- Fukiishi Yuiko
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| Fukiishi Yuiko at 14 |
In chapter 1, we learn that Seiichi has his eyes set on a girl, and gets jealous when he sees another boy interested in her. We learn that her name is Fukiishi Yuiko, and that she’s in love with our protagonist. Both kids share a similar family situation, and want to be in a relationship and escape the horror that their parents transformed their lives in. The fact that they have aligned goals in life is the icing on the cake (if this wasn’t a Shūzō Oshimi manga, of course!)
We know nothing about her, other than the fact that she wants to be with Seiichi, but is rather shy about talking to him directly. This might be ironic, considering that for me (and many other readers), she comes off as imposing herself on him, by inviting herself to go to his house, while barely being friends with him. When we realize what Seiichi has to deal with at home, it’s normal to get a little suspicious of anyone who comes near him. This mistrust is reinforced by the visual parallels with Seiichi’s mother throughout the chapters – a mysterious smile; a certain head tilt, and vague questions that make us wonder if she’s playing him like a fiddle.
As the story advanced, our opinion of her changed… at least mine did. What comes through in the drawing, as well as the words, is of a very shy, insecure girl, who is as withdrawn as she is ravenous for love and affection.
We learn that Fukiishi is a child that was intentionally abandoned by her mother and neglected by her father. He’s also physically abusive towards her. The woman walked away after the divorce, and left her only daughter in the care of her alcoholic ex-husband. According to Elisha O Ogbonna, in her book Mastering the Power of your Emotions, “Parents that withhold nurturing, stimulation, and support from their children are emotionally abandoning them. [...] Apart from existing relationships, people who feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded are liable to live in the state of emotional abandonment. Child abandonment can lead to abandoned child syndrome – a behavioral or psychological condition that remains throughout the child's life. Abandoned child syndrome is not recognized as a mental disorder in any medical manuals, but its psychological damage to the child cannot be denied. When a child is raised with chronic loss, or in an extremely dysfunctional relationship without the emotional supports and protection they need and certainly deserve, they are highly likely to internalize those experiences, which in turn can damage the perception of self and life.”
Her insecurity comes through in the third chapter; before we learn of Fukiishi’s interest in Seiichi, she’s accompanied by a schoolmate named Otani, who serves the role of matchmaker, as she lets the boy know that Fukiishi wants to accompany him home. It’s only in chapter 13, though, that we learn she has been in love with him for a year. It’s uncommon for a child her age to harbor such deep feelings for anyone, which naturally would make the readers suspicious of her motives. Another thing that makes many readers question her intentions is the fact that she seems to be ‘jumping steps’ in her relationship with Seiichi. She goes from being too shy to talk to him, to asking him to go to his house, handing him a love confession, and wanting to spend the night with him… Regardless of how genuine her feelings are, it feels too rushed. This is well encompassed in the scene in chapter 24, where she suggests telepathy as a way of getting instant emotional intimacy. This deep connection is incredibly difficult to achieve; oftentimes taking decades of sharing yourself with someone. It’s the ultimate romantic fantasy, though – everyone wants to have the people they love loving them back, unconditionally, no matter how problematic their lives are, or how undeserving of love they feel.
In spite of the suspicions of many readers, her childlike letter resonates within Seiichi, charms him, and makes him believe that she can be his girlfriend. Even a boy like Seiichi wants that kind of connection, even if such an enmeshment feels terrifying to someone with his life experience. Going from an unknown to the top of emotional intimacy in a few days is jumping many steps in a relationship. After we learn a little more about Fukiishi’s family background, it becomes easier to understand what makes her act this way.
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| The love letter |
Also, despite showing a relaxed disposition, she is incredibly shy and insecure around Seiichi, as her body language gives away. Oftentimes, she looks away from him while they’re talking, and is seen frequently with her hands hidden in her sleeves. People tend to hide their hands for specific reasons; it can mean they’re lying (or not being entirely truthful), but it can also mean that they’re anxious about a given situation. Since this manga depends heavily on the characters’ body language, the hidden hands are a significant clue. Combined with her excitement every time she sees him, and her looking away from him every time she shares something intimate, we understand that, even though she really wants to be with him, the entire situation makes her restless, especially because a lot is hinged on his answer to her letter.
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| Hiding hands |
In chapter 31, Fukiishi ‘tested the waters’ by confiding that she would like to remain in the park with him forever, rather than going back home. This feels quite genuine, but also a bit… rushed at that stage of their relationship… Realizing that she might scare him away by being so bold, she immediately corrects herself, telling him to forget it. The ironic thing is that Seiichi wants the same thing she does. His gutsy declaration creates a positive feedback loop, and she ends up asking him to caress her head.
