Yoshiro

Yoshiro is a writer, Mumei's great-grandfather, and one of the protagonists of the novel. As an elderly man, Yoshiro has watched Japan change drastically over the past 100-plus years of his life. The portions of the narrative which live behind his point of view, drift back and forth between the past and present.

Yoshiro's main emotional and psychological preoccupations throughout The Emissary are his great-grandson's health, his writing, the evolution of language, and the fear of his own immortality. While Yoshiro has raised both his daughter Amana and grandson Tomo, he has a special connection with Mumei, and desperately fears losing him. Throughout the novel he struggles to keep Mumei strong and to teach him about the world he used to know before Japan's isolation.

While the reader might not note an obvious change in Yoshiro by the end of the narrative, the author suggests that Yoshiro has...