Toad’s Oil (ガマの油, 2009)

When visiting friends of ours in Hamanaka (Hokkaidō) many years ago, I was fascinated by obāchan’s morning and evening ritual of praying at the butsudan (仏壇) in the corner of the family’s Japanese style room. A butsudan is a Buddhist shrine found in both temples and homes and is used for praying to Buddha and to one’s deceased family members. The butsudan is often decorated with photographs of the deceased and their souls (tamashii) are belived to reside in the butsudan. Each morning obāchan would offer fresh water and rice to Buddha and the souls of the dead.

Renowned actor Kōji Yakusho (Shall We Dance, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, The Eel) also admits to a fascination with the butsudan, and thus chose it as a key metaphor in his directorial debut Toad’s Oil (Gama no abura, 2009). Yakusho himself plays the lead role of Takuro Yazawa, a wealthy middle-aged man who makes his money by high risk day trading. When his gambles bring him profit, Takuro celebrates in a juvenile way by shooting off pellet guns. His egocentric eccentricities are indulged by his wife Teruko (Satomi Kaboyashi of Kamome Shokudō and Megane) and his sweet-tempered son (Eita of Dear Doctor and Nodame Cantabile).

The Yazawas live in an oversized house with clinically white interiors. The emptiness of the house stands as a metaphor for the shallowness of the family’s existence. Takuro communicates with the outside world through technology (computers, phones) and codes, such as the one he invents with his son’s girlfriend Hikari (Fumi Nikaidō in her feature film debut), and has little to no physical or spiritual contact with others. This all changes abruptly when tragedy strikes the family and Takuro heads off on a journey that will bring him back into touch with painful and nostalgic memories from his childhood while teaching him to face head on the grief and emotional challenges of the present.

The screenplay contains many touches added from Yakusho’s own personal experiences. For example, the flashback scene in which a young Takuro climbs up to the top of the butsudan to clean it on the advice of a travelling salesman, was inspired by a real incident in Yakusho’s life. Such travelling salespeople were commonplace in the Edo period selling folk medicine such as gama no abura (oil from the Japanese common toad) and a few continue working up until this day. The salesman and his wife act as a link between modern Japan and a past filled with tradition and legend. The salespeople are not just selling folk medicine but folk wisdom as well. The salesman reminds Takuro that people die twice: the first time is the physical death and the second one is the spiritual death when people stop remembering you.

At times I found Toad’s Oil a bit indulgent in terms of pacing – in my opinion, Soichi Ueno (Oh, My Buddha!, Dai Nihonjin, The Uchōten Hotel) should have convinced Yakusho to shave off some of the scenes to get the film under two hours in length – yet viewers should remain patient because the film does not give up all its secrets until the very end. Like the Oscar-winning film Departures, Toad’s Oil, opens a fascinating window into the relationship that the Japanese have with death and dying. While the film is thematically and visually rooted in Japanese culture, it has a message that can be universally identified with: that the spirits of loved ones who have passed away will continue to exist as long as we remember and cherish them.

Gama no Abura Premium Edition

Directed by

Kōji YAKUSHO

Original Story by

Kōji YAKUSHO and Hideko NAKATA

Screenplay by

URARA

Cinematography by

Toyomichi KURITA

Featuring music by

Tablatura

Cast

Takuro Yazawa • Kōji YAKUSHO

Terumi Yazawa • Satomi KOBAYASHI

Takuya Yazawa • Eita

Hikari Horie • Fumi NIKAIDO

Saburo Akiba • Junichi SAWAYASHIKI

Kōtaro • Tōru MASUOKA

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Glasses (めがね, 2007)

An island community like no other Taeko has ever experienced.

The Frühstücksfilm (Breakfast Film) is a popular annual event at Nippon Connection. The screening takes place on the final morning of the festival . In addition to the screening of a film sponsored by the Japan Foundation of Cologne (Japanischen Kulturinstitut Köln), guests are treated to an elegant buffet brunch. Past years have featured such popular films as Shinobu Yaguchi’s Swing Girls (2004) in 2007, Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Linda Linda Linda (2005) in 2008, and Yoji Yamada’s Twilight Samurai (2002) in 2009.