During this moment, there’s a line of dialogue that shows the depth of loneliness this girl is submerged in. Curiously enough, it’s a sentence the author has used in previous works like The Flowers of Evil and Inside Mari. Its meaning is intriguing, because it doesn’t appear to be a mere verbal habit of the author. It shows the unfathomable loneliness that insulates his characters. Fukiishi seems to regard human warmth as some kind of Holy Grail, with the physical proximity and affectionate touch of the boy she’s in love with, the only thing she wants in life. This moment gains a new dimension when you consider that, immediately before, she opened up to him about her turbulent relationship with her father. The logical conclusion is that her uncanny quest for affection is more connected to the scarcity of love and validation she has at home than any hormones typical of adolescence.
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| Human Warmth |
According to Healthy Parenting: Become the Parent You Wish You’d Had: “Neglect is not just failing to meet the basic survival needs of a child. It can include the lack of nurturing as well. A syndrome first identified in a Romanian orphanage during the communist era, failure to thrive (FTT) is the term given to the babies who had their basic needs for food and shelter met but were never held or nurtured. [...] Neglect can also consist of a parent who doesn’t love their child, is contemptuous of them, is emotionally uninvolved, or just ignores them. It is a cruel form of child abuse.” If – to some readers – her need to feel loved and accepted reeks of desperation, it’s because it is desperate. It’s a matter of life or death… A matter of survival. She’s no different from any other abandoned child – awkward and timid, terrified of being shunned and abandoned again. She shares with Seiichi a grim sense of camaraderie, since they’re both victims of abuse. In certain moments, she seems willing to do whatever it takes to keep him close. Is her favorite season really Spring? Does she really have that much in common with him, or is she just agreeing with him because she’s scared of being shunned? Her family situation may make her act in ways as to avoid confrontations and avoid her loved ones abandoning her. According to The Disease to Please: Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome: “people-pleasing is largely driven by emotional fears: fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of conflict or confrontation, fear of criticism, fear of being alone, and fear of anger. As a people-pleaser, you hold the belief that by being nice and always doing things for others you will avoid these emotions in yourself and others. This defensive belief has a two-way effect. First, you use your niceness to deter and dodge negative emotions aimed at you from others – as long as you’re nice and always try to do things to please others, why would anyone want to get angry, or reject or criticize you? Second, by being so invested in your own niceness, you don’t allow yourself to feel or express negative emotions towards others.” On the other hand, one has to take into account that she is in love with him and that alone would make her extremely agreeable.
There’s one moment in chapter 35 (the only moment in the entire manga) when Seiichi is genuinely happy to be eating a meal. It’s when Fukiishi offers him the onigiri she cooked. His expression is reminiscent of someone eating the first scrumptious meal of his life. Of course, his happiness may have more to do with the fact that he’s in her room, but still… While she waits for his answer, her demeanor is indicative of a girl who is in dire need of acceptance, and who is more than willing to accommodate him. She doesn’t ignore her own needs in the process, though, which could be a big indicator of codependence.
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| A nice onigiri dinner |
There is a difference between people-pleasing and codependency, although both show signs of an unhealthy relationship. According to Mozelle Martin: “A codependent is someone who feels responsible for other people’s feelings, problems, and behaviors to the exclusion of themselves.” As of the date I’m writing this essay, Fukiishi doesn’t exhibit any signs of such behavior. But codependence is not where people start, it’s the end of a long and tortuous defense mechanism process that begins with fear of abandonment and a desire to avoid conflict and make sure the partner is happy. An argument can be made that Fukiishi is at that early stage. Her fear of abandonment is pretty intense, even if she’s not particularly vocal about it. There are two clear moments when she’s distressed by the idea that Seiichi might “ditch” her: one when they are in bed together, and the other one when they are under the bridge. More on that later...
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| Fear of abandonment |
But let’s go back for a moment: in chapter 32, she tries to save Seiichi from a panic attack while they are cornered by Seiko in the thicket. Amazingly, she manages to focus his attention and diffuse his panic state. Seiichi even manages to muster the courage to defend Fukiishi from his mother’s wrath. Fukiishi offers him sanctuary at her place, despite the fact that her drunk and abusive father also lives there.
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| Protective |
Their little rendezvous goes as well as can be expected for two pre-teens trying to hide from their abusive parents. I say this without a hint of sarcasm. Knowing what Seiko is capable of doing to the children if they go against her wishes, seeing Seiichi stand up to her, and then spend some peaceful hours in the company of the girl he’s in love with, is quite nice, especially considering what happens the day after. It’s a moment of calm before another storm looms in the horizon. And, as foolish as you might think it is to ‘hide’ like this, Fukiishi can see reason enough to understand – and echo the audience – that Seiichi is in serious danger if he goes back to his mother.
