Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 2011)

Things have been quiet here on Nishikata Film the past couple of weeks because I have been ill.  When I am under the weather and sofa-bound, I turn to what for me is the movie equivalent of chicken noodle soup: romantic melodramas.  2011 has been so jam-packed for me with work that I have not had the free time to indulge in the guilty pleasures of a cheesy romantic drama.

First on my list was the live action adaptation of Ai Yazawa’s popular manga series Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 1999-2003).  I am a huge fan of Yazawa and have been suffering from withdrawal since she abruptly stopped writing her Nana (2000 – hopefully ongoing) manga series in 2009 due to illness.  Paradise Kiss is a standalone sequel / spin off of Yazawa’s Neighbourhood Story (1995-8).  The manga tells the story of a high school student called Yukari who gets discovered by some fashion students who want her to model the designs of their studio "Paradise Kiss" at their school's end of year fashion show.  Yukari is torn between her desire to give modelling a go and pleasing her mother, who puts a lot of pressure on her to succeed academically and go on to a good university.

Like Nana, the fashion in the manga is influenced by British punk, Vivienne Westwood, and the Harajuku alternative fashion scene.  The character of George Koizumi, for example, is based on the character of Brian Slade as played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the film Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998).  In addition to the avant-guard look of the manga, the central character has a strong coming-of-age storyline.  Yukari (called Caroline by the Paradise Kiss fashionistas) does not yet know who she is as a person or what she really wants to do with her life and she is struggling not only with the intense pressure her mother puts on her, but is also having to deal with confusing feelings of sexual desire for the charismatic fashion designer George Koizumi.  The manga also has a very strong supporting cast of characters with their own subplots – Isabella, a transgender woman and childhood friend of George, and the love triangle between childhood friends Miwako (whose sister was the central character in Neighbourhood Story), Arashi, and Hiroyuki.

The live action feature film Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 2011) is adapted from the manga by Kenji Bando and directed by Takehiko Shinjo.  Shinjo is known for directing romantic TV dramas and sentimental feature films like Heavenly Forest (ただ、君を愛してる, 2006) and I Give My First Love to You (僕の初恋をキミに捧ぐ, 2009).  To put it plainly: Shinjo has basically given the story a TV-dorama makeover that guts the original story of its edginess.

To begin with, the feature film is woefully miscast.  In the manga, Yukari/Caroline is taller and more sophisticated than most girls her age and really stands out in a crowd.  While she is undoubtedly a beautiful young woman, actress Keiko Kitagawa is of average height.  Ordinarily, height would not be much of an issue except that Yukari’s height and body type are the reasons why Arashi picks her out of the crowd in the opening scene of the manga.  Kitagawa’s average height might not have stood out so much if it weren’t for the fact that Miwako, played by Aya Omasa, towers over her.  Miwako is meant to be a petite “kawaii” girly girl – so tiny in the manga and anime as to be doll-like.  Also miscast is Osamu Mukai who is much too sweet to play the charming but predatory George Koizumi.    

I knew I was going to be deeply disappointed right from the opening credits, which seemed more like an advertisement for nail polish than the engaging, up-tempo montage opening of the anime.  The music throughout is simpering J-pop ballads, which pale in contrast to the funky up-tempo music of the anime adaptation (IE Tomoko Kawase’s “Lonely in Gorgeous” and Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To”).  I am no fashion expert, but the clothes looked more mainstream than avant-garde – instead of hiring Vivienne Westwood to design the costumes (which would have been a lovely tribute to Ai Yazawa), the clothes seemed calculatedly selected with an eye to fashion magazine and store tie-ins. 

Now I know that practically speaking the limitations of time for a feature film meant that much of the subplots had to be excised.  Even the TV anime adaptation with its 12 episodes found itself scrambling to fit everything in towards the end.  However, the substantial cuts to the subplots in the feature film meant that all the supporting cast were rendered one-dimensional.  Isabella’s gender identity only gets passing references – there is no depth to her relationship with George.  Speaking of which, George’s sexuality is much less ambiguous than in the manga/anime.  Even worse, Arashi comes off as a creeper and Miwako as promiscuous.  

What made Yukari special in the original manga was the fact that her story was messy and complicated.  Her friends also led messy and complicated lives.  There were no simple answers to problems and her romantic feelings towards George and Hiro-kun were confused – just as it is in real life.  By over simplifying Yukari’s story, the filmmakers have just turned it into over-polished Disneyesque schlock for teenaged girls.  I don’t mind a fluffy sentimental romance now and then, but Paradise Kiss should have been more Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink (John Hughes, 1986) and less Sandra Dee circa late 1950s.  This "happy ending" version of Paradise Kiss may have been enough to please the target audience of the film (IE adolescent girls), but to fans of the original manga it is simply lacking. 

