Cornelius

 Inquiry into the Behavior of Keigo Oyamada by Denpachiro

Link to the original text: https://koritsumuen.hatenablog.com/entry/20061115/p1

Regarding the musician Keigo Oyamada (also known as Cornelius). 

According to several magazine interviews, Oyamada participated in bullying as a primary school, middle school and high school student at the Wako Institute. The January 1994 issue of ROCKIN’ ON JAPAN (editor-in-chief: Yoichiro Yamazaki) includes a 20,000-word interview with Oyamada, in which he states:

“‘The bullying was really severe in my class.’

‘And you said that you were among those who did the bullying?’

‘Yeah, I was a bully. I was really horrible and cruel, thinking back on it now. I’d like to use my time here to apologize (laughs). I was really harsh.’

‘So you did things you shouldn't have.’
‘Yeah. They were like crimes against humanity. We’d strip people completely naked, wrap them up in string, force them to masturbate. Make them eat shit. Then we'd do belly-to-back suplexes on them.’”

After reading this interview, a writer named Kiyoshi Murakami penned an article called “Kiyoshi Murakami’s Bullying Journey” in the August 1995 issue of Quick Japan. In it, he states that “bullying is a form of entertainment” and asks:

“What kinds of people do bullies grow up to be?”

“In what way do those bullied people overcome the experience and go on with their lives?"

After some initial interest, he decided he wanted to set up an interview between the bully and the victims, but it never materialized. Instead, it became a personal interview with Keigo Oyamada. 

All of the following are remarks made by Oyamada in this magazine. 

Regarding Sawada-san (pseudonym):

“There was this guy named Sawada. He was a pretty big deal*, and he showed up when we were in the second grade. It was a shock to everybody at school (laughs). I mean, when you change schools and you just start abruptly introducing yourself to people like, ‘I’m Sawada!’ (approximating a speech impediment), everyone’s just like, ‘Wow! Amazing!’ So on the first day he was at our school, I remember he took a shit. It’s like a felony for a schoolboy to take a shit at school, right?

So anyway, it was like Robopah from Robocon** moved to a new school (laughs). And people aren’t used to that kind of thing, so they’re kind of surprised, right? So his name is suddenly well-known everywhere, and people are like, ‘He's awesome!’ (laughs), so he was kind of like a star. 

So I got a cardboard box or something and put Sawada-san in it and covered it in duct tape and put air hole-type things around it (laughs), and I said, ‘Hey Sawada-san, you alright in there?’ and he said ‘I’m… alright…’ (laughs) So I took an eraser from the blackboard and clapped it around and said ‘Poison gas attack!’ and then I let him be for a while, but he stopped reacting altogether, so I said ‘Oh, shit… what should I do?’ So I decided to take some of the duct tape off and watch him from the other side of the room. And suddenly he comes tearing out of the box and says… oh, what did he say? Something funny. I think it was something like ‘mommy…’ (laughs) and then everyone laughed at him." 

High school days:

“When you’re wearing a school jersey, anybody can just come and pull it off, but Sawada didn’t care about people seeing his dick anyway so he’d just walk around with it hanging out. He had a big dick though, he even did when we were in elementary school, but it got even bigger in high school (laughs). Girls would always react to it, right? So we’d force him to strip and walk around. 

For whatever reason, people with disabilities like him liked to hang around in the library. The library was just like a big theme park (laughs). And not just for people in my grade, everybody who was like that could find a spot to hide there. It was as if they had their own little society in there. There was this insane hardcore*** guy named Hasegawa who I mentioned earlier. He was definitely the strongest member of the group and everyone was kind of afraid of him. This guy had a sidekick who was deaf and extremely small. He looked maybe half South American and had really dark skin and they were sort of like a duo. Some of these guys who were in my grade would boss around other students who were like them. And once in a while we’d say, ‘Let’s go see them,’ or ‘I wonder what they’re doing on their break’ or whatever. There were only three or four others who would wanna actually go see them, but I remember they really liked sumo (laughs). There was a ring in front of the library where they’d wrestle. 

The taiko club was like that too. It was held in a gymnasium or something, so there were all kinds of things in there, things you could use. You remember that one kid who got killed when he was rolled up in a gym mat, right? I did things like that too. I even locked them up in vaulting boxes. There were tons of little props, like knee butts on top of the mat. That was a bad idea, for sure (laughs).”