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| Fukiishi speaks for the audience |
The way she cooks for him, shows him her favorite music, and lets him sleep in her bed, are dainty ways for her to share her intimate life with him. Later, when they’re in bed, holding their hands tight, it’s a quiet, but rapturous moment. The image perfectly illustrates the expanding warmth between them, on a shared experience that was overtly exhilarating for both of them, one that demanded a profound vulnerability. Their willingness to be in each other’s hands is admirable, given their shared background of being viciously betrayed by the people they should trust the most…
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| handholding |
The next morning, she has an outburst towards her father, not that different from the one that Seiichi had towards his mother in the thicket. She ends up returning the favor when she protects Seiichi from her father’s wrath, by throwing her CD player at him to buy some time for the escape. It all happens so fast that she can’t even change clothes or take shoes with her as the two disappear. From the moment they escape until Seiichi returns home, certain things happen that make us reflect on the nature of this relationship. It’s here that Fukiishi tells him that she wants to run away with him, and that we learn that Seiichi’s post-traumatic stress and panic attacks are not surmountable problems. In this moment, the modest victory she achieved back at the thicket is reduced to nothing, as she is incapable of identifying and understanding his problem. However, it’s in this moment that we see something very important to determine the strength of the girl’s character… because in that moment of weakness and vulnerability (for both of them), she tries to keep him from giving up his coat to keep her warm, and attempts to calm him down when he’s overwhelmed by another panic attack.
I’m not convinced that we can chalk it all up to teenage hormones. Even though I believe hormones do play a role in their general dynamic, Fukiishi had just had a huge fight with her father (in which the man basically called his daughter a prostitute), and Seiichi witnessed his mother suggesting she would kill herself if she didn’t have her son back… None of which is conducive to a leisurely, romantic moment under a bridge between two pre-teens in love. I believe this moment is linked with the one they shared in her bed, and the other, way before, when she mentioned telepathy. She wants now what she wanted in the beginning: physical closeness and emotional intimacy, as well as escaping their abusers. When I first read this chapter, however, I was very suspicious of her behavior. I remember wondering whether her father was just physically abusing her or if he was also using her as a ‘surrogate wife’, to put it mildly. As of chapter 118, no evidence supports that theory. Naturally, I had to reevaluate the scene. As much as she wants him to know everything about her, I’m certain she didn’t want him to witness her fight with her father. She doesn’t know why her mother abandoned her, which makes her constantly worry that everybody she cares about will walk away. Many abandoned kids spend a great deal of time testing people and figuring out what their limits are. Either they want to hurt someone before they hurt them, or they want to know what they can do to avoid being abandoned again. In chapter 41, Fukiishi asks him if he hates her. He denies it. She can’t help but wonder what would trigger Seiichi to walk away from her…
Unfortunately, he does walk away but not for the reason she thinks. Fukiishi asks him to run away with her and leave everything behind. Her words are expressive of a real alarm of not surviving if they remain in that inhospitable, familiar environment, but the thought of “ditching” his mother forever overwhelms him, inducing a debilitating panic attack. Fukiishi’s worst nightmare comes true: she is abandoned again. Not through the boy’s fault, his action creates a negative feedback loop for Fukiishi, shattering her hopes of running away from there, and reinforcing her belief that she’s unlovable, and that the people she cares about will eventually walk out on her. That negative feedback loop is further reinforced in chapter 54, when Seiichi tells her that he hates her and never wants to talk to her again. The reader knows the motive behind his words, but the girl doesn’t. Once again, she has to face the fact that someone she loves has abandoned her.
Could this be her form of repetition compulsion? After all, her constant attempts to have a relationship with Seiichi, only to be rejected and abandoned by him does, in a way, mimic her relationship with her mother. Ironically, in both these chapters, telepathy would have been immensely helpful. These kids are real minefields of emotional abuse and, if only they knew what triggers to avoid, their relationship could actually have a chance of success. As it is, they cannot help but hurt each other, even though they don’t mean to cause each other pain. Either way, being together means a considerable risk for both of them.
Fukiishi’s relationship with her father has its own complexities, despite the fact that we’re not privy to most of it. In The Emotional Incest Syndrome, Patricia Love says: “It is not difficult to see how compliant behaviors keep you from being independent. But enmeshment through aggressive behaviors is less clear. These behaviors would appear to separate you from your parents. They create the illusion that you are fighting back rather than capitulating. In reality, aggressive behaviors still indicate enmeshment because of the intensity of your feelings; the repetitiveness and predictability of your reactions; and the fact that your behavior is not determined by your free choice, but rather by your defensive need to prove how separate you are. Compliance and aggression are merely two sides of the same behavioral coin.”
