The Joys of the Analog Life / Special: Exploring the World of Children (Entry for the 2025 Creative Awards)

Exploring the World of Children

It is not the world of children, nor is it the children of the world. A single child is an independent world—I would like to explore this world called a child. Surely, heart-fluttering discoveries await. After all, we all once lived in that world called childhood.

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Between the pages
an unexpected gift

Due to a small necessity, I borrowed the first volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales from the Iwanami Shonen Bunko series from my local public library, and I discovered something unexpected between the pages. It was a rectangular piece of drawing paper, slightly smaller than the book's dimensions, on which a sketch for a new cover for the book had been penciled in.

The title was written horizontally, with the word "Grimm" in outlined letters and "Fairy Tales" in a rhythmic, wavy Gothic font, topped with the German "Grimms Märchen" like a crown. The background was decorated with illustrations of leaves, apples, and honeybees, with the names of the translator and illustrator listed below, followed by the table of contents: "The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats," "The Town Musicians of Bremen"—it ended abruptly just as it was about to be written...

Of course, it was a very amateurish sketch, but to my eyes, having been involved in book production for many years, it clearly conveyed the enthusiasm put into the book design, and it was far more exciting and preferable to the rigid, formulaic binding of the Iwanami Shonen Bunko. Still, what could this abandoned sketch mean? As I looked at it from various angles, I tried to reason it out in my own way.

Judging by the light pressure of the pencil and the touch of the illustrations, the sketch was likely done by a fifth or sixth-grade girl. She must have been very surprised when she started reading the book she happened to borrow from the library. Since the Iwanami Shonen Bunko follows a policy of using the original text, unlike picture books for young children, Grimm's Fairy Tales contains content that is sometimes cruel or immoral, which remains unchanged.

Therefore, in the first story, "The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats," after the mother goat cuts open the sleeping wolf's belly with scissors to rescue her kids, stuffs it with stones, and sews it back up, the wolf drowns in a spring. Once successful, the mother goat and her kids dance with joy, and murder is justified for the sake of revenge. Also, in the second story, "The Town Musicians of Bremen," a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster run away from their owners who treated them harshly because they were old. On their way to Bremen, they cause a ruckus at a den of thieves to get food and a place to sleep, eventually occupying it—in other words, their thievery, which surpasses that of the humans, is highly praised... Faced with such narrative developments, perhaps a sudden change occurred within her.

It is known that the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, who compiled these German folktales, encountered the following episode in their later years. A young girl came to the house where the brothers lived and asked, "Are you the gentlemen who wrote the interesting stories?" When they replied, "Yes, it is us," she took out a small purse. She said that the story "The Clever Tailor" ended with "Whoever does not believe this story must pay one thaler (silver coin)," and added, "I don't believe it, so I have to pay one thaler, but since I don't have much pocket money, I will pay one groschen (copper coin) for now," pressed the copper coin into their hands, and left.

This earnest 19th-century German girl knew that the stories she read were not real events, but she was so completely drawn into Grimm's Fairy Tales that she became a resident of that world. Similarly, the girl who picked up the 21st-century Japanese Iwanami Shonen Bunko also became a resident, but in her case, she seemed driven more toward designing this dazzling world than reading through the stories.

Thus, I can picture her, unable to contain herself, bravely facing the drawing paper with a single pencil. But why did she abandon it halfway? Did the book's loan period expire (this public library sets it at three weeks) before she could finish, and did she return it in a panic, forgetting the sketch was tucked inside? Or did her mother or sibling carelessly return it along with other books without her knowing? However, if that were the case, she could have gone to the library later to retrieve the sketch.

My deduction is this: when returning Grimm's Fairy Tales, she intentionally tucked the unfinished cover sketch between the pages. She did so to entrust her heartfelt thoughts to whoever would borrow the book next. And, as it happens, I was the recipient of that secret gift—

Director Abbas Kiarostami's "Koker Trilogy"

The zigzag road is
the entrance to a dazzling labyrinth

The Seventh Elementary School in Kodaira City, Tokyo, is my alma mater. It is a very ordinary public elementary school, and I am not aware of it having produced any world-famous celebrities. I once heard from an acquaintance that Sho Sakurai of the idol group Arashi attended it for a while, but since there is no trace of such information even when searching the internet, it is at most a local urban legend.