Cast

Keiko Kitagawa as Yukari 'Caroline' Hayasaka

Osamu Mukai as Jōji 'George' Koizumi

Yusuke Yamamoto as Hiroyuki Tokumori            

Shunji Igarashi as Isabella

Kento Kaku as Arashi Nagase                   

Aya Omasa as Miwako Sakurada            

Natsuki Kato as Kaori Asō           

Hitomi Takahashi as Yukino Koizumi      

Shigemitsu Ogi as Joichi Nikaido

Michiko Hada as Yasuko Hayasaka

Available from cdjapan:

Paradise Kiss [Regular Edition]

Paradise Kiss Premium Edition [Limited Edition]

In Memory of Masahiro Katayama (片山 雅博, 1955-2011)

Last month the Japanese animation community was shocked by the passing of Professor Masahiro Katayama at the age of 56. Katayama was an animator, manga-ka, illustrator, administrator, mentor, and professor at Tama Art University. 

As a child, Katayama’s love for animation was formed by the work of Walt Disney and other popular American animation that he saw on television. When he later encountered the works of Osamu Tezuka, it was to have a deep impact on his creative career. From about the age of twenty, Katayama began working as a cartoonist and illustrator for newspapers. He was a member of Japan’s Cartoonist Association from 1978 to 1990. 

His activity in animation was quite varied from assisting on productions to organizing events and exhibitions. He directed a documentary film about the career of Osamu Tezuka called Film is Alive: A Filmography of Osamu Tezuka, 1962-1989 (1990) and has collaborated on a number of books about animators for Anido. 

Among Katayama’s greatest accomplishments was his supervision of the New Animation Animation DVD series for Geneon Universal. This invaluable series includes the works not only of key Japanese art animation figures such as Kihachiro Kawamoto, Tadanari Okamoto, Yoji Kuri, Osamu Tezuka and Koji Yamamura, but also some fine DVD collections of world animation figures including Yuri Norstein, Norman McLaren, Jiří Trnka, Frédéric Back, and Aleksandr Petrov. These DVDs and boxsets are all accompanied by informative essays about the animators written by Katayama himself.

Katayama had long been a leader in the animation community heading at one time or another such organizations as Group Ebisen, the Japan Animation Association, and Anido. He also worked with numerous film festivals over the years as either an organizer or a jury member. Festivals that he was closely associated over the years include the Japan Media Arts Festival, the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, the Hida International Animation Festival of Folktakes and Fables, the Tokyo International Anime Fair, and the Laputa International Animation Festival.

As I mentioned in my recent article on independent animation for Midnight Eye, as a professor at Tama Art University, Masahiro Katayama made a deep impact on his students. When I spoke with Akino Kondoh at the Shinsedai Festival in Toronto last year, she told me that Katayama had been the one to introduce her to the world of international art animation. Other top animators who have cited Katayama’s influence include  co-founder of CALF Mirai Mizue, and Kunio Kato who won the Annecy Cristal, the Hiroshima Prize and an Oscar for his animated short La maison en petits cubes (2008).

Masahiro Katayama had a close relationship with Kihachiro Kawamoto, who passed away last year. He collaborated with Kawamoto on a number of projects including illustrating the cover of his book Puppets for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Anido, 1984), doing the claymation for Kihachiro Kawamoto’s Self Portrait (1988), and assisting with the production of The Book of the Dead (2005) which was shot at Tama Art University. 

I first encountered Katayama's work as an artist on Winter Days (2003), the collaborative renku poem adaptation which he co-produced with Kawamoto. Katayama took a humorous approach to his animated contribution which is an adaptation of a section of the renku poem written by Kakei. He takes the metaphorical arrow of the original renku and renders it in a literal fashion, which of course leads to comedy. 

In Katayama’s vignette, a hidden marksman takes aim at a man being carried on a kago (palanquin/litter). The man’s aim is affected by some reflected light and his arrow shoots over the heads of an array of popular figures from folk legend (William Tell’s son with the apple on his head;  Japanese folktales) and the movies (Toshiro Mifune, John Wayne) before landing in the hat of the poet writting the verse. 

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Masahiro Katayama’s funeral was held on March 12th, on the day after the great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Photographs of the packed service can be viewed at Anido.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Related Posts:

Winter Days

Kihachiro Kawamoto’s Self Portrait

An Interview with Akino Kondoh

Kato Kunio’s La maison en petits cubes

Tadanari Okamoto Film Works Boxset

Mami Kosemura's Nihonga Moving Paintings (2004-2006)

In the autumn of 2006, I went to see the Nihonga Painting: Six Provacative Artists exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art.  Each artist was indeed provacative in his or her own way, from the horrifically beautiful paintings of Fuyuko Matsui to the crazed doodlings of Shiriagari Kotobuki.  

The installations that made the biggest impact on me were the 'moving paintings' of Mami Kosemura.  At the time, I could only describe my impression of her work but I have since discovered that Kosemura has uploaded low-res samples of her work onto the internet.  Although it is not as impactful to watch these 'moving paintings' via video-streaming as it is to see them in a gallery, it at least gives one an idea of what the  experience was like.  Before watching the videos, read my original post to understand their original context.  These stop motion animated shorts were not simply projected onto bare walls, but were projected onto specific spaces using furnishings that suggest a traditional Japanese house.

