#karaiko

The Painting

While the parody maintains the setting and posture of the original, this depiction is a complete inversion of the Mona Lisa’s image. A young boy who refuses to meet the eyes of the viewer no matter how you look at it, unambiguously does his tears trail down his face in sadness. His frustration couldn’t be more clear to us. But whenever I looked at it, I couldn’t stop thinking about those stories of bringing Mona Lisa’s passive face to smile.

If the reader isn’t careful while reading Karaoke Iko, they might not realize just how much Satomi cares about Kyouji until his fake-out death happens. Satomi is very neutral with his approach about Kyouji, not because he doesn’t care, but because he doesn’t understand his own feelings yet. Kyouji is a confusing, messed up part of his life that he keeps letting back in. Like many other themes, it is continued and explored in Famiresu Iko.

Not once has Satomi happily smiled for Kyouji in this series as of now. Maybe it’ll change in the future, but this is the truth. There’s the occasional blush, frustrated look, or deadpan stare, but that’s all Satomi’s has expressed facially for Kyouji. The only outliers are when Kyouji made Satomi cry, that was when Mona Lisa’s face finally gave way to feeling.

Like the Mona Lisa, it’s hard to perceive Satomi’s feelings until you find the right angle because it’s encased in a neutral expression. Nothing about the Satomi painting is neutral however, so what’s going on? Well, only twice does Satomi cry so heavily in Karaoke Iko and they’re very similar: it’s when he puts himself in danger to walk into the territory of Yakuza to find Kyouji, both of which Kyouji tells him not to go.

The first time had been when Satomi tried to find Kyouji to give him the Omanori, just to get caught by Cocaine Alien and be saved by Kyouji himself. But I think it’s obvious that the second time, when Kyouji is thought to have died and Satomi runs to find him—only to see his alive after he had just sang his heart out for him—is what the painting is supposed to be depicting. His turning of eyes is him ashamed of being exposed in a vulnerable way when it was “unnecessary”, because it hurts to love Kyouji.

Even so, as I say that, Satomi’s tears of perceived sadness in the painting are as misleading as his neutral expressions. His tears are not just sadness, but love pouring from the depths of his heart that have no way of containing itself. It’s relief that wants to be happy, but expresses itself in just one way. Regardless of the inversion, the loyalty in his stance is kept the same as Mona Lisa. He is not a Madonna figure, but as a young boy in choir and the pure bright white of his shirt being a vocal point of the painting, he retains the same holy ideal.

The Kyouji Angle

This art of Kyouji showing off the painting of Satomi was originally the cover of the Doujinshi version of Karaoke Iko. It’s still in the officially published version, but knowing that it wasn’t a piece drawn offhandedly puts more weight into it. Once upon a time, this is what Wayama thought of to define her work.

It’s hard to tell what Kyouji’s relationship is with the painting, be it the curator, conservator, artist, owner, museum guide, etc. but what we do know is that he’s behind the dividers and the yakuza are not. The bald yakuza being so close to the dividers and Kyouji holding out his arm is in parallel to the yakuza meet-up scene where Kyouji has to come inbetween him and Satomi. If you pay close attention, Kyouji has always put him physically in between the other yakuza and Satomi.

This is one of Kyouji’s many ways of “protecting” the purity of Satomi’s normal life and junior years. He avoids smoking around Satomi, he covers Satomi from the blood getting on him, and he stops talking to Satomi to keep a distance between them. In the artwork, he has white gloves to handle the painting of Satomi. The problem is that he’s behind the divider at all, the problem is that he’s showing off his Satomi to the others. All three interactions with the other Yakuza are directly because of Kyouji’s involvement with them.

It’s less protection, and more a message to not touch something sacred that he selfishly wants to keep framed. The funny thing is that Satomi is right there in the full art, off the side and next to the boss, away from the crowd looking at his painting. He’s not behind the divider with Kyouji either. Kyouji keeps safe the image of what he thinks Satomi needs to have a normal life. It’s also possible to interpret this as Kyouji showing off the most surface level of his relationship to Satomi, but there’s still distance between him and the actual Satomi.

To keep the Satomi in his heart close, but the real one at a distance… is that what he does by having the tattoo of his name on his arm? According to Wayama, he never intended to walk back into Satomi’s life until he saw him at the airport with his business card. He was fully intending to leave Satomi alone until that point. The Kumicho and Satomi being next to each other is symbolic of the importance they both hold to Kyouji, both on his skin and in his life.

It’s heavier to be a yakuza with an Irezumi tattoo, significant to your loyalty in the organization, and to have a name of someone you care about on your skin along side that, than if it were a normal person. Satomi being the most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, alludes to how precious Kyouji finds Satomi. Youthful, emotional, and caring Satomi made an huge impact on him that day of the karaoke competition.