|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Notes on Giniro (Silver)
By: Michelle Rogers
So opens this soft and beautiful visual novel of a game. Sadness, inevitability, fate, love, the passion of a captured moment, the eternity of things around us and in ourselves... these are the themes played out in NekoNeko Soft's offering. Before reading further, note that spoilers will abound. My interpretation of themes and symbols in the game will follow the story summary.
The Story
Traditionally, for many of us bedside stories consisted of a favorite children's book or a fairy tale. The structure of Giniro uses a frame-story (ie a story within a story), too as the opening narrates, we will be given a story of long ago, a history to lead us to events of the present. The game is divided into four stories or four sections and inbetween these we are treated to another story that is told in pieces between these. All of them are connected, even the characters themselves, by a piece of silver string, by a fate threaded together over time stretching before them and into a future they don't see.
The story begins with a blue-haired girl, Isuna, and her traveling companion, a nobleman named Kuze who must hide a string of silver. The legend of the string states that it can grant any wish, but the wish comes with a price, as to keep the balance with nature, a life must be given in exchange. The conversation takes place beside a river where irises grow. Cut to story one.
A girl with hair the color of moonlight and eyes blue like water lives in a village of prostitutes. She has no name. No one ever gave her one. She was simply found one day and brought to this place to live out whatever was left of her life. If she lives no one would care, if she dies no one would notice. For her life is empty, dark but for the fireflies and moonlight. She spends much time sleeping and looking at the irises that grow on the embankment of the river. Irises she has come to love very much. Irises and moonlight.
A girl shares this life with her, Hotaru ("firefly"). The girl with no name and Hotaru both love the moon. But one day Hotaru takes her life, she doesn't like what it has been and she does not want to continue on the path of such a life. Alone, the girl looks at the moon one night and follows it, wishing she could reach it. This leads her to a thief and murderer, Gisuke. His life hasn't been much better, his family died before his eyes from the plague as a child, and he even had to bury his father alive for the sake of the village. Now he kills the weak and steals food to live, indifferent and cold to a life he too has found cruel and empty. The two travel together. Life is hard and tragedy strikes them both. He for the lifestyle he's lived, she for leaving her village and from poor health. As she's dying, before death made no difference, but in her companion she found a reason to live. Something "light" in all the dark that surrounded her. She holds a red thread, wishing it was the silver one of legend so her wish could have been granted. It glows in her hand. Wounded from men who are after them both, he returns to her, saddened he holds her in the snow and names her Ayame ("iris") after the flowers she loved. The lie together dead in the snow and only the iris in full-bloom is left.
The second story revolves around Sagiri (a miko) and Yorihito (a nobleman in disguise). The temple where the story is set is dedicated to the God of the Mountain, because it was around there that iron ore found and supported the village. He stays with her and her father while he sketches a map and works on an agenda of his own. He doesn't really notice her much, though he speaks with her a little each day, until he sees her with hair blowing on the wind amidst the field of rape blossoms. Overtime the yellow blossoms remind him of her, and he notices that their cheerfulness mirror his growing pleasure at seeing her. She is like the blossoms he thinks. Each night he hears the haunting music of a koto (a Japanese harp-like instrument). He learns it is Sagiri; her music is stimulated by the moonlight she plays by and the sound is carried to the garden and mountains. But the sound is sad as well. She says it is because there is sadness in the instrument itself, "The koto which couldn't play it's own part was pitiful." She had found it stored away and abandoned.
Meanwhile, we learn ten years ago there was a flood; this was also the time Sagiri came to reside at the shrine. The project is revealed to be a dam for the river. But as old legends of rivers go, the villagers want to sacrifice someone (marry them) to the river god to ensure the stability and peace for the river. He learns the sacrifice is to be her of her own choosing (she wanted to play her part, no one ever thought her worth anything). The last night she plays the koto for him, in the moonlight one of the strings is lit by the light. Only one, and it is beautiful, the one string the color of silver. Her wish is for the village to live in happiness, and her only wish for herself, to have his love. She is love itself. And he realizes he loves her. She shows him his own tear, a proof that he has learned to love because of her and her selflessness.
