Among many excellent Japanese animations, Yuki Urushihara's "Insect Master" is a unique work. Compared with the mainstream Japanese anime themes, this anime, with the theme of describing the complex "bugs" in the world and the "bug masters" who are engaged in the coordination work related to them, is obviously different from the juvenile manga and love that are often beaten and killed. The ups and downs of shojo manga are well known; in fact, "Insect Master" is closer to the spiritual and cultural characteristics of Japan. Neither relying on the thrilling martial arts plot, nor the lingering love story, nor the nonsense and humor to attract the audience, "Insect Master" is based on the background of tranquil and distant natural scenery, with ordinary people being caused by "insects" one by one. The joys and sorrows of the story are based on the story, which opens up a realm of sadness but not to the audience.
Such a realm is the embodiment of the spirit of mourning in Japanese traditional culture. From this aspect, "Insect Master" should be the most traditional work in Japanese animation. Those who watch the anime "Insect Master" for the first time will be shocked by the greenness of the vast mountains. —— Living in a noisy and complicated city, we seem to have forgotten the colors of nature, and when the purest and most natural colors appear in our eyes, it touches us the most. The ordinary and the most natural are precisely the most moving. —— "Insect Master" unfolded its story to us in this most natural and unadorned green, and its indifferent background tone was thus established. In the world as we know it, there is a group of creatures that are completely different from common animals and plants. Since time immemorial, people have called them "worms" in awe.
When the world of insects and the world of people overlap and conflict, the insect master Yingu will appear. The worm mentioned here is obviously not a small thing that looks like a worm, but a creature that is closest to the origin of life, similar to a spiritual body. They have their own way of living, and this way may refute the common sense of human beings and even endanger human beings. Therefore, the profession of "Insect Master" emerged. They travel around, study the life forms and survival methods of insects, and accept people's commissions to solve strange events that may be caused by insects. Yingu is one of them. As an insect master, Yingu travels to the backcountry to follow the insect's footsteps. Insects may be lurking in people's bodies, in swamps, and in the entire mountains, bringing terrifying disasters such as diseases and plagues. Yingu traveled through the consciousness of vegetation, found the disease, and resolved it. Along the way, he sympathized with the young genius painter, the girl who wrote the scroll of insects, and the master who blessed the safety of one party, and then parted sadly.
Here, coexistence and sacrifice are always the most sad topics. With this as the background, stories related to insects are displayed one by one in front of us. Historically, Japanese culture has always been based on lightness, few desires, and self-pity. This has a potential relationship with the geographical environment of Japan. On the one hand, the land in Japan is barren and there are many typhoons and earthquakes, which form a conscious or unconscious sense of self-mourning at the deep psychological level of the Japanese nation, thus showing that people are faced with unpredictable changes in the creation of various fields of culture and art. The fragility of nature; on the other hand, although there are many mountains in Japan, there are few strange hills, many creeks, but no Yangtze River. Japan's national flower, the cherry blossom, is a weak and withered flower that will fail when it blooms and wither with the wind. It is also a true portrayal of Japanese national psychology.
These geographical factors affect the mentality of the Japanese in a certain sense, making the Japanese pay special attention to the balance between their own psychology and a purer spiritual desire. We believe that such a complex, which is developed from the latent psychology of the nation and affects the subject's aesthetic perception of external objects, has its own proper noun in the history of Japanese culture, that is, material sorrow. Cultural and academic circles do not have exactly the same understanding of the term "wu mou". Some people think that "things" are natural scenery and natural scenery; "sorrow" refers to people's feelings induced by natural scenery or condensed in natural scenery due to long-term aesthetic accumulation. Some people also think that the sadness of things is a kind of aesthetic consciousness. Kawabata Yasunari has repeatedly emphasized: "The 'Sorrow' of the Heian Dynasty has become the source of Japanese beauty."
"Sorrow and beauty are interlinked." Others believe that grief is a view of life and death. Its main body pursues "instant beauty" and does not hesitate to "seek eternal silence" at the moment of beauty. Kawabata Yasunari not only believes that "the sadness of things has become the source of Japanese beauty" but also that "death is the highest art, a manifestation of beauty." He believes that the ultimate in art is death. Ye Weiqu also pointed out: "There is a concept of 'instantaneous beauty' in the Japanese beauty consciousness, that is, to praise the 'transience of beauty'." The ancient Japanese even compared the cherry blossoms to themselves, and transformed the concept of "instant beauty" into a vision. Suicide is the ultimate act of life.
