Shuhei Morita’s Oscar-nominated animated
short Possessions (九十九/Tsukumo, 2013) follows in the ancient
tradition of yōkai (supernatural)
stories. Traditional Japanese culture is
animistic. They believe that all things
have spirits or souls. The spirits
depicted in Morita’s original tale are tsukumogami
(付喪神 – the Japanese title 九十九 is a
homonym for tsukumo), which folklore expert Noriko Tsunoda Reider translates as “tool
specters” (see: “Animating
Objects”). In other words, they are animate
everyday household objects. In the prototypical tsukumogami story, the tools
or objects have become abandoned by their owners and the spirits have become
embittered or vengeful.
In Possessions, a tall strong man voiced by
legendary seiyū Kōichi Yamadera (Cowboy Bebop,
Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Anpanman, etc.), becomes caught in a
storm while travelling through a dense forest.
Set in the 18th century, the man is dressed in typical
peasant clothes including a straw hat (kasa)
and a straw raincoast (mino) (see: muza-chan). On his back, he carries a himitsu-bako tool box on a stick. The wind blows off his conical straw hat and
leads him to an abandoned shrine built into a rocky hillside. As he enters the shrine, the man politely
remembers to ask the spirits residing in the shrine to forgive his intrusion
and allow him to stay the night. The shrine
is full of what appears to be abandoned junk – one pile presciently
resembling a face.
The spirits dwelling
in this shrine are not so easily appeased.
As the man closes his eyes and breathes deeply to recover from his difficult
journey, the interior transforms into a clean and bare floor of 8 tatami with bull’s
eye parasol shapes on the fusama
(sliding doors). The man looks around
him in shock like a bull trapped in a pen and pinches his face to see if he is
dreaming. Suddenly the room is filled with ancient dancing parasols led by a small Parasol Frog (Jyanome Kaeru, voiced by Takeshi
Kusao, who has lots of
experience voicing frogs). To
appease the spirits the man opens his himitsu-bako
tool box (see: About Japanese
Puzzle Boxes) and sets about repairing all the paper parasols.
This seems
to work until the man slides open one of the fusama
and finds himself in trapped another 8 tatami room with an elaborate tanmono (kimono fabric) design painted
on its fusama. The man tries to escape and is forced back
into the room by tanmono tsukumogami (kimono fabric specters). A beautiful kimono-clad woman (voiced by Aoi Yūki of Puella Magi Madoka Magica) depicted on the fusama asks him if he finds her beautiful like everyone else does, and he
finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of tanmono
fabric. He again turns to his tool box but is comically less skilled as sewing
than he was at repairing parasols. Can
he appease this taunting spirit, or is there more in store for him? This haunted shrine has more secrets up its
sleeves before the twist at the end.
In making
this animated short for Sunrise’s Short Peace (ショート・ピース, 2013) anthology, Morita
worked with a small core animation team including character designer Daisuke Sajiki (Coicent,
Five Numbers), CGI animator Ryūsuke Sakamoto (Coicent,
Five Numbers), art director Hideki Nakamura and animation veteran Hiroyuki Horiuchi doing key animation.
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Available on the Short Peace DVD (JP only)
Short Peace BD (JP only)
Short Peace BD Special Edition (JP only)
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It takes a
lot to get me excited about CGI animation.
I much prefer the warmer textures of a traditional stop motion animation
to the cold plasticity of mainstream 3D CGI animation. Possessions; however, has won me over. It has none of the coldness I associate with CGI.
It is a warmly textured piece that at times almost looks like characters
and sets cut directly out of chiyogami
paper. According to Morita’s recent
interview with Dan Sarto for AWN, he was inspired one
day by the chiyogami paper his child
was playing with at home. Thus the
central protagonist looks as though he has been constructed of traditionally
patterned chiyogami and plain washi paper (paper made from traditional fibres). The uses of other traditional
colours and textures from the Hakone yosegi-zaiku
(mixed wood) pattern of the tool box to the temari
(embroidered balls) eyes of the final yōkai
monster, are all cleverly executed. This animation delights at every turn with its nods to traditional art
and storytelling wrapped up in the modern package of three dimensional computer
animation. Shuhei Morita is really
coming into his own as a director and well deserving of his Oscar nomination
nod.
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014
Direction and
Screenplay: Shuhei Morita
Producer:
Yasumasa Tsuchiya
Music: Reiji Kitazato
Cast:
Kōichi
Yamadera (Otoko)
Aoi Yuki (The
Kimono Fabric Beauty / Tanmono Komachi/ 反物小町)
Takeshi
Kusao (Bull’s Eye Parasol Frog / Jyanome
Kaeru /蛇の目蛙)
