A key to Kohayagawake no aki

Understanding the relationships within the family is crucial for understanding the movie; and that requires good knowledge of the culture and certain verbal clues which are lost in translation, perhaps inevitably. Here is a key.

The Kohayagawas are a family of sake brewers; the business is not going well and it is becoming obvious that selling out to a larger competitor is only a matter of time.

The father. He’s blamed for being willful and independent and for having been rowdy in his youth. He is now retired from the family business, which makes his position weak. As the head of the family and the man who had run the family business for many years (and therefore the one with established relationships in the business), he remains indispensable and as long as he does not agree to sell the family business, it will not be sold.

The son-in-law, who is the current manager of the brewery. This man is a yoshi, that is an adopted son-in-law (a yoshi takes the last name of his wife and becomes part of her family tree). His position in the household is weak: he is a bit like a hired hand running the business for the whole family’s benefit. He would be happy to sell it as he would thereby become a salaryman of a larger corporation, with his own standing and no need to account to all family members.

His wife is in the strongest position in the house. She may tell her husband to be quiet (because he is only a yoshi); and her father to go and see to business now (because a woman may say to a man with impunity things which a man – such as a son – would never dare); her strong position vis-à-vis others lies in her being the wife of the current manager of the business. She scolds her father for having revived his relationship with a former girlfriend because she is afraid of that a scandal may negatively impact the business at a time when it is already going badly.

The “older sister” is not a sister at all, but a sister-in-law; she is the widow of the oldest son (who had refused to take over the business and become a university professor instead). Her relative independence lies in her being “older sister” – as long as she does not remarry she retains the senior rank of her husband; in her husband’s status as an intellectual; and in her living in her own apartment (away from everyone else). But she’s also weakened by being a widow and probably relying on the family for income. She values this freedom and intends to preserve it but must be careful not to upset anyone, not to make enemies. When her uncle attempts to set her up with a widower, she agrees to a meeting but does not show up: this way she can kill the plot but does not have to say no to her uncle, which would not be acceptable. When the youngest sister talks to her about her inner battles over the match being pressed on her, the “older sister” listens supportively but expresses no opinion and makes no recommendations. She takes no sides.

The youngest sister is being encouraged to accept a proposed match by all the family’s men probably because they want her out of the house (she’s a burden and a responsibility); her sister, the wife of the yoshi, does not press her though because in her eyes, as often is the case with younger siblings, her life choices simply do not matter a great deal. The elders have responsibilities, but they younger siblings are irrelevant. It is better to be younger in Asia. The younger daughter can choose to travel to Sapporo to follow a man she loves, something the older one could never have done.