For the nature themed installations, Kosemura designed elaborate sets at her studio and shot the film frame-by-frame over a period of months.  For example, to create the third video below from the Flowering Plants of the Four Seasons series, Kosemura set up a 3 meter wide set and using a digital camera  shot a photo every hour for two months.  In the end, she had a total of 1,500 photos which she then edited to give them a painterly look.  This particular animation was projected onto a fusama for the Yokohama exhibition (see sample installation images at top of page).

Comb and Woman in the Mirror are also shot using a similar stop motion technique but  using actors and interior spaces.  These two installations are based on woodblock prints by Hashiguchi Goyo.  In addition to her work as an artist, Kosemura is a scholar of art history and her art is heavily influenced by her academic knowledge.  Read more about Comb and the techniques used in these installations in my review here.  To learn more about the Nihonga exhibition these works were a part of, see the links at the end of this post.

Flowering Plants of the Four Seasons (Shikigusabanazu, 2004-6)

 (3 videos)

Priming Water (Yobimizu, 2006)

Comb (Kushi, 2006)

Read my review of Comb

Woman in the Mirror (Kyōdai no Onna, 2006)

To learn more about Kosemura, check out her homepage.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Related Posts:
Nihonga 1: Fujii Rai
Nihonga 2: Matsui Fukuyo
Nihonga 3: Shiriagari Kotobuki
Nihonga 4: Nakamura Kengo
Nihonga 6: Nakagami Kiyoshi

The Keyaki Tree (欅の木 人びとシリーズ, 1993)

Over the past year, I have been making my way slowly through the German editions of Jiro Taniguchi’s graphic novels. Once I start reading a Taniguchi book, it is hard to put down until it is finished. They are quite philosophical and I find myself re-reading many them in order to fully appreciate the nuances of the story and its illustrations. The Carlsen editions are more expensive than your average manga, but they are beautifully bound and look very handsome on the bookshelf.

This weekend I read Von der Natur des Menschen – The Nature of People, which is published in Japan as The Keyaki Tree (欅の木). It is a collection of eight short stories by Ryuichiro Utsumi (内海 隆一郎, b. 1937) which were illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi (谷口ジロー, b. 1947) and published as the Hitobito Series (人びとシリーズ/The People series) in Big Comic magazine between May and August 1993.

Like Taniguchi, Utsumi writes moving stories about the lives of ordinary people. The stories in this collection focus on the sorrow that people feel because of changes that happen in their lives: parents divorcing, children growing distant from their parents, how the death of a loved one affects the family, and conflict between siblings. One of the strongest themes in the collection is the difficulty of balancing societal or family expectations with individual needs and desires.

Readers of all ages can identify with the characters in these stories. They range in age from young children to elderly people, but they all have one thing in common: their desire to be loved and understood by their families. Some of the choices that the characters make and some of the expectations that their families have are rooted in Japanese culture and society, but like an Ozu film there is a universality to each story that we can all recognize. For example, in the third story "Reunion", my natural instinct was to identify with Iwasaki’s ex-wife because of the way he just left her home alone with their young daughter for days on end. However, by the end of the story I found myself so moved by Iwasaki’s personal journey that the final page of the story moved me to tears. Utsumi is known for his ability to write heart-warming tales, but I suspect that Taniguchi’s illustrations are largely responsible for my emotional response to these stories. Taniguchi has an uncanny ability to draw emotive expressions on characters’ faces. Although these stories were not written by Taniguchi himself, their contemplative themes and the foregrounding of nature have much in common with other graphic novels that I have read by him.

The collection includes the following stories:

The Keyaki Tree (欅の木/Der Keyaki Baum)

A couple nearing retirement age buy a older house in the countryside because they have fallen in love with its beautiful garden. Unfortunately, when they move in they discover that the previous owners have taken all their plants and trees with them. Disappointed, they hire a gardener to replant the garden and take solace in the lone Keyaki tree that was left behind because it was too big to transplant. Their new neighbours complain that the tree is a nuisance because it fills their gutters with leaves and they ask the couple to chop it down. The couple are reluctant to destroy the beautiful tree, but at the same time do not want to cause friction with their neighbours. A surprise visit from the previous owner of the house causes them to think about the tree in a new light.

The White Rocking Horse (白い木馬/Das weiße Holzpferd)

The Kinoshitas have gotten used to living alone. Since their children grew up and left home, they only see their children and grandchildren on rare occasions like New Year’s. One day, their daughter Yoshiko asks them to look after her daughter Hiromi so that she can spend some time alone with her new boyfriend. The Kinoshitas decide to take Hiromi to the fair, but Hiromi remains sullen with them and is unwilling to go on any of the rides. Her demeanour only changes when they discover a coin operated rocking horse which finally brings a smile to Hiromi’s face. By the end of the day, the Kinoshitas have begun to warm up to their granddaughter and are disappointed when they return home to find that Yoshiko has come early to pick Hiromi up. As they talk with Yoshiko and her boyfriend, Mr. Kinoshita is shocked to discover the real reason Hiromi didn’t want to go on the rides at the fair. His reaction brings more strain to his relationship with his daughter, but strengthens the bond her is developing with his young granddaughter.

