Character Analysis 1 - Kuboyama Aikichi

In Daigo Fukuryu Maru, all the fishermen were described as hardwoking people, especially when they did their job. From this point, we can see that it depicted one of Japanese value, which is hard-working. Beside their working ethics, there was scene which the crews let the chief to bless the net using Japanese sake as the sign that they hope they could catch good and a lot of fish. From this scene, we also lead us to the fact that Japanese still believe in such myths.

If we look more closely to each character, we can see that some characters were emphasized. Let us take a look for the character that was given most emphasize. That was the chief Radioman, Kuboyama Aikichi.

He was the chief radioman. His job was to take communication to the city to inform the progress of everything that was going on through the sailing. He got most emphasize because at the end of the story, he was the only crew that died for the radiation sickness.

Basically he was a father of 3 pf his children, whom all were girls. His wife worked at the fish store and truly a Japanese housewife, pattient and caring. Having a family must have affect Kuboyama characteristic. He was a fine responsible man, doing well in his job, respected by the other crews. He was the one that asked the crew to go to hospital in Tokyo, always support the crew to hang on and not to give up in the sickness.

Unfortunately, he ended up dying because the sickness was not getting better while it did on the other crew. Due to his age (around 40 to 50), his progress of recovering was very slow comparing to others whom still at their 20s. At the very end of his time, he got coma and it got worse. However, he still did not give up. He even promised to his mother that he would not die. Looking into this facts, we can see that Kuboyama was a caring loving father, who refused to give up whatever the condition was.

Character Analysis 2

Another emphasized character are the chief of fishermen, Mishima Tamio, and one of the crew, Harada. Mishima Tamio was the chief of fishermen which means he was the person in charge of controling everything. He was also the decision maker, meaning he was the one who made the decision of changing the direction of the route. As chief, he was respected by all the fishermen. He also a very reliable person, as he was not selfish, also thinking about the crew’s condition and could make the right decision.

Harada, one of the crew, was quite a shy person. He got a girlfriend and we can see that they love each other. I can say that Harada was a shy person looking to the scene where he beat some of the crews whom teased him having a girlfriend. He was easy to cry. He cried when his girlfriend visited him in the hospital and said that she would wait for him to recover. This also show that the girlfriend was very loyal to Harada.

Another character is the owner of the boat, Nishiyama Yoichi. He was the owner of the boat. He was very strict and quite hard on his crew. This could be shown by the scene when he scolded all the crews and chiefs as they did not give any reports about changing the route and ended up coming back not in the scheduled day. However, he was a caring boss that he listened to the story about the bombing and gave permission to the crew to get to the hospital for medical check-up rather that keeping them to finish their works.

One of the doctor, the psychologist for exact, named Kumagai, appeared from the middle of the film. As the psychologist, he gave affection to the patients that he could get along with all of them. This proved that he was doing his job well as a doctor. He was very concerned about Kuboyama's condition that was not getting better.