TOKAGE // CURRENT STATUS

Last updated on December 25, 2009
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º 5 June 2009 // Tokage is opened for fans of Banana Yoshimoto's Lizard to join.

     THE BOOK

Lizard, translated as Tokage in Japanese, takes its title from one of the six [6] short stories in this collection penned by Banana Yoshimoto. The other five stories are Newlywed, Helix, Dreaming of Kimchee, Blood and Water, and A Strange Tale from Down by the River.

Newlywed is about a young newly-married man’s journey in a train. Aboard the commuter system and already past his stop towards home, he meets a mysterious woman who raises questions about his relationship with his wife. It was only then that he had come to accept the he would never fully understand the woman he married.

Lizard, the title story, is about the relationship of a young child psychologist and an aerobics-instructress-turned-acupuncture-whiz. The latter is Lizard, a woman whose life was once blighted by blindness and carried around enough emotional baggage that could only be slowly unloaded when she healed people through her magic touch. She and the psychologist share a very strong bond: Loneliness amidst working with people every day.

Helix is another short relationship story, about how love and hate and contempt could merge into one when a man and a woman know each other so well that words were meant to disguise and not express feelings. Narrated the male writer character: "I had the unusual sensation of having grasped her entire personality in that single expression." They both had to take another step forward.

Dreaming of Kimchee (kimchee is a Korean delicacy, pickles smothered with cabbage and garlic) was a rather unusual perspective of extramarital affairs. This time, the mistress narrates the story, from how she felt exempt from the fact that married man do not leave their wives for their mistresses to why she was not feeling any guilt at her position. In the end, the guy left his wife for her.

A Strange Tale from Down by the River was a study in contrasts. The woman in the story [later known as Akemi] started out as wildly erotic bisexual. She confesses: "It was when I came down with a liver infection that I had to quit going to the sex parties." Later, she meets a rich young man with no ambition but falls for him--at the funeral of the guy’s own father. When she lives with him at a riverside apartment preparing for their wedding, ghosts of her past begin to catch up. In the end, what mattered was true contentment that only hope could give.

In Blood and Water, Chikako leaves the Esoteric Buddhism [a religious sect] settlement where she had been raised by her parents and starts a faster, modern life in Tokyo. There she meets Akira, a strange young man who could make amulets that had healing powers, and eventually falls in love with him. The tale throbs with sadness and foreboding, a realization that even the most powerful emotions could not bind people together forever.

     V.1.MIDORI

Version One of Tokage features a simple layout with a black and green digital-crystals backdrop. This spread makes extensive use div HTML tags and various shades of green/mint against a black background. It was created with the idea of having an impression of the reptilian spikes, in allusion to the theme "lizard."

The design title is Nihonggo or Japanese for "green," which is the current dominant color. Layout pieced together using Adobe Photoshop. HTML coded with Notepad.