Regardless, the municipal housing complex where I lived back then was only a few minutes' walk from the school's main gate, even for a child's legs. A family of four lived in two rooms, a six-tatami and a four-and-a-half-tatami, in a wooden one-story house, and persimmon and goumi trees were planted in a garden the size of a cat's forehead. The area was lined with such matchbox-like houses, and when children returned from school, they would run in and out of their own homes and others' without distinction, playing, fighting, laughing, and crying, forgetting how time passed. Even if it looked like a cluttered, impoverished residential area to adult eyes, it was vast and boundless to a child.

Such distant memories were evoked by director Abbas Kiarostami's "Koker Trilogy." I believe a condition for an excellent filmmaker is the ability to instantly draw even those encountering their work for the first time into a sense of déjà vu, and this Iranian master is no exception. What is projected on the screen is the reddish-brown highland region of the north during the Islamic Revolution period under Ayatollah Khomeini. Although it is, of course, a land unknown to me, it is strange how I eventually feel like one of its residents.

The first film, "Where Is the Friend's House?" (1987), features Ahmad, a second-grade elementary school boy living in a remote village called Koker, where the turbulent waves of the Islamic Revolution seem not to reach. One day, after school, he realizes he accidentally brought home his seatmate's notebook. The teacher had said that if he didn't do his dictation homework, he would be expelled. With no other choice, he sneaks out of the house behind his mother's back and heads toward the village of Poshteh on the other side of the hill, following a zigzag road carved into the exposed earth to return the notebook to his friend. Where is his friend's house? Even when he asks the adults around him, he gets no clear answer. With his face contorted in anxiety, he wanders through alleys of stone houses that seem to go on forever, eventually getting lost in a dead end where the light and shadow from stained glass weave a pattern. A dazzling labyrinth... The expression that appeared on Ahmad's face when he returned from there must have been the look of a boy who had opened the door to another world with his own strength for the first time.

In the subsequent second film, "And Life Goes On" (1992), amidst the confusion of the 1990 earthquake that struck the area, a film director drives his car along the zigzag road to go to Koker village, worried about the safety of Ahmad and the others, but he cannot reach it. Furthermore, in the third film, "Through the Olive Trees" (1994), the couple from the previous film is cast for a movie shoot, but it is a series of failures, and the director goes back and forth on the zigzag road... In this way, reality and fiction are mixed, and the labyrinth depicted on the screen deepens in confusion and fascination.

Suddenly, I remember again. That was around the time I finally learned to ride a bicycle. While pedaling, I left the neighborhood and, for the first time, went alone along a zigzag road in the woods that grew along the railroad tracks. It was only a short distance, but it must have been a great adventure for me. Eventually, after passing through the woods, a meadow opened up, and under the dazzling blue sky, many students from the same school were gathered and playing! Later, I learned that it was located just past the back gate on the opposite side of the school building and was a playground for children living in that residential area, but geographical understanding aside, the thrill of opening the door to another world beyond the woods that day still lingers somewhere within me.

Is it only the privilege of young children to see the world as a labyrinth? I secretly hope that perhaps one day, I will pass through a zigzag road and encounter the door to another world again.

Shigeru Mizuki's "Nonnonba and I"

What is the role that the
frightening old woman has taken on?

What I have long found strange is that, regardless of East or West, in folklore, it is always old women who exert a frightening presence as witches or hags, and old men are never called upon. If such attributes are cultivated by longevity, it would seem to have nothing to do with gender.

A straightforward answer to such a question is provided by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki's "Nonnonba and I" (1977). It is an autobiography depicting his childhood growing up in Sakaiminato, Tottori, in the early Showa period, and it is incredibly interesting. Shimane, the land of Izumo, which lies across Lake Shinji, is a treasure trove of myths and legends, and this side, the land of Hoki, has the towering Mount Daisen, famous for mountain worship, so it seems it was a land where the boundary between the ordinary and the extraordinary was ambiguous. There, the young "I" interacts closely with the "Nonnonba" from the neighborhood. After losing her husband a little while ago, she lived like a beggar, but she would often come by and tell him stories about ghosts. For example, like this:

In the old days, bathtubs were made of wood.
If you use them for a long time, the wood rots. Then, grime accumulates, and it becomes slimy and smelly.
Then, Nonnonba would clean the bathroom without even being asked. This was a major task that took half a day.
When I asked why she cleaned so much, Nonnonba answered seriously that it was because a yokai called an "Akaname" (filth licker) might come to eat the grime that accumulates on the rotten wood.
The "Akaname" is a red monster in the shape of a small child, and in the middle of the night, when no one is around, it licks the grime with its tongue. If that happens, it's not just the "Akaname"; yokai attract other yokai, so various yokai will come to live in the house.
Because Nonnonba would clean the bathroom while telling stories like this, I would also get serious and help clean the bathtub.