The Reunion (再会/Das Wiedersehen)

While on a business trip, Mr. Iwasaki discovers a photograph of his ex-wife and his daughter in the local paper. His daughter, whom he has not seen since she was a little girl, is celebrating the opening of her first exhibition of her own paintings. Iwasaki takes a painful trip down memory lane, recalling what a terrible husband he was to his first wife, and his shock when she left him to return to her parents in Osaka. He has since remarried and has two sons, but his sons do not share his passion for art. He decides to go to his daughter’s exhibition, hopeful that his middle-aged paunch and receding hairline will make him unrecognizable to his former family. The visit to the gallery turns out to be a much more emotional and rewarding experience than he bargained for.

My Brother’s Life (兄の暮らし/Das Leben meines Bruders)

After the death of his wife, Mr. Sakamoto’s older brother Keikichi has shocked the family by moving out of his son’s house into a pension in Shinjuku. Having recently retired himself and moved into his son’s home, Sakamoto decides to visit his brother to find out why he has broken with family tradition and is living alone. The brothers haven’t spoken in ten years, but they fall into conversation easily. Sakamoto discovers that Keikichi’s pride has been hurt by the fact that neither of his sons wanted to go into the family roofing business. Before visiting Keikichi, Sakamoto had assumed that his brother must be lonely, but he soon finds himself questioning whether he himself is the one who is unhappy with his present situation in life.

The Umbrella (雨傘/Der Regenshirm)

Kyoko Komaki’s brother Shin’ichi is coming to visit her for the first time in twelve years and she is nervous about how the visit will go. Kyoko and Shin’ichi were first separated from each other when their parents divorced. Kyoko was taken by her mother and Shin’ichi was left behind with their father – neither child had a say in the matter. Three years later, Kyoko was sent back to live with her father but she was never able to feel at home with her new stepmother and she and Shin’ichi never bonded again as they had as small children. Kyoko’s feeling of being an outsider led her to move to Tokyo as soon as she could and the only time her brother visited her they got into a bitter argument. After all these years, will brother and sister be able to mend their relationship as adults?

At the Art Gallery (絵画館付近/An der Gemäldegalerie)

Mrs. Otani is under a lot of pressure from her son and his wife to sell her home in Shizuoka and move in with them. Mrs. Otani loves her own home and enjoys her solitude, but she agrees to try spending the summer with them in the city. In the evenings, she escapes from her son’s home to go for a walk in the park. On a park bench by the art gallery, she meets an elderly man and they fall into the habit of meeting every evening and chatting together. Mrs. Otani is shocked to discover that she has fallen in love for the first time in her life, but one evening the man does not appear and she wonders if there is any future for their relationship.

Through the Forest (林を抜けて/Durch den Wald)

Two young brothers named Hiroshi and Yoji are forced to move from a large house into a small apartment with their mother. Their father has left their mother for another woman and Hiroshi is mocked for this in school. Making matters even worse, they have to give up their loving and protective Akita dog Koro because their new residence does not allow pets. Yoji becomes convinced that he can hear Koro barking on the other side of the forest every evening. The boys decide to travel through the forest to see if they can find Koro. Their adventure in the forest tests their loyalty to each other and brings them unexpectedly closer together.

His Hometown (彼の故郷/Seine Heimat)

Noémi is a 19-year-old French artist in Paris when she meets and falls in love with a 29-year-old Japanese man named Haruki. Despite their difference in age and the protestations of both of their families, Haruki and Noémi get married and after a visit to Haruki’s hometown of Nagasaki they settle down together in Tokyo. Noémi’s shyness and inability to speak Japanese leads her to keep to herself and her painting at first, but eventually she comes out of her shell and takes up Katazome and Japanese lessons. When Haruki dies suddenly, Noémi’s world falls apart, but she stays in Japan and after many years she is able to finally make a connection with her distant mother-in-law through her art.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Related Posts:

Quartier Lointain - European adaptation of Jiro Taniguchi's A Distant Neighbourhood

Jiro Taniguchi's A Distant Neighbourhood (1998)

Jiro Taniguchi's The Walking Man (1992)

The Walking Man (歩くひと, 1992)

In this age of portable devices for listening to music and communicating with friends, many people seem to live their lives in a bubble, oblivious to their surroundings, as they hustle to and fro in our modern metropolises. With the growing threat of environmental crisis around the world, it is more important than ever for us to take the earphones out of our ears and look around us at the world we are living in and how we can interact with it in positive ways.

