As many as there are in the world, Sueko-zasa bamboo

Although it is quite late, I will try writing my thoughts on the NHK morning drama "Ranman."

Rather than a review, I will pick up historical facts about the real-life Dr. Tomitaro Makino and his wife, Sue, and write about what I think.

I always watch the morning dramas, but I quickly search the internet to look up the historical facts about the people they are based on.
After that, I enjoy the creative aspects of the drama's story.

This time, as usual, I checked the historical facts first and watched it every day, and when I finished watching the final episode, I was impressed by how neatly it was wrapped up.

After looking into various things, I realized that NHK could not have depicted it exactly as it happened in history.
The model, Tomitaro Makino, is a leading expert in the botanical world, but as a person, he was an extreme character in the opposite sense.

In Japanese history, Chiyo, the wife of Kazutoyo Yamauchi, is famous as a virtuous wife, but when you look at the devotion of this Sue, Chiyo doesn't even come close.

Rather than Tomitaro Makino's life, I could not help but be moved by the life of his wife, Sue.

Debt, women, and temper tantrums

Bankrupting his family home

Taking advantage of being born into a wealthy sake brewery family in Tosa, he squandered their fortune.

His first wife was his cousin Nao, but he entered into a common-law relationship with his second wife, Sue, and even had children with her, yet he continued to demand research and living expenses from Nao, and even after he was forced to divorce her, that situation seems to have continued.

The amount piled up, and eventually, his family home went bankrupt.

Nao is also amazing.
I wonder what kind of mindset she had to keep sending money even after her husband took another woman on his own.

In the drama, this corresponds to Aya (Yui Sakuma), but they were sisters until the very end, not husband and wife, and Mantaro (Ryunosuke Kamiki) did not demand money himself.

Ignoring his eldest daughter's illness

When he returned to his family home, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, he happened to discover classical music and provided a huge amount of support for its promotion.

While he was absorbed in those activities, his young eldest daughter passed away due to illness.

In fact, Makino and Sue had 13 children, but only 7 of them reached adulthood.
In other words, she witnessed the deaths of 6 children.
Each time, Makino himself seems to have been doing what he wanted to do.

Betraying even his supporters

Although he was hired as an assistant to a Tokyo University professor, his monthly salary was only 15 yen.
There was no way he could support a large family with many children, pay for travel expenses for plant collecting, and purchase expensive academic books with that.

His debts grew from 50 yen to 2,000 yen, and then to 30,000 yen, swelling to several hundred million yen in today's value.

Surprisingly, supporters appeared who would take on those debts for him.

They were Yanosuke Iwasaki (Sarutoki Minagawa), the younger brother of Mitsubishi founder Yataro Iwasaki, and the wealthy art collector Takeshi Ikenaga (Taishi Nakagawa).

However, he would not use those funds for research, but instead squander them at brothels.
To make matters worse, he even had an affair with the maid that Ikenaga had kindly provided for them.

Flipping the dining table

While he did whatever he pleased outside, he was extremely short-tempered with his family, and would often flip the dining table when things didn't go his way.

「巨人の星」の星一徹みたいです💦

It seems he was very far from the Mantaro played by Ryunosuke Kamiki.

A wife's blind devotion

Was the cause of death ovarian or uterine cancer?

Now, his wife Sue passed away in February 1928 at the young age of 55.

The cause of death was unknown at the time and there was no way to treat it, but it is speculated to have been uterine cancer or ovarian cancer.

Despite having significant symptoms, she spent her time without letting her family realize it, likely because she didn't want to worry them and didn't want to force them to come up with the money for medical treatment.

Everything was likely because it would hinder her husband's research.

Even so, if you keep giving birth one after another 13 times, it's no wonder you would end up with gynecological diseases.

A 14-year-old girl and a 25-year-old man

When the two met and Mr. Makino fell in love at first sight and proposed to her, surprisingly, Sue was only 14 years old.

I cannot intuitively understand it, but in today's terms, it would be a respectable working adult and a middle school student, wouldn't it?
Was Makino just that childish, or was
[[phN_open]]Sue[[phN_close]] precocious?

Conversely, perhaps it was precisely because she was still naive about the world that she was able to endure her husband's tyranny.

Our family's poverty is an honorable one.

Finding these words left behind by [[phN_open]]Sue[[phN_close]] made my heart heavy.

Is there any wife who could say such things while enduring the bad habits of debt, women, and temper?

Moreover, unlike in a drama, they could not stay in one place; in reality, they moved about 30 times because they could not pay the rent, so there were no neighbors to help them either.

Why was she able to continue to respect her husband as a scholar so single-mindedly, rather than as a person?

Normally, one would have abandoned him long ago, and when I put myself in her shoes, I simply cannot understand it.

Even so, to give birth to 13 children, raise them, and furthermore manage a restaurant herself to continue providing for living expenses and research costs—she was no ordinary wife.

This is sacrifice rather than service.

Was [[phN_open]]Sue[[phN_close]] rewarded?

The home in what is now Higashi-Oizumi, Nerima Ward, Tokyo, which was obtained thanks to [[phN_open]]Sue[[phN_close]], is now open to the public as the Makino Memorial Garden.

However, [[phN_open]]Sue[[phN_close]], the greatest contributor, passed away from illness just two years after setting up their new home here.

She was unable to see the "Botanical Illustrated Encyclopedia," her greatest goal. The first edition of the "Makino Botanical Illustrated Encyclopedia," which contained 3,206 types of plants, was published 12 years later in 1940 (Showa 15).

It is truly a pity, but the only consolation is that Makino obtained his "Doctor of Science" degree one year before she passed away, so perhaps she could at least find peace in that.

If she had passed away without knowing even that, it would have been far too pitiful.

A person chosen by the era

~If it's for the sake of art, even a wife will be made to cry~

The song "Naniwa Koishigure" is about the rakugo performer Katsura Harudanji, who was born a little later than him. Just as the song suggests, I wonder if this was the ethical standard for men living in the Meiji era.

If someone caused this much trouble for their family and those around them, they would normally be heavily criticized and ostracized.
Yet, on the contrary, he is still talked about today as a heroic figure in the Japanese botanical world.

Although he was a late bloomer, he is surely a chosen one, a darling of the era.

Being born into a wealthy merchant family,
having two understanding wives, Nao and Sue,
and two benefactors who took on his debts.

Perhaps it is Makino's innate luck that a savior appears exactly when he needs one most.

For example, just as the Sengoku warlord Oda Nobunaga and the Bakumatsu figure Sakamoto Ryoma were called revolutionary children, perhaps he too carried the mission of bringing a revolution to Japanese botany.

They must have possessed an overflowing "charm" that inevitably captured people's hearts.

Makino's attitude of single-mindedly pursuing his research must have been enough to touch the hearts of those around him.

Even when his beloved wife was bedridden, he continued his plant collection and research without pause. His attitude, which transcended conventional ethics, makes me think that the era itself chose him to accomplish this revolution.

The blessings of my wife who kept the home, and my studies

As long as the world exists, Sueko Bamboo

Along with the "Suekozasa" (Sueko Bamboo) published at the end of his illustrated book, I would like to believe that the thoughts contained in this tanka are indeed Makino's gratitude and love for his wife.

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*The top image was downloaded from AC Photo.