Sort of.
Your son?
Yeah he is.
Where's your greeting, Motoki?
Hello.
He resembles you.
I'm often told that.
What about you?
I have a daughter who'll soon be one year old.
I see, you've married?
Two years ago, to the daughter of the person who funded this store.
Congratulations.
Thanks.
How old are you?
He's three years old.
Three years old.
I see, three years old. He's big.
I have to go.
Ah, wait up.
Kingyoku. The ones you like.
Sorry.
It's okay.
Tell your parents I said hi and that I'm sorry that I haven't visited in a long time.
I'll take them then.
Eh?
Ah, no... you're... happy, right?
Yeah, totally.
If I had followed the words "Don't go" back then,
I wonder what kind of life I would have.
What good is a life that starts with "If...".
I'm right here and Motoki is next to me.
Hey, Mama.
What is it?
You made a mistake a while ago.
In what?
I'm not three years old, I'm four.
Ah, you're right. I made a mistake. Sorry.
Motoki resembles me. No one says he resembles my husband.
Motoki is not suited to be a boy.
He's slender and has slim fingers.
Let's eat the candy.
Yeah!