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[lissa_quon]

Count Cain and the Japanese Gothic

            Since the beginnings of civilization mankind has been both fascinated and repulsed by the dark and the things in it they could not understand. This fascination made itself apparent in folk tales and ghost stories. The stories, which taught of both morals and monsters, were told in the dark of night with just a fire in the hearth to ward away the shadows. But time passed and superstition gave way to science and the wolves and monsters in the tales became man himself. Man had conquered their world and now their fear turned inward. The simple black and white life lessons of fairytales gave way to the murky, hazy atmosphere of the gothic style.

            This new genre captured the fascination and imagination s of the people who eagerly spread the genre, transforming and warping it as it went. The genre, like a virus, even crossed international and cultural boundaries and arrived at the remote land of Japan. A very different culture from the Western originators of the genre, Japan already had a long standing tradition of ghost stories and tales of the supernatural as shown in their fondness for the Kaiden ritual, or hundred ghost night. To while away the summer nights, they’d gather a group in a temple and tell a hundred stories through the night, extinguishing a light at the completion of each tale. The intent was at the end when the last light was extinguished that they would invoke a spirit or supernatural experience. With the same enthusiasm the Japanese embraced the gothic genre and, like many things they adopted, they added elements to it from their traditions and made it uniquely their own.  

            One of the more obvious examples of this assimilation is apparent in the comics, or manga field. Home to one of the largest comic markets in the world, Japanese magazines publish titles covering any number of genres, subjects and reading demographics. Many of Japan’s youth display a fondness for things of the darker, gothic persuasion. Teenagers gather on weekends decked out in black clothes that take many fashion cues from the Victorian era, with lace, crucifixes and top hats topping it all off. This subculture demonstrates and feeds off of the fascination the youths have with Western Victorian gothic traditions. It is to these groups and others that the genre of gothic manga has become popular with, and is marketed to. One of the more popular titles of this genre is Hakushaku Cain, translated as Count Cain. The series, by female artist and writer Kaori Yuki, borrows heavily from the traditional Western gothic literature in its setting and stories but adds twists to them that make the series wholly unique.

            Set in 19^th century London, the series focuses on the title character, Earl (or Count, the translations vary) Cain Hargreaves, and his encounters with intrigue and murder and his later run in with a secret organization known as Delilah. Cain, named by his father after the first person to kill a relative, is a very young nobleman of the age of seventeen. In true gothic fashion, one can sympathize with Cain, but one can’t quite admire him, his actions tend to be selfish, his manner rude and callous and his methods of solving problems rather harsh. This is a man accustomed to getting his way and cares very little for the feelings of others. He possesses almost feminine prettiness that gives him an androgynous air. This tradition employed by the artist harks back to the traditions of Japanese heroes such as Prince Genji and other tales of courtly love from the Japanese past. Due to his good looks he has a talent for and a reputation of womanizing. He himself admits that he only loves the pursuit of women, once they have fallen to his charms he grows cold and loses interest and shuns them away caring nought for the harm he may have caused their feelings. The only people he cares for are a bastard half sister from his father’s tryst with a maid and a cousin who dies quite early in the series, who turns out to be his half sister since the two share the same mother. He also has a selfish possessiveness of Riff, his butler and highly devoted man servant, the pair share an odd relationship heavily laden with homosexual undertones.

             These weaknesses of his are kept secret, his sister’s illegitimate origins hidden, and his blood ties to his cousin never discussed. However, Cain is quite well known for his large collection of poisons and vast knowledge of such substances, which has earned him the nickname ‘The Poison Count’. He later develops a reputation for being bad luck due to the murders that take place when he is around, earning him the nickname ‘Unlucky Prince’. This mock title is ironically more accurate than he would let anyone know, for much like his biblical namesake he is cursed and everything he touches dies. Unlike the biblical murderer however, there is no divine mark protecting him and he must struggle to survive in this world of intrigues and mysteries.

            The nobleman’s background is tragic, his family history steeped in blood. The Hargreaveses are a very wealthy family but they possess sinister tastes, Cain’s famous poison collection is merely an addition to a large collection started by his ancestors. The family possesses a castle in Cornwall filled with secret passages and treasures guarded by lethal traps. Cain spent his childhood there until he left it for the city, when asked why he left he describes the castle as “too noisy…At night many hateful spirits come out of the ground…all the ghosts of those which the Hargreaves family has killed.” Little information of his ancestors is told besides this and hushed rumors passed around, whatever deeds his family has done Cain does not reflect on them often and never speaks of them.  The main focus of the series is the conflict between Cain and his father Alexis, a cruel man who formed no attachments to any woman except for his own sister, Augusta. Cain is the result of the sibling’s forbidden union, and in true manga fashion he bears the brand of this cursed origin in the form of strange unnatural green gold eyes, features which are remarked upon often throughout the series.