Jiro Taniguchi’s 1992 graphic novel The Walking Man (Aruku Hito /歩くひと, 1992) takes readers on a journey with the central character, a married man who seems to be in his late thirties or early forties, as he discovers the wonders to be found in his very own neighbourhood. In the first chapter, he encounters a birdwatcher and realizes for the first time that his neighbourhood is also home to a variety of common birds like great tits (shijūkara), grey starlings (mukudori), and thrushes (tsugumika).

The man and his wife adopt a stray dog, whom they name Snowflake, and the dog’s presence naturally leads to even more walks around the neighbourhood. His walks allow him to indulge in a childlike delight in the more simple pleasures of life. Some of the most indulgent moments include when he hops a fence to enjoy a midnight swim in the buff in a local swimming pool, and when lies back and floats alone in a sentō (public bath) after getting soaked in a rainstorm without an umbrella.

Many of his escapades lead to wonderful moments of intimacy between the man and his wife, as he often brings home stories and found things to share with her. For example, he purchases a kamifūsen (paper inflatable balloon) and plays with it as he walks. After a bit of a detour, he returns home and shares it with his wife. On another day, he takes off his shoes to climb a tree in order to rescue a toy airplane, then stays up in the tree to enjoy the view. When he comes down, he finds a damaged toy plane and takes it home (still barefoot!) to repair it and then enjoys playing with it with his wife. He even suffers in the hot summer sun in order to carry home a roll of bamboo to act as a sunshade for his him and his wife.

The illustrations in The Walking Man are simply beautiful and it has quickly become one of my favourite graphic novels. Although I read the German edition (Der Spazierende Mann, published in 2009 by Carlsen), I would imagine that the Japanese edition of this story would be ideal for beginners in reading Japanese because the dialogue is minimal – and there are a lot of sound words to indicate the sounds the man is noticing as he walks along. Onomatopoeia are one of my favourite things about the Japanese language.  This graphic novel is just crying out for a skilled animator to adapt it into a film.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Distant Neighbourhood (遥かな町へ, 1998)

Since moving to Germany in 2007, it has been a challenge for me to improve my German vocabulary when my reading and movie watching is so biased in favour of Japanese culture. One way I have managed to combine the two is by reading manga in German. At a wonderful manga/comics shop in Marburg last year, I discovered the beautifully illustrated graphic novels of Jiro Taniguchi (谷口ジロー, b. 1947). Many of his best works are published in Germany by Carlsen in elegantly bound editions that easily share a bookshelf with my Random House Vintage Classics editions of Japanese literature.

 My kids posing as Asterix outside the manga/comics shop in Marburg

Comics, Kitsch & Kunst - if they added DVDs

they would be selling everything I could ever possibly want

Originally published in Japanese in 1998 as Haruka na Machi e (遥かな町へ), this graphic novel was published in German under the title Vertraute Fremde in 2007.  In English it has been published in two volumes under the title Distant Neighbourhood. It tells the story of a middle aged architect Hiroshi Nakahara. On his way home to Tokyo from a business trip to Kyoto, he accidentally boards the wrong train and dozes off on it. When he awakes, he discovers that the final station on the route is the town in which he was born: Kurayoshi. Nakahara decides to take advantage of his error by visiting his mother’s grave for the first time in many years. As he prays in the cemetery, a butterfly appears to indicate that a transformation is about to take place and Kurayoshi loses consciousness.

When Kurayoshi awakes, he finds that he has been transported back in time to the spring of 1963. As he readjusts to being back in his 14 year old body, he goes to his family home to find his mother and grandmother alive just as they were in 1963. Most significant is the fact that his father is also there. It is then we realize the significance of the spiritual journey that Hiroshi Nakahara is taking. He has arrived in the past just a few short months before his father will disappear from the family forever without a trace. His father’s unexplained betrayal of his family has haunted Nakahara ever since and he now has an opportunity to find out why his father left. . . and possibly even change the course of history by trying to prevent the inevitable from happening.

The story exposition in Distant Neighbourhood is very compelling and the first time I read it I could not put it down until I had finished it. As an illustrator, Taniguchi’s attention to small details of the scenery and framing is as carefully done as in a Yasujiro Ozu film. During the opening sequence as Nakahara passes through Kyoto station, I recognized the station immediately because the architectural details were exactly as I recall them as I passed through the station myself in 2006. I would imagine that for someone of the same generation as Taniguchi Distant Neighbourhood would be a nostalgic trip down memory lane. The streets of Japanese towns, and even the layout of the countryside has altered considerably over the past four decades. Sights such as the grandmother working away at the loom or kids riding a scooter without helmets have become rare indeed with the passage of time. Subtle details remind us of the time period such as a reference to the professional wrestler Antonio Inoki, who was popular at the time, and a movie poster for the Hollywood film Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962). The story even takes us back further to wartime Japan when Nakahara’s parents met.

Earlier this year, Distant Neighbourhood was adapted into a film set in France by the Bavarian director Sam Garbanski. It is called Vertraute Fremde here in Germany, and Quaritier lointain in French.  I actually do think that the essence of this story could translate well to Europe during the same time period so I am hoping that Santa puts a copy of it in my stocking this year. It also stars one of my favourite French actors – Pascal Greggory – which is an added bonus. When I do get a hold of a copy, you can be sure that I will report my findings here on the blog.

