Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1971) - full transcript
A subversive short film from director Shuuji Terayama.
The Cage
[Ori - 1964]
Young Person's Guide to Cinema - pink
[Seishonen no tame no eiga nyumon - 1974]
Emperor Tomato Ketchup
[Tomato Kecchappu Kotei - 1970]
"Suppose that the motivation
for interest in capitalism wouldn't be the...
accumulation of wealth, but pleasure,
then it collapses from the base."
- Karl Marx "Das Kapital"
THE EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP
Tomato Ketchup Constitution
Imperial Decree:
For me, the peace, happiness, and honor
of this country's children are the core...
...and the continuation of this
everlasting lineage is best.
For the children who love me,
I owe strength and aid...
...such that the country's advancement
and development is my wish.
Provisions of the Lord Emperor:
1. The Emperor's unsoiled
respectful existence will not be dirtied.
2. By the Emperor's chosen path of law,
that which is inherited...
3. The Emperor's father will polish the
His shoes by licking them with his tongue;
The Emperor's mother will play the violin
for solace when the Emperor is bored.
4. Military and naval forces
are under the rule of the Emperor...
...at every moment to keep peace
and intensify the well-being of children.
5. The Emperor's favorite food, tomato
ketchup, will be the national symbol.
6. Adults will not hinder
what the Emperor wants.
7. The Emperor's
declarations of war,
thoughts of peace,
and various pacts, are binding.
8. The Emperor wears a hat, and
no matter what, he does not take it off.
9. Those who give offense to the dignity of
the Emperor, for this crime of disrespect...
...will be hung by the neck
form a tree until dead.
"The wise man exercises
sovereignty among the stars."
Introduction To The X-Mark Code
Adults who oppose children,
who ignore children's power...
...who teach a prejudiced viewpoint
against children, or adults who...
...care too excessively for children, all
will be erased from the register with an X.
Under the Black Flag Party
they will be erased.
An adult, who reduces a child's snacks,
disturbs a child's drinking and smoking...
...takes the freedom
of a child's eroticism...
...and pushes their own
educational fixations...
A ringleader will be executed
or given life in prison...
Participating conspirators, adults
that do not directly enforce...
...will be given eighty years imprisonment.
The X-mark body of law.
Pure intellect is a product of death.
Long, long ago, there was
a father and a mother.
The father was
an elementary school teacher...
...the mother a vampire.
The two did not have their own child,
so they gathered other children...
...and after reading them
the story of Hansel and Gretel...
...it is eight rends of the flesh and into
the bubble-bubble boiling meat pot to eat.
So, you must not go to school.
The scary wolf waits,
licking its lips, to eat such a child.
X-Mark Body of Law
77th provision Svekarak judgment
Father of more than two children:
500,000 yen fine.
School teacher:
Permanent exile or 20 years in prison.
Fairy tale writer: Life in prison.
Toy maker: from 1 to 10 years in prison.
Probation officer:
from 10 to 30 years in prison.
Police Department, Juvenile Division: Death.
Our fight to take over power in,
Germany was just as decisive for our...
...fate as the fight which
we are waging today.
It was only during the past year that
this became known to us in all its meaning...
...and if victory had not been achieved
in 1933, then Germany would have remained
what it was then, a powerless nation
with an Army of 100,000 men...
...which would necessarily have
had to submit to destruction.
99th Provision
All children, in the name of God, are free to:
Free to conspire.
Free to betray.
Free to practice sodomy
on the Army Minister of State.
Free to wipe one's butt with the Bible.
Free to shear his mom
Hangen Puppeteer red roses.
Make pee beyond church.
Make friend's cat slaughter.
Dear Mother,
are you well?
Have you hidden yourself well
from the Black X-Flag search parties?
Please take care of the kitten
that has become an adult...
...even a cat, if an adult, it would seem,
is to be taken to the concentration camp.
I have enclosed a picture of me.