The significance of their martyrdom lies in the pursuit of a momentary flash of life, an attempt to obtain eternal silence in the midst of death. No matter what the above statement is, an indescribable, pure and beautiful feeling of weeping is one of the recognized manifestations of grief. In this regard, "Insect Master" inherits the traditional Japanese spirit of grief. In the verdant mountains, in the tranquil wanderings of the insect master Yingu, the story of the impermanence of life and the reincarnation of all things is slowly expanding... Whether it is a human being or a worm, it all has its own destiny. First, let's talk about the origin of the insect master Yingu. The young Yingu, living in the world, was taken in by the female insect master, Nuyi. From the moment they witnessed the silver insect, their final destiny would be to live at the bottom of the eternal darkness. "The Fish of the Fish" reveals not only the secret of Yingu's left eye, but it also predicts his inevitable destination.
The origin of the protagonist, Yingu, is unknown, which implies that life in the world is tossing and turning, and his fate as an insect master is destined to live at the bottom of the eternal darkness after encountering the silver bug, which implies that all life in the world has only one direction, that is up. In the end, it will all return to dust, whether it is a self-proclaimed noble person or a worm that exists in the original ecology. Such a character setting is in line with the spiritual atmosphere of "Insect Master." However, it is different from the traditional Japanese spiritual atmosphere of material sadness; various traditional Japanese art forms often regard the irresistibility of the fate of birth, old age, sickness, and death as a kind of helpless sadness, showing a delicate and sensitive sadness for the ever-changing life in the world.
As Ye Weiqu pointed out, "The characteristics of Japanese nationality ... love the waning moon, the buds, and scattered petals more, because they believe that there is a kind of pitiful sadness hidden in the waning moon, flower buds, and flower fall, which will increase the sense of beauty." This impermanent sadness and the impermanence of beauty are the essence of the Japanese 'beautiful and beautiful'. But in "Insect Master," the protagonist Yingu faces the life of all things in the world while traveling. In the blink of an eye, he also calmly faced his long-known destination and continued his travel work day after day, year after year, with a calm mind. This is a detached attitude that is not found in traditional Japanese art forms. It can be seen from this that "Insect Master" has inherited the This traditional cultural spirit understands that everything is uncertain and time changes rapidly, but at the same time, it also weakens the sadness of the traditional cultural spirit towards this understanding and highlights an attitude of "being at peace when it comes".
Secondly, from the storytelling method of "Insect Master": the whole work consists of stories that are not related to each other, mainly about the lives of ordinary people, the love of mother and child, the love of husband and wife, the love of sisters, etc. Most of these story models are familiar to us, such as "Snake of Dawn". If we extract the plot about insects, we will see a common story prototype of a wife and a young man looking for a husband, and the husband likes the new and hates the old and finds a new love. For example, if the plot about insects is extracted from "The Marsh of the Journey", we will see an ignorant story in a superstitious age where women are sacrificed to pacify the river god; and in "Exploring the Unreal", which is actually a sisterhood. The stories of Shen and her younger sister persevering to find her sister; and "Rain in the Rainbow", after extracting the plot about insects, it tells the story of a son inheriting his father's aspirations... and so on. Although the story is always caused by insects, it always involves ordinary people. The insect masters seem to be telling stories about various insects, but they are actually the most sincere and simple emotions of people.
Therefore, from the overall point of view, "Insect Master" uses insects to express the description of all beings in the world; from the details, it seems to be talking about insects, but in fact, it uses insects to express the life and emotions of ordinary people. This emotion is often quiet. Such a story is hidden, such as in "Silk of the Sky." The love between the landlord's son and the maid was not accepted by the father at first, but in the end, with the efforts of the son, he retained his lover's belief as a human being. When the girl was eaten by a kind of insect called "horizon grass," the idea of becoming a worm occupies her mind, which makes her gradually frivolous and she may leave the ground and fly away or even become invisible at any time; while the son of the local owner, under the guidance of Yingu, starts to do some things that really comfort her lover's heart, such as getting married officially, leaving home, and adopting a Living with an invisible lover...
All this made the girl, who gradually became a worm, gradually develop the desire to live with her lover, so the influence of the worm gradually subsided, and the girl returned to her lover's side-this is actually a borrowing The influence exerted by the worm to express the power of ordinary love in the world It is worth noting that the heroine always faces everything that happens around her with a quiet attitude. Even when her lover's father is firmly opposed to their marriage, she just silently faces her own sorrow. It can be said that this is also the characteristic of the heroines in all the stories of "Insect Master": Ordinary appearance, ordinary origin, docile personality, obscurity—this is a typical traditional Japanese female image. This image style is also one of the reasons for the formation of the spirit of grief.