The story ends again, in tragedy and she ultimately throws herself into the river to calm the storm and waters. This brings us back to the point with Kuze and Isuna. They go to a cave and while he wants to seal it away, she wants to use it to save people.
Story three... Sasai Asana ("dawn/morning") and Yuna ("night/evening") are two sisters left to run the family restaurant at their parents' death. Asana is the younger and wants to be just like her elder sister. She is the dearest thing in the world to her. Asana's other prized possession is a keepsake left to her by her mother (her sister doesn't know about it), a silver necklace with a white stone which her mother told her could grant any wish if used well and wisely. Asana's regret is she didn't use it to save her mother, but hopes somehow she will be able to at least help her sister. Yuna has made the restaurant her life. As the older one, she feels a duty to protect and to carry the weight of her sister's well-being and the business. While she doesn't always speak of it much, it has been a great burden on her emotionally.
One day a man comes to the restaurant, Shiro Nabeshima. Asana thinks if she can just bring him and Yuna together, the two could fall in love and Yuna could be happy. Yuna would then have more help, and Yuna would have something for herself. Every night Asana prays over the necklace for this, makes her wish. But gradually, the plan doesn't work. Asana finds herself falling in love with Shiro, and worse Yuna learns of all this and feels betrayed. All her stress and hurt turn to cruelity and she works to hurt Shiro and Asana. She learns of the necklace and wishes over it for selfish things. The situation gets so bad, that secretly both are wishing for their own death in hopes of bringing some kind of salvaging happiness to the other. Asana thinks she would do anything to bring back the loving, kind sister she knew, even trade her life for this. Yuna meanwhile, must see what's become of herself and worse how she's hurt the one person left she loves, and secretly has a wish of her own death for release which she says nothing of until the end. Shiro catches Yuna strangling Asana, and without thinking stabs her. As Yuna dies, she looks peaceful and happy at last, she says her one wish was for Asana and him to be happy, for them to take care of restaurant. Asana's wish had been for Yuna to find contentment again. Both wishes are granted.
[Note: the names of the sisters are significant. They are two sides of the same. One doesn't exist without the other. Asana says to Yuna at one point, "We are sisters and the fetter can't be shaken." This is true not just for their bond, but is a theme of the game as a whole. There is no dark without light, there isn't happiness without sorrow.]
Back to the frame story, Isuna and Kuze were attacked. Isuna is killed and Kuze knowing the price of the string and his wish, wants her to live. It glows and her eyes open, he decides he will carry the curse for it even to Hell if he must.
Story four begins... This is an important story. Not only because it is the final one, but for it's structure and its purpose. Two stories take place simultaneously, and certain points of both narratives will mirror each other as they are taking place. One is the story that tells how the string came to be, and the other is the story that takes place in the present, the end journey of the string and the tie-together of the fates of all who have been connected by it. This forms a kind of narrative circle, and gives a sense of timelessness. All these lives are connected, those before the present, and those that will come in the future.
In the past, Sir Taira is brought in to save a country from the drought killing the land and people. His clan has a secret, a secret that tells how to create the silver string that can grant any wish. Taira retreats to a cottage, working each day to complete the string. But he's not alone, a girl keeps visiting him by the riverside. She wants to be of help to him. In the present, a young man named Mitsui finds himself at a little coffee shop. A girl who doesn't speak, but communicates through a white board, works there. She has silver hair and deep blue eyes. Both girls are named Ayame.