Here's the German trailer:

And the French trailer:


Quartier lointain - Bande annonce FR

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Interview with Akino Kondoh

I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with artist, manga-ka, and animator Akino Kondoh at Shinsedai this year. Her 2004 painting Red Fishes was used as the eye-catching poster art for the festival, and her 2006 animation Ladybirds’ Requiem (Tentou Mushi no Otomurai, 2006) preceded Momoko Ando’s Kakera (2009) at the opening event.

Childhood influences

Kondoh was born into an artistic family. Her father and brother are both architects and her homemaker mother studied design at university. Kondoh was never particularly interested in television. Instead, she recalls enjoying having picture books read to her by her parents and being taken to museums. Kondoh also had little interest in popular manga as a child.  She did; however, discover Garo (ガロ, a monthly anthology magazine for avant-garde manga which ran from 1964-2002) when she was a junior high school student. Kondoh’s own manga art has been featured in alternative manga magazines and one of her striking images adorns the cover of the debut English language edition of AX: A Collection of Alternative Manga. This cover art had previously been used for volume 42 (2004) of the Japanese edition of AX (アックス).

Garo cover art

Kondoh cover art - order here

Insects

I have long been interested in the prevalence of insects in Japanese art and culture. Cicadas, for example, are always used as signifiers in movies to indicate that the setting is late summer. When my children were in hoikuen (nursery school) in Bunkyo-ku, they had a pet kabuto-mushi (Japanese rhinoceros beetle) in the same way that a Canadian Kindergarten might have a hamster. In Kondoh’s art insects like ladybirds (ladybugs in Canadian vernacular), butterflies, and insect larvae play an essential role. When I asked Kondoh about this she told me that insects have long been an object of fascination for her. She recalls playing with insects as a child, so it has been only natural that they have become a source of artistic inspiration in her work.

Introduction to art animation

While a student of graphic design at Tama Art University, Kondoh was introduced to animation in her second year of studies through assignment work. Her professor was Masashiro Katayama (b. 1955), who has enjoyed a long and successful career as an animator and illustrator (see my review of Winter Days, and Kawamoto’s Self Portrait). In her third year at Tamabi, Kondoh made The Evening Traveling (Densha kamoshiranai, 2002), her first animation short. The Evening Traveling won her awards at the Japan Media Arts Festival (2002), the Digista Awards (2002), and the third Yuri Norstein Grand Prix / Audience Award at Laputa Animation Festival.

The use of music in her animation

Kondoh and her brother became big fans of the band TAMA when they were teenagers. Through a fortunate series of events, Kondoh was able to develop a professional relationship with band member Toshiaku Chiku. Prof. Katayama often invited animator Tatautoshi Nomura of ROBOT (the company that employs Oscar-winner Kunio Kato) to guest lecture his class. Nomura is also a fan of TAMA and has often worked with the band for the soundtracks to his animations both as musicians and as seiyū (voice actors). Kondoh was able to get permission from Toshiaku Chiku to use his song Densha kamo shirenai for her film of the same name. (English title The Evening Traveling)  At first, Kondoh explained, Chiku was not really sure about her project, but when the film was a success and won awards at festivals, he agreed to compose an original score for Ladybirds’ Requiem.

 French edition of her manga

Elaborate vision, minimalist style

Akino Kondoh’s art carries us into a complex, dream-like world. Yet while the images she creates are highly detailed, at the same time she employs a very minimalist aesthetic. When creating the images for her animation films, she uses plain art paper. Her tools are graphite and marker. Her colour palette is predominantly black against a white background – as in The Evening Traveling which was entirely monochrome. Filler colours like grey or the brilliant reds of Ladybirds’ Requiem are done with markers. The images are then scanned and edited using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects for Macs.

Prolific artist with an eye for detail

Kondoh’s passion for her craft drives her to put in long hours at the canvas. While some artists prefer to work in the morning hours, or well into the night, Kondoh’s entire day revolves around her desire to keep on creating new work. At the same time, Kondoh is a perfectionist with very high standards. There are actually two versions of Ladybirds’ Requiem. The one that is floating around on various video streaming sites was done as a student work in 2003 and has a running time of 2’50”. Kondoh expressed a deep dissatisfaction with this work and so in 2005 she set out to remake the film. She started from scratch, drawing entirely new images for the animation which was eventually completed in 2006 with a running time of 5’38”. A limited edition DVD of the film (only 12 copies!) was released for sale to her representatives Mizuma Art Gallery and snapped up by high end art connoisseurs. It is this version of the film that played at Shinsedai and at Naomi Hocura’s Seconds Under the Sun screenings.