Regarding Mr. Murata (pseudonym), the second person who was bullied:

“Murata had been around since elementary school and I knew that he was a little off. Back then we were in different classes so I didn’t have a chance to get to know him, but in middle school we were in the same class. He’d do all kinds of weird things. Murata was kind of borderline… it was hard to tell if he was mentally ill or just an idiot and his body was tiny. This guy was like the opposite of Sawada, he was more the type who would internalize his tantrums. Instead of lashing out when he was bullied, he’d slam his head against the wall and say, ‘Dammit! Dammit!’ (laughs). He was like a character from a manga. When he’d do that kind of thing, people would get scared and move away from him. They’d say, ‘This guy is dangerous.’ First of all, you could tell that he didn’t bathe (laughs) because he smelled bad, and his hair must have been itchy because he was always scratching his head. He’d pull the hairs out of his scalp one by one. So he ended up with a round bald patch on his head and it was just shocking. He didn’t study at all and he didn’t exercise at all either. 

"Nobody really took Murata seriously, but one day out of the blue he brought a bunch of gum and started handing it out to everybody. ‘Why does this guy have so much gum? I’m gonna find out.’ So I went up to him and said, ‘Hey you, why do you have so much gum?’ and he said, ‘I bought it.’ So I followed him around for three days or so and made him buy all kinds of stuff. Then after about three days he showed up at school with bruises on his body. I asked him what happened and he said that his parents beat him (laughs). I guess he stole about 150,000 yen from them. But I guess he didn’t know what to do with it or something, because he just ended up buying a bunch of gum (laughs). He was really popular for those three days, though. People would gather around him for his 150,000 yen. He didn't notice that people were making fun of him and making him buy stuff."

During a middle school field trip (Oyamada-san was in the same group as Murata-san and a student who had to repeat a grade):

"So we'd lay out all the futons in our hotel room and start doing these pro wrestling moves, right? You can’t normally just do a backdrop, right? But he (editor's note: Murata-san) was so light that I could do it on him easily. I was super excited about it. We were all trying out pro wrestling techniques on the guy. You know, like brainbusters (laughs). It was so easy to do these moves on him, so I said, ‘I’m gonna do it again.’ It didn’t feel like I was bullying him, but… well, I guess I was (laughs). 

We did make it that we sort of got permission by asking 'let me do a backdrop on you' (laughs). After that, one of the seniors showed up. He got the wrong idea… I don’t think he was the type who knew when he was taking something too far. He tied him up in a clothesline and said ‘Fucking masturbate,’ and ‘Hey, dumbass! Is there someone you like?’ (Laughs). He was sitting upright. The senior kid kind of took the lead. I’m not sure that I liked how far he was taking it, but there are some people who just do that kind of stuff. It put me in a weird position. Where is the line where something stops being funny? That line where, after you cross it, you start thinking, ‘This is really bad’? I guess it depends on the person, but in this case that kid was just way too hardcore. He said, ‘YOU! Who do you like?!’ and Murata said ‘Nobody…’ and then bam! He slapped him, and I thought, ‘This is getting scary…’ (laughs). So he said that he liked Matsuoka-san (pseudonym) (laughs). So he says, ‘Then fucking masturbate!’ And he said ‘Ahhhh, Matsuoka-san…’ (laughs).”

Oyamada’s statements make it clear that the students who suffered from mental disabilities were the ones being bullied. Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window**** may have depicted heart-warming interactions between Totto-chan and a child with disabilities, but the reality may be more like what Oyamada describes. 

I thought that Wako was among those institutions enthusiastic about the education of students with disabilities, but this was merely a beautiful ideal. In truth, it’s not particularly easy to remove the prejudices of stupid, bratty children. In that sense, this article may prove a valuable resource in the reconsideration of how we educate children with disabilities. 

I’ll continue to quote from Mr. Oyamada’s remarks. 

“There were kids in the regular class who would have been in special schools elsewhere. It was private, so things were different. I’ve known the term ‘Down syndrome’ since I was in elementary school. There was some kind of school for the disabled behind our school. It’s in the countryside near Machida, so there are still some fields left. When I was in high school, we’d all go outside to smoke during our breaks. There was a hill behind the building that we’d go to. Whenever I’d be absent-mindedly smoking cigarettes, those kids from the school for the disabled would be running a marathon. The boys wore dark blue jerseys and the girls wore maroon and they’d be running. And they had Down syndrome. 

So one time I said ‘Hey, a kid with Down syndrome is running’ while I was smoking. Then another kid with Down syndrome ran by, but people with Down syndrome all have the same kind of face, right?

