Our Akita Inu, Part 2 — Shibumi, the Charm of Quiet Depth

If Kan-i is the force you feel the instant your eyes meet, Shibumi is beauty of another kind — the kind that never announces itself, but only deepens the longer you look, and never once grows tiring.

Last time I promised I would come back to Shibu-mi (渋味).

I will say again, as before, that I am no great writer. But this is something I wanted to tell you myself, because it is something I felt long before I knew it had a name.

In the previous piece we talked about Kan-i (悍威) — "dignified valor," the commanding bearing — the first component of Akita Spirit. Today I want to continue with the second, which I think is even harder to explain than the first.

Shibumi, too, comes from two words.

Shibu (渋) — its older form was written 澀, meaning literally "water that passes with difficulty." What it really describes is astringency, the dry pucker you meet in an unripe persimmon, in strong green tea, in a glass of dry wine. What's interesting is that the Japanese do not count it as a "taste" the tongue samples, but as a sensation that slowly spreads through the mouth — a depth that does not arrive sweet and instant, but reveals itself slowly.

mi (味) simply means taste.

Together they form Shibu-mi (渋味), "the charm of restrained simplicity" — beautiful in a plain, quiet, unboastful way, yet holding so much within that you sense there is more than the eye is shown.

To picture it most simply, think of the difference between "sweet" and "astringent."

(The first sweet is delightful at once, but by the tenth piece it cloys, because it gave you everything from the first bite — nothing left to discover. A cup of strong green tea may catch you with its astringency at first, yet you can drink it every day without tiring, because each sip offers something new. A dog beautiful in the way that demands your attention is the sweet; the Akita that carries Shibumi is that cup of tea.)

And the point I think matters most about Shibumi is this —

Shibumi can never appear in a puppy.

Because it is a beauty reserved only for what has "passed through time." Puppies are lovely, bright, innocent — but they have no Shibumi yet, just as we would never call a small child "composed." It is a dignity and grace that can only be steeped by time and by a life that has been through something. That is why an old male Akita, standing still and calm, can hush an entire room into silence without doing anything at all.

So how does Shibumi surface in an Akita? Let me set it out point by point.

1. Plain, yet hiding complexity. An Akita with Shibumi has lines that are clean, simple, with nothing in excess. At first glance it may even look "ordinary" — but the longer you look, the more detail and balance you see, growing deeper all the while. Its charm lies not in flourish, but in being "what it ought to be," exactly so — nothing lacking, nothing spare.

2. A misted silver tone. The Japanese see the shibui range of color as one that has been pressed quiet, a touch of grey mixed in until a faint silver gleam appears (the word shibuichi 四分一 is even the name of a silver-grey alloy). This corresponds precisely to Shimofuri (霜降), the "hoarfrost" within our own bloodline — a thin silver shimmer on the coat, not garish, not glittering to the eye, but cool, still, and composed. This is no accident; it is Shibumi appearing directly through coat color.

3. Composed, and unboastful. An Akita with Shibumi does not beg for attention. It does not bark idly, does not fuss, does not play big so people will turn and look — and yet it draws every eye on its own, simply by standing as itself. This is the beauty of what is "held back," not what is "let out."

4. Grace that comes with age. This is the very heart of Shibumi. It is the same feeling we have looking at an old man who is calm and dignified, who has passed through joy and sorrow until it has all crystallized. (It is a grace that cannot be faked, cannot be bought, cannot be hurried — it must be steeped by time alone, like tea that grows more precious the longer it is kept, or steel that grows more beautiful the more it is forged and polished.)

Now, set Kan-i and Shibu-mi side by side, and the picture of Akita Spirit fills in at once. And I think no analogy explains this better than the sword forged from tamahagane (玉鋼) steel.

A fine sword must hold two things at once. Kan-i is the edge and the power of the blade — the fire that melts the steel, the awe-commanding ability to cut. Shibu-mi is the hamon (刃文) pattern and the surface of the steel, forged and polished with painstaking care — the cool, still beauty that reveals itself slowly under the light.

A sword with only an edge and no beauty is merely a "weapon." A sword with only beauty and no edge is merely an "ornament." But the moment the two are fused in perfect measure, it becomes a "masterpiece" — and this is the origin of the name we chose.

This is what the AKIHO judges perceive, and what we rarely find in dogs that win the FCI ring. The written standards of physical form may read the same, but the heart behind those standards is another matter entirely. One ring measures the "sweetness" you read at a glance; the other measures the "deep astringency" that takes both an eye and time to perceive.

Next time I will write a summing-up of Akita Spirit as a whole — how Kan-i and Shibumi work together in the dog we have spent a lifetime searching for.

— Tamahagane Garden