A Note ow Translating the Kibyoshi In his pioneering article over three decades ago, James T. Araki rendered a few kibyoshi into English employing what can be described as an illustrated playscript format with reduced reproductions of the original Aibyas leaves, interspersed strategically between stretches of translated text! Subsequent translators by and large have followed suit, including Chris Drake, Sumie Jones, Scott Miller, and Wolfgang Schamoni, not to omit the present author. ‘Although Araki provided no rationale for his choice, a clue ean be found in an even earlier article of his in which, writing on one of the Aibyéish’s kin- dred genres, he observed that “the format of the sharebom is essentially that of the dramatic text”? Araki must have felt justified in retaining the play- script format for his &ibyéshi translations, then, for aside from the genre's indebtedness to the stage, at the time of his writing the playseript format it- self was the method of choice in the standard Japanese anthologies. ‘This is not to imply that the playscript format works perfectly in Japa- nese, In the original texts, dialogic utterances tend to float indiscriminately in the spaces between the figures of two or more fictional characters, mak- ing attribution sometimes tricky, though the playscript format customarily assigns definitive identities to speakers. Granted, clues as to the identity of the speaker are to be detected in such things as narrative context, vocal reg ister, gendered pronouns, and the use of polite or humilific language. How- ever, readers are left to draw their own conclusions, which means that in those instances when the speaker is ambiguous, even eminent annotators have provided drastically varying attributions, This would be fine were it not 2. Araki published “The Dream Pillow in Edo Fiction” in 1970, Granted, there were cali uanslaions: Zolbrod rendered Bakin's Aibyishi “*The Vendetta of Mc Fleacacher Managoto" as a short narrative story in 1965, and Akimoto used a similar style even eats However, its Arakis format chat has endured, 2 Araki, “Sharehor: Books for Men of Mode." p32.A Note on Translating theKibypshi 256 for the fact that none of the complexity of the various elements of the physical layout of the texts comes across in the playscript format, which perforce cleans up the jagged edges of the original texts Accordingly, by imposing a set, narratological sequence that was never present in the original, the playscript format gives the false impression that the reading process is straightforward, as if to imply that all readers would hhave read a Aibyashi the same way. The very linearity of the playscript, in other words, misleadingly suggests that there is an unambiguously “proper” way of reading, Granted, readers who are able to match the words translit- erated into modern typescript with the original Japanese in the reproduc- tions may be able to compensate for this effect. Yet even some Japanese readers today find the original Edo-period seript too obscure to perform this matching process effortlessly or even correctly—particularly when the reproductions are diminutive, as is too often the case. ‘Most significantly, in my opinion, the playscript format easily lulls one {nto the mistaken impression that the visual and verbal texts are separable Since it is this visual-verbal dynamic that largely commends the Aibyashi for attention in the first place, to subordinate the pictures in any way seems un- satisfactory. By deracinating the verbal text from its visual environment, the playscript format reduces the messy visual-verbal anarchy of the original to an artificial tidiness. In so doing, it effaces one of the unique, defining fea- tures of the Aidydhi. Simply put, the playscript format presents a rather canned experience. As a vehicle of translation, the playscript format suffers from these drawbacks, for readers must rely solely upon the linear order of the trans- lated text, and this order does not necessarily reflect the narrative order of the original, if one can even be said to exist. Furthermore, readers not flu- ent in Japanese cannot match the modern typescript transliterations of the original curvilinear script to that writing within the reproduced originals. Nor should they be expected to do so, for a translation that demands flu- ency in the original language is less a translation than a charade. Additionally, in light of the Aibyash’s close affinity to the popular stage, the playscript format may inadvertently engender the misconception that a Aibyashi is a kind of illustrated performance text for a kabuki or puppet play. ‘One apparent benefit of the playseript format is that by including repro- ductions, even diminutively sized ones, it preserves, and thereby dignifies, something of the aesthetic appeal of the original Aibyéshi. In practice, how- ever, this has too often ended up having the opposite of the intended effect, since