This year’s film choice, Naoko Ogigami’s Megane (Glasses, 2007), was also very popular and the event sold out before the festival had even started on Wednesday the 14th. Guests began queuing at least a half hour before the film and I spoke to at least a dozen people who had loved Ogigami’s surprise hit Kamome shokudō (Seagull Diner, 2005) and wanted to see more of her work . Kamome shokudō, which I wrote about when it came out on DVD in Japan, was a word-of-mouth sensation. It had been recommended to me by the staff at the Moomin Bakery & Café in Korakuen – who clearly identified with the idea of Japanese women running a café in Finland. The Japanese women I met outside the Frühstücksfilm didn’t care about getting any breakfast, they just wanted to see Ogigami’s latest film.

The culinary skills of Nami Iijima.

I was lucky enough to be offered a bench seat out of the way of the paying customers, and the experience did not disappoint. I had been concerned that the sound of people eating might distract from my enjoyment of the film, as Ogigami’s films tend to keep dialogue at a minimum. Fortunately, the comforting sound of the 16mm projector, which was in the room with us, muffled the clinking sounds of cutlery and clatter of tea cups hitting their saucers. Many guests have been coming to this event for years, and most wait patiently for the brief intermission for the changing of the reels to help themselves to seconds at the buffet.

Megane tells the story of a career woman Taeko (Satomi Kobayashi) who has travelled to a remote island community to get away from the stresses of her life. It is a classic fish-out-of-water tale that contrasts the holiday expectations of someone used to an urban lifestyle with the slower paced lifestyle of people living on the island. Instead of finding peace and tranquility at the Hanada inn, Taeko is puzzled by their seemingly (in her eyes at any rate) eccentric lifestyle.

Taeko: "Could you advise me on the best places for sightseeing?"

Sakura & Yuji are puzzled by her request.

On her first morning at the inn, Taeko is awoken at the crack of dawn by Sakura-san (Masako Motai) kneeling next to her futon announcing Ohayo gozaimasu (Good morning) and inviting her to join their Merci taisō (thank you exercises) on the beach. Taeko declines, but every morning she is awoken by the piano music that accompany these beach excises which are like a cross between the popular NHK radio taisō and some of Sakura-san’s own special exercises designed to greet the morning “Dämmerung” (sunrise).

A touch of Ozu in the cinematography.

The German term “Dämmerung” (dawn/dusk) seems more fitting that the term “twilighting”, which from reading other reviews of this film seems to be the English version’s translation of the Japanese tasogare (黄昏).　I have I think that the old Scottish word "gloaming" may be more adequate – though a bit archaic apart from in the campfire song: “Fire's burning, fire's burning, Draw nearer, draw nearer , In the gloaming, in the gloaming, Come sing and be merry.”

The reasons why Taeko has run away from her urban life to this anonymous island are deliberately kept unclear so that the spectator can imagine themselves in her shoes. It is the story of a woman’s journey to find inner peace. Taeko must learn to let go of the structures that have contained her life for so long and learn how to appreciate the simple pleasures in life: eating kakigōri (shaved ice flavoured with syrup) on the beach and greeting the dawn of the new day with open arms.

Ogigami uses simple metaphors such as Yuji’s special maps, Koji the dog’s freedom to roam, and Sakura’s Merci Taisōto reveal the story without extraneous dialogue. The exposition is assisted by the expressiveness of the cast including Satomi Kobayashi (Kamome Shokudō, Toad’s Oil), Masako Motai (Kamome Shokudō, Barber Yoshino), Mikako Ichikawa (Memories of Matsuko), Ken Mitsuishi (Twentieth Century Boys, Kakera), and Ryo Kase (Letters from Iwo Jima, Honey and Clover). Not to mention the lyrical score by Takahiro Kaneko.

Interiors straight out of a　catalogue.