            Upon the boy’s birth Augusta was driven mad and her hair turned white from the shock and she had to be locked away. Years later in a moment of clarity, she revealed to Cain the origin of his origin and plunged through a window. Alexis was forced by his family to marry another woman and claim Cain was their child, the bride resented Cain for he represented the love that Alexis never bestowed on her. Alexis grew annoyed with her and poisoned her, before the poison took affect the woman attempted to murder Cain.

            However more Cain was also hated by his kin, Alexis, Cain’s father, had never gotten over Augusta and blamed the boy for her madness. He would also beat him nightly to ‘purify’ him from his sinful origins. Later he poisons the boy with small gradual doses, but upon his sister’s death Alexis makes the dosage larger to speed up the process. Cain, who had been suspecting he was being poisoned for a while switched the poisons out with a perfume, upon smelling it in the tea that his father had given him, the boy pretended to collapse on the floor. However, Cain, not willing to remain a victim, learns from his father’s example and poison’s Alexis’ pipe. The boy calmly remarks to the dying man’s face that he knew that he would always smoke his pipe when he was satisfied and that Cain knew that upon his death his father would celebrate in his usual fashion. Alexis before his departure curses Cain with:

 “You will never find happiness! You will never find love in your life! You will die alone…don’t forget…Cain is the name of the first person who killed his relative!”

 In a final of anger, Alexis jumps out of a nearby window to deny Cain the pleasure of killing him, disappearing for five years until the vents of the series reveals his existence again.  From these bloody origins Cain inherits his title and proceeds through his life, wandering through a mad world, solving murders, facing creatures from beyond the grave and collecting secrets, dispensing justice, and his arsenal of poisons where he sees fit. In this series there is little innocence, as illustrated by Cain in his younger years, if there is any innocence in this world it is destroyed or quickly discarded for survival.

              Much of the world Cain encounters is not a constant; none of the monsters he encounters have been around for centuries. Instead he encounters individuals who due to some horrible event or temptation, have been warped and transformed. The Japanese word for ghost ‘obake’ stems from the verb ‘bakeru’ which means ‘to transform’, while the Japanese tales traditionally focused on objects and animals transforming into monsters it is the people themselves in Count Cain that transform.

            The main catalyst for these changes is the main antagonist of the story,  Dr. Jizebel Disraeli. The oddly named doctor, another androgynous figure in glasses and anachronistic long hair, is more of an extreme of the gothic mad scientist.  He is the right hand man of the Delilah Organization a group of assorted doctors, hypnotists, psychics and others that research on alchemy and “the medical techniques of the devil.” The member’s titles are taken from arcana in the Tarot, Jizebel’s title in the organization is “Death’ which in the tarot deck means not just death, but transformation and change, a very appropriate name for one who leaves a trail of brainwashed victims, cruel experiments and death in his wake. But as frightening as the good doctor may be, it is the hand that holds his leash that Cain fears the most, for the head of the Delilah Organization is Alexis Hargreaves, Cain’s father who was hopefully thought to be dead. Jizebel, in true melodramatic fashion is revealed to be Cain’s half brother, resenting him for all the time that Alexis spends making his prophecy for Cain’s misery become true. When Cain declares defiantly that he will stop Jizebel and Alexis’ murdering sprees Jezibel calmly replies “But that’s impossible. Because Father and I love you so much that we want to kill you.”

             The doctor’s obsession for Cain is one that not even he himself can explain. At one of their encounters, the doctor holds Cain close brandishing a scalpel, he muses:

“Your golden eyes are dangerously alluring, like poison. It makes me want to cut open your pale skin and expose your bright red beating heart. I would preserve your heart along with your eyes…Once you’ve been silenced…will my pain cease? This compulsion to hate that I myself can’t control!”

That moment might have been thrown in the story to excite all the female readers of the comic, but it demonstrates exactly how twisted the doctor is. The man has no feeling that a normal person could relate to, he expresses to one of his pet test subjects when she questions if he loves her like he claims to “I want to break you, to take a scalpel and carve you anew”. As Cain remarks, “That man has no human emotions. He’s the devil incarnate”

            And indeed Cain is correct, for Jizebel wanders from place to place, under different aliases and stories, enticing people to cooperate with his experiments and plans. Promising, beauty, wealth, revenge, life itself, whatever the person wants most, he comes in like a miracle worker and provides it. But like most deals with the Devil the cost may be a bit too high. In the story ‘The Scold’s Bridle’ Jizebel sets up a clinic from which he dispenses a potion that makes one more beautiful. He lets Viola, a deformed girl, who he’s adopted as his pet for this project, choose which girls will receive the ‘treatment’, telling her that if they get eyes from six girls that took the medicine he can use them and his abilities to restore her own beauty, she believes the man and even does the task of cutting the eyes out herself. The medicine proves to be the eggs of a parasite that drains nutrients, causing the subject of treatment to rapidly lose weight and become fashionably pale making them more ‘attractive’ just as they wished.

