Ogata-San

Ogata-San, Jiro’s father, is a guest in Etsuko’s household during the summer in Nagasaki and a figure whose affection often takes the form of advice. He recognizes his son’s habit of avoiding awkward confrontations, challenges him over that habit through a chess game, and seeks an honest explanation from Shigeo Matsuda about a critical magazine article. Etsuko’s recollections show Ogata-San trying to preserve both a bond with his son and confidence in the values by which he has lived; the gap between his hopes and Jiro’s evasions gives their exchanges their force.

Identity and Presence

Ogata-San remains with Etsuko and Jiro for an extended part of the summer. Etsuko looks back on the visit with the knowledge that her husband was waiting for his father to return to Fukuoka so that the dispute over Matsuda’s article might simply fade. Jiro readily agrees that the attack on the family name should be addressed, says the matter concerns him as much as his father, and promises to write to his old school friend. Yet, as Etsuko understands in retrospect, the promise is a way of postponing action rather than taking it. She reads Ogata-San as perceptive enough to have recognized this strategy.

That retrospective framing matters: Ogata-San’s prolonged stay is not presented merely as a visit between father and son. It brings into the household a conflict Jiro would prefer to let pass, and gives Etsuko a close view of the mismatch between his reassuring assurances and his reluctance to make his position clear. She considers whether Jiro’s later handling of another crisis in a similar fashion might have affected her own decision to leave Nagasaki, though she does not elaborate on that later event here.

Chess and the Argument over Defeat

The chessboard becomes the setting in which Ogata-San makes his clearest criticism of Jiro. Their game had been interrupted the previous night when two of Jiro’s drunken colleagues arrived. Ogata-San says the game had stopped at a crucial point, and spends part of the following day studying the board before setting it out again after supper. The return to the unfinished game turns an ordinary domestic evening into a renewed confrontation.

When Ogata-San remarks that the next day is important, Jiro laughs off the occasion and returns his attention to his newspaper. Ogata-San does not accept that dismissal. He recalls that Jiro began the game with a plan, but abandoned strategic thinking as soon as his father disrupted it. For Ogata-San, losing is not simply a matter of the king being cornered: defeat comes when a player ceases to devise coherent plans and moves only one piece at a time. His account makes the chess game a practical lesson in persistence, and gives his criticism a specific shape: Jiro, he believes, treats a setback as a reason to stop planning.

Jiro answers by conceding that he has lost and suggesting they drop the matter. Ogata-San counters that he has studied the position and found three ways his son could escape. Jiro then uses Ogata-San’s own principle against him: because he has supposedly been thinking only one move at a time, he says, there is no point continuing. The exchange exposes more than a disagreement about the board. Ogata-San sees openings and urges Jiro to keep defending himself; Jiro uses the language of defeat to bring the encounter to a close. His father calls this defeatism and says he had hoped to have overcome that tendency when Jiro was young. The game remains a contest over whether a person can respond to a broken plan by making another.

Matsuda and the Demand for an Explanation

Ogata-San’s concern over Matsuda’s article is not confined to the household or to what it might mean for the family name. He goes to speak with Matsuda after the matter has occupied his thoughts for days, acknowledging that he had intended to visit sooner but had let the opportunity slip. He asks his former school friend directly whether he believes what he wrote and what prompted him to write it. He wants Matsuda to explain himself so that Ogata-San can return to Fukuoka with his mind at rest; until then, he says, he remains worried.

The scene presents him as seeking more than a retraction or a quick end to the dispute. His questions press Matsuda to connect his published criticism to his own convictions. Matsuda, looking down and prodding a pebble with his shoe before answering, says that much has changed over the past few years. The exchange gives the disagreement a wider setting of postwar change, but the available account does not resolve Matsuda’s argument or show Ogata-San being reassured. His effort is characterized by the act of asking and by his stated need to understand, rather than by a settled verdict on what Matsuda says.

Nagasaki and the Memorial

Ogata-San also invites Etsuko to look around Nagasaki as tourists might. They travel by tram, spend time at an art gallery, and shortly before noon visit the memorial in the large public park near the city centre. Etsuko remembers the place as solemn despite the sounds of children and birds. Its sparse shrubs and fountains leave the grass, the summer sky, and the massive white memorial statue to define the scene.

The statue commemorates those killed by the atomic bomb. It resembles a muscular seated figure with both arms extended: one hand points toward the sky from which the bomb fell, while the other is understood to hold back evil. Its closed eyes suggest prayer. The visit places Ogata-San and Etsuko together before a public memorial to loss, a quieter counterpoint to the forceful arguments about family, education, and responsibility that occupy the household. The account establishes the visit and the memorial’s details without assigning Ogata-San a speech or reaction that Etsuko does not record.

Encouragement and Limits

At a later moment associated with Jiro’s prospects, Ogata-San raises a cup to celebrate his son’s future. He tells Jiro that he always believed he would go far and that he had shown promise. Jiro qualifies the encouragement: what happened that day does not guarantee a promotion, though he thinks his efforts will not have harmed his chances. The exchange preserves the uncertainty of the outcome. Ogata-San offers confidence, while Jiro answers in terms of what can and cannot yet be secured.

Across these scenes, Ogata-San’s care is neither passive nor detached. He studies the chess position, returns to a difficult conversation with Matsuda, invites Etsuko into the city, and voices belief in Jiro’s ability. His faith in persistence is clearest when he insists that a player must find a new strategy after the first one fails. Yet Jiro’s reluctance to continue the game and his earlier delay over the letter reveal the limits of that counsel: Ogata-San can identify openings and urge action, but he cannot make his son take them. Etsuko’s hindsight holds the two sides together, remembering a father who remains hopeful and involved while recognizing how readily Jiro lets confrontation pass.