Encapsulating the themes of the film is a German poem that Taeko’s student, Yomogi, who follows her to the island, recites at about three-quarters of the way into the film. Japanese reviews of the film seem to be as stumped as I am as to who the poet is. I have asked a number of well-read Germans who are also puzzled as to its origins (possibly Peter Härtling?). I transcribe the poem here in German as well as in English in the hopes that someone recognizes it and posts a comment:

Mir ist bewusst was Freiheit bedeutet

Folge dem Wege geradeaus,

meide die Tiefen des Meeres,

doch hab ich solch Wort hinter mir gelassen.

Der Mond scheinet auf jedem Wege,

wie die in der Dunkelheit wie Diamanten schwimmenden Fische;

heiß wie durch Zufall Mensch - und hier bin ich.

Was hatte ich zu befürchten,

mit was zu kämpfen,

bald ist es Zeit die Lasten zu legen.

Erteile mir noch mehr Kraft,

Kraft zur Liebe.

Mir ist bewusst was Freiheit bedeutet,

mir ist bewusst was Freiheit bedeutet.

I know what Freedom is.

Follow the path straight ahead.

Keep out of the ocean deeps

I have left such words behind me

The Moon shines upon all paths

like Fish who swim like Diamonds in the Dark

Called a human being by chance – so here I am

What did I have to fear?

Against what was I struggling?

It’s time for me to lay down my heavy load.

Give me even more strength,

Strength to love.

I know what Freedom is.

I know what Freedom is.

An aside:

In Mark Schilling’s review of Megane, he wondered if such places as Hamada’s beachside inn actually exist in Japan and suggested that the film was designed to appeal to the romantic imaginations of urban women. Having travelled extensively in Hokkaido, I can attest to the authenticity of the setting (though the film was shot on the opposite end of Japan on Yoron Island in Okinawa – which unlike in the movie does have fancy resort style hotels).

While watching Megane, I was reminded of the youth hostel on the remote northern island of Rishiri which wakes its guests with music at 7am and expects everyone to leave the premises immediately after breakfast. Taeko’s refusal to eat meals with the folks running the establishment would be seen as very rude. A Hokkaido minshuku/B&B/pension like Ashita no Jo (あしたの城 - famous for their gyunyu-nabe) in Sarobetsu or Moomin Mura (ムーミン村) in Hidaka is often like one is like staying as a guest with a family. One arrives before six in the evening and eats together with the hosts and other guests. Guests then get a chance to use the ofuro (お風呂 / Japanese style bath) in the order in which they came. One breakfasts early with the family and even if one is staying for several nights, the guest would be expected to make oneself scarce until evening. It is a great way to get to know people when travelling in rural parts of Japan, from adventurous cyclists to people making Buddhist pilgrimages. If one plans on going hiking in the morning, the hosts will usually make up some onigiri for guests to take with them for lunch.

Megane does a wonderful job of depicting a remote community peopled not only by locals but by refugees of urban society.  The contrast between what one imagines the countryside or seaside to be like, as opposed to what it actually is has become a theme of many films recently from Dear Doctor to One Million Yen Girl.   Filmmakers seem to be tapping into the growing slow life (スローライフ) movement in Japan: a desire to escape the pressures of city life for a slower pace.  For anyone in need of a visual change of pace, Megane is the perfect antidote to the trite 3D fare Hollywood's been throwing at us of late (see: Roger Ebert: Why I Hate 3D (and you should too)).

Director / Screenplay

Naoko Ogigami

Cinematographer

Minebobu Tani

Music

Takahiro Kaneko

Food Stylist

Nami Iijima

Cast

Taeko • Satomi Kobayashi

Haruna • Mikako Ichikawa

Yomogi • Ryo Kase

Yuji • Ken Mitsuishi

Taeko’s friend • Hiroko Yakushimaru

Koji (the dog) • Ken

Megane (English Subtitles)

Japanese Movie

Kamome Shokudo (English Subtitles)

Japanese Movie

Barber Yoshino Special Edition

Japanese Movie

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Sona, the Other Myself (ソナ、もうひとりの私, 2009)

Tonight at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, audiences will get a chance to see the North American debut of Yonghi Yang’s latest documentary Sona, the Other Myself. According to the Hot Docs website, her earlier film Dear Pyongyang “deeply moved audiences at Hot Docs three years ago, but eventually led to the filmmaker being banned from North Korea.”

