Ueda Akinari's Tales of Moonlight and Rain has been praised as a work of beauty
             in the way it carefully weaves aesthetic and ethical arguments through the use of the
             issues of friendship, keeping promises, romantic love and lust. It is a collection of short
             stories that uses these elements as well as the added element of the supernatural to further
             deepen the impact of romanticism found in the stories. The work is presented in the
             yomihon style of prose fiction and looks to another world, China and Japan's distant past,
             for plots and characters. The yomihon style uses Chinese vernacular literature
             adapted it to fit Japanese sensibilities. While the basic plots are from Chinese models,
             "Akinari's heroes are Japanese, they react to situations as Japanese, against a Japanese
             background."(2) Two selections from the collection that use the concepts of friendship,
             keeping promises and romantic love are The Chrysanthemum Vow and The Reed Choked
             House. Both these stories strongly involve the concept of keeping promises but, in
             strikingly different ways. The Reed Choked House strongly deals with
             the issue of unbreakable romantic love and the longing of an abandoned woman. As
             described by Dale Saunders, The Chrysanthemum Vow is a "morality tale understandable
             only against the background of a society dominated by the ethics and philosophy of a
             military class" which tells of the close friendship formed between two men. In both tales
             we see how the role played and choices made by each character determines there
             ultimate fate. It is through the fate of each character that the reader is left with a strong
             sense of the deep emotion being presented by each work.
             "Lush and green is the willow in spring; do not plant it in your garden. In
             friendship, do not bond with the shallow man. Although the willow comes into leaf early,
             will it withstand the ...