One of the justifications Papa Yuiko uses to raise a hand against his daughter is her unacceptable behavior, but we can guess that another motive is her sharp tongue. Fukiishi is very honest with her father regarding her feelings for him, and she makes sure to tell him how incompetent he is as a father. I bet the man doesn’t see it as honesty, though, he sees it as petulance and bad manners that have to be corrected at all costs. I’m also willing to bet that petulance and disrespect was all that Seiko saw when the little girl tried to defy her. All her father saw was his daughter being rude to a grieving mother, but the readers know just how truthful Fukiishi was regarding Seiko’s threatening behavior the night before. Due to her age and inexperience, Fukiishi can’t always escape the vicious retaliations of the adults she aggravates with her honest words.
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| Fukiishi dealing with adults |
In later chapters, after we bear witness to Seiichi’s horrendous abuse, we learn that Fukiishi fell victim to her father’s physical violence yet again (we see panels of her in chapter 65 where she has a patch on her temple).
Through an uncanny chain of events, we come to realize that Seiko got her revenge on the little girl by bad mouthing her at school in front of the boy her son had beat up, which, of course, led the wounded boy to get his own revenge on Seiichi by spreading the rumor about his relationship with Fukiishi. No imagination is needed to realize what an abusive father would do after hearing rumors about his daughter’s lewd behavior. Added to this is the fact that he accuses her of “being just like her mother” by bringing strange men into her room. The manga never tells us why Fukiishi’s mother disappeared. We’re left wondering if she divorced him because he was a violent alcoholic, or if he developed his alcoholism and abusive ways after he got abandoned by his wife. That his daughter reminds him of his ex-wife can’t be good for Fukiishi, since it suggests he takes his anger and frustration from the failed marriage and the divorce out on his daughter.
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| victim of abuse |
I always found it odd how she manages to hide Seiichi in her bedroom for so long, without either her father or grandmother noticing it… It suggests how common it is for her to spend long periods unsupervised which spells neglect for a girl her age. These loose sketches of her family life help us understand the unfathomable loneliness she suffers from, and her yearning for a deeper connection. It also helps us sympathize with her angry outbursts. (After witnessing Seiichi kicking a desk, she reveals that, during a fight with her father, she got so angry she ended up kicking a wall.)
Despite her anger, frustration and feelings of abandonment, and the fact that Seiichi inadvertently caused her a lot of trouble, she never considered giving up on him. That also strikes me as curious. If it’s not repetition compulsion, what can it be? The manga provides us with some clues…
In chapter 1, she’s talking to a boy whom, judging by how much he is blushing, makes me think he has romantic feelings for her. She doesn’t reciprocate because she’s been in love with Seiichi for a year. That boy returns in chapter 65 (his name is Sasaki). He comes to console Fukiishi, after he learns that her father beat her up again. The way he goes about it, though, is sickening… Even if I assume he has good intentions, it’s simply inadmissible that he hugs her and kisses her without her consent. At best, he’s a misguided good Samaritan who needs a lesson in personal boundaries. At worst, he’s knowingly trying to take advantage of an emotionally fragile girl to serve his own agenda. In Fukiishi’s defense, neither the hug nor the kiss are reciprocated. Without a hint of cynicism, I have often asked myself why. If the boy’s intentions are good, why doesn’t she just accept what he has to offer, especially after Seiichi rejects her the second time? The simple answer is: she doesn’t love him, and therefore it would be hypocritical of her to accept Sasaki’s affection when she has no intention of returning his feelings. But you have to wonder if she wouldn’t be better off with a boy who wasn’t so emotionally volatile…
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| One-sided hug |
The complex answer to this question is that Fukiishi may not be enthralled by a boy who isn’t, in some way, emotionally unavailable. Even though Seiichi is in love with her, their relationship is grueling, emotionally speaking. He’s too traumatized to be emotionally present and available to her (like her father), and because of his trauma, he has abandoned her twice already (mimicking her mother’s actions). Is love really that blind that she’s willing to overlook the fact that he already hurt her?! Or is she hoping to put her own demons to rest by pursuing a relationship with him? In truth, she may be unwillingly reenacting her own traumas by going after him, since “seeking out those relationships now means recreating history and changing the outcome, thereby gaining mastery over what we couldn’t control as a child”.
