"The Underworld Sword": Is it the Land of the Dead? Or a Four-Dimensional Space? / Fujiko F.'s Spirited Away (1)

I will start with a digression.

"Peace"... A period of cheating that intervenes between two periods of war
"Happiness"... An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of others
"Discussion"... A method for confirming others in their errors

These are a few excerpts from the famous parody dictionary "The Devil's Dictionary," published in 1911 by the American columnist, writer, and journalist Ambrose Bierce."The Devil's Dictionary" is the title.

It is a thrilling dictionary that dissects "words" with unique, ironic interpretations.

This book has frequently become a trend, and I am reminded of the "Complete Annotated Tsutsui Edition of The Devil's Dictionary," uniquely translated by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Also, on election special programs, Akira Ikegami often uses a segment called the "Political Version of The Devil's Dictionary" to interpret terms used by politicians with plenty of irony.

Bierce, who is famous as the author of this "Devil's Dictionary," is actually also famous for disappearing in his later years. He left behind a single letter, vanished, and was never found.

The cause of his disappearance is a mystery, but it seems Fujiko F. Sensei was fond of the "Spirited Away Theory", which suggests he entered a cave with no dead ends or side tunnels and simply vanished, and he featured Bierce's name twice in works themed around being spirited away.

So, over the next two parts, I would like to look at the "Spirited Away" episodes that feature Bierce's name, under the title "Fujiko F.'s Spirited Away."

"Kiteretsu Daihyakka": 'The Underworld Sword'
"Kodomo no Hikari" February 1975 issue / Complete Works Vol. 1

"The Underworld Sword" is classified as quite a scary story even in Kiteretsu history. It is not included in the Tentomushi Comics, so it might be a bit of a minor work.

There is a page in the "Kiteretsu Daihyakka" that is uniquely blacked out with ink. It looks ominous, and Korosuke is terrified, saying, "It contains things that shouldn't be made," but Kiteretsu insists, "That's why it's interesting." When he uses the medicine to remove ink that was listed in the "Daihyakka" to clean the page, the instructions for a tool called the "Underworld Sword" are revealed.

The Underworld. It refers to the afterlife. Kiteretsu tells Korosuke, "The Underworld is the land of the dead. This sword opens a path to that place," and upon hearing this, Korosuke gets scared, shouts, "Stop it right now!", and runs out of the room.

Kiteretsu works diligently on making the Underworld Sword, but the work stops because part of the page is unreadable. Just then, the duo of Butagorira and Miyo-chan unusually come over to play and chat around the table, but Kiteretsu's mind is elsewhere. However, he gets a hint for making the Underworld Sword from Miyo-chan and Butagorira's conversation and returns to his room, ignoring the two of them.

Miyo-chan and Butagorira leave, feeling dumbfounded. As they are walking together, feeling annoyed, an incident occurs.

Even though it was a straight road with no corners or places to hide, Miyo-chan vanished in an instant. Butagorira panics. Fear immediately strikes him. "I don't know anything, I don't know anything," he says, and runs away from the scene.

The depiction of Miyo-chan disappearing is quite eerie, and I remember feeling a chill just like Butagorira when I read it in "Fujiko Fujio Land" as a child.

Around that time, Kiteretsu had finished the Underworld Sword. However, when it came to actually using it, he showed a bit of hesitation. Seeing this, Korosuke teased him, saying, "You got scared when it came down to it, nari," but spurred on by this, Kiteretsu finally decided to use the Underworld Sword.

Just then, Miyo-chan's family and Butagorira and the others arrived at Kiteretsu's house. It was a huge commotion because Miyo-chan had disappeared. The adults couldn't believe she had vanished in the middle of the road. Was she lost, in a traffic accident, or kidnapped...?

Kiteretsu speculated, "Could she have wandered into a four-dimensional world?" The adults couldn't understand the concept of the fourth dimension. Kiteretsu then began to share examples, saying he had taken notes on spiriting-away phenomena from various books. Of course, it was none other than F-sensei who had actually made these notes.

