Finding England Through Japan

I love English history and culture. My son loves Japanese manga and anime. We discovered the two countries aren’t as far apart as we thought they were.

I’m a dedicated Anglophile and I’ve spent years exploring the history and culture of the British Isles. My son loves Japanese manga (graphic novels) and anime (animated movies and TV shows), which spurred an ongoing interest in Japanese history and culture. He discovered the manga series Inuyasha when he was ten years old, and 25 years later, his manga collection runs to more than 6,000 volumes covering more than 1,300 different series.

Bill is as comfortable reading a volume of manga from back to front as I am listening to the accents on my favorite British and Irish television shows. Clearly our interests were centered on two different continents, and it seemed unlikely they would never intersect, until Bill discovered a connection that led me on a journey to finding England through Japan.

The link was a manga series called Emma. The series tells the story of a young girl in Victorian England who’s rescued from a life of poverty and trained to be a proper English maid. Eventually, Emma falls in love with a member of the gentry and the young couple find themselves battling the rigid class constraints of the period. 

The series was created by Kaoru Mori, and in his introduction to the series, Jim Chadwick notes Mori's love for all things English and her goal of creating as accurate a depiction of Victorian London as possible. She did an amazing job, and I was enthralled by the artistry and detail in her work. 

Bill was thrilled that he’d finally convinced me to start reading manga. After Emma, we went on to explore manga based on the works of William Shakespeare, including adaptations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and The Tempest. Then Bill encouraged me to leave my comfort zone by reading some quirkier manga, including Black Butler, a historical and supernatural action series set in Victorian England and The Earl and the Fairy, a light fantasy series that’s set in the same time period.

As our appreciation for one another’s interests grew, we made a point of visiting places related to both our interests. Bill doesn’t mind taking detours for Brit-related sight-seeing, cultural events such as Scottish and Celtic festivals, and stops at some great English and Irish pubs.

In return, I’ve enjoyed several Japanese festivals, visited Buddhist temples and Japanese gardens, and explored the outstanding collection of Asian art at the Freer Gallery and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which together make up the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC.

As a result, I’ve also had some interesting encounters with the British Isles in the most unexpected places. For example, one of the highlights of the Freer Gallery is the Peacock Room, which was commissioned by British shipping magnate Frederick Leyland in 1876 to provide a backdrop for his extensive collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain and The Princess from the Land of Porcelain, a painting by James McNeill Whistler. The American artist, whose best-known painting is Whistler’s Mother, lived in England for many years.

Leyland selected British architect Thomas Jeckyll, a pioneer in the development of Anglo-Japanese style, to design the new interior. When an illness prevented Jeckyll from putting the final touches on the room, Leyland authorized Whistler to make some minor changes to the interior in order to better complement the painting and porcelain. 

But Whistler couldn’t confine himself to the agreed upon changes. Instead, he spontaneously created a mural that combined jewel-toned greens and blues with metallic gold leaf and covered every inch of the walls. He even painted over a set of 16th-century leather wall coverings that were brought to England by Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII. 

Whistler’s unbridled creativity resulted in a bitter, long-standing feud with Frederick Leyland, but today the Peacock Room is considered to be a masterpiece of decorative mural art and one of the best examples of Anglo-Japanese design ever created.

I love the fact that Bill and I have enjoyed sharing our diverse interests in books, history, and popular culture over the years. Without his interest in manga, I probably wouldn’t have read Kaoru Mori’s Emma, explored the 16th-century Chinese classic Journey to the West and the deeper meanings in the works of Osamu Tezuka, or discovered the unique story behind the creation of the Peacock Room. And without my love for the British Isles, Bill probably never would have visited England, enjoyed Lost in Austen, Red Dwarf, and dozens of other British movies and TV shows, or developed a taste for Battenberg cake and Curly Wurly bars. 

It turns out that finding England through Japan is something we both enjoy.