Tenchi meisatsu(天地明察).

   On Sep. 19, I went and saw my doctor for my longstanding condition. Recently, I always do this every two month.

   A movie theater exists nearby the hospital and I sometimes see a movie at the same time. This time, I saw the Japanese new movie “Tenchi meisatsu(天地明察)” at the theater as I had wanted to see it because of being interested in its theme. Though I haven’t read the original novel, it is based on “Tenchi meisatsu(天地明察)” written by Ubukata Tō(冲方丁). [See the right image]

   This is the story of Shibukawa Harumi(渋川春海), in the movie one of his young names Yasui Santetsu(安井算哲) is used, though. Shibukawa Harumi(1639-1715) is an astronomer, a Go player, and so on. One of his great achievements is Jōkyōreki(貞享暦). This is the first calender which was made by Japanese themselves. Japanese had used calenders made by Chinese for hundreds years until then. Besides, even if in China they changed their calender, in Japan we did not accept their new calender, so the differences between reality and calender were getting bigger and bigger.

   In the time Shibukawa Harumi lived, Japan went into the stabilized period of Pax Tokugawa Shogunate. My guess, peace brought composure to people to think about such academic things. The movie has good mixture of fiction and non-fiction. In addition, astronomical tools restored by old literature information or the others are wonderful, for example a big Quadrant, etc. I would have wanted to know more about Hokkyoku Shucchi(北極出地).

   The movie is not a masterpiece but good one for me. Then I like it.