| Summary/Abstract |
Kyokutei Bakin’s epic novel Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (Chronicle of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi Clan of Nansō; 106 volumes, 1814–42) tells of the adventures of eight human warriors who inherit the spirit of a mysterious dog. Popular during its own day, it has enjoyed countless retellings on the stage, screen, and page. This article compares the shifting representations of dog–human interactions in Bakin’s text with its antecedents in Chinese legend and Japanese folktales, and with two recent retellings: Sakuraba Kazuki’s novel Fuse: Gansaku Satomi Hakkenden (Fuse: A Counterfeit Chronicle of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi Clan, 2010) and its animated-film adaptation, Fuse: Teppō musume no torimonochō (Fuse: A Tale of a Girl with a Hunting Gun, dir. Miyaji Masayuki, 2012). Contemporary retellings confirm the cultural staying power of the strange tradition of stories about marriages between humans and dogs. In the film adaptation, some of Sakuraba’s more imaginative twists on animal–human relationships have been supplanted by global young-adult-fiction conventions such as ‘beastly’ boys and girls who save them. This is a return to the holy bride of Bakin’s novel and the self-sacrificing animal wives of other folktales.
|