Reading Week 12: Jun'Ichiro, Part X


Jun'Ichiro:

- 1886 to 1965
- Published his final novel at seventy six years old
- Born to a merchant family in the commercial quarter of Tokyo
- As a young adult he wrote "demonic" fiction, called so because of its focus on topics such as sexual obsessions and sadomasochism. These brought him fame and money, so he moved into a luxurious Western style home that even had electricity. Would later write negatively about Japan being obsessed with the West and forgetting their customs, perhaps because he experienced it himself.

The Tattooer:

- One of Jun'Ichiro's early "demonic" stories
- The story is about a masterful tattoo artist named Seikichi who has a secret fetish, he loves the pain he gets to inflict on people when they get tattoos from him
- Comments on beauty culture and how people are willing to endure pain in the name of looking good
- Seikichi becomes obsessed with finding the perfect woman to tattoo
- He one day catches a glimpse of a woman's foot and he knows that's the woman he wants to tattoo and becomes fixated on finding her
- She ends up coming to him as a delivery girl. He takes her up to his studio to show her a painting of a princess torturing people and tells her she is like the princess. She denies it at first but then admits she is also a sadist.
- He gives her a tattoo that he pours his soul into, to "transform" her into what he sees as beautiful
- The tattoo is of a spider, likely symbolic of the coldness and cruelty associated with spiders, and how they need to kill to survive.
- When it's over she has changed, and intends to make the tattooer her first victim. He begs to see that tattoo once more (the implication may be "once more before she kills him") and she agrees. When she does, the sun hits in a way that makes the spider look like it's on fire, symbolizing the fire that has been ignited within her.

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