Sona, the Other Myself (Sona, mou hitori no watashi, 2009), begins by introducing the audience to her family’s difficult history. Yang (ヤン・ヨンヒ) is a Zainichi (在日) filmmaker – a permanent resident of Japan of Korean ethnicity. In the 1970s, her father, a communist and leader of the pro-North Korea faction in Japan, sent his three sons to live in North Korea under a repatriation campaign. At the time, the boys were all extremely young at ages 14, 16, and 18. Yonghi Yang, being the only daughter and only 6 years of age at the time, remains in Osaka with her parents. 

In Dear Pyongyang, Yang dealt with the difficult question of why her father sent his young sons alone to North Korea and stayed himself in the relative comfort of Japan. The decision to divide the family leads to great heartache for all members of the family. This theme continues to haunt in Sona, the Other Myself, but this time the focus shifts to the female members of the family.

Sona, the director’s young niece, is the only daughter of her middle brother. In fact, she is the only granddaughter in the family – their little princess. During the question and answer period via Skype that followed the film’s screening at Nippon Connection, Yang revealed that she began collecting footage of Sona from the time of her birth, with the intention of putting together a video that could be played one day when the girl grew up and got married. Such a video is commonplace in the industrialized world, but unheard of in North Korea, where the people have limited access to video technology.

The footage that makes up the documentary was shot during Yang’s visits to her family over a 15 year period. The image quality and shaky camera have a home movie feel to them but now and then, Yang delights with her filmmakers’ eye for poetic framing. As the only girl in a family of boys, Yang identifies closely with Sona as the only granddaughter among many grandsons. This gave rise to the films self-reflexive title.

The film takes a dramatic turn early on when Sona’s mother dies due to an ectopic pregnancy. The scene of a brave 6 year old Sona praying at her mother’s grave is indescribably moving. The film captures Sona in other very intimate familial scenes: the dinner to celebrate her father’s remarriage, Yang buying Sona and her brothers ice cream (a rare treat) at the foreign currency store, Sona going to school and so on. The footage of Yang’s family in North Korea is counterbalanced by footage shot in Osaka, where Yang captures her mother lovingly preparing care parcels for her sons’ families and her father’s declining health.

I felt myself sharing the filmmaker’s concern for the well-being of her North Korean family, as well as a growing trepidation as the film went on about how the release of the film would impact young Sona’s life. As she grows older, we get glimpses of how aware Sona is of the camera and what it means politically for her to be filmed. Although she doesn’t express this directly, it becomes apparent that Sona knows what she can and cannot say when the camera is turned on. This culminates in a powerful sequence in which Sona gestures for her aunt to turn off the camera and Yang tells us via title cards the conversation that they had once the camera was turned off.

Sona, the Other Myself, is the most moving documentary that I have seen in a long time and I highly recommend it. It can be seen tonight at 9:30pm at the Cumberland 2 and on Friday at 1:30pm at the ROM Theatre. The DVD of Dear Pyongyang is unfortunately only available in Japanese and Korean. I do hope that a European or North American distributor picks it up soon.

Summary of Q&A via Skype with Yonghi Yang

What do her brothers do for a living in North Korea?

• her eldest brother works as a Japanese-Korean translator, her middle brother is an architect, her youngest brother works in trade
• her family in North Korea cannot make a comfortable living for themselves with their incomes and rely upon the black market and the generous parcels sent to them by her mother

How did her film Dear Pyonyang affect the family?

• Her mother can still visit North Korea and has gone back to visit the grave of her son
• Yonghi Yang is forbidden from entering the country
• her family in North Korea seems to be okay and they tell her that she should not worry about them
• she has to be careful about what she does, although she has their permission to do her work
• she was asked to write an apology letter to the North Korean government and she refused
• she can’t give up her work because Sona and her other North Korean family members would be disappointed in her if she gave up

The footage looks like home video footage, but at the same time there are moments that seem very deliberately framed. Did you take the footage intending to make a documentary?

