Echoes and Admonitions

As Amachi passes on, some things are left behind. Reflections on the structural, the thematical and the personal.

1. The Trappings of Gender
2. Otherness and the Undefined Other
3. A Kinder World

The Trappings of Gender

There are no words to gloss over what happened in this story: A woman meets an untimely death because the men in her life would not give her a chance, so that these men may grow from this unfortunate experience. As you can surmise from these framing words, gender may be at play here: in the way the members of the Ninth do not integrate Amachi into the team at first, and do not offer any words of comfort when Maki scolds her overly harshly, and how Aoki completely shuts her out after her (presumably) one mistake. That is not to say that these men consciously base their behaviour and actions on gender. Considering Japanese society and its gender segregation across different spheres of social life, however, the men’s withdrawal — of communication, emotion, support — may very well be rooted in a disregard for Amachi based on her gender, or in their own lack of experience and therefore awkwardness when it comes to interactions with women.

The relevance of gender from the creator’s point of view is arguably further supported by the category of things that Amachi takes note of and pursues in relation to the serial murder case: earrings and other pieces of jewellery ripped from the female victims, proudly displayed in a clinic’s waiting room as a piece of interior decoration. Aoki, for his part, would have failed to notice the match with the MRI scanner’s recordings, had it not been for Amachi’s hints in person as well as in her dream.

Most telling of all, however, are the heavily gendered elements in the portrayal of Aoki and Amachi’s relationship. To begin with, Aoki distinctly perceives Amachi as belonging to the female and therefore a different gender. When Amachi faints after her first look at the MRI scanner, he thinks to himself: ‘The MRI images shocked this girl more than I could have imagined. […] It makes me shudder… a girl who enjoys looking at images of corpses.’ (Unlike the official French translation, the unofficial English translation reads: ‘Really, girls are affected more by the images of the MRI. […] I didn’t think a girl would be thrilled to see the image of a dead body.’ I have no means to verify which translation is accurate.) And when he lashes out at her the last time they speak, he observes: ‘That was the first time I yelled at a girl.’ Note: “girl”, across both translations and all instances, not woman.

What’s more, that last conversation, to speak strictly in stereotypes, can be described as a conflict between the taciturn, goal-oriented man who wants to assume responsibility and do his job above all, and the nurturing woman in need of harmony and clear communication. The text remains silent on the point of Aoki’s feelings on Amachi’s slip-up, in both directions: It is not clear whether he blames her for forgetting his instructions (and subsequently drawing Maki’s ire), nor if he was already annoyed at her insistent company and talk that night before her mention of spirits. Considering the role of hierarchy in Japanese (work) relationships, and the urgent task that requires single-minded pragmatism, chances are that Aoki does not actually mind Amachi’s mistake. If that is the case, however, he does not understand or does not want to acknowledge Amachi’s own sense of responsibility, her feelings of guilt and her need to make it up somehow, if not for a friendly word that alleviates her concerns regarding their relationship.

Aoki’s failure here, even before his fit of temper and rebuff, is a failure to adequately communicate with Amachi in a shared language — never mind that he had not managed to establish such a language in the three months that he had been in charge of her. (It is only fitting that the image of his turned back is reprised no fewer than five times in this entire ordeal: in Aoki’s preluding nightmare as an expression of his remorse; in Amachi’s transmitted nightmare as a reflection of her hurt, anxiety; in Aoki’s memory of Amachi’s dream as he is exposed to the cold of the freezer and his past coldness towards her; in Maki’s omniscient remembrance of Amachi at the end of the case; and lastly, subverted, in Amachi’s final dream.)

Gender, finally, is perhaps nowhere as apparent as in Aoki’s dream imagery as he lies beside Amachi’s body in the morgue freezer. In the heavenly dreamscape that his brain molds in the image of hers, he comes to her rescue not unlike Prince Charming, her sleeping pose at once reminiscent of various sleeping princesses from fairy tales of old. (Aoki’s Amachi is brought back to life with a cerebral cortex though, rather than a kiss.) Conversely, as Aoki’s body temperature drops rapidly, Amachi cradles him, much like a mother or a lover, and speaks soothing words to make his impending death bearable — touch and words far more tender and intimate than anything they shared in reality.

