Ladybug

Ladybug, Ladybug
A bug with a house and wings to boot
— so cute

Bashō no yōna, August 2022

Note. In Japanese, ladybug is tentou-mushi, テントウムシ. That seems a mouthful, but not when you learn it literally means “a bug with a house.”

Bullet Train

Last night my wife and I watched Bullet Train starring Brad Pitt and Hiroyuki Sanada among others. Brad Pitt stars as Ladybug, an unlucky snatch and grab artist, and Hiroyuki Sanada as the Elder, an aging Japanese martial artist/mobster who is trying to protect his grandson and simultaneously seek revenge against the nefarious White Death, who has brought together a cast of bad characters on a Japanese Bullet Train.

In the penultimate scene, Elder (Sanada) explains “Ladybug” to Pitt, saying the bug is not unlucky. It captures all the bad luck in the world under its shell to protect the rest of the world.

Fate.

Ladybug, Ladybug
Bring me some luck
Fly, faraway home

Bashō no yōna, August 2022

Basho on Bugs

Matsuo Basho has no ladybug haiku. Ain’t that’s a shame.

But he did write about cicadas, butterfly, dragonflies, silkworms, lightening bugs, grasshoppers and crickets.

Oh my!

Trivia. In Bullet Train the train is going from Tokyo to Kyoto. The route is known as the Tōkaidō Road, formerly a walking path Basho took many times. The Bullet Train takes about 140 minutes to go from place to place. The move ran 126 minutes.