• the early footage was shot on a High 8 camera. Sona was the first granddaughter and thus the family’s ‘first princess.’ Yang fell in love her from the very first visit.
• she wanted to make a short collection of video clips that could be shown at her wedding one day. That is something that most families in North Korea are unable to do for their children• she started filming, and after a time realized what an interesting story her family had
• filming without permission in North Korea is very difficult
• she told Sona’s father about the idea of making a documentary about Sona and he loved the idea. Sona’s father is the brother that she is closest to.
• she was worried that making the documentary about Sona would be too risky
• she talks about how brave her brother, Sona’s father, is
• she fears for Sona’s safety now that she’s releasing the documentary to the public

How long can this project go on? (ie making documentaries about her family)

• at the moment she and her family need a break
• for the past two years she has been shooting a totally different kind of documentary. She has been following the director of Wahaha Honpo (ワハハ本舗) around for two years shooting footage of him. This means that for two years she has been surrounded by Japanese comedians – a welcome change of pace for her.
• she is planning on writing scripts for fiction films
• she has written an essay in Japanese about her experiences in North Korea that she couldn’t show in video. She’s not sure if she could publish it in English.

Other DVDs produced by Wahaha Honpo:

Wahaha Honpo no World Baka Document

Variety

Wahaha Honpo Presents Onna Tantei Tarako Bannai - Nanatsu no Kao no Onna Daze

Theatrical Play

Daikon no Hanamichi - Wahaha Honpo

Theatrical Play (WAHAHA Honpo)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Bare Essence of Life (ウルトラミラクルラブストーリー, 2009)

 Bare Essence of Life (ウルトラミラクルラブストーリー/ Ultra Miracle Love Story, 2009) is set in the rural landscape of Aomori Prefecture, located on the northern tip of the island of Honshū. Aomori-born Ken’ichi Matsuyama (Detroit Metal City, L: Change the World) plays Yōjin, a 25-year old man who is trying to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps by running the family’s organic farm.

On top of the usual pressures of farming (insects, disease, weather), Yōjin struggles with a developmental disability or, as he describes it, his head is wired differently: “Not broken, but different.” He tries to improve his farming methods by listening to tape recorded instructions left behind by his grandfather, but his disability means that he is more quickly frustrated than the average farmer, and he is prone to acting out in ways considered socially unacceptable.

Yōjin lives alone with his grandmother, with his parents whereabouts being a complete mystery (are they dead? Did they abandon him with the grandmother because of his mental illness?). To try to give Yōjin some structure to his days, his grandmother has him plan out his days on a whiteboard. As the film progresses, this white board becomes a kind of diary for the thought processes that Yōjin goes through on a given day.

Yōjin’s life changes when Machiko (Kumiko Asō of Kaidan), a yochien (Kindergarten) teacher arrives from Tokyo. Yōjin falls in love with her at first sight, having never had a "special someone" before, but Machiko is resistant to his efforts to woo her. She has come to the countryside to recover from the death of her boyfriend Shimada (played by Arata of Twentieth Century Boys and Air Doll). Not only did he die in a horrific car accident, in which his head is rumoured to have been decapitated and never found again, but she found out that he was also unfaithful to her. Yōjin becomes convinced that he can cure himself by spraying himself regularly with pesticides, and thereby turn himself in to the man Machiko wants to have in her life. 

The film is occasionally humorous (such as the quack fortuneteller and her scrappy granddaughters who enjoy spreading gossip learned in fortunetelling sessions), but the pacing is slow and the film suddenly takes a turn midway through towards the surreal. The first clue that the film is moving into surreal territory is when Yōjin, with the help of a local boy, buries himself up to his chin in the cabbage patch and just barely survives the incident. The surrealism continues when Yōjin meets and falls into conversation with the deceased, headless boyfriend. Then there is also the strange moment when Yōjin appears to die and come back to life again.