neither the translations nor the exegesis in any of the major Japanese anthologies are keyed to the pictures, Thus, the playscript format has per petuated a tendency within literary studies in Japan to focus on the verbal text to the exclusion of the pictorial one, as though the latter were merely inciden- tal or negligible. Regardless of whether the playscript format is mobilized to present the Aibydshi to a modern Japanese audience or to render the Ailyashi into another language, then, the pictures end up getting lost in translation.25% A Note on Translating the Kibyoshi Fortunately, there have been positive developments in recent years. Some works in the playscript format have begun to include slightly larger repro- ductions of the originals (as with the few books published by Kawade hob shinsha). This makes it easier for Japanese readers, at least, to match the transliteration with the position of the original text. More promising is, Koike Masatane’s six-volume collection of transliterated and annotated ilyisbi, which provides some scholarly illumination of the pictures as well as the words.’ One of the standard anthologies of premodern Japanese lit- crature that has been updated within the past few years now also includes some annotation to pictorial aspects of the Aibydshi contained therein Be that as it may, the playscript format is hardly the only way of render- ing the Aibyasb. As far back as the 1920s, the scholar of Eo literature Yama~ guchi Takeshi—in what could be dubbed the “dubbed format”—simply re- placed the squiggly-looking cursive scrawl of original texts with a modern typescript (Figure IL). Regrettably, the mechanical regularity of Yama- ‘guchis straight-edged typescript did not adequately convey the flowing sen- suality of the original handwritten “grass” script (sisbe). “Typesetting,” as cartoonist Will Eisner has observed of the tendency to retain hand lettering in Western comicbooks, “does have a kind of inherent authority but it has a ‘mechanical effect that intruded on the personality of free-hand art.”* If only Yamaguchi had had at his disposal a curvilinear typescript that mimicked frechand lettering, one wonders if the playscript format would ever have become entrenched at all. Many translations of modern Japanese ‘manga into other languages employ a straight-edged font, to be sure, though this is largely in keeping with the originals themselves, Pethaps the modern manga provides the cue for Stella Bactels-Wu, whose dubbed-format transla- tion of a Ailydshi by Bakin into German likewise employs such an imper- sonal typeface.” Award-winning aanga artist Sugiura Hinako was, in contrast, able to avoid such antiseptic effect by replacing, in her relatively recent rendition of Master Flaslgold, the original grass script with her own only slightly less curvaceous modern Japanese handwriting (Figure II.2)$ What aesthetic beauty Sugiura sacrifices with frechand lettering may at least be compensated for by in- creased legibility. As irritating as some people find this sort of dubbing — especially the happy few who can appreciate the nuances of the original Edo- period Japanese serawl—at least it allows one to become immersed in some- thing approaching the visual-verbal pleasures of the original text 3, See Koike, Edo gah chon 44 Tanahashi, SNKBZ 79 §. Yamaguchi, Kiss nfo 6, Eisner, Coir ond Septal Art. 37. 7. See Bartls-Wia, Mitton ad ih 8. See Sugiura, Fase okay, pp. 151-182. Sugiura won the Japan Cartoonists’ Assocation Award in 1984 and che Bunshun Manga Award ip 1988A Note on Translating theKibypshi 258 oh > Hf REDE OV > BE OB Xa el ae BROW Yom Sy se Las tek lB { SR cm Ser ore ante SH] -SigacRe Sey, PASS H SRA EH RG! SUH OMOE OHA ne r of DNSEEG SRR dicey STEEDS St runt ABR 2 2 La Vanagchd Tn Yaraguei, Another drawback of the dubbed format is that, thus far, it has tended » deter sustained annotation. This is primarily an issue of space. The bare ainimum of requisite exegesis often cannot be squeezed into the margins round the pictures. Thus, Sugiura’s dubbed version dispenses with annota- con entirely, which hardly aids the reader who lacks perfect fluency in Edo- eriod Japanese259 A Note on Translating the Kibyashi idern typescriA Note on Translating therioyishi 260 media cannot translate as well as paper is the materiality of the Ailydshi itself Although the touch of Edo-period ragpaper would somehow feel closer to, someone holding a modern book than someone viewing a computer sercen, both modern media nonetheless remain translations of the original materi ality. The principal stumbling block at the time of this writing, though, is that the use of electronic media has not yet become entirely feasible for academic publishing. ‘The present volume, in the meantime, employs a format that might be described as an amalgam of the dubbed method buttressed by extensive annotations of the pictures as well as the words, Although dubbing as a