Setchan

Setchan is the younger of the two female cousins in whose house Yozo lives while attending high school in a coastal town. She is described as a short, round-faced girl who looks fresh out of high school. Along with her older sister, whom Yozo calls Sister, Setchan forms part of the female-dominated domestic environment that Yozo navigates with his habitual clowning. Her presence, though not central to the major plot turns, contributes to the pattern of female attention and expectation that Yozo finds both flattering and exhausting.

Identity and Introduction

Setchan is introduced as the younger cousin in the household where Yozo boards during his high school years. The household consists of an aunt in her fifties and two cousins: the older, a tall, frail, bespectacled woman of about thirty who had been married and later separated, and Setchan herself, who is short and round-faced, appearing fresh out of high school. The family runs a small shop selling stationery and sporting goods on the ground floor, but their main income comes from renting out tenements built by Yozo's late uncle. Setchan, like her sister, frequently visits Yozo's room, and her knock on the door never fails to startle him.

Relationship with Yozo: Demands for Clowning

Setchan is one of the primary audiences for Yozo's clowning during his high school years. She and her sister would visit his room whenever they had time and compel him to perform his antics at unmerciful lengths. On one occasion, they insisted he put on the older sister's glasses, and when he did, they were convulsed with laughter, declaring he looked exactly like Harold Lloyd, the American movie comedian then popular in Japan. Yozo, ever the obliging performer, stood up and went through the motions of making a speech, which made them laugh even harder. From then on, whenever a Harold Lloyd movie came to town, Yozo secretly studied his expressions to perfect his imitation. Setchan's demands for entertainment, like those of the other women in his life, had no sense of moderation; no matter how long Yozo went on with his antics, she would ask for more, and he would become exhausted responding to her insatiable demands for encores.

Bringing Friends and Gossip

Setchan would even bring her friends to Yozo's room, and in his usual fashion, he amused them all with perfect impartiality. However, as soon as a friend had left, Setchan would tell Yozo disagreeable things about her, inevitably concluding, "She's a bad girl. You must be careful of her." Yozo, in his internal monologue, wanted to say, "If that's the case, you needn't have gone to the trouble of bringing her here." Thanks to Setchan, almost all the visitors to Yozo's room were girls. This pattern of female attention, orchestrated in part by Setchan, contributed to the atmosphere that would later lead Takeichi's prophecy—that women would fall for Yozo—to come true.

Narrative Significance

Setchan's role, while minor, is significant in establishing the social dynamics of Yozo's adolescence. She represents the kind of female attention that Yozo both craves and fears: attention that demands constant performance, that is accompanied by gossip and manipulation, and that ultimately leaves him feeling exhausted and exposed. Her presence in the household, along with her sister's, reinforces the theme of Yozo's inability to form genuine connections, as he remains always the performer, never the authentic self. The fact that Setchan and her sister are the first women outside his immediate family to demand his clowning foreshadows the pattern of relationships with women that will dominate his later life, from the landlord's daughter to the comrade girl to Shizuko and Yoshiko. Setchan, like the other women in Yozo's early life, is part of the audience for his performance, and her demands contribute to the gradual wearing down of his already fragile sense of self.