Here, two examples of spiriting away are cited.

• On November 3, 1832, in Manila, Philippines, Eduardo (10 years old) disappeared into a wall right in front of his father.
• In 1914, the author Ambrose Bierce disappeared in a cave in Mexico.

The name of Mr. Bierce is mentioned here.

As expected, no one listened to what Kiteretsu said, and everyone went off to search for Miyo-chan. Kiteretsu decided he had no choice but to go to the Underworld/Four-Dimensional World himself, and resolved to use the Underworld Sword.

When he pressed the switch on the Underworld Sword and sliced through space, a strong wind blew in. When he opened the rift and peered inside, it was a world of eerie, distorted space. This was the four-dimensional world as depicted by F-sensei.

To bring Miyo-chan back, Kiteretsu shook off Korosuke, who was trying to stop him, and entered the four-dimensional space. While hearing Korosuke's cry of "Kiteretsu-dono!" Kiteretsu fell through as if diving into water. After reaching the bottom and waiting a while, Korosuke also descended into the four-dimensional space. He was terrified and half-crying, but he couldn't just leave Kiteretsu alone.

"You... you really came for me."

With that, the warmth of their friendship comes through.

By the way, what is the four-dimensional world? Korosuke asks Kiteretsu this in the story as well, but the answer is a bit vague.

"It means there is one more dimension than our world. Well, that part is difficult, so I'll skip it..."

He said this, then explained that if you overlap drawings made in red and blue and look at them through cellophane of each color, you can only see the drawing of that color. He continued,

"Our world and the fourth dimension are overlapping like these two drawings. Normally, we cannot see or feel the fourth dimension."

While this doesn't answer the question of what the four-dimensional space is, it explains that a world with a different dimension cannot be detected from the world we are currently in. This is similar to how we in the universe cannot perceive outer space.

Kiteretsu and the others walked through the silent world. Suddenly, the road turned into a river, and they were swept away. When they came to, five inhabitants of the four-dimensional world and the unconscious Miyo-chan appeared before their eyes. When they shouted "Miyo-chan!", the four-dimensional beings panicked and signaled them to be quiet with a "Shh!"

In this world, you could communicate just by thinking, without needing to speak. It was a world where communication was done via telepathy. Miyo-chan was just unconscious and her life was not in danger. She had stumbled into the four-dimensional world through a tear in dimensions that had formed by chance.

Now, they tried to go home after finding Miyo-chan, but the Underworld Sword was not in their possession. The four-dimensional beings had stolen the Underworld Sword to protect the secrets of their world.

The plot where the protagonists enter another world and are unable to leave is a familiar motif in F's works. It is a development that appears almost every time in the "Doraemon Long Stories," such as "Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil," "Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs," and "Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds."

The four-dimensional beings disappeared into the mist, leaving Kiteretsu and the others unable to return. As they wandered aimlessly, Miyo-chan complained in exhaustion, and Korosuke, following her lead, began to wail, "I want to go home!".

...Then, a large number of four-dimensional beings came tumbling down, dizzy.

"We simply cannot leave noisy people like you here. We will send you back to the third dimension. In exchange, we will have to erase the memories of this world from your brains."

For the four-dimensional beings who rely on telepathy, noise was something they absolutely could not stand.

Miyo-chan was found in the middle of the road, and her memories of where she had been were gone.

Kiteretsu and Korosuke also lost their memories, and looking at the Underworld Sword in their hands, they said,

"I wonder what kind of machine this is. Did I make it?" "I don't know, but I feel like we should break it."

It seems the peaceful life of the four-dimensional beings was restored.

In this work, it is very characteristic of F-sensei to interpret "spiriting away" as the phenomenon of wandering into a four-dimensional world. This four-dimensional world appears frequently in the F-world, but personally, I found the episode in "Prince of the Sea" where they fight four-dimensional beings to be excellent.

Next time, I would like to introduce a work that presents a different reason for being spirited away.