Taira and Ayame notice the irises haven't bloomed that year. He thinks it's maybe because of the drought, if he completes the thread he'll see them bloom again. The irises will become important to both of them as they'll come each night to watch the flowers and wait for them to bloom. Mitsui is taken to a park where irises grow. It is Ayame's favorite place. She enjoys the flowers, and afterall, they are her namesake. But they haven't bloomed at all. Not for several years she says. She wants desperately for them to bloom. The two of them watch the flowers off and on, and hope very hard together, that they will see the irises, even one, bloom again.
Taira finally tells Ayame of the string, he reads to her how it's made and she learns the price he will have to pay. They have fallen in love with each other, and she says, even if it's for one night, she would rather be his wife than spend a lifetime never being so. Mitsui learns that Ayame has been seeing a counselor (but not getting the best advice), and the reason she hasn't spoken is because she had found a silver string (which she relates the story of to him). Her mother kept telling her to throw it away, so she'd return it to that spot with the irises she loved, but each morning it would be on her desk again, like magic. She and her mother fought about this quite a bit, and suddenly her mother collapsed in front of her and never woke up again. Since then she hasn't spoken. She wears the silver string under the red ribbon tying her hair. Mitsui wants to help her, he loves her, and he decides to make her his "wife."
Now the epilogue comes and the last part of the tale. A side-story is introduced, it will lead back to the first story of the game. Taira and Ayame are dead, a man takes Taira's string and leaves with it, not wanting it to be used wrongly. Elsewhere, rain has finally come to the people. But one sister is not happy about it. Her parents committed suicide because the family is starving from the drought, the rain has come a day too late. She takes her sister away to spare her from the sight of their parents, leading her sister away with her from the village. The younger, Kozue, is too young to understand anything happening. But the two are on the road for a long time and they are starving. Finally, with no other option, the elder leaves Kozue each night for a period and comes back with rice-balls to feed her. This continues for a long time, until finally the elder sister has grown with child and the baby is about to come in the bushes. Kozue is desperate to have someone help her sister, and finally finds the man with the string who has been traveling as well. The baby is delivered and leaves. For the first time in a long time, Kozue and her sister stand together and smile. The decide they will name the child Ayame, after all the beautiful irises blooming by the river in the moonlight. Nights pass as before until the sister returns and tells Kozue it is over for her. Her lower body is purple and black, taken by disease. She abandons her child and sister, to die alone somewhere, and Kozue is now faced with a starving baby and no way to feed or shelter either of them. Kozue takes the only option she can see, she mimics what her sister did, not fully understanding what it means or will cost her. The experience damages her frail and young body and she stumbles finally into a village and lies dying on a street. As her life fades, she can hear people speak cruelly of her, and that someone has picked up Ayame. But she can't speak the child's name, she's too weak, and so no one will know her name, no one will remember her sister who was her mother. Kozue remembers the summer day that was bright and beautiful, when she smiled and the two of them were happy.
The story is picked up again, back to Taira and Ayame. He goes to wait for her where the irises are. One single iris blooms, but she's not there to see it. He finds her at the end back the cottage, dying. She decided to take her life, thinking it would suit and pay for the price of the wish on the string. But it must be the maker of the string, and so Taira takes her knife and ends his life with her. To be forever with the woman he called his flower that bloomed in his life. In the present, Ayame is alone, wishing with all her heart on the string to be ordinary, to have the life she wants. Mitsui is waiting for her, hoping an iris will bloom. On making the wish, she hears a voice, and he with the night settled around him, he hears voices coming from the light of the fireflies. They are the voices of those who stood amidst the irises before, of those who confessed the deepest desire of their heart to the silver string. She comes to his side in time to see faces where the irises have suddenly begun to bloom. She even speaks at last. The light of the string shines, and they think it is good they saw the irises bloom together.
In the epilogue, Isuna is young, unaging. Kuze's wish was granted, but Isuna will live forever. Thus she becomes like the silver thread, the moonlight, the water, and the irises, a
presence that is unchanging and bound into time and fate.