The Oriental Aesthetic Culture Research Center of Nankai University, published in 2006, pointed out in the article ""Sorrow of Things "and the Plant Aesthetics of the Japanese Nation: "During the matriarchal family system in the primitive society of Japan, women had a higher social status, which the culture of a period is recognized as having traces of women." "The aesthetic consciousness of grief for things, which is sentimental about nature and sympathy for things, probably developed from this period to the Heian period and has become an aesthetic tradition throughout Japanese history." Therefore, not only is it the heroine in "Silk of the Sky," as well as the girl who was sacrificed by the villagers to the river god but was saved by the worm in "Ling Zhi Ze," and so on, that they seldom show their fear of death, even in the face of death. My mood swings. Such "not mentioning sadness but showing sadness and quietness between the lines" is the essence of Wusao. Throughout the entire "Insect Master", all of them show such style. In the work "Insect Master", the insect master Yingu is an indispensable character. It is he who keeps walking into stories one by one. He can't stay in one place for long because of his natural proclivity to attract insects.
Doomed to wander for a lifetime, such a fate adds to the grief that permeates the entire "Insect Master," adds a sense of uncertainty and fleeting dazedness, and we feel as if we are running water as he walks continuously. It takes away the joys and sorrows of people and things in the world, and in turn, it is precisely because of the unsteadiness brought by this constant walking that the dazedness of the sorrows of the world is enhanced—the sorrow is not exhausted, and the reason has been forgotten. It's still hurting. " This kind of dazedness further enhanced the lingering sadness in the voice. Insect Master Yingu, as a middleman who witnessed everything, connected the relationship between insects and people. It is a story of change, and it resolves the contradictions between insects and people in the stories one by one. "You are not at fault, neither is the bug." You are all just completing your own lives. " These are the words of Yingu in the play. Indeed, the existence of insect masters is to mediate the contradictions and conflicts between insects and people due to survival.
Here, the illusory worm actually refers to nature. Urushihara Yuki expressed her own views through the mouth of Yingu and the incident of insects; that is, man and nature should be in a harmonious relationship of interdependence, and neither should the excessive pursuit of interests for man destroy the balance of nature nor harm man's basic survival interests. This can also be seen as the development and change of the Japanese traditional cultural spirit today. The Japanese nation, which was helpless in the face of natural disasters, has a sad and helpless style correspondingly. With the rapid development of science and technology, the technology of human beings in preventing and resisting natural disasters has advanced by leaps and bounds. The mentality of the people is no longer the same. Therefore, the passive mentality of cherishing flowers and mourning the moon, mourning the impermanence of life and passing time, has been replaced by self-confidence and respect.
This is also the fundamental reason why Urushihara can produce such a view. Therefore, we can see that "Insect Master" not only inherits the traditional spirit of grief but also integrates the psychological concept of the modern Japanese nation. The passing of time, the vicissitudes of life, the vicissitudes of life... These were originally transformed into the sad scenes of the gentle but unforgettable life of the gentleman Genji in Zi Shikibu's writings. In the modern Japanese background, in the animation "Insect Master" by Yuki Urushihara, A more open-minded answer can already be found. replaced by confidence and respect. This is also the fundamental reason why Urushihara can produce such a view. Therefore, we can see that "Insect Master" not only inherits the traditional spirit of grief but also integrates the psychological concept of the modern Japanese nation.
The passing of time, the vicissitudes of life, the vicissitudes of life... These were originally transformed into the sad scenes of the gentle but unforgettable life of the gentleman Genji in Zi Shikibu's writings. In the modern Japanese background, in the animation "Insect Master" by Yuki Urushihara, a more open-minded answer can already be found. replaced by confidence and respect. This is also the fundamental reason why Urushihara can produce such a view. Therefore, we can see that "Insect Master" not only inherits the traditional spirit of grief but also integrates the psychological concept of the modern Japanese nation. The passage of time, the ups and downs of life, the ups and downs of life... These were originally transformed into the sad scenes of the gentle but unforgettable life of the gentleman Genji in Zi Shikibu's writings. In the modern Japanese background, in the animation "Insect Master" by Yuki Urushihara, a more open-minded answer can already be found.
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