Who, however, is the rescuer and who the rescued? (Was anyone rescued at all?) The search for an answer is complicated by the fact that there is between these scenes a distressing sequence of Amachi’s last sensations and silent cries for help before her brain was extracted; and it remains unclear whether that is a depiction of

1. Amachi’s reality as conveyed by an omniscient narrator (after all, there is a panel of her on the operating table),
2. the continuation of Amachi’s dream that was previously witnessed by Aoki through the MRI scanner,
3. Aoki’s own dream, or
4. Aoki’s recalled imagination.

The above-mentioned scenes before and after (the rescue and the comforting), however, are clearly part of Aoki’s dream and therefore Aoki’s perspective, not Amachi’s. (And there is no technology in the series that enables the sharing of consciousnesses in the same dream.)

Amachi’s cradling of Aoki right around the time his brain begins to release endorphins remains to me a scene of much ambiguity, as does the fact that the real, corporeal Amachi inexplicably manages to take hold of him in the freezer. What are the dream Amachi’s “intentions”? Does she truly mean to comfort the doomed Aoki in the face of the inevitable, does she selfishly intend to drag him down with her, or does she just not want to be alone at any price? The writing and drawings support all three readings. This being Aoki’s dream though, what does it say about him to dream Amachi in this role? Is this his idea of absolution — or of atonement? That is to say, does he wish for Amachi’s gentle comfort as proof of forgiveness, or does he think her forgiveness conditional, so that he must remain at her side and perish with her to make it up to her? Does he, at that stage, think her benevolent, resentful still, or pitiful?

And what about the real Amachi in all of this, her hand clutching his jacket — a last-ditch effort to give him the strength to hold out just a little longer, or simply to stand by him in his hour of need, or rather to ensure that he does not abandon her again? Does her real touch trigger their last shared moment in his dream, as with his nightmares before, or are these independent happenings? And at what point, if any, is Amachi still alive — can still be called alive, considering the controversies about brain death — through all of this?

The conclusion of the case does not bring any clarity, if Shimizu intended or was aware of any ambiguity in the first place. Aoki, upon regaining his senses and laying eyes on his colleague’s iron grip, recalls Amachi’s pleas in his dream: “Don’t go. Please don’t go. Please stay here. Stay here.” It is striking that the literal meaning of these pleas hinges on the assumed point of view: Spoken by the Amachi in his dream (the internal world), “here” equates to the realm of sleep, twin of death; she is begging him not to leave her alone in death. Expressed by the real Amachi in the freezer (the external world), in action, for lack of words, “here” is life, consciousness; please do not pass on, please hang in there.

All of this, finally, culminates in the question: Are the intentions of the two Amachi — with one of them being, as we know, Aoki himself — around Aoki’s near-death experience congruent?

I am not at all interested in a definite answer to any of these questions (neither is Shimizu; and in any case, humans and their relationships are far too complex and contradictory for clear answers; I want you to leave for your own good but please please please won’t you stay for me), and all the more so invested in the implications of this ambiguity, which is, really, essential to the emotional impact of the story and the series’ themes: Although the MRI scanner allows for the dead to speak, the living can no longer communicate with them, not in two-way conversation. What’s gone is gone, and what remains is the burden of the living to bear. If we do not know what exactly Amachi wanted in the end, that is because Aoki missed his chance to understand her, and so fails to interpret for us with certainty.

For all of the ambiguity regarding the role of gender and gender roles, “Top Secret — 2002” is a story of Aoki and Amachi first and foremost (and not of Aoki and Maki, the primary relationship in the series). And while it explores their intimacy — intimacy denied, intimacy dreamt and intimacy that could have been — and contains gendered aspects (and even nudity, as in the shivering Amachi in the tub), it is neither an overtly gendered story nor a romantic, much less sexual one. (From what I know, things may be different in the anime adaptation, which diverges from the manga.) On the contrary, the scope is at once more general and far greater: It is a story about the care and diligence owed to one’s charge, colleague, fellow human, about acknowledgement and compassion that come too late, and the regret that seeps in, spreads and clings when that lost opportunity is made abundantly clear.

