Under cartoon-blue skies washed by early-autumn typhoons, I stand at Sendaizaka-ue (summit of Sendaizaka Slope) in Tokyo's Minato Ward. Sendaizaka was named for daimyo lords from Edo Period (1603-1867) Sendai, now in Miyagi Prefecture, who maintained a yashiki (suburban home) on the slope that today hosts the newly rebuilt Embassy of South Korea.
At the summit's busy six-forked intersection, a policeman mans an accordion traffic gate used to quell sporadic demonstrations rising from tensions between Japan and South Korea. Sendaizaka is no stranger to diplomatic skirmishes. In 1861, Henry C.J. Heusken, a Dutch interpreter working for Townsend Harris at the first American Legation based within the Zenpukiji Temple grounds, misjudged his safety returning home one night. A band of sonno joi (or samurai loyalists agitated by foreign incursions into their country) ambushed him with swords. Heusken was able to make it back to the temple grounds, halfway up Sendaizaka Slope, but perished that evening.
Crossing the intersection, I recall that Sendaizaka-ue is also where several busloads of passengers were abducted into a black hole by the evil Jadeite, antagonist in the popular anime "Sailor Moon." A crow caws overhead and the cop slightly resembles Sailor Moon's sweetheart, Tuxedo Mask, so I quickly dip down a backstreet to avoid being sucked into a teen-fantasy zone.
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