When Yoshihito Usui, the creator of popular Japanese cartoon Crayon Shin-chan was found dead at a cliff of the 1,423m Mount Arafune in Japan, I was but reminded of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Fans of the cartoon have been assured that Crayon Shin-Chan would live on since Usui’s family had agreed to let other cartoonists continue drawing the boy. In Shakespeare's sonnet, the beauty of a beloved is said to be able to live on forever through the words of the poem. In both cases, it doesn't say much for annica, the Buddhist concept of impermanence which declares that in this world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent... or does it? Or would you perhaps, view this as a case of a permanent impermanence?
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Fans of the cartoon have been assured that Crayon Shin-Chan would live on since Usui’s family had agreed to let other cartoonists continue drawing the boy. In Shakespeare's sonnet, the beauty of a beloved is said to be able to live on forever through the words of the poem. In both cases, it doesn't say much for annica, the Buddhist concept of impermanence which declares that in this world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent... or does it? Or would you perhaps, view this as a case of a permanent impermanence?
Take a break with Shin Chan!
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