Likewise, this is not a case of a female character who “deserved better”, in the sense that the narrative ought to have treated her better, whatever the men’s failures towards the female gender here. To reduce Amachi to a mere victim is to reduce her, and Amachi is neither damsel to be rescued nor the forgiving mother or lover. Amachi, as a character in her own right, leaves a mark: on the persons around her, who realize by the end of the story that they have failed her, and will know better next time; on Maki, who, as things come to a head in volume 7, recalls her as an echo, a regret, a resolution not to let any subordinate die ever again; on me, to whom Amachi is one of the strongest impressions in the entire series, and who loves her frank way of speaking, her undeterred, genuine demeanour and being, and the beauty of her dreamscape.

All told, Amachi is a woman, and she does get killed off, as women tend to get killed off — but she is no mere plot device or tool, and the reverberation of her story carries beyond issues of gender. Amachi is written as a person with a mind, life and story of her own, and is ultimately acknowledged as that.

Otherness and the Undefined Other

Taking gender as the focal point of the story would also make it all too easy. Yes, Amachi is the only woman to ever join the Ninth, and one of the few female characters in the series to actively take part in an investigation, authorized or not. In her narrative role, however, she is less actor than participant, the way a suspect, victim or witness may be involved in another case — among them many, many characters, female ones included, whose humanity leaves an impression and who are remembered by the Ninth even after the end of their case. (In The Top Secret, no one is allowed to be forgotten, not least as the individual fates represent questions pursued by the series itself.)

The Top Secret is, in many ways, about otherness: otherness as a cause of ostracization, self-isolation, invisibility and loneliness. Amachi is “other” in various ways:

• First, she is the sole woman in a team of eight men.
• Second, she is new and inexperienced.
• Third, she has a passion for the strange that society dismisses as nonsense, and for the macabre that is deemed unfit for a woman.
• Fourth, she makes explicit (in her introduction no less) that she brings that personal interest into her job, a motivation that some of these elites may not consider befitting of their vital, dignified work.
• Fifth, despite all these points, she speaks boldly and stands upright.

All things considered, her gender appears incidental — not a focal point so much as an additional factor to emphasize her otherness.

As established, Amachi does not fit into the team, not seamlessly at least, and not right away. Though the members of the Ninth and Amachi eventually do work together, there does not seem to be any closeness between them. Amachi has no friends among them to lean on, no one who would stand up for her when Maki’s fury flares up and burns, not even to offer a kind word at the close of the day, and certainly no one who makes an effort to get to know her, let alone truly see her.

There is a line in the story, perhaps somewhere between translations, that stands out to me. When the Ninth peers into Amachi’s brain, Aoki comes face to face with his unapproachable, cold self from their final conversation; he becomes painfully aware of the impression he made, the exact blow he dealt her. When Amachi dares to reach out to him once more in her dream, his figure turns out to be a corpse — an image that makes the irony plain: Aoki, though alive, was so numb, so incapable of responding to his colleague’s plight he might as well be dead — figuratively dead in reality, literally dead in the dream, temporally dead before Amachi’s passing. Amachi, meanwhile, tried so hard to make herself understood that she ran into her demise — and yet, even between life and death, she continues to reach out to Aoki. And so Aoki resolves to give his all to find her body because, as he impresses on himself, ‘it is me who was the source of her nightmare’; or, less direct, as in the unofficial English translation, because ‘I am the one showing her that kind of dream’. Amachi’s dream, a literal change of perspective, therefore holds up a mirror for him to judge himself; as a subjective echo — no, phantom image — of what actually transpired, it makes visible her fear, hesitation and anxiety in their (future) interactions, and ultimately acts as a bridge between them, even though that bridge can no longer reach the real, living her.

