Some words on GYOKUSAI

S o m e w o r d s o n G Y O KU S A I
Some words on GYOKUSAI
Some words on the Radio Drama „Gyokusai”
by Makoto ODA
The radio drama “Gyokusai” by Tina PEPLER is a radio drama of BBC WorldService based upon my novel with the same title (Shinchôsha 1988; translated
by Donald Keene as “The Breaking Jewel”, Columbia University Press, 2003),
which was broadcast world-wide on the 6th of August, 2005 (BBC calls the 6th of
August “HIROSHIMA DAY”).
As to the quality of the drama, you can have various opinions (though I think the
drama is a very well done work), what is good and important about the drama is,
I think and I believe, that in this drama, Japanese soldiers orJapanese people appear as they are without any modification in battle scenes or concerning the war
itself. This is very rare or perhaps the first time in war drama or films produced in
the “West”.
In war dramas or films, usually the enemy side does not exist. Or they exist only
as insane or stupid people or as devils. Especially when the enemy side can be
considered inferior people – such as Japanese or Vietnamese. The (Vietnam) war
dramas or films have been so far produced in America in a large quantity, but usually the Vietnamese don’t exist. In the World War II dramas or films Germans
might exist, but Japanese don’t exist or exist just as insane, stupid people or as
devils.
In this British made drama ”Gyokusai” Japanese appear as human beings as normal as Britishers or Americans. In any war, normal people begin to fight and to kill
each other with any kind of justice or justification or patriotic feeling, logic and ethics - and this makes the entire madness of the war and this madness of the war
engulfs more normal people and make them more (and
more) mad and inhuman.
This is the crude reality and truth of the war. The drama
“Gyokusai” shows this crude reality and truth of the war
with unusual power of persuasion. In this sense the
drama is an “anti-war drama” in the truest sense of the
word. And the present world needs such a fundamental
“anti-war-ism” at any place and at any time. This is what
I think and believe now.
Tina Pepler hat vor zehn Jahren schon einmal einen
Roman aus Odas Feder bearbeitet. Am 6. August 1995
sendete BBC (domestic service) ihre Hörspielfassung
von Odas 1981 erschienenem Hiroshima-Roman. Von
diesem Roman gibt es auch eine vollständige englische
Übersetzung. Sie ist 1995 bei Kodansha International in
einer Paperbackausgabe erschienen.
Eine von dem Japanologen Roman Rosenbaum (Australien 2005) besorgte Übersetzung seiner Kurzgeschichte „Kawa no Hotori de - Close by the river“ (im japanischen Original 1987 erschienen) erreichte uns kurz
vor Redaktionsschluss.
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