Kondoh’s fascination with contemporary art

Funding from Bunka-cho (the Agency for Cultural Affairs) allowed Kondoh to do a residency in New York City from November 2008 until October 2009. For that first year in New York she lived in Chelsea. She has now moved to Astoria and is supporting herself through her art. When I asked her “Why New York?”, she responded that she wanted to immerse herself in contemporary art and get exposure to the art community outside of Japan.

Kondoh’s depiction of Eiko, the young woman protagonist at the center of her work, has often reminded me of art deco influenced illustrations that I saw at the Yayoi Museum when I lived in Nishikata. I was also reminded of the unusual world of girls I had once seen at the Collection de l’art brut many years ago in Lausanne, Switzerland. When I described the work to Kondoh, she immediately put a name to the artist – Henry Darger. It turns out that Kondoh shares my interest in l’art brut or Outsider Art and she spoke enthusiastically about the Henry Darger collection at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, which is located near the MOMA.

Future Plans

I was impressed by Kondoh’s high ambitions and passion for her work. She dreams of showing her work all over the world. Among other projects she has currently on the go are collaborations with the New York avant-garde jazz musician John Zorn, for whom she designed the cover art for his CD The Goddess: Music for the Ancient of Days. She does plan to do more animation in the future, and is working constantly on her art. She expressed her enthusiasm by saying: “I want to keep creating” 

 

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Osamu Tezuka: Self Portrait (1988)

David Ehrlich’s Animated Self Portraits (1989), as I mentioned in the previous post, features 19 artists from 5 countries exploring their identities as artists through the medium of animation. With the entire film reportedly being only 8 minutes in length, one wonders how Ehrlich managed to fit all the artists in when Kihachirō Kawamoto’s contribution comes in at approximately a minute in length – even if you shave off the opening and closing credits. Osamu Tezuka makes space for other artists, in a 10 second film that gives just as strong an impression as Kawamoto’s.

Also in contrast to Kinoshita’s Self Portrait (セルフポートレート, 1988, 1’27”), Tezuka’s Self Portrait (自画像 / Jigazou, 1998, 12 seconds) gives a very different take on the creative process. He divides the screen into three strips. Each strip gives the section of a different section of a face. To the sound of a slot machine, the three strips appear to spin just like the gambling device itself. The fourth time is the charm (three is unlucky in Japanese culture), with three sections of Tezuka’s face lining up. In the caricature of his face he is wearing his trademark glasses and beret. His mouth is agape and gold coloured coins fall out of it.

The different faces used in this short animation strike me as either being famous faces or characters from Tezuka’s prolific career as a manga-ka and anime director. They look familiar, but I can’t quite put names to them all. Obviously, one of them is Frankenstein. One look likes a politician whose name I ought to know. Leave a comment if you recognize them from these screencaps. I particularly like the alien / swamp creature that makes an appearance in the right-hand column.

Now, there are a couple of ways to interpret this film. The first is that all these characters somehow inhabit the imagination of the artist. Or perhaps, they were influential in some way on Tezuka during his career. On the other hand, it may be about the creative process itself. Where Kawamoto depicted the creative process as a struggle, Tezuka suggests that success for him is all as a matter of chance. You pull the handle on the slot machine with your initial project idea and hope that with luck all the pieces will fall into place. Certainly, Tezuka’s career was a series of ups and downs, but when all the elements fell into place for him, the rewards were certainly very great. Something that both Kawamoto’s and Tezuka’s films have in common is their sense of humour. I may have to troll through some archives to get a hold of the original film in its entirety, because it would be interesting to compare how these very different artists (Jan Švankmajer and Tezuka on the same programme together!!) interpret the concept of ‘self portrait’.

Osamu Tezuka Jikken animation sakuhin shu

Kihachiro Kawamoto Sakuhin shu

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

My Neighbours the Yamadas (ホーホケキョとなりの山田くん, 1999)

Joyful laughter
breaks the silence
of an autumn eve
– Bashō

It is a rare film that interweaves classical poetry with tales of modern life, but Isao Takahata (高畑 勲, b. 1935) manages it successfully in his 1999 feature length animation My Neighbours the Yamadas (ホーホケキョとなりの山田くん / Hōhokekyo Tonari no Yamada-kun). The haiku poems that punctuate the narrative vignettes work surprisingly well on a number of levels. The poets featured – Bashō (1644-1699), Buson (1716-1783), and Santōka (1882-1940) – represent very different epochs in Japanese culture and the film demonstrates the timelessness of this minimalistic verse form. Usually adding a flourish to the end of a scene, the haiku reminds us of the constancy of life’s little poetic ironies. The world, in all its splendor and glory, has both delighted and disappointed human beings throughout the ages. The minimalism of haiku also complements the spareness of Takahata’s animation.

My Neighbours the Yamadas is an adaptation of a yonkoma manga of the same name by Hisaishi Ishii (いしい ひさいち, b.1951) about a family of five: the easy-going young daughter Nonoko (aka Nono-chan), her older brother Noboru, her absent-minded homemaker mother Matsuko, her salaryman father Takashi, and her cranky maternal grandmother Shige. The family also has a pet dog Pochi, who has a somewhat sullen temperament. Young Nonoko was so popular as a character that the manga eventually changed its name to Nono-chan. It ran regularly in the Asahi Shimbun between 1991 and 1997.