This month's assignment has been
as a concentration camp oven guard.
It is for the adults
who lied to children...
...the people's court is held...
...and my job is the baking to death
of those adults chosen for execution.
At first the smell inside was horrible,
but these days I am used to it.
I bake seven or eight people a day.
In the fire the bones turn to ash.
Behind me, bound up, is...
...an educational movie actress
who pushed filial devotion.
Baking and perfume is not
a very good combination.
I will write again later.
Anatomy
Children University Lecture:
As for the destiny of adult culture...
...it would seem to fit
the ruins of ancient times...
...such that it is a phenomenon
which is limited in space and time.
The conscious path of the transient nature
of adult records is a mathematical law...
...analogous to the comprehensive
path of continuous tradition.
Mother, are you well?
Father has just escaped
the concentration camp.
One dose of tobacco,
and then it seems I will suffer.
I yawn at the world.
The Emperor yawns at the world.
The section 'of the cat' in the
encyclopedia is revised in the bathroom.
For example, abolished is the
four legged mammal definition.
Cat... the hirsute
expert of contemplation.
Cat... the animal that cannot speak
to children unless wearing boots.
Cat... the carnivore
what cannot be eaten.
Cat... the non-writing
detective novelist.
Cat... the spy that
wiretaps Berlioz's symphony.
Cat... the hedonist with no property.
Cat... the only political domestic
animal, descendant of Machiavelli.
97th Provision:
At times of simple flight,
planned, or unplanned adult escape...
...the penalty is ten or
more years hard labor.
The escapee and accomplices will be
surrounded by the X-mark of martial law
within this sphere of the X-mark,
the lawless ones
must stand and do ten or
more years of hard labor
The one who aggravated
the escape, usurping power...
...will incur internment the same
as the one who attempts to the act.
These punishments will be done.
His Majesty the Emperor's dynamite.
Provision 190:
In relation to the articles for the
disposal of corpses and the like...
...the following reforms
have been made to the code:
Namely children's corpses, ashes, hair
and such will be placed in a coffin...
...styled therein and disposed of.
The penalty for dereliction by the
profiteering stylist is three or more years...
...years continuous hard labor.
Adult corpses, hair, and such
can be dealt with as you like.
For corpses, dolls, and play dress,
it is the task of the doctor...
...to dissect and classify the
hair, teeth, skin and the like.
Accessories, personal effects,
and household decorations...
...are subject to tariff and
must be offered up as such.
The X-ambassador
is a meat border line.
Mother, are you well?
Whatever happens, you must not come out.
Recently control has become very strict.
When informants turned in just one
adult hiding in a barn in Shinagawa...
...a whole platoon with
machine guns was dispatched.
Also mother, it would
be best if the partisan...
...radio broadcast of lullabies is stopped.
Although we listened to
lullabies when we were infants...
...we will not
return to a child's naivety.
A return to a beatific childhood, and a
peaceful mother's love, are both futile.
Anyway, no matter what,
please hide yourself.
The law has changed, so that cats...
...who do not wear boots
are all to be slaughtered.
So please do not let the
kitty out on a moonlit night.
The Emperor seems to have
come to like cat steak.
11th provision:
All subjects through faithful
valor love their country.
From Emperor and loyal sacrifice
the rise of the Empire's glory
both at home and abroad
cannot be in doubt.
It is not a question of children
or men and women of different ages;
everyone, for all time, must
bow to the duty of obedience.
Listen to that tune.
The girl changed into a witch.
Listen to that tune.
The cat became smoke.
Listen to that tune.
Fanon has come to like Kirie.
Listen to that tune.
A person has come to love everyone.
Listen to that tune.
I would like to give to you.
There is a sum total that has
no relationship to history or mathematics.
Therefore the mathematical
certainty of natural law,
Galileo Galilee?s astonishing view that
nature is such that one can write of it...
...using the language of math;
according to Kant...