In the same vein, I believe that Amachi’s dream world opens the eyes of all of her colleagues, shows them not only the beauty of her mind, but also the clue that she wanted to share, her capability, usefulness if you will. And when Aoki enters her dreamscape again in a dream of his own, his brain picking up her scent beside him in the morgue freezer, he recalls, with surprising tenderness, that ‘she smelled good, like a sunlit day’. (Or, if that realization reflects how she may sometimes have made him feel, perhaps ‘like the sun’ itself, as in the metaphorical unofficial English translation.) Lastly, it is explained that the activity of the brain’s temporal lobe intensifies as death approaches, and in that drunkenly happy state retrieves the faces of close persons from memory to conjure moments of happiness. Taking this into consideration, Amachi’s final dream may hold a heavy implication: that she may not have had any close family or friends to speak of, no one beside the team. (I say “may”, as — and this goes for any of the assumptions made on this page — the absence or omission of something does not on its own constitute the presence of something else. A single silent image of two mourners at Amachi’s funeral is in fact retrospectively shown much later in volume 7, no further information provided.)

Evidently, in the world of dreams, images do the speaking, and intention seems all too clear as emotions are laid out from a first-person perspective. There is no need for language so imprecise, indefinite and inadequate to convey one’s true feelings and intentions, language so limited and easily misunderstood. Only in her dreams and through her dreams do Aoki and the Ninth begin to feel for Amachi, does she become comprehensible, perhaps even likeable to them, a person worthy of consideration.

This idealized interpretation of the dreamscape’s efficacy seems at first sight at odds with Shimizu’s criticism in the afterword of volume 3: that people tend to overestimate the reliability of visual information, a bias that affects their daily decisions and judgements, when human perception is in reality rather delicate and easily influenced or manipulated, not to mention highly subjective. The Top Secret and its MRI investigations are therefore intent on examining that bias by going to extremes while holding firm on the complexity of the individual. In light of this, the bridge that dream images (and MRI recordings themselves) offer, and with it potential considerations to make the technology behind it available to the bereaved of the general public, cannot possibly be considered commendable or desirable as a means to understand the other.

There is a short story in the series, a special chapter created between the next two cases (albeit not published until volume 5 in the French edition), that drives this point home. In the story, a member of the Ninth gives an impassionate speech to condemn the usage — no, even the consideration thereof — of the MRI scanner, in private affairs above all. It seems fitting to quote it here:

“We have a mouth to speak and ears to listen.” In other words, humans must communicate with each other in an effort to understand one another, on the basis that they are capable of it because of their shared humanity.

In Amachi’s case, the MRI scanner is indeed indispensable to solve the crimes against her body and life, and only secondarily to contribute to the serial murder case. It should, however, never have been factually necessary to peer into her brain to understand and sympathize with her as a colleague and fellow human. True to that, Amachi’s final dream is the ultimate proof of Aoki and the Ninth’s failure, his tears and their speechlessness admissions of guilt. Her story, the third in the series, is therefore an admonition perfectly in line with the socially imposed loneliness Shimizu very pointedly goes on to lay bare in the series.

I see this particular story as grounds to take Shimizu’s fundamental criticism further: Just as people tend to put too much stock in visual information and their own perception, so do they tend to attribute too much significance to supposedly clear words that inform their speaking and thinking, that is to say terms, designations, labels and so on — shortcuts of language and thought seemingly precise, yet, as all language, approximation only.

Is there a term, or even several, for Amachi’s otherness, aside from the generic “woman”, the descriptive “rookie”, “outsider”, the vague “eccentric”, “nerd”? No, there is not, and in this illustrative case I am glad that there isn’t, not least as Amachi’s particular weirdness is hardly solely tied to her peculiar interests. (And no, autism is a complex diagnosis, whose characteristics pervade perception itself, not a label to be slapped on anyone outspoken who pursues specific interests intensely, insists that things be a certain way, seemingly lacks social graces or common sense and cannot read the room; a person may very well “just” be single-mindedly passionate, fastidious and, be it for reasons of age, experience, rigidity of character or whatever, socially awkward and insensitive where their immediate environment is not. This is not to say conclusively that Amachi lacks these abilities, as the story is too short and open on this point – she may genuinely just not care, or care more about being true to herself.)

