Another bullet just for ammo's sake

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

-          James Thurber

If Masuji Ono were anything other than an artist, the ramifications of his actions and possibly even influence, would be taken into more careful consideration by those so greatly affected.

The fact remains however, that we aren’t dealing with a Hitler or a Zedong or even a Castro, were dealing with Ono, who by no means is as big as he was ever magnified to be. He was a simple yet very talented artist of the floating world who through his talent attributed to the idea of Japan’s imperialistic ventures, but by no means led them.

I think the entire time we are reading and skipping back and forth through his memory, we’re learning about him by having to piece memory together the strands and afterthoughts of his earlier years. How he was swept into the rush of ideas and emotion of the war, how he felt he came to the aid of the lower social class, even how he was looking to mold his pupils despite having no notion of sense in the global scheme of things.

As he reflects on his past transgressions I think it’s obvious he admits to them and faces the truth of it all. During his Miai he touches on pointes about his past not even his daughter Noriko had seemed to hear about before. He showed remorse that although his intentions were true, they were never misleading in his eyes. Ono was never looking for self-gratification or personal advancements within the risks of war; he was convinced by Matsuda that is was the most credible means for sustainability for Japan.

He even reaches out to Kuroda as an attempt to create an understanding between the both of them. The problem was Ono never really understood his own actions towards Kuroda. He mentioned to the commission that someone should speak to Kuroda about the movement just to make sure he was on board. What that means especially in a state-of-war is you’re either with us or against us. But the fact that Ono was even oblivious to that notion shows us we weren’t dealing with a political leader or even a genius of his time. We were reading about a simple vibrant young artist who wanted to be significant in his lifetime maybe because he wasn’t significant enough as a child to his father by becoming an artist.

He faces the truth the whole time in the book, the changes within his pleasure district, the arrival of western influences, the changes within family outlook such as Suichi having a negative possibly traumatic outlook on the decisions about war. All of those are the product of his past transgressions because if the war had been won, would everyone still have the same attitude and demeanor they had then?

Ono isn’t a man living in denial, he is a man who finally at the end feels the weight of acceptance thrust on him, the only problem is it seems he never really ended up understanding that he only had a minute role in the war amongst hundreds of other artists. And being of old age when the war was over, there wasn’t any more progressing left to do for him, only reflection.