technique of rendering foreign films has its sworn enemies, here the idea is to enable the reader to encounter the Ailydshi as a visual-verbal text without having to long jump back and forth between playscript and pictures—which one doubts most readers actually do when using the playscript format—and without having to resort to translator's notes unless one wants to. In lieu of Yamaguchi’s square typescript or Sugiura’s handwritten scrawl, the present volume as a rule employs a curvilinear typeface in the hopes that it conveys some semblance of the original cursive grass script, which the kibyishi uses for both narrative and dialogic texts. For those cases in which a seal script (fensbojf) or a block script (kaisho) is employed to render signboards or title strips, for instance, a more appropriate square typescript is used. In light of the extreme allusivity, topicality, and puzzle-like nature of the visual and verbal texts in the Aidydsbi, I resort to “thick” translation, employ- jing such apparatuses as an introductory essay, pictorial exegesis, tailed annotation including comments on Edo-period Japanese, of course buttressed by bibliogeaphic and other miscellaneous notes. The purpose of this strategy is to supply some of the information a contemporary reader (to say nothing of the ideal reader) might have had at his disposal. However, such thick translation can be off-putting to the informed general reader— and can seem like a “cop-out” to some no doubt better informed specialist translators. Thus, Ihave aimed for a more or less self-contained surface trans- lation, downplaying the annotations by withholding reference marks within the texts themselves, while nonetheless retaining some of the inevitable— and desirable—jaggedness. The annotations are keyed to the translated text by their arrangement into sections following cach translated piece and by highlighting those words appearing within the text that would seem to war: rant elaboration, ind de- ‘To reiterate, each translation is layered, for the convenience of the from broad strokes to minutiae as follows: (1) a general introductory essay, providing some useful contextualization, discussion, and bibliographic ‘notes; (2) the translation proper, which bears no reference marks (50 as not to impinge upon the visual field of the text any more than necessary), and which can perhaps be read—superficialy, at least—without recourse to fur- ther annotation; (3) the annotations to both the pictorial as well as the ver aden,Ret A Note on Translating the Kibypshi bal texts, keyed to the translation by section number and boldfacing for quick identification, which might appeal less to the general reader than to the student of Japanese literature and culture; and (4) footnotes to all of the above, containing mostly scholarly citation but also some additional infor mation that will no doubt appeal only to the inveterately curious, ‘Two final notes, Although it is often said that poetry and humor freight the translator with the heaviest demands, by far the most daunting aspect of annotating the Ailyéshi is not the dense wordplay. Nor is it the visual-verbal play, the words of which can, after all, be tweaked in order to compensate for what the pictures cannot communicate in English, Rather, itis the many unidentified pictorial objects that cannot be hinted at (much less explained) in the verbal translation. Although most practicing translators blithely ignore the school of thought holding that translation is by definition impossible, when it comes to such pictorial objects, the issue of untranslatability rears its head. How can one ead,” let alone /ranslate, an unfamiliar depicted object? This is not as ridicu- lous a query as it may seem, Although the object can always be explained within the annotations, the larger issue resides in differences in extralexical competency. The Aibyashi may be virtually untranslatable, in other words, the theory of untranslatability notwithstanding, not simply because its pictures render it unreadable, but because the visual-verbal imagination of eighteenth- century Japaa is itself nor readily transplantable." Annotation alone surely «for this disjunetion, ‘cannot comp ‘That said, the annotations and notes in the present volume sometimes err on the side of excessiveness. To annotate the kibyéshi this way, as though it were a highbrow work of clas readers as an exercise in absurdity: However, doing so helps demonstrate the remarkable allusive play of these pieces ying due respect to the genre and the language of the mid-Edo period. Thus, these are specialized annotations intended slightly more for the student of Edo-period culture than for the informed general reader. Finally, the well as the verbal texts as an open-ended interpretive occasion, They are not meant t0 foreclose all possible interpretations. than annotations chasing wildly after allusive geese isa translation where the dynamic