For me, this film was a bit of a mystery. I wondered throughout if certain elements had some kind of symbolic or metaphoric meaning that might shed more light on how one should interpret the story (see the aside at the end of this blog entry).  As the storyline was difficult to comprehend, I found solace in the cinematography of Ryūto Kondō, whose work I have enjoyed before in Nonko 36-sai (Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, 2008) and A Gentle Breeze in the Village (Tennen kokekkō, Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2007). Kondō has a real knack for capturing the quiet beauty of the Japanese countryside.  

Bare Essence of Life is also an interesting film because of its use of Tsugaru dialect (津軽弁). It was the first time that I had seen a film where Ken’ichi Matsuyama uses his native dialect. Many of the smaller roles and extras (such as the children and the woman Yōjin has a food fight with) are locals without previous acting experience. They add a sense of realism to the rural Aomori setting, in stark contrast to the surrealistic plot elements.  All in all, a strange but somehow fascinating tale.

Director & Screenwriter

Satoko YOKOHAMA

Cinematographer

Ryūto KONDŌ

Music

Yoshihide OTOMO

Cast

Yōjin Mizuki • Ken’ichi MATSUYAMA

Machiko • Kumiko ASŌ

Ta Tanaka • Seiji NOZOE

Kanama Shimada • ARATA

Dr. Misawa • Yoshio HARADA

Shibata • Misako WATANABE

Ultra Miracle Love Story

Japanese Movie

"Ultra Miracle Love Story" Original Soundtrack

Original Soundtrack

"Ultra Miracle Love Story" Picture Book

Kayo Ume, Eri Okamoto

An aside for those who have seen the film:

I am not sure if there is any significance to the use of  cabbages & potatoes, apart from the fact that they grow them in Aomori – the prefecture is more famous for its apples. 

The bear is a symbol of masculinity among the Ainu of Hokkaido, and elsewhere in the world, so I imagine the same would be true in Aomori – but this does not satisfactorily explain the bizarre brain-in-a-jar sequence at the end of the film.

The brain as a symbol also puzzled me. I was reminded of the research an American friend of mine who studies medical ethics was doing in Tokyo when I lived there. She told me that heart transplants were rarely performed in Japan because of people’s reluctance to accept “brain-dead” as a reasonable reason to farm hearts for transplants. The word for heart in Japanese, kokoro (心), also means ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’, so unlike someone from western culture who believes that the spirit of the person is gone when they are declared ‘brain dead‘, in Japanese culture if the heart is still functioning, the person’s spirit still resides in the body. (There are other reasons, outlined nicely in this article). (htt So when Yōjin declares that he has a stopped heart and no brain, I wonder how a Japanese audience might interpret this differently from myself.

I would enjoy hearing the thoughts of others who have seen the film in the comments section.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Subs vs. Dubs: Part Six

Part Five

The discussion then moved towards the topic of Super-dubbing / Chōyaku aimed at young audiences. (read more on Super-dubbing at wildgrounds)

Domenig asked Asakawa if she [as a subtitle specialist] felt threatened by the advent of Super-dubbing. Asakawa gave the impression that she didn’t have a strong personal preference. Domenig noted that in Japan there was a new trend towards dubbed prints in cinemas [the common practice up until this current trend was for cinematic releases to be subtitled, television dubbed, and DVDs have both options available in the menu].

Domenig opened up the floor to questions from the audience. 

Crispin Freeman was asked about whether or not he improvises his dialogue during dubbing sessions. He replied that it depends upon his relationship with the voice acting director. There have been many instances in which the director hires him as a script adapter when it is apparent that the translator has missed the gist of the dialogue and themes of the piece. 

Throughout the Podium Discussion, Freeman always had an amusing anecdote at the ready to help him make his points, and here he talks about his conflicts with directors whom he feels don’t understand the original Japanese story. Such as one voice director who wanted to change a rather philosophical film into an action film, rendering delicate haiku into action dialogue like “Come on guys, let’s go get ‘em!” In such cases, Freeman says that he usually tries to remind the director that it isn’t his film – that it’s like trying to turn Hamlet into Die Hard. Freeman claims that he always tries to keep his dialogue as close to the original director’s intentions as possible, but he admits that there have been many directors where he was unable to negotiate on such issues.

