Greetings all!
Today we shall be covering the well-known and infamous Mori Ogai from the Bungou Stray Dogs series. I typically don’t want to cover medically relevant characters from the same series so close to each other BUT this is an exception due to relevance of this character both to this project and historically.
As I mentioned in the previous post about Dr. Yosano, Akiko Yosano as well as the other characters of the Bungou Stray Dogs series, was an actual well-known Japanese literarian. In the case of Mori Ogai, which is the first we’ve seen so far, he was both a literarian and a physician during late 19th and early 20th centuries. Similar to Yosano-san, Mori Ogai was a pen name. His actual name was Mori Rintarou. I must also add that this man was not just a physician nor solely an author but also specifically an Arrmy Surgeon, translator, novelist, and poet.
Bear with me as I go into a little history about Dr. Ogai (I’ll stick with his pen name since that how most people recognize him). He was the first born to a well-off family that had a history of physicians and authors, like his own father. Expected to continue the medical tradition, Mori Ogai was taught Dutch (which was significantly involved with Japan’s understand of western culture) and German (which was medical lingua franca during late 19th century. He attended Medical School in Tokyo and graduated at the age of 19, being the youngest person in Japan to receive a medical license. After acquiring his license, he enlisted in the Japanese imperial army and was sent to Germany to advance his studies of medicine for about 4 years. Through his time in Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, and Berlin Dr. Ogai became more comfortable with medicine and became enthralled with European literature both stylistically and translating European works. Upon returning to Japan he not only continued to advance his studies but advances his military leadership starting out as a medical officer and rising to Senior surgeon 2nd Class Lieutenant Colonel in 1889. Dr. Ogai, with his dual passion for medicine and literature, also managed to establish both a medical journal to forward the discussion of biomedical research and a literary journal that contained some of his early works. Towards the end of the 19th century Dr. Ogai was elevated to senior surgeon, first class (colonel) and within the first decade of the 20th century he was promoted to Surgeon Genrral of the Army as Lieutenant General. After serving in the 1st Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I, he passed away in July 1922 due to renal disease and tuberculosis.
From a literary perspective, Dr. Ogai had translated many German authors like Goethe, Ibsen, and Hans Christian Andersen. He also developed an appreciation for Japanese literature such as tanka. Dr. Ogai was actually friends with the real-life Akiko Yosano-san and even worked together to develop a magazine called Subaru. One of Dr. Ogai’s works that we come to see in Bungou Stray Dogs as his ability is Vita Sexualis. This piece takes a very fascinating approach on the idea of sex and sexuality and the how one-character processes his understanding of sex during Dr. Ogai’s time. Many have speculated that the main character is a refence to Dr. Ogai, being that he, himself was very interesting in understanding the concept and biology of sex(uality). With reference to Vita Sexualis in the series, Dr. Ogai’s ability summons a young girl name Elise who does his bidding. There are many interesting differences that can be seen with Ogai’s ability compared to his actual history. First off, Elise is the name of the girl he summons but Elise is actually the female love interest of his other popular work, “The Dancing Girl.” When he used Elise to attack, she attacks with medical equipment (which is quite ironic given his status). On a random note, apparently his preferred weapon is scalpel to fight with. This again is ironic, but also make sense being one of the core tools used by a surgeon. Point for the authors of this series 😉 Another interesting thing to note is that Elise initially was emotionally being that she was just a summoned puppet, but Mori Ogai molded her behavior after Dr. Yosano. Which leads me to go into the history (with reference to the anime/manga series) between Dr. Ogai and Dr. Yosano. To spare you the details, during the Great War that I mentioned in the previous post Dr. Ogai was one of Dr. Yosano’s heads. Since we know that Mori Ogai has had an extensive history being a military medical leader, it makes sense that he would be above Dr. Yosano during the war. Dr. Ogai was not the best of leaders, at least to Yosano. He actually forced Yosano to work herself into a mental breakdown that changed her. In a weird sense, Dr. Ogai was fascinated with Dr. Yosano to such a degree that Elise became Yosano part 2 (in terms of personality and behavior). Although the sources I’ve come across do not talk about the nature of Dr. Ogai and Yosano-san’s relationship, I feel as though their interaction in this series is quite negative.
Now a few fun facts!
Only two for today, but they are interesting, nonetheless. Firstly, the anime and manga seem to portray Mori Ogai and Vita Sexualis in a light that is somewhat different than the actual work. The work focuses on sexual discovery rather than pure power dynamics or subtle tones of pedophilia, of which the latter seem more evident in the series. This comes from the fact that Elise, despite being a young girl, appears very close into Mori Ogai but also subservient to him. Another interesting fact is that Elise tends to call Mori by his actual name, Rintaro, as opposed to Ogai. It is interesting to see that his own creation looks at him more intimately then the other characters around him. In general, I feel as though Mori Ogai’s character can be a tad bit confuysing to understand. Mainly due to the mixture of identities, personalities, and works being incorporated into his character. That being the case, it makes him all the more interesting and complex to understand!
We’re coming similar situation with Osamu Tezuka in that Mori Ogai, was also a physician, specifically a surgeon. The next question would be what kind of surgeon, but I have a strong feeling he’d be a general surgeon. What do you guys think?
Anyway, that all I got for today! See you all tomorrow!
Sources:
#AniMedica #Anime #Health #Medicine＃#AnimatedMediaアニメディカ＃アニメ＃健康 #BungouStrayDogs #文豪ストレイドッグス #文豪＃森鴎外 #Mori Ogai #Mori Rintaro #森林太郎 #Vita Sexualis＃漫画＃マンガPage Break