...with the birth
of correct natural science...
...the potential of the application
of mathematical methods...
...to reach a truth is also born.
Can you accurately speak
the word vagina?
VAGINA
Today, from the police
headquarters now situated outside...
...the Tomato Ketchup Occupied Zone,
...to all the un-occupied
households nationwide this appeal...
...for cooperation with the
following five items has gone out:
1. Do not allow children to watch TV,
read newspapers, or listen to the radio.
2. Children must not be allowed to
have edged tools, even for building.
3. Add the children's
favorite food to dinner...
...one plate at a time, to gage
the level of friendliness.
4. It is strictly forbidden
for children to gather together...
...therefore, during this time,
all schools are on vacation.
5. If possible, respect children,
and never talk back to them.
Furthermore, this evening
the provisional government has...
...in emergency, revised the constitution
to remove the child welfare laws...
...and dispatched the self defense forces.
While the cat is napping,
the child first learns of tobacco.
While the cat is napping,
the child's butt is strongly devoted to.
While the cat is napping,
the child experiences
the prison of books.
While the cat is napping,
the Spanish civil war
and the flower wilt.
While the cat is napping,
start the dynamite burning!
While the cat is napping,
Change the world!
Change the world!
Soldiers principal duty
is to conquest.
Soldiers of the Imperial
troupe cannot break the rule.
Soldiers must follow pleasure.
Soldiers holds responsibility for the
rise and fall of the Empire.
The Emperor plays ken ball with the world.
Mother, are you well?
This will be the last letter I'm afraid.
The Black Flag Party is on their
way to capture you tomorrow.
Please forgive this money grubbing
un-filial betrayer of a son.
But, you could not hide
forever anyway,
and no matter how it goes,
we could never share our lives.
I will buy a nice Buddhist altar,
and place flowers every day.
I will also decorate it with pictures.
From now, if it goes well, I think you
will be entered into the Kichigai hospital.
Today, while the Emperor
and I inspected it,
I thought it might be good
if you were at Kichigai.
Mother, please stop
this wasteful resistance.
Please don't think badly of me. Goodbye.
Someone will probably remember me.
Friends gone, the former
political world bullocksed...
...on the verge of becoming a
brothel, this all disgusts me.
To cry out toward the devil
has disgorged hedonism.
When the wings that support
the bird propel it through the air...
...it is the surrounding air's resistance
that gives the dynamic lift...
...this is the bird's
loneliness and harmony.
So I face the broken wall
in my apartment...
...and try to work out a flying
ornithopter machine that flaps like a bird.
Maybe then I could fly.
The theory of wings
is hollow at its heart...
...it is the dynamic lift that holds
one's salvation in the highest...
...in the highest, in the highest
places one's eyes might open.
Bird, Bird, Bicycle bird.
As I fly I might see a dream
of political power and rule.
Oh yes, on that day, at that time, I will
call out toward a phantom political pulpit.
I am, I am, I am, I am,
I am, I am, I am, I am, I am!
If you have a beard,
you can have an Empire.
Anyone who wears a beard
becomes the Emperor.
A cat is the Emperor
of an Empire of darkness.
A child is the Emperor
of an Empire not yet complete.
So it is that "World history is merely
a haphazard point of view becoming reality...
...bringing a release from
mandatory/necessary uniformity."
Photography:
Sawatari Hajime
Title Design:
Enomoto Ryuichi
Film Work:
Tanaka Michi
Production Assistants:
Matsuzawa Happyaku, Inaba Akihito,
Takenaga Shigeo,
Tanaka Yoshiko, Kitagami Aya
Photography Assistants:
Nakagawa Masaaki,
Dejyo Kodama, Kume Masami, Mitajyu Fumio
Sound: Morisaki Henriku
Collaboration: Naito Rune
Performance: Niitaka Keiko
70 children
Tenjo Sajiki Theatre Group
Scenario, Music and Direction:
Terayama Shuji
[Ori - 1964]
Young Person's Guide to Cinema - pink
[Seishonen no tame no eiga nyumon - 1974]
Emperor Tomato Ketchup
[Tomato Kecchappu Kotei - 1970]
"Suppose that the motivation
for interest in capitalism wouldn't be the...
accumulation of wealth, but pleasure,
then it collapses from the base."