polyvalence of the original gets flattened out into a uniformly tasteless entity: To paraphrase Churchill on democracy, ann tion is the worst form of translation, except for all the others. ical literature, no doubt will strike some while snnotations are offered in the spirit of treating the visual as ill, the only thing worse tated transla- 10, [follow the lead here of Barbara C. Bowen, who describes Rabelais’ books as being ‘probably less accessible to the general educated reader, Anglo-Saxon o¢ Freneh, than they were a generation aga. They have become, to put it blunts, unreadable. . ..” Ia Bowen, Rabchis's Unreadable Books” pChapter & Those Familiar Bestsellers (14782) Natural one des not lng, move about ar kav the room wile engaged in reading —Neo-Confucianist Kaibara Ekken Santo Kydden had his first commercial and critical success in the Aibydshi genre with Those Familiar Bestselers, which he wrote and illustrated under the pseudonym Kitao Masanobu in 1782, at the tender age of twenty-one, At this point in his career, Kyoden was a less experienced author than illustra- tor, so commentators have tended to favor his pictures over his verbal story. Contemporary reviewer and author of popular fiction Ota Nanpo raved, ranking Familiar Bestsellers “the great eréme de la créme” (dao jo hich’) in the category of kibyéshi artwork for that year (Figure 5.1).| Among modern scholars, Mizuno Minoru has extolled the “realistic portrayal” evident in the expressiveness of the lines, the uance of mannerisms, and the minor details of such things as a rosette hanging from a transom. For him, Familiar Bestrellrs is the sole dividing line between Kyéden's juvenilia and mature ‘ocuvre, Likewise, Koike Masatane feels the work captures contemporary life down to the smallest of details. And ‘Tanahashi Masahiro, praising the graphic realism, hails the piece as representative of the genre.? Nonetheless, the story itself holds a particular fascination. If the plot in most kibyéshi serves as a convenient frame upon which to hang numerous visual and verbal gags, then the one in Familiar Bestsellers is no exception, as, it occasions a literary pastiche (fiivor), collocated with the predictable strings of puns (monozukushi) and associative words (eng), centering on the world of contemporary publishing, Analogous perhaps to Swift's Battle ofthe Books, which pits “ancients” against “moderns,” it describes the effort of a clique of out-of-date published material from the Kamigata (Kyoto-Osaka) region to defame another clique: the witty, sexy, and trendy comicbooks (usages) and woodblock prints of Edo. Naturally, the protagonist of this 1. Fora tanserbed version of Nanpo's Byars Se it Beter(Okeme bahia, 1783), see Hamada, Ora Nanpo gn 7, pp. 252-273 2. Mizuno, Sants Kyler mo yoshi, pp. 11-12; Koike, Hankotasha Ota Nap t Sante Kyden, 96; and Tanahashi in Koike, Ede no geaka chon 1p. 316.Those Familiar Bestsellers 264 Sq nies alu Stony, Sree Sop oe S Senki ONS EE oe neiet FR was woe pe DEWAR RE NS me ilyishiis himself a kibyéhi (though it should be kept in mind that the con- Fig 1 Ranking of Kydes temporary term was “blucbook”). Similarly, the narrator isa comicbook art ‘Teme Bur he ee ist by the name of Kitao Masanobu. This deliberate self reflexivity, humor an eiece sae ously drawing attention to the gente and to the author, is a pervasive aspect ti arewok died by the of this and others of Kyoden’s kibyosbi. Season), rm Bender “The Kyoto-Osaka clique is led by Reading Book and Glossy Book, gen- tka lie res long associated with the dominant publishing house in the region, the by Ora Nano. Courtesy of Hachimonjiya, No longer at the pinnacle of pop literature, these two books Tokyo Mewopaaa Cemnl Lib Special Acgusisions find themselves far from home, languishing at a flea market in Edo, where Collection, the best-selling genre of the day is Bluebook. Determined to recapture their erstwhile glory (not to mention their share of the market), they hatch a scheme to ensnare Bluebook in scandal by turning Edo genres against each other. In the end, the culpable parties are admonished by The Tale of Gey and Tang Poetry Anthology, as though contemporary literature must somehow inevitably answer to the authority of the classes. No doubt reflecting the significance historically attached to honor in Ja~ pan, the theme of gossip-mongering runs throughout much of the litera ture, from at least the time of early classical poetry and the world of the Shining Prince Genji, where it lurks as a nagging apprehension. As Yoshida Kenko observed in his fourteenth-century miscellany Essays in Idlness—a work that also figures in Familiar Bessellers—“Indeed, itis a high reputation that lays the foundation for slander.”