            However their beauty is short lived and their faces start to bleed and they die in throes of agony, the story about the eyes was just to get Viola to collect them before anyone investigated them and found anything amiss. As Viola dies from the same medicine she submitted other girls to, Jizebel scorns her for losing herself in her obsession with beauty and not realizing the ugliness that was her own soul and actions. In the world of Count Cain everyone has a dark side and a price, even the ‘innocent’ virgins.

            It is a common known phrase that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ however it is the Japanese that made it true. The Japanese culture is full of tales of devoted wives who are wrong by their husbands and come back to haunt them with a vengence. These are not the shrinking maidens of Western culture; these are normal virtuous women who have been wronged and now allow their darker natures to take over for revenge. The popularity of movies such as Ringu and Ju-on have proven that this tradition is still alive and well. The females in Count Cain are much the same way. Such is shown in the story of Kafka, Cain encounters a town with an old castle, oddly enough named Windsor Castle, near by that has a history of vampires. While curiously exploring the grounds at night Cain encounters a seductive woman straddling one of the statues and is dressed rather loosely leaving little of her body to the imagination. Cain finds that the woman possesses great strength and can not fight her off as she bites him on the neck. A week or so later after recovering from the attack he decides to properly introduce himself to the residents in the castle.

             It is then that he discovers the lady of the house, a young woman named Julianne who is so timid and meek she runs from the sight of an unfamiliar man. He later hears from her highly protective brother that she is frequently ill and can hardly go out for she suffers from an illness that makes her extremely sensitive to sunlight. Curious, Cain decides to stay around and see what secrets the solitary brother and sister hide. Julianne, he discovers is much like he assumed, gentle and harmless while her brother seems a bit too protective of her and seems very jealous and possessive of her. But the sister rather openly falls for the Count’s charms and the brother in a fit of jealously announces to her that she is not as pure and sweet as the Count or even herself thinks and that for years now she has been host to the lady vampire that used to own the castle. Thanks to ceremonies performed by their father and a mysterious masked man, later revealed to be the good doctor Jizebel using the power of mere suggestion to make the girl believe that she is possessed by the dreaded vampire Gedola. The girl’s brother goes on to tell her that she has also sunk lower and that their father slept with her. One night after witnessing his father leave Julianne’s room he goes in to find her naked on the bed, she appeals to his sympathy and uses her feminine wiles to convince him to murder their father. The brother assumes this is the vampire possessing the sister talking and finds he can not resist her ‘magic’.

             Desperate to prove him wrong Julianne goes up to the abandoned tower where the vampire was supposed to be walled away. Instead she finds that the tower is filled with the bodies of those that she killed, seemingly Gedola, the vampire takes over as she revels in what she has done and goes to feed again. 

            Cain stops her before she feasts on any more blood reveals that there is no proof the Lady Gedola was ever a vampire, and most importantly, Julianne’s actions have been entirely her own. As an angry mob tired of the murders storm the town, Julianne fights them off, refusing to believe that what Cain said was true. In the end she finally realizes what she’s done and terrified of her own actions she dies, with her brother joining her, as the tower goes up in flames.

            The haunting ending of each of these tales seems to speak of some moral lesson about human nature and things we can not escape. The impact these sort of stories and this series make is apparent by the rapidness of which they spread. The gothic culture in Japan, some feel is an escape and a catharsis for the younger generation from their opressive society expectations, much like the original movement in the West was. But regardless of the culture there is always need for such outlets, as evidenced by the importation of this manga and many others into the Western bookstores. Western gothic traditions, picked up and added to by the Japanese and their traditional ghost stories has now been brought back to the Western culture completing the circle of migration, and allowing another variation of the gothic virus to spread some more.

Works Cited

 

Abbit, Erica Stevens.

            “Androgyny and Otherness: Exploring the West Through the Japanese       Performative Body.” Asian Theater Journal. 18.2 (Autumn 2001) 249-256.          JSTOR. University of Oklahoma Lib. Norman. 19 April 2006.             <http://www.jstor.org>

"Manga." Wikipedia. April 22, 2006.

        <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga>

Screech, Tim. “Japanese Ghosts.” Mangajin. 22. Apr. 2006.         
    <http://www.mangajin.com/mangajin/samplemj/ghosts/ghosts.htm>

Yahata, Yo. “The Dark Subculture of Japanese Youth.” Apr. 2004.World Press Review.  24 Apr.2006.   <http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1841.cfm >

Yuki, Kaori. “Count Cain.” Sakura-Crisis. Sakura Crisis Scanlations. 14 Feb. 2006.           
<http://www.sakura-crisis.net>