And so I said, ‘What? Didn’t he already go by?’ (laughs). He was maybe a little bit bigger than the first one. After that, one of the kids with Down syndrome dressed in maroon ran past with kind of a pitter-patter and I said ‘Is that one a girl?’ (laughs). So there were ten people running, some big, some small, all with the same exact face. I said ‘wow!’ (laughs).”

I wonder what kind of person Keigo Oyamada is to be able to talk about such things without an ounce of guilt. There are certainly artists with personality disorders, and I also understand that certain artists’ work means the world to certain people, regardless of the circumstances of their personal lives. 

But I wonder if this is really the case. 

I wonder if music made by such a person could really have the capacity to move anyone. And if his music does move so many people, what really is music anyway? What is art? This is essentially what I’m trying to get at. 

The following article describes what happened to these people after they’d been bullied. The writer Kiyoshi Murakami even went to the trouble of interviewing the families [of Oyamada’s victims]. 

“I called Murata-san’s house. His mother answered. I was told that Murata-san is now working as a live-in clerk at a pachinko parlor. He attended an evening high school after leaving Wako. 

His mother said, ‘When he was in middle school, there were thoughts of suicide. But you talk to your child and figure out a way to fix things. My son also had the kind of personality that encouraged bullies. Oyamada-kun seems to be doing well for himself.’ 

Murata-san, who works as a live-in clerk, no longer has any contact with his family. No matter how many times I requested the number of the pachinko parlor, they would not give it to me. Eventually they hung up in the middle of the call. 

"I called Sawada-san’s house and his mother answered. I had to call from the nearest station without an appointment because I wasn't getting anywhere with them. I let them know that I was already near their house.

I was able to meet up with Sawada-san at one of the finest residences in Denenchofu*****. According to his mother, he has a ‘learning disability.’ The only responses he gives are 'yes' and 'okay' and only to his family. He currently attends calligraphy and pottery classes at a nearby health care center twice a week. He has not successfully integrated into society. 

His mother said, ‘It’s only gotten worse since he graduated. He only sees people that he knows anymore. I thought that he was on good terms with Oyamada-san.’

Sawada sat quietly but firmly in his seat and never broke his gaze with me from behind his glasses. He was a bit like Hawking.******

‘Would you be willing to talk with Oyamada?’

He sat in silence and looked at his mother. 

‘Did you get along with Oyamada-san?’

‘Yes.’

A few days later, I received a call from his mother saying they did not want to meet with Oyamada.

The intention of this project is to determine “the kinds of lives that the people who experience bullying go on to live afterwards.” But none of them have “survived bullying.”

When Oyamada-san was told about Murata’s disappearance, he said “but being a pachinko parlor clerk sounds like a good fit.” 

The following is a quote from a conversation between Kiyoshi Murakami and Keigo Oyamada at the end of the article. 

“KM: ‘If you could open up a dialogue with them, what would you talk about?’

KO: ‘I mean, there’s really nothing to talk about. (Laughs). I dunno. I feel like if I met them now I’d definitely talk to them exactly like I used to. I don’t know... I don’t think there’d be any bullying.’ Stuff like, ‘what are you up to now?’ (Laughs). ‘So you’re working at a pachinko place now, huh?’ (Laughs). ‘Picking up balls?’ (Laughs).’ I think it’d just be stuff like that.’

KM: ‘Would you prefer not to meet with them if you had a choice?’

KO: ‘Me? I don’t think I’d wanna meet up with Murata-san, although it would probably be interesting. I would like to meet Sawada, though.’

KM: ‘So there’s no one in particular that you definitely wouldn’t want to see?’

KO: ‘I'm not really sure. Was I really the one doing the bullying?’

KM: ‘The distinction is ambiguous.’

KO: ‘That’s what I’m not sure about. Is it really bullying? I definitely did some bad things.’

KM: ‘Have you come to a conclusion about whether or not you’re guilty?’

KO: ‘Well… I think everyone is kind of like this. You know, people who bully others. I, for example, can talk about it without feeling any guilt at all.’

KM: ‘Yeah. I’m laughing as I listen. By the way, Oyamada-san, have you ever been bullied? I don’t just mean in school.’

KO: ‘Hmm. It could just be that I didn’t notice it, but I don’t think it ever really happened. I never thought of myself as a victim or anything like that.’

*literally “epoch-making guy”; there might be cultural connotations to this loanword i’m missing

**japanese children’s cartoon from the ‘70s

***literally ‘haado-koa.’ all ensuing uses of this term are the same

****best-selling memoir about the author’s experiences in an unconventional learning environment as a child

*****very high-end district in southern tokyo

******presumably in reference to Stephen Hawking