It’s no coincidence that one of the very first Japanese words I picked up by watching anime was: Sakura. Cherry trees are so ubiquitous and important to Japanese culture and identity that they even name girls after them! The breathtaking sight of cherry trees in full bloom, raining down soft petals on passersby is so enchanting to behold, it’s no wonder it’s such a common sight in anime. In fact, cherry blossoms have a huge cultural and historical significance in Japan, to the point that blossom viewing parties are a common celebration.
On a practical basis, the blooming of cherry trees was used to mark and even divine the harvest season. Since cherry trees bloom between March and early May, they are some of the first plants to flower and as such mark the beginning of spring and herald the harvest. Moreover, since they are so common throughout Japan and as their blooms are so visible, they are a striking and unmissable sight. The earlier their bloom starts, the sooner people need to get ready for the harvest, and the more generous the flowers, the more likely the fruit and vegetable yield will be plentiful.
Historically, this was indeed a great cause for celebration when concerns for feeding yourself and your family were at the forefront of people’s minds. And as the spectacle remains beautiful, the cultural significance is still very present in modern-day Japan.
Like most flowers, they are associated with life, renewal and beauty but also death, or impermanence. As the flowers die, spreading their delicate petals, they remind us the everything ends. This philosophy is ingrained in a lot of Eastern spiritualism and celebrated. In World War II, for instance, kamikaze pilots would often paint the blossoms on the sides of their planes. The significance being that they too would die beautifully for their land.
A fun little random fact, the kanji for sakura is written with 木 (ki) which means tree and saku 咲 which can mean either bloom or smile. Doesn’t that just fit perfectly!
I live in Canada. You know this because I use every excuse to tell you about it. Canadians are that way. I’m telling you now because I always felt this camaraderie with Japan’s cherry trees. One of our most recognizable symbols is the maple leaf. We use it all over the place. We are also a tree country. But it’s not just the maple leaf, it’s the red maple leaf. As in the maple leaf in fall, when countless trees across the land become ablaze with autumn colours.
Sadly, global warming has damaged out seasons up here and we no longer have such beautiful fall season as we use to, but we still get a colourful month out of the year. The significance of the maple tree in Canada mirrors that of sakura season in Japan. They are also a symbol of life but an even more pronounced symbol of death. They mark the end of harvest rather than the beginning.
In Canada, winters are long and quite harsh. You have to make sure you’re prepared in order to survive them. We also have a more significant fall harvest than most places as late-blooming plants fair much better in a country that regularly still has snowfalls in May. The changing of the leaves in a sign that you need to make sure your stores are full if you want to survive the months ahead. They are also a cause for celebration. There is something called Indian summer here. Basically, it’s the two months out of the year where you can actually go outside without suffering and it happens between September and November. (I love my Montreal, but no one lives here cause of the weather).
Just like the cherry blossoms in Japan, the red maple leaves in Canada are the most visible sign of that season. So, we celebrate them and cheer them on. They make us happy, one beautiful big bash tinged with the inevitability of death and loss before the hard-long winter comes. I have always drawn parallels between our maples and Japan’s cherry trees. Seeing them is both attractively unusual and comfortably familiar to me. I do love those scenes in anime.
So, this is how, through pretty coloured things falling trees, anime once again reminded me that we are more alike than different. The world is surprisingly small and very beautiful. And even two cultures as physically and historically separated as Canada and Japan can be surprisingly similar in some ways.
I didn’t know how to fit this in my post but there is one thing I’ve been wondering about. With all the cherry trees in anime, why don’t we see people eating cherries more often? We only get eatable cherries about1 week out of the year up here and everyone walks around with bags of them. I find it odd that it’s not a commonly animated snack….
This same artist also made a beautiful Natsume in the autumn piece and I want to share it with you: