Examining Loneliness in Japan through the Films Kitchen, Out, Audition

Japan is a well-populated country with over 127 million people, yet people still find themselves lonely within the hectic Japanese lifestyle. The books Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto; Out by Natsuo Kirino; and Takashi Miike's film Audition all address loneliness through multiples characters. In these works the idea of being lonely causes the characters to reach out and interact with other people because they too were once lonely and understand.

Whether it be the lonely character or characters around them, the realization of lonesomeness isn't something kept a secret within the character that is struggling with loneliness. Other characters in the books or movie realize that a certain character is lonely and address it by helping them. They want to help because they too understand what loneliness is like. For example, Mikage Sakurai, in Kitchen, is alone once the final person in her family dies - her grandmother. Yuichi Tanabe and his transsexual father-turned-mother, Eriko, quickly realize that Mikage doesn't have anyone to watch over her and decide to help her. Yuichi tells Mikage, "I was talking to my mother, and we were thinking you ought to come to our house for a while" (Yoshimoto 6). Yuichi and Eriko have this conversation of bringing Mikage into their home before addressing Mikage because they simply want to help her. They don't know Mikage on a personal level like they knew her grandmother; however, the reason they want to bring her into their home, no matter how small it is, is because they've gone through a period of loneliness as well.

The death of Yuichi's mother impacted Eriko so much that Eriko decided to become a woman. Eriko's loneliness is described as "ice-cold" (Yoshimoto 19). Yuichi, on the other hand, wasn't affected by his mother's death because he was just a child when she died. However, when his dog, Woofie died, Eriko said, "I couldn't get Yuichi to eat a bit, not a grain of rice, nothing" (Yoshimoto 18). Having Mikage around fills the void of loneliness for Yuichi because she reminds him of the dog. Both Eriko and Yuichi understand the effects of death on loved ones; they use their understanding and sympathize with Mikage.

Although death leads to loneliness for the characters in Kitchen, loneliness is brought on by isolation in Kirino's Out. At first Masako despises Kazuo because, for one, he attacked her near the factory, and the language barrier added on to the lack of interest she had in him. But Kazuo and Masako are very similar characters - they're both lonely. Masako's family is described as "a son who had given up both education and conversation, a husband in the grips of a depression, and Masako who had opted for the night shift... they decided to sleep to sleep in separate bedrooms, they seemed to have chosen to shoulder their own separate burdens and inhabit their own solitary realities" (Kirino 51). This was her life day in and day out. She was isolated in a place that should be full of life and love. Her family wasn't dead like the characters in Kitchen; however, Masako's family is as good as dead because they don't speak to her. Even though Kazuo can't communicate in Japanese well due to the language barrier, he picks up on Masako's loneliness and does what he can to help her. When Masako explains her family life to Kazuo he cries because he can relate. He says that he is tearing up because "you [Masako] told me what was in your heart. You seemed so far away until now" (Kirino 380). His loneliness that was brought on by being away from home (Brazil) and not being able to love someone in a foreign world is now gone. He's made a connection with Masako, the woman who ran away from him many times. Like Yuichi and Eriko in Kitchen, Kazuo understands lonesomeness and is willing to help Masako because he doesn't want her to suffer and he can relate.

Masako helps Yayoi get rid of her husband's body because just as Kazuo can relate to Masako's loneliness, Masako can relate to the lonely marriage that Yayoi is in. Yayoi's husband, Kenji "would slink home late at night and to go to bed while she was at work... All they ever did otherwise was exchange cutting, ice-cold looks" (Kirino 45). Like Masako, Yayoi didn't really have a fulfilled family life. Her husband was always gone, he abused her, and when they actually were home at the same time, they would argue or exchange dirty looks. It was a loveless marriage that Masako related to well. Yayoi didn't reach out to anyone when problems started arising, and perhaps that's the reason that she ended up murdering her husband. Once she truly is lonely because her husband is dead, she reaches out for Masako's help. Because she reached out for help, Masako helped her overcome the result of her loneliness (getting rid of Kenji's body) so she could move on with her sons.

In Audition, Shigeharu is alone because his wife died. Unlike Masako in Out, Shigeharu has a good relationship with his son, Shigehiko. However, Shigehiko is growing older and is interested in girls. In the beginning of the movie, Shigehiko brings a girl home because he "often see[s] her on the train", and "thought she was pretty" (Audition). There's only a limited amount of time before his son drifts away when he finds a girlfriend or even wife. Shigeharu is happy that his son brought a girl home. In the very beginning of the movie, Shigeharu expressed concern over the lack of guests Shigehiko brought home. Perhaps Shigeharu was concerned because he doesn't want his son to end up like him - unmarried and essentially alone.

Once Shigeharu begins auditioning women with his friend, Yoshikawa, he finds a girl that appears to be just as lonely as he is. The girl, Asumi, writes in her application "My dream collapsed. It might sound exaggerated, but it's like accepting death" (Audition) in regards to an injury that prevented her from studying ballet. Through the application, Shigeharu can see that ballet was Asumi's life. Not being able to study ballet anymore because of a damaged hip moved Shigehiko. He understands what it means to lose something cherished. She lost ballet and he lost his wife. Thus, he reached out to Asumi so they could fill the loneliness they both shared with love (little did he know she was insane).

Even though Asumi and Shigehiko both shared an understanding of what it meant to be alone, Asumi's loneliness caused her to take drastic actions like Eriko in Kitchen and Yayoi in Out. Eriko's loneliness drives her to transform into a woman; Yayoi's lonely marriage drives her to choke her husband to death; and Asumi's loneliness causes her to inflict pain on Shigeharu's body. Asumi tells Shigeharu, "You can't go anywhere without your feet," (Audition) just as she uses the wire to cut his foot off. Being alone for so long has corrupted Asumi's mind. She goes to far extremes in order to have someone as hers. In fact, she's even bothered by the fact that Shigeharu cares for his son.

For Asumi, "it's a hassle to live alone" (Audition). She turns to violence to fill that void of seclusion. Although Kazuo didn't chop anyone up in Out, he turns to violence in order to stray from seclusion as well. He tries to rape Masako after hearing his roommate have sex with a girl in the same room as him because he couldn't take being alone anymore. They both reached out to characters they knew were lonely as well - Masako in Out and Shigeharu in Audition - but in a horribly, violent manner.

In each story there are multiple characters that suffer from being alone while surrounded by a lot of people. In Kitchen, Eriko, Yuichi, and Mikage suffer from loneliness because of the death of a loved one; Masako, Kazuo, and Yayoi are lonely in Out because they lack a family life; and Asumi and Shigeharu both are lonely because they lost something dear to them - ballet and a wife in Audition. The audience is able to see each of these characters reach out to others in order to fill the void of being alone as well as reach out to other characters because they were lonely in their in the past. This shows us that many people are alone together, but we don't know what the overall outcome is going to be. The stories are all open ended. We don't know if Kazuo or Masako will make it to Brazil in Out. There isn't a romantic story at the end of Kitchen. It also isn't clear about what is to become of Mikage and Yuichi now that Eriko is dead. At the end of Audition, the audience is left with two badly injured characters - Asumi and Shigeharu. We don't know if they'll live. If they do live, we don't know what is to become of them. We, the audience, are left not knowing if any of these characters will truly escape being alone.