® That a smear campaign could become the stuff of a humorous story by the Edo period probably indicates how much more the extended reach of mass printing must have heightened anxiety over the effect of a malicious rumor upon one’s reputation. ‘This conflict between two groups of printed matter broadly spoofs the “feudal-house piece” (oiemon) of kabuki and puppet plays, which is merely fone way that Familiar Bestsellers pays homage to the popular stage. ‘To this wellknown formula, in which rival factions lay claim to the succession rights of a single clan, Kyoden adds the twist of personification: woodblock- 3. MeCallough, Clas! jpanae Prose, p. 40265 Those Familiar Bestsellers printed pictures and books spring to life before the reader’ eyes in concrete human form, their generic affiliation pictured as worn on their sleeves. Less well-studied specimens of popular culture are also represented, such as lot- tery tickets, board games, sheet music, landscape cards, and protective amu- lets. ‘There are even “urinating forbidden” signs, which, judging by how frequently they appear within £ibyéshi pictures, must have been a lucrative side-business for printers. As a kind of popular imagining of a publisher's catalogue of best-selling merchandise, Familiar Bestslles speaks volumes, ‘complementing recent forays by Mary Elizabeth Berry, Peter F. Kornicki, and others into the highly diversified world of ejghteenth-century mass publishing ‘The anthropomorphic “creature battle” (ini gasen) has a long literary pedigree in Japan, by no means originating with Kydden, Creatures were as- saulting each other regularly in the companion booklets of the preceding, several centuries, if not in earlier genres’ The Gat Tale (Neko no sashi, ca, 1602), for instance, comically pits feline against rodent*—a bit like Spiegelman’s Cat-Nazis vs. Rat-Jews in Maus. In the syllabary booklets of the early Edo period, there was The Tale of Chickens and Rats (Keiso monegatai, ca, 1636), whose critters vie for rice rations in contemporary Kyoto. By the mid-cighteenth century, the creature battle royal had become the stuff of redbooks and blackbooks, the comicbooks from which the Aibydshi material- ized. ‘The redbook We Now Present Those Storied Spooks (Kore wa goxonj no akemono nite gorasir, for instance, may even have provided Kyoden with a hint for his title? The perennial favorite Monkey rs. Crab (Sar hand gasen), a redbook illustrated by Nishimura Shigenaga but of unstipulated author- ship, retold the title’ legendary grudge match, only to be recast as a Aabydshi in Koikawa Harumachi’s The Age-Old Yarn of Monkey vs. Crab (Saru kant toi smukashibanashi, 783). Harumachi also composed one of the most imaginative and influential creature battles to date, New Roots of Verbal Jousting (Kotoba tatakai atarashit no ‘ne, 1778), involving personified slang expressions and words popular in Edo (Figure 5.2) Nav Roofs helped inspire Kydden to issue A Domestic Tale of Finits in the Flesh (Kudamono: Mitate osewabanasbi, 1780), about a humorous struggle between unfriendly species of fruit (Figure 5.3)? It also exerted a profound influence upon Familiar Bestsellers, providing a model of patent self-reflexivity, not to mention contributing many of its vogue phrases. And. 4 See Berry, Japan in Print 5. For more on the history of the creaure bale, see Koike, Edo no esata elo t, pp. 109 sna; and Koike, Eo no eon 4, pp. 17-8 “6. Skond, Taker of Tats and Langer, pp. 3-46: 7. Reprinted in Koike, Ed mo bun 1, pp. 9-16 8. Reprinted in Koike, Ee ma geata cow 1, pp. 87-112, 9. Mentioned in Koike, Edo w ica eho 1p 247Those Familiar Bestsellers 26626% Those Familiar Bestsellers aise Masanobu en, Japanese, 1764-16 ‘Wonallock pied book inkon papers 175130 cam. Publisher: Tauruya Kiemon (Senkakodo Photograph © 2006 Muscum of Fine Arts, Boston. Poets (Hyakumin isbn). No direct reference is made to the matching-card c only verbal clue is a snippet of dialogue uttered by one of the characters, A Hnndred Bufoons “I shall look after my children / while getting merrily smashed.” These ate the last nvo lines of a madeap poem in Kondo Kiyoharu’ (f1. a, 1716-1736) picturebook A Hundred Poems by a Hundred Buf Joons (Date Iyaksnin shi game Aki no ta n0 Without sojourning Kario sumade ai At that but in autumn fields Hiyori yoku (On fair-weathered days Wa ga kodomora o I shall look after my children Raku ni sugosan While getting merrily smashed, This bit of doggerel parodies a poem by Emperor Tenji, the very first in A Hundred Poets, replacing “my sleeves” (nu ga koromode) with “my children” (ona ge Radomord) and punning “to take care of” with the Edo slang “to get drunk” (0ngor) Aki no tano In the autumn fields Kario no io no the hut, the temporary hut, Toma o arami its thatch is roughThose Familiar Bestsellers 268 Wa ga koromode wa and so the sleeves of my robe ‘Tsuyu ni muretsutsu are dampened night by night with deve!” Even if a reader recalls the particular Aya in A Hundred Buffoons by its last two lines—no small feat in itself—he still needs to recollect the original poem from A Flutdred Poets, then envision the twin pictures on the playing cards