- Karl Marx "Das Kapital"
THE EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP
Tomato Ketchup Constitution
Imperial Decree:
For me, the peace, happiness, and honor
of this country's children are the core...
...and the continuation of this
everlasting lineage is best.
For the children who love me,
I owe strength and aid...
...such that the country's advancement
and development is my wish.
Provisions of the Lord Emperor:
1. The Emperor's unsoiled
respectful existence will not be dirtied.
2. By the Emperor's chosen path of law,
that which is inherited...
3. The Emperor's father will polish the
His shoes by licking them with his tongue;
The Emperor's mother will play the violin
for solace when the Emperor is bored.
4. Military and naval forces
are under the rule of the Emperor...
...at every moment to keep peace
and intensify the well-being of children.
5. The Emperor's favorite food, tomato
ketchup, will be the national symbol.
6. Adults will not hinder
what the Emperor wants.
7. The Emperor's
declarations of war,
thoughts of peace,
and various pacts, are binding.
8. The Emperor wears a hat, and
no matter what, he does not take it off.
9. Those who give offense to the dignity of
the Emperor, for this crime of disrespect...
...will be hung by the neck
form a tree until dead.
"The wise man exercises
sovereignty among the stars."
Introduction To The X-Mark Code
Adults who oppose children,
who ignore children's power...
...who teach a prejudiced viewpoint
against children, or adults who...
...care too excessively for children, all
will be erased from the register with an X.
Under the Black Flag Party
they will be erased.
An adult, who reduces a child's snacks,
disturbs a child's drinking and smoking...
...takes the freedom
of a child's eroticism...
...and pushes their own
educational fixations...
A ringleader will be executed
or given life in prison...
Participating conspirators, adults
that do not directly enforce...
...will be given eighty years imprisonment.
The X-mark body of law.
Pure intellect is a product of death.
Long, long ago, there was
a father and a mother.
The father was
an elementary school teacher...
...the mother a vampire.
The two did not have their own child,
so they gathered other children...
...and after reading them
the story of Hansel and Gretel...
...it is eight rends of the flesh and into
the bubble-bubble boiling meat pot to eat.
So, you must not go to school.
The scary wolf waits,
licking its lips, to eat such a child.
X-Mark Body of Law
77th provision Svekarak judgment
Father of more than two children:
500,000 yen fine.
School teacher:
Permanent exile or 20 years in prison.
Fairy tale writer: Life in prison.
Toy maker: from 1 to 10 years in prison.
Probation officer:
from 10 to 30 years in prison.
Police Department, Juvenile Division: Death.
Our fight to take over power in,
Germany was just as decisive for our...
...fate as the fight which
we are waging today.
It was only during the past year that
this became known to us in all its meaning...
...and if victory had not been achieved
in 1933, then Germany would have remained
what it was then, a powerless nation
with an Army of 100,000 men...
...which would necessarily have
had to submit to destruction.
99th Provision
All children, in the name of God, are free to:
Free to conspire.
Free to betray.
Free to practice sodomy
on the Army Minister of State.
Free to wipe one's butt with the Bible.
Free to shear his mom
Hangen Puppeteer red roses.
Make pee beyond church.
Make friend's cat slaughter.
Dear Mother,
are you well?
Have you hidden yourself well
from the Black X-Flag search parties?
Please take care of the kitten
that has become an adult...
...even a cat, if an adult, it would seem,
is to be taken to the concentration camp.
I have enclosed a picture of me.
This month's assignment has been
as a concentration camp oven guard.