Domenig mentions the contrast between the American and Japanese systems in that translators in Japan have a fan base and are known.

Nami Asakawa is questioned further about her contention that 70% of information is lost during the process of subtitling foreign features in Japanese. She explains that the standard rate of subtitles is 3-4 words per second. Any more than this and the spectator is overwhelmed by the text.

Tom Mes, of Midnight Eye (who has written a book on Shinya Tsukamoto) asked Tomorowo Taguchi his opinion about the American version of Tetsuo. [Tetsuo the Bullet Man.  Taguchi starred in the original and in the sequel Tetsuo II : Body Hammer]. Taguchi seemed to be amused by the concept of a “self-remake” [Shinya Tsukamoto re-making his own films].

I asked Taguchi and Asakawa about their own personal preferences (subs or dubs?) when it came to watching foreign films in Japan.

Asakawa on the whole preferred subtitles as a spectator, but added that subtitles on 3D films such as Avatar are simply awful. The human eye simply cannot absorb the 3D special effects and the subtitles at the same time. In such cases super-dubbing is preferable to subtitles.

Taguchi said that for him it depended on what he was watching, but on the whole he prefers his television dubbed and movies in the cinema to be subbed.

I asked the entire panel what their thoughts were on the way in which comedy shows and reality shows on Japanese television superimpose what the people are saying on the screen in colour written text (sample screenshot above, where the Japanese text just repeats what the comic character is saying).

Michael Arias says that he sees this trend as having the similar function as the laugh track did on early American TV shows

Taguchi first joked that he at first thought that it’s for people who are hearing impaired. His serious answer was that it adds stress to what the people are saying.

Arakawa sees it as a technique to emphasize the comedy. She said that she had also seen this technique used in other Asian countries.

Crispin Freeman said that it reminded him of the Ka-Pow! cartoon-like visual special effects added to the original Batman TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. 

End of my handwritten notes from the event.

Heaven's Door (English Subtitles) Standard Edition

Japanese Movie

Shikisoku Zeneration [Regular Edition]

Japanese Movie

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Subs vs. Dubs: Part Five

Click Here for Part Four

Drawing on his extensive knowledge of anime history, Crispin Freeman talked a bit about the Americanization of anime in the early days. In the 1970s and 1980s it was commonplace for dubs to anglicize character and place names. For example, Tetsuwan Atomu became Astro Boy. The internet changed everything. For example, in the dub of Naruto [Freeman does the voice of Itachi Uchiha], they preserve certain Japanese terms such as jutsu (method/technique), because the fans demand it. Freeman spoke of how fascinating it has been for him to bear witness to the change in the reception of Japanese animation in the past 10 to 15 years.

Here Domenig interjected by mentioning the impact of globalization on Japanese film and animation. There is a lot less ‘iwakan’ (違和感/ feeling of discomfort, unease, or awkwardness), or ‘resistance to foreigners’. 

Freeman continued that if they were to change the text too much in the adaptation to English then fans will prefer to share fansubs and not buy the official English version. 

Domenig then asked Asakawa if there were examples of fan bases being dissatisfied with the final product when films went from English to Japanese. Asakawa related the infamous case of the subtitling of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The book, of course, had a well established fan base in Japan, but unfortunately, renowned translator Natsuko Toda did not research this fan base when doing the subtitles for the first film. The Tolkien fan base was outraged and it almost landed before the courts. [in Toda’s defense, she had never read the books and the producers foolishly only gave her a week to do the subtitles, read more here. On the other hand, she or the producers should have done a bit more research about the fan base before deciding to render the names in katakana]. A number of websites sprang up in the wake of the film’s release with names such as “Boromir is not a liar” and Down with Toda Natsuko” which critiqued the subtitles and provided alternate translations.

Part Six

Heaven's Door (English Subtitles) Standard Edition

Japanese Movie

[

Shikisoku Zeneration [Regular Edition]

Japanese Movie

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010