Themes & Symbols
This game is quite heavy on imagery and power evoked through images. We'll start by looking at the symbol of the thread itself. In Japan there is a cultural belief that at birth two people are tied together by fate with a red string. In other words, the person who you are tied to by this string is the one you will marry. In Western traditions, we have beliefs such as the threads woven by the Fates. One's life can be altered or ended by the changing or cutting of one's string controlled by a Fate. These ideas of course are expected to all be understood without being stated by the person playing the game. The string is made from melted silver, but it's understood to be made with something more to give it power. It's infused with moonlight, the power of the moon, and a medium (probably a kami, god, or the one who rules fate) must be prayed to. Silver has always been a precious metal, so this gives an earthly high cost to it, just as a crown of a king or a priceless object to be honored or given as a sacrifice in a ritual must have some kind of value and would be made of stones or metals of the earth that held great value and worth. The moon of course is an object associated with magic. Fairies dance by moonlight, transformations occur in moonlight (werewolves and other creatures for example), and some spells require moonlight to work. So it only follows that the moon would be the appropriate object to charge the string with magic and power. The moon is an object as old as our planet and thus bestows not just magic but a kind of timelessness and age as well.
And finally, the moon is a feminine sphere due to it's tie to cycles. The face of the moon changes in phases, just as women's menstrual cycles move. Thus the moon has been associated with women, their changes, emotions, growth (the maiden, the mother, the crone or wise woman, just as the moon changes). This is important as the heroines of the story each go through personal transformations, and the link is reinforced by the image of moonlight behind them as they grow into their own powers and strength.
The string that is made by Taira and passed around can grant any wish, and has been infused with a power to bend fate. This is why Taira says of it: "A compensation for having the wish granted and for the action against providence." It is a great thing to ask to change time or destiny, and so it is believed a balance in nature is broken and to keep it steady a large price must be paid in turn. Two instances in the story especially bring home the fact that the string holds a supernatural power, a will of its own. The first takes place in the second story. After Sagiri is placed in the ground to be given to the water god, a storm rises up. Yorihito is beside himself in anger and frustration. Sagiri shouldn't have to die. At this point he doesn't want to believe that the string really holds power over fate and granting wishes. It was her will alone that will do it. But as he's doubting the silver string, it suddenly breaks and cuts the back of his hand. Later, in the fourth story, Ayame tries to leave it among the irises on the riverbank, but while she leaves it each afternoon and falls asleep each night without it, it is on her desk when she wakes each morning. It wills to be in her possession and to grant her wish. It may be it is her destiny to have it, which is why she found it and why it will not part from her yet.
These facts bring about the question. Is everything set in stone? Does personal will bring outcomes or is there a greater scheme, a "fate" that can be altered or not? On one hand, it seems there is a scheme, a fate, things will happen as they must. Otherwise, why such a high price to use an object of magic? Unless this price is to ensure that the wish is only one of the deepest recesses of the heart, and therefore pure and true. If one is willing to give their life for something, it usually is a sign it is something of great value or for a greater good (such as Sagiri and Isuna who wanted to help a great number of people, or Asana who wanted most the simple wish of seeing her sister happy). Yet, many of the outcomes even without the silver string would not have happened any differently if the will was still there or actions remained on the paths they were on. Asana and Yuna brought their own unhappiness through their secrets and failure to see the other for what really was happening, Sagiri would end her life with or without the will of the string for her village. For the characters of the story, it was their heart's wishes that led them to the fates they brought themselves. Thus, one might say, the silver string may not really have held the power to grant a wish or outcome, but it acted as a catalyst, an object to focus one's sincere desire and belief upon. And with that implification, and that greater emphasis on that desire, the individual brought their outcome to fruit, sometimes in a deeply tragic way. For some, like Sagiri, Yuna, and Ayame who loved Taira, it was a fate they chose long in advance, even though it was a tragic one.
Colors: Red represents the red string of fate, love, blood (mortality or sacrifice). Silver of course carries with it meanings of something eternal, fate, magic, sadness, water, moonlight. Blue of course can be the sky, summer, water. White comes in for light and brightness.