It is for the adults
who lied to children...
...the people's court is held...
...and my job is the baking to death
of those adults chosen for execution.
At first the smell inside was horrible,
but these days I am used to it.
I bake seven or eight people a day.
In the fire the bones turn to ash.
Behind me, bound up, is...
...an educational movie actress
who pushed filial devotion.
Baking and perfume is not
a very good combination.
I will write again later.
Anatomy
Children University Lecture:
As for the destiny of adult culture...
...it would seem to fit
the ruins of ancient times...
...such that it is a phenomenon
which is limited in space and time.
The conscious path of the transient nature
of adult records is a mathematical law...
...analogous to the comprehensive
path of continuous tradition.
Mother, are you well?
Father has just escaped
the concentration camp.
One dose of tobacco,
and then it seems I will suffer.
I yawn at the world.
The Emperor yawns at the world.
The section 'of the cat' in the
encyclopedia is revised in the bathroom.
For example, abolished is the
four legged mammal definition.
Cat... the hirsute
expert of contemplation.
Cat... the animal that cannot speak
to children unless wearing boots.
Cat... the carnivore
what cannot be eaten.
Cat... the non-writing
detective novelist.
Cat... the spy that
wiretaps Berlioz's symphony.
Cat... the hedonist with no property.
Cat... the only political domestic
animal, descendant of Machiavelli.
97th Provision:
At times of simple flight,
planned, or unplanned adult escape...
...the penalty is ten or
more years hard labor.
The escapee and accomplices will be
surrounded by the X-mark of martial law
within this sphere of the X-mark,
the lawless ones
must stand and do ten or
more years of hard labor
The one who aggravated
the escape, usurping power...
...will incur internment the same
as the one who attempts to the act.
These punishments will be done.
His Majesty the Emperor's dynamite.
Provision 190:
In relation to the articles for the
disposal of corpses and the like...
...the following reforms
have been made to the code:
Namely children's corpses, ashes, hair
and such will be placed in a coffin...
...styled therein and disposed of.
The penalty for dereliction by the
profiteering stylist is three or more years...
...years continuous hard labor.
Adult corpses, hair, and such
can be dealt with as you like.
For corpses, dolls, and play dress,
it is the task of the doctor...
...to dissect and classify the
hair, teeth, skin and the like.
Accessories, personal effects,
and household decorations...
...are subject to tariff and
must be offered up as such.
The X-ambassador
is a meat border line.
Mother, are you well?
Whatever happens, you must not come out.
Recently control has become very strict.
When informants turned in just one
adult hiding in a barn in Shinagawa...
...a whole platoon with
machine guns was dispatched.
Also mother, it would
be best if the partisan...
...radio broadcast of lullabies is stopped.
Although we listened to
lullabies when we were infants...
...we will not
return to a child's naivety.
A return to a beatific childhood, and a
peaceful mother's love, are both futile.
Anyway, no matter what,
please hide yourself.
The law has changed, so that cats...
...who do not wear boots
are all to be slaughtered.
So please do not let the
kitty out on a moonlit night.
The Emperor seems to have
come to like cat steak.
11th provision:
All subjects through faithful
valor love their country.
From Emperor and loyal sacrifice
the rise of the Empire's glory
both at home and abroad
cannot be in doubt.
It is not a question of children
or men and women of different ages;
everyone, for all time, must
bow to the duty of obedience.
Listen to that tune.
The girl changed into a witch.
Listen to that tune.
The cat became smoke.
Listen to that tune.
Fanon has come to like Kirie.
Listen to that tune.
A person has come to love everyone.
Listen to that tune.
I would like to give to you.
There is a sum total that has
no relationship to history or mathematics.
Therefore the mathematical
certainty of natural law,
Galileo Galilee?s astonishing view that
nature is such that one can write of it...
...using the language of math;
according to Kant...
...with the birth
of correct natural science...
