Mother

Senior Japanese film directors not only spoke about their war memories, but also said, "A work comes to life by depicting one's own experiences, not those of others."

Harada's mother was born in 1929. Her youth was caught up in the bloody war.
After the war, she gave birth to Harada at a later age (caesarean section).
However, Harada's father did not choose Harada's mother and married another woman.
Furious, Harada's mother grabbed a knife and stormed into the wedding venue.
This is a story he heard from Harada's aunt, Chiyoko.
Chiyoko wanted to tell Harada "there are many more interesting stories," but Harada's mother was so angry that she couldn't say any more.
Harada thought, "My father must have wanted to marry a quiet woman rather than my hot-tempered mother."

Harada's father had a real family and children other than Harada.His father's legal wife refused to let Harada and his wife meet, and told Harada through her lawyer not to go near his father's grave.

Harada's mother was a supporter of the Liberal Democratic Party after the war, even though her life was ruined by the war.
When his mother found out that Harada had become a Marxist and communist supporter after being introduced to Marx by Nakajima, a high school teacher, she was angry.
"I'm going to go to your high school and complain!" she yelled. Harada stopped her.
She said, "If you become a communist, the police will arrest you! We will be bullied by the neighborhood! Stop it now!"
But she hadn't read a single page of Marx.
She was imbued with the old Japanese military education and male superiority mentality, as well as the biased education of the samurai society and feudal era.
Harada and his mother continued to be at odds in their later years.

When she grew old, she asked Harada to return to Gunma and take care of her.But Harada had an intuition that if he lived with his mother, "I'll surely kill my mother."

Perhaps sensing this, she hid from Harada the fact that her body was deteriorating due to aging, and decided to become bedridden alone in her room and die there.
She had fallen down the stairs and broken her hip, rendering her immobile.
Harada believed that caring for elderly parents should be done in collaboration with social welfare systems and welfare organizations, but Harada's mother refused.
She thought that "it would be shameful for a samurai's wife to expose her weakness to society."
Harada discovered his mother immobile in bed and immediately admitted her to the hospital.
Harada's mother, in her 80s, was no longer fit for surgery.
Due to the LDP government's policy of cutting back on medical and welfare services, Japanese hospitals are always full of beds, and patients who no longer have a need for them are asked to leave.
Harada admitted his mother to a geriatric medical hospital. However, many of Japan's geriatric medical hospital. were like graveyards where the elderly were left lying in bed.
Harada had a hunch that "if things continued like this, my mother would die," and had her admitted to a nursing home.

His mother, who had been taught that "children should take care of their parents," was furious at Harada.

However, unlike a geriatric hospital, the nursing home was well lit and she got healthier.But eventually her dementia worsened, and she died of old age at the age of 89.

As Harada was sorting through her belongings, he came across a pair of erotic prints from the Edo period, depicting sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, at the back of a dresser.He remembered that when he was a child, he had witnessed his mother having sex with his father, who had come to visit.

”Shunga (Spring paintings. 1600s-1800s)” (from Zashikiro)

*Many film directors and novelists have depicted the story of a child witnessing their parents having sex.

The important part comes next.

Young people today may feel ashamed of these negative memories (now known among young people in Japan as "dark history"), but when it comes to creating a work, these strange experiences can all become valuable assets.
Author Miyao Tomiko was ashamed of her childhood upbringing in a geisha house, but when she wrote a novel about it after becoming an adult, it was well received.
Her works were made into films one after another by director Gosha Hideo, who also grew up in the world of the yakuza.
(These are some of the things Harada told the art university students.)

Death Lullaby/Zashikiro

Horizon Blue/Horizon Blue

Miyao and Gosha, who grew up in a world of geisha, sake, and yakuza, continued to create one work after another based on their own childhood experiences, a unique world that only those who grew up in that environment can understand. ("Kai" "Yokiro" credit: Toei）

Director Kinji Fukasaku repeatedly depicted an episode from his childhood when he witnessed his mother having sex with a stranger and then punched her. ("Gendai-yakuza Hitokiri-Yota" credit: Toei)