accompanying Emperor Tenjis poem: one depicting a rugged country hhut (i); the other, some lackeys toiling outside (Figure 5.4). Each card contains only two or three lines of tastefully positioned verse, and this per- haps explains why the corresponding two panels in Familiar Bestsellers con- tain far less verbal text than any of its others. This scene, as in a game of matching cards itself, thus requires quick-witted matching of visual and verbal texts Although part of the challenge of reading, any Aibyéshi lies in such ree- ondite cross-media play, much of the immediate fun of Fumiliar Bestsllers derives from the ways in which genres of literature and art are rendered. Blucbook dresses and speaks as the consummate sophisticate, displaying meticulous attention to the details of contemporary chic. One passage, if ‘not a manifesto, has become the locus clasicus of descriptions of the gente. Bluebook is described as a trendsetter, well versed in the finer points of so- cial life, capable of bringing together members of different classes and of entertaining women and children. The corresponding pictures show an au- thentic dandy, nattly garbed in the latest silk halfeoat, hair done up in the modish Honda-style topknot, and grasping his long-stemmed pipe rakishly Redbook and Blackbook, by contrast, being two early genres of comic- books now past their prime, dress in the frumpiest of fashions and babble in the worst clichés of yesteryear. “Thick as a big old tree stump” is this to. Translated by Most, Pures ofthe Hear 14. ig 54, Workers in aural fied and he smple hi 860 sc wth Emperor Tenis poo. Reprinted in Monts, Peso de Hear 143 Courtesy of the Universi of Hava Pes,269 Those Familiar Bestsellers Blackbook—an expression appearing frequently in the by-then fusty black- books of preceding decades (not to mention in Harumachi’s New Roots of Verbal Jousting, here additionally characterizing the genre itself as passé. “The slang of one generation,” as Simon Dentith has observed, “becomes, the target of parody in the next."! Similarly the pictures portray Blackbook as dowdy, sporting an outmoded hairstyle, and gripping his long-stemmed pipe lumpishly. ‘The emphasis upon current sentiments being one of the hallmarks of the kibydshi, KyOden defines the bluebook as exhibiting a “keen insight into today’s affairs.” This is precisely what Familiar Bestsellers itself displays in its myriad references to authentic products on sale, actual commercial estab- lishments, specific places and events, and real-life personalities, such as the kkabuki star Ichikawa Danjiird V, the comic raconteur Morikawa Bakoku, and the proprietor of the Ogiya brothel Suzuki Uemon. The piece’s “realis- tic portrayal” thus pertains to the contemporary pop culture scene as much as it does visual verisimilitude. ‘The cighteenth-century Edoite must have thrilled to see his own metrop- olis reflected this was. Kyéden manages to capture the joie de iere of his city’s ascendancy over Kamigata in terms of culture (if not in terms of economics and polities), particularly as manifested in mass publishing: “Un- til the end of the eighteenth century it was the publishers of Kyoto and Osaka that controlled [the] market and were the source of fiction con- sumed in Edo and elsewhere,” writes Kornicki, “but the emergence of entre~ preneurial publishers .. . and the development of new gentes of fiction in Edo in the 1780s and 1790s, which daringly satirized offical life or treated the world of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter of Edo with only transparent disguises, signaled a shift to Edo.” ‘This shift is evident in the main battle lines of the story, even though the genres from Kamigata effectively turn those from Edo against each other— testament, no doubt, to the heated competition within Edo’s own publish- ing world. Thus, beneath the schadenfreude of the portrayals of Blackbook as benighted and of the Kamigata genres as démodé lurks the sharp anxiety of literary obsolescence in an age of increased textual turnover, Still, the mere fact of Edo's newfound cultural centrality could never alone have vouchsafed the immense popularity of Kyoden's Aibyéshi, even with the piece’s “keen insight” into the affairs of the day: Familiar Bestelers’s virtuoso implementation of the creature battle at the level of verbal as well as picto- rial texts thus should not be sold short. ‘The present translation and notes are largely based on two annotated texts: ‘Tanahashi Masahiro, in Koike Masatane etal, eds, Edo no gesaks elon 1, in 1, Dentith, Para p 2 12. Kornihi, The Book it Jpan,p. 139‘Those Familiar Bestsellers 270 Gendai kyiyé bunko 1037 (Shakai shisosha, 1980), pp. 215-248; and Mizuno Minoru, ed,, Kityashi sharebon shin NKBT 59 (Iwanami shoten, 1958), pp. 87— 105, These ate referred to below simply as ‘Tanahashi and Mizuno. ‘The pic- tures of this Aibyashi are reprinted by permission of the University of Tokyo.