Sure enough, that night, when I was in the bath alone, the door at the entrance creaked and fell onto my head with force... It seems I was quite surprised by this "Akaname," and Mizuki later had it appear in "GeGeGe no Kitaro" in an impressive role. Nonnonba also told stories about others like the Tenjoname, Umi-bozu, Kotori-bozu, foxes and tanuki, kappa, Sazae-oni, Nodera-bo, Shirauneri, Yanari, Buruburu, and Betobeto-san... teaching him that yokai were crowded all around him.

Watching these events unfold, I understand that it is uniquely feminine to be able to directly connect the trivial customs of daily life with the mysteries of the otherworld, and that as such sensitivity accumulated over many years, a world that was neither ordinary nor extraordinary opened up before his eyes. Even if it was frightening, wasn't it simultaneously filled with an incredibly warm capacity for acceptance? Regarding the fact that Nonnonba died of near-starvation when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, the following passage is recorded:

There is a word called "reincarnation," but if that means the soul of a deceased person dwells in another person and continues to live, I still cannot help but feel that Nonnonba's soul dwells in me and continues to live.
I will also tell my next "reincarnator" "What is a yokai?" In that way, when hundreds of years have passed, the true nature of yokai will surely be understood. And perhaps the reason I am still constantly haunted by the question "What is a yokai?" is also because of Nonnonba's soul.

What Mizuki revealed here is perhaps the true nature of the witch or hag. Since ancient times, they have taken on the role of connecting the hearts of all living things across generations. Still, I tilt my head. Now that Japan has built a world-leading longevity society, where have these frightening old women gone?

Mutsumi Imai & Kimi Akita's "The Essence of Language"

The meaning of a baby calling out
"Wan-wan" to a dog

What I have long found strange is that when I take my pet Chihuahua for a walk, even babies in strollers will call out "Wan-wan, wan-wan" and smile at it. It's fine to be curious about the dog in front of them, but why go out of their way to verbalize it and look so happy?

A clear answer to this question is provided by "The Essence of Language" (Chuko Shinsho, 2023), co-authored by cognitive scientist Mutsumi Imai and linguist Kimi Akita. In this book, which attempts to unravel the mystery of the birth and evolution of language based on the process by which children acquire language, the role of onomatopoeia is particularly emphasized. When examining brain activity regarding onomatopoeia such as "wan-wan" (woof-woof), "nyaa" (meow), "zara-zara" (rough), and "doki" (thump), both the right hemisphere, which processes environmental sounds, and the left hemisphere, which processes linguistic sounds, react. In other words, they explain that onomatopoeia bridges environmental sounds (analog) and linguistic sounds (digital), and state the following:

"Children love onomatopoeia. This is not only because onomatopoeia is sensory and easy to understand, but also because it can represent an entire scene metonymically with a single onomatopoeic word, and it is easy to convey emotions through the volume of the voice, the speed of speech, and rhythm. Onomatopoeia draws children into the world of language. Through this, children become interested in language and want to hear more, speak more, and use language."

I see, by saying "wan-wan," babies begin to learn language and at the same time experience the excitement of venturing into an unknown world. Next, what I find strange is that even though dogs vary significantly in size and appearance—from small ones like my pet to ones larger than humans—babies call out "wan-wan" to each of them. Even if they sometimes mistakenly use it for stray cats or tanuki (tanuki families appear around my house), they usually point to dogs of various sizes correctly. When I think about it again, isn't this a highly advanced cognitive process?

After children encounter the world of language through onomatopoeia, they gradually acquire words to express concepts from simple to complex, and it is said that reasoning ability plays an important role there. In logic, deduction, which derives individual events from general propositions, and induction, which conversely derives general propositions from individual events, are well known. In addition to these, the authors pay particular attention to "abduction (hypothesis formation reasoning)," proposed by American philosopher Charles Peirce.