Just as narrowing Amachi’s estrangement down to gender would make it too easy, so do labels and buzzwords, so carelessly flung around these days in conversations, arguments and (perhaps most concerningly) self-attribution, oversimplify things while ignoring context. What do you truly know about someone when all you know is that they claim to be of a certain gender, orientation, ethnicity, education level, profession, religion, political position, a pro- or opponent of something, a critic, a fan, without knowing if you mean the same thing by the same term, without knowing the personal context? (What does the Ninth know about Amachi?) Only what you believe to be true by your own highly subjective perception (shaped by the above and, among others, language, upbringing, intellect, prior knowledge, taste, sensibility, social spheres, all of your own history), and very little of the person themselves. (Amachi: woman, newbie, weirdo — or she who smells like a sunlit day, who gives her best to be of help and never once shies away from being just who she is.) By the same token, ascribing (solely) such terms to yourself is nothing less than self-reduction by surrendering yourself to external definitions, which shift with every beholder.

When we lean too much on predefined terms, vague, if not controversial ones at that, we expose ourselves to the risk of going astray, being manipulated and being limited not only in our (spoken) conversations and discussions, but also in our (internal) thinking and in the way we (emotionally) relate to the world and our fellow humans. We should therefore be critical of such terms in their function as shortcuts, for often, they are little more than alleged signs of familiarity and understanding — and that goes both ways: Presumed closeness and presumed otherness of the other on the basis of the superficial both reflect a lack of awareness and respect for the inherent complexity of the human experience.

Our real work in establishing a true connection with another person, and be it only in passing, lies in acknowledging the other as “other” (someone not you, who you can never fully comprehend) without making them “other” (someone not of your kind, who you are altogether incapable of understanding). Communication is a crucial part of that effort, and so is language to describe ourselves and our perception of the world. We must, however, be careful, today more than ever, to ensure that we use our own words so that we do not inadvertently refer to different things by the same words. And we must at all times bear in mind our singular perception and the wide, wide gap between each of us — a gap ineradicable but not unbridgeable.

A Kinder World

Perhaps what I feel when I think about Amachi’s story is what in German is called “Betroffenheit” — the feeling of being shocked, concerned and (personally) affected. I look at Amachi and I realize: This could have been me, in both ways. I could have been Amachi, just as I could have been and perhaps even was Aoki.

Once upon a time, I lived in a world where no one understood me and where I could not make myself understood. Had I perished prematurely from the despair of sheer alienation, what I had perceived as my true self could surely only have been found in my writing. Mercifully, I persevered and was granted a new life, my self reborn, my world remade. Somewhere out there though, there may be versions of me that did not get the chance to become the person that I am now. They may yet receive their chance, or they may be withering away, if they have not already faded, never to know how broad, manifold, open and forgiving this world truly is when it comes to the many ways, intricacies and severities of being “other”. Conversely, someone else at some point may have wished for me — the younger me who was too paralyzed by the fear of being perceived as “other” to act freely — to be the Aoki that Amachi imagined in the last moments of her life, the same person she had silently called out to for help and wished to be rescued by just before losing her consciousness. I may never know. What’s certain, however, is that at any moment, there are persons out there suffering and questioning themselves for being “other”, and who may never get the chance that I did to leap and grow beyond their present state.

I do not believe that humans can ever truly know and understand one another, and I know that our very own loneliness is ours alone to bear to the end of our lives. However definite and merciless these beliefs, I also firmly believe that we need to live with hope, and reach out again and again in an attempt to understand others and make ourselves understood, for only in that way can we draw closer to each other, and that approximation — expressed through language or otherwise — is the most we can do. Fortunately, we have, as I have learnt, much more in common than what divides us. It is thus that I endeavour to contribute to a world where we have the courage to look at and talk with each other and to be kind, even in the face of our differences, so as to alleviate the superficial “loneliness” that may befall anyone — that feeling of not being seen and understood, of not belonging. Only when we are sufficiently acknowledged and loved, only in that embrace can we bear the profound loneliness inherent to our human condition.

As I write these lines, words by the German author Erich Kästner (1899–1974) come to my mind, from the preface of his children’s book “Pünktchen and Anton”:

Or, in English:

Amachi wished for a kinder world, where people pay more attention, show more consideration for one another and communicate openly, where everyone is integrated, and efforts and good deeds are recognized and praised. It is a dream both simple and grand, one I do not think impossible.

Will you speak, please, and grant me the chance to understand you?