Fireflies: Like the moonlight and light of the silver string, the fireflies are something bright and lit in the darkness. This is why the characters love them, and this is why they are drawn to them. Fireflies are also represented as souls of the dead in Japanese tales, and this is used in the story as well. It could be instances of the fireflies around the irises are the souls of those who came before. It is most apparent in the final scene of the end when the images and voices of the characters now gone speak and appear through the light of the fireflies to Misui and Ayame.
Irises: Several characters bear the name Ayame, or Iris. For each, it is a connection to a flower they love, but it also reflects themselves. Our final Ayame of the present sees it best, she is waiting for herself to bloom. She wants desperately for the irises beside the river to bloom, because she wants to believe it can happen. They are a beautiful and strong flower, returning each year. Each heroine is like this. They each grew and found their way in the end, found the path they wanted.
The iris is also a flower of love here, and of the heart. For the men who come into their lives, each Ayame is the iris they needed to see bloom, the flower that brought joy to their life. Their heart itself is personified by the woman they love, just as the irises are eternal to the women, blooming each year in the moonlight, beautiful in the darkness. Their lives are sad or short (like a flower's), but they want it to be beautiful.
As the people are watching the irises, longing for them, the flowers represent that longing in one's lifetime, that something beautiful that one waits for to bloom, and once it does it is enough. Whatever else is in life or happens, it is enough when that beautiful or special thing is found or happens. The iris is finding something simple and small, simple and beautiful, and finding that it brings that contentment that is enough. This is why Ayame says to Taira and he feels the same, to be married one night is enough and better than to not have been married in a lifetime. For Kozue and her sister, Ayame is an iris to them. The irises bloom in the moonlight, even in the night and sorrows and shadows, they are there and beautiful all the same. So even though it is sad Ayame was conceived, it is beautiful and brings them a moment of joy at her birth. And as the silver string is horrible in its price, it is like the purple iris in that it is a light, something beautiful in the sadness when it fulfills that heart's deep wish.
Water: Water has many connotations. First, it ties back to the silver thread. Water has a crystal quality or associations with colors of silver and gray in the moonlight, or blue in the sunlight. So in this way, the water ties back to fate and associations with the string. It has connotations of sadness or endlessness. Tears are frequently part of the story, or someone will say how the tears remind them of the string or something else. Like the moon, the water is present in each story. The waterside where the irises go, rain, tears, the water is always present. And it is never changing, so it has a timelessness to it, an eternal quality. Water comes with associations of the unconscious and with magic, it is part of the womb and feminine realm. For many characters, the waterside is a kind of sanctuary. The nameless girl of the first story loves the waterside and finds peace there. The embankment is also where the flowers grow, so it is a kind of creation symbol, going back to the womb and giving life. One other notable use of water is the snow from the end of the first tale. Snow in manga and anime often carries a note of sadness to it (think Shirahime Shou by CLAMP), and here the snow covers the two lovers as they die. The snow is a mirror of human emotions. But it is also positive in that it is clean and purifying. Gisuke and Ayame both had a hard life, one with sins and cruelity and sorrow, but as the snow falls and they have found a regretted peace, the snow is white and pure and clean. How they must now be at last.
Womb: There are some general womb images througout such as the cave where Isuna and Kuze travel to, the embankment, etc. But images of the womb are especially pronounced in the second story with Sagiri. She is to be wed to the river god, and thus put in the ground. The ground becomes a kind of womb image by her being inside it (plus, the earth is often a feminine symbol, nature and mother earth). In a way she is being returned to it. Above water was mentioned as a symbol of creation, feminine, Sagiri's return to the river, throwing herself into it and calming it, is another type of return to the womb image. It is her own death and rebirth cycle. Her death brings new life to the village and brings a birth of a new Sagiri in that death.
This essay is copyright of Michelle Rogers 2004.