...the potential of the application
of mathematical methods...
...to reach a truth is also born.
Can you accurately speak
the word vagina?
VAGINA
Today, from the police
headquarters now situated outside...
...the Tomato Ketchup Occupied Zone,
...to all the un-occupied
households nationwide this appeal...
...for cooperation with the
following five items has gone out:
1. Do not allow children to watch TV,
read newspapers, or listen to the radio.
2. Children must not be allowed to
have edged tools, even for building.
3. Add the children's
favorite food to dinner...
...one plate at a time, to gage
the level of friendliness.
4. It is strictly forbidden
for children to gather together...
...therefore, during this time,
all schools are on vacation.
5. If possible, respect children,
and never talk back to them.
Furthermore, this evening
the provisional government has...
...in emergency, revised the constitution
to remove the child welfare laws...
...and dispatched the self defense forces.
While the cat is napping,
the child first learns of tobacco.
While the cat is napping,
the child's butt is strongly devoted to.
While the cat is napping,
the child experiences
the prison of books.
While the cat is napping,
the Spanish civil war
and the flower wilt.
While the cat is napping,
start the dynamite burning!
While the cat is napping,
Change the world!
Change the world!
Soldiers principal duty
is to conquest.
Soldiers of the Imperial
troupe cannot break the rule.
Soldiers must follow pleasure.
Soldiers holds responsibility for the
rise and fall of the Empire.
The Emperor plays ken ball with the world.
Mother, are you well?
This will be the last letter I'm afraid.
The Black Flag Party is on their
way to capture you tomorrow.
Please forgive this money grubbing
un-filial betrayer of a son.
But, you could not hide
forever anyway,
and no matter how it goes,
we could never share our lives.
I will buy a nice Buddhist altar,
and place flowers every day.
I will also decorate it with pictures.
From now, if it goes well, I think you
will be entered into the Kichigai hospital.
Today, while the Emperor
and I inspected it,
I thought it might be good
if you were at Kichigai.
Mother, please stop
this wasteful resistance.
Please don't think badly of me. Goodbye.
Someone will probably remember me.
Friends gone, the former
political world bullocksed...
...on the verge of becoming a
brothel, this all disgusts me.
To cry out toward the devil
has disgorged hedonism.
When the wings that support
the bird propel it through the air...
...it is the surrounding air's resistance
that gives the dynamic lift...
...this is the bird's
loneliness and harmony.
So I face the broken wall
in my apartment...
...and try to work out a flying
ornithopter machine that flaps like a bird.
Maybe then I could fly.
The theory of wings
is hollow at its heart...
...it is the dynamic lift that holds
one's salvation in the highest...
...in the highest, in the highest
places one's eyes might open.
Bird, Bird, Bicycle bird.
As I fly I might see a dream
of political power and rule.
Oh yes, on that day, at that time, I will
call out toward a phantom political pulpit.
I am, I am, I am, I am,
I am, I am, I am, I am, I am!
If you have a beard,
you can have an Empire.
Anyone who wears a beard
becomes the Emperor.
A cat is the Emperor
of an Empire of darkness.
A child is the Emperor
of an Empire not yet complete.
So it is that "World history is merely
a haphazard point of view becoming reality...
...bringing a release from
mandatory/necessary uniformity."
Photography:
Sawatari Hajime
Title Design:
Enomoto Ryuichi
Film Work:
Tanaka Michi
Production Assistants:
Matsuzawa Happyaku, Inaba Akihito,
Takenaga Shigeo,
Tanaka Yoshiko, Kitagami Aya
Photography Assistants:
Nakagawa Masaaki,
Dejyo Kodama, Kume Masami, Mitajyu Fumio
Sound: Morisaki Henriku
Collaboration: Naito Rune
Performance: Niitaka Keiko
70 children
Tenjo Sajiki Theatre Group
Scenario, Music and Direction:
Terayama Shuji