This is a reasoning ability to create hypotheses to explain observation data of individual events. The difference from induction is that in the process of reasoning, one assumes something that is not directly observable and infers something of a different kind from what was directly observed. It is a very difficult way of putting it, but the fact that a baby, after seeing several types of dogs, calls out "wan-wan" to a type they see for the first time as a dog, and sometimes even includes stray cats or tanuki, is nothing but an example of this. And it leads to the following description:

"As mentioned earlier, unlike deductive reasoning, where one correct answer is always determined, inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning are reasoning where an absolutely correct answer is not determined. [...] Peirce himself also points out that inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning must always be revised. In order for these inferences to contribute to the acquisition of language in individuals, or the acquisition of systems of knowledge other than language, and to contribute to the development of knowledge of humanity as a whole, the knowledge created as a result of inference must always be revised."
Thus, finally, I would like to pose one more significant question for me. Why do babies naturally call out "wan-wan" to dogs, but do not emit any onomatopoeia toward the humans themselves who surround them? If that were at the starting point of language acquisition, I think we would accept each other as companions, and situations like bullying or discrimination after growing up would not occur...

Johanna Spyri's "Heidi"

At that moment, the scene of the
Alps appeared before my eyes

My heart flutters when I think back to it. The Gakken (Gakushu Kenkyusha) edition of the "World Literature Collection for Boys and Girls" (1968–69). As a child, I was frail and often lost in a daze, but when I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, my intelligence finally began to awaken. I saw a poster at a bookstore in the shopping district announcing the release, and when I begged my mother for it, she signed me up without saying a word. Thus, two thick, large-format, boxed books were delivered every month, and over the course of a year, all 24 volumes were lined up on my shelf. Looking back, I find it strange that we had enough space for them, living as a family of four in a wooden house with only two rooms—one six-mat and one four-and-a-half-mat.

This collection opened the door to the world of literature for me. I literally lost track of time as I devoured countless unknown masterpieces: Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes," Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," De Amicis's "Cuore," Renard's "Carrot Top," Nesbit's "Five Children and It," and Lofting's "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle"... Among them, the one that remains most vividly in my memory is Johanna Spyri's "Heidi." I had given the books from that time to a relative, but to write this article, I ordered that specific volume from a used bookstore. The moment I opened the pages for the first time in over half a century, the emotion I felt back then came rushing back all at once.

There is no need to reintroduce this story, which was published in Switzerland in 1881. Heidi, a five-year-old orphan, is taken by her aunt to live with her grandfather on a pasture on the Alm mountain in the Alps. Heidi, who has come to live there, spends her first night in the attic of the mountain hut, sleeping on hay, alone with her grumpy grandfather. And then—.

　Heidi was awakened early in the morning by the sound of a high whistle. When she opened her eyes, golden sunlight was streaming through the round window onto her bed and the hay beside it, making everything around her shine like gold. Heidi was surprised and looked around, but she had no idea where she was.

The translator is Kusuo Seki. The moment I first read this passage, I could clearly see the dazzling morning sun dyeing the snowy peaks of the Alps red as it shone through. Heidi got out of bed, washed her face quickly as her grandfather told her to, and followed the herd of goats with the goatherd boy, Peter.

　The fun climb up the Alm mountain began. During the night, the wind had blown away all the clouds, and the deep blue sky was looking down from all directions. In the center, the sun was shining, illuminating the green Alm mountain. The blue and yellow flowers opened their petals and looked back at the sun happily.

Even though there were words I didn't understand as a fourth grader, the scene described here appeared right before my eyes in an instant. Since then, I have had countless opportunities to see photos and videos of the Alps, but I have never seen anything that surpasses the beautiful scene evoked by the text back then. Yes, children are perhaps able to let their imaginations run wild and free precisely because they are not yet constrained by the real world. It is terrifying to think that if we easily provide information about the real world through digital teaching materials today, we might be robbing children of the precious opportunity to exercise their imaginations.

I followed the long story full of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure along with Heidi, but the greatest climax is surely the scene where she welcomes her best friend, Clara, to the Alps. Perhaps I, who had been prone to asthma attacks and often absent from school until just recently, was projecting myself onto Clara, who had been physically disabled and lived in a wheelchair. Heidi encouraged Clara and urged her to stand on the green earth on her own two feet.

　"Try it one more time."
　Heidi urged her earnestly.
　Clara tried. Then she tried again, and again. And then, suddenly, she cried out loudly.
　"I can walk, Heidi. Oh, I can walk. Look, I can move my legs one by one and walk."
　"Oh, you can really move your legs by yourself? You've learned to walk? You can really walk on your own? I wish Grandfather would come. You've learned to walk on your own now, Clara. You can walk now!"

At this moment, I think a miracle happened not just for Clara, but for me as well. A miracle of stepping toward a new future—.

#CreativeAwards2025 #EssayCategory