Jiko Yasutani is Nao’s great grandmother that self proclaims to be a hundred and four years old. Nao’s diary provides the audience with factual information of the many roles she had. She was a nun, novelist, anarchist, feminist and a New Woman of the Taisho era. As written in the footnotes, a New Woman is a Japanese term that was used in the early 1920s that described educated women despite the limitations of traditional gender roles. Haruki#1’s Secret French Diary reveals his mother Jiko’s magnitude by praising her name along with famous woman’s right activist Akiko Yosano, where his tone is honest instead of flatteringly lifting his mothers name out of honor. …show more content…
Throughout the diary, Nao often describes her father Haruki#2 as miserable and forlorn. Although she admits that she loves him, her love for her father is more of an obligation rather than true affection. Nao finding out about her uncle Haruki#1 and his secret diary he kept during his training for his kamikaze mission furthers her disappointment towards her father, as her father was an easily comparable subject. Haruki#1 was an intellectual that went to the top scholar university and had a passion for French poetry. However he was misfortunately selected to become a kamikaze pilot against his will, forced to abandon his bright future, dreading death. Whereas to Nao’ knowledge, Haruki#1 was a failure that lost everything to the burst of the Dotcom Bubble with several failed attempts to commit suicide, wasting his life away in a tiny inferior