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| stay together |
She says she doesn’t want to abandon him the way her mother did, (which would be a noble action), but she also freely admits to her selfishness by comparing her actions to Seiko’s. In my opinion, this is a fallacious comparison. If one considers that Fukiishi is a little clingy (because of her abandonment issues), one has to take into account how she treats the people she clings to. Of course, a case can be made that Fukiishi sees him as nothing more than a charity case; someone for her to save, since she obviously can’t overcome the specter of her own trauma but, as I explained before, I’m more inclined to judge the content of her character when Seiichi is at her mercy. What we observe is that she has his best interest at heart all throughout the story, and she treats him with respect while he’s in a highly vulnerable state.
Successful relationships are filled with mutual understanding, support, a willingness to compromise, and both members being patient and influencing each other to be the best version of themselves. Positive relationships are symbiotic in nature, as that is the only way to thrive. Even though we don’t see a lot of their relationship, the aspects we do get to witness give us reason to be hopeful that this could turn out to be something positive for both kids. Love has the potential to set them free from the cycle of abuse. In the end, their relationship was rather curious in that, while their parents made their connection nearly impossible, they seemed to lessen each other’s emotional pain when they were together. That sense of camaraderie emboldened them.
On the other hand, this could also be a case of “the blind leading the blind”. Fukiishi declares that she’s her own person, but she doesn’t really know how to move past her anger. She teaches Seiichi a clever exercise to vent his rage, calling it a “magic trick”. That’s very on point because, even if she knows how to vent in a non-destructive way, there’s no real follow-through. Fukiishi doesn’t seem to be aware of how to move on with her life after she vents. As time moves on, her fears and insecurities well up inside her and she needs to vent her anger once more. That is evident by the fact that she joins him in their matricide ritual.
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| the promise |
For those who nurtured the hope that Fukiishi could help Seiichi with his problems, the main question is: can Fukiishi help herself? The fact is: this type of situation happens every day. The Alcoholics Anonymous program was created on the premise that one recovering alcoholic would sponsor the recovery of another alcoholic – two people helping each other heal from a common illness, in a ‘paying it forward’ system. However, the manga poses the interesting question: even if Fukiishi could help Seiichi with his trauma, who would help her? These kids can only help each other for so long, before they need help from someone else. This is all academic, since Fukiishi didn’t show up in the manga for 34 chapters.
23 years after that fateful phone call, Seiichi meets the love of his life at the cemetery where he buries his father’s remains. Much has happened to her, I’m sure, but we’re not privy of the repercussions of her past in her present life. We learn that she’s married and has two young daughters. It’s irresistible to wonder what happened to her during those 23 years… Did she learn about what happened to her boyfriend through the newspapers? If so, what did she think of it? Since she knew Seiichi’s heart better than anybody, she may have not believed the newspapers’ narrative… Did she marry a good man, or did she end up marrying that guy from chapter 1? Were her pregnancies planned? And most significantly: how did she feel when she saw Seiichi again? Some people expressed the idea that her delay in recognizing him means she never loved him to begin with, but I wouldn’t subscribe to that hypothesis… I think she did recognize him immediately, but too much time had passed for her to be able to place him in the correct moment of her life. Seiichi changed a lot from the time he was 13, but, more than that, there’s no direct correlation between the delay in recognition and the intensity of her feelings for him. I don’t think that small delay translates into her having prosopagnosia. It was just a prosaic memory phenomenon that happens to everybody at some point. In fact, if she hadn’t recognized him, she wouldn’t have taken the time to talk to him. As for what she feels, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the answer…
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| recognition |
We can see that her face expresses great quandary. After the shock of recognizing Seiichi, Fukiishi’s expression is pensive, as if she’s reminiscing on the time that they’ve spent together. It’s interesting she doesn’t tell her children the motive, although the youngest daughter looks worried about her mommy. In the end, Fukiishi walks away, not going after her ex-boyfriend. It’s not surprising… She has bigger responsibilities. It’s comforting to know that she’s not transferring the weight of her own emotions onto her kids. It’s good parenting, for as little as we get to see. We don’t know what she’s doing at the cemetery, but I hope she eventually made peace with her father. Or, maybe she was just visiting her grandma’s grave. Fukiishi seems to have made a good life for herself. She always had a sagacity, an independence of thought, that may have helped her through the hard times… unlike Seiichi who is excusably passive (to me, at least).
The manga made such a radical swerve in Chapter 119 that I’m doubtful she’ll ever make a comeback. Regardless of my suspicion, Shūzō Oshimi said in a recent interview something like: “the option to escape with Fukiishi is Seiichi’s form of hope.” Since Blood on The Tracks is about the snowballing of despair, and the loss of hope in a brighter future, it’s only natural (albeit a painful omen) that Fukiishi is removed from the story once again.