In a nod to the manga, which is mainly told through the eyes of the daughter, Takahata’s film adaptation begins with Nonoko as the narrator introducing us to her family life. As the film progresses, all members of the family are given equal time and the narrator is replace by title cards introducing new themes or occasionally a male narrator reading aloud the interspersed haiku.

Although My Neighbours the Yamadas was critically acclaimed upon its release (it won an Excellence Award at the 1999 Japan Media Arts Festival), it was not a big box office success like most Studio Ghibli productions. There are likely several reasons for this. It is not a showy production visually like its Ghibli predecessor Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime, Hayao Miyazaki, 1997). Although the film does feature children, its situational humour is likely more appreciated by an older audience - not the young women (& men too, but women make up the bulk of the cinema-going audiences in Japan) who would pack the theatres for a heroine driven spectacular like Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, 2001)

The story is also not plot driven, like Takahata’s previous film Pom Poko (Heisei Tanuki Gassen Pom Poko, 1994)). Instead, the film mimics the episodic nature of the yonkoma manga: a four panel layout that follows a kishōtenketsu (introduction/development/twist/resolution) plot structure. Nausicaa.net has an amusing example of a Nono-chan yonkoma from July 21, 2007 with translation which you can read here. Like the haiku, the art of the yonkoma is in its simplicity. It is not a long, and rambling manga series, rather, each episode has whittled down a typical family scene to its essence.

I can see the average cinema-going audience, lulled into certain expectations by traditional flashy anime fare, become restless halfway into the film by the lack of a driving Aristotelian narrative. The plot does not build and build to a climax like say a Disney film would. Instead, it is a series of episodes with each indivisual episode following the Asian kishōtenketsu development structure. There is a kind of a climax at the end of the film with a colourful dream sequence to the strains of Matsuko and Takashi singing a karaoke version of Que Sera Sera, but this is less of a plot climax and more like the grand finale of a Hollywood musical. In fact, this scene gives a nod to two Hollywood legends: Doris Day in the choice of song (Que Sera Sera) and Gene Kelly's infamous dance sequence in Singing in the Rain for creative use of umbrellas (see photo above this paragraph).

For the patient spectator, My Neighbours the Yamadas is a true cinematic delight. I found myself laughing several times during each vignette. Some of the stories are very Japanese: such as the references to Japanese fairy tales (see photo above paragraph for Taketori Monogatari reference) and a sequence dedicated to an old wives tale about ginger in miso soup making people sleepy.

Digression: I was surprised to learn that an English dubbed version was made in that States because I can’t imagine how they would translate some very Japanese situations. The German subtitled version I was watching made some rather strange translation choices, such as translating nabe as fondue. I think Eintopf would have made more sense if they really felt viewers would be perplexed by Japanese names for dishes. (German readers, what are your feelings on this?) Translators should never underestimate the intelligence of their viewers. With the popularity of Japanese restaurants throughout Germany (if not most cities in Europe), using the Japanese names for dishes would actually be more informative for viewers. They could always put the definition in a pop-up extra on the DVD. . . or somewhere else on the screen as enterprising fansubbers do quite successfully. (End of Digression)

Watching a Takahata film is a bit like watching an Ozu film for me. Although there are many elements that seem inextricably Japanese, the story and characters have a universal appeal to them. We can all identify with the family bickering that arises between parents and children, husbands and wives, and siblings. The themes of laziness, forgetfulness, generational divides, the frustrations of sharing a family home, the pressures of life’s expectations all hit home for me as well. This film is a particularly good to watch post-Christmas / New Year’s holidays as an an
tidote to any unwelcome family squabbles.

Studio Ghibli no Uta Music Box

Music Box

Mini Soundtrack [yoshi ZIBURI to issyoni tukuruzo!

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Mind Game (マインド・ゲーム, 2005)

There is something fitting about the fact that Masaaki Yuasa and Studio 4°C’s Mind Game (マインド・ゲーム, 2005) made it’s debut the year before the 100th anniversary of Stuart Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906). I have no doubt that when future animation historians look back at this decade, Mind Game will stand out as an example of an animation that bridges the first and second centuries of animated films.

Upon first screening the film, I found myself overwhelmed by its technical brilliance. The sheer variety of animation techniques and styles, both traditional and modern, mean that the film could have easily had no plot at all but have still entertained. Perhaps the most stylistically intriguing moments are the scenes in which actors faces have been digitally rotoscoped onto CG-animated bodies to give characters an added emotional edge.

Mind Game’s unique look and sound is the result of the coming together of three iconoclastic artists: manga-ka Robin Nishi (ロビン西), animator Masaaki Yuasa (湯浅政明), and animator/producer Koji Morimoto (森本晃司). Morimoto is one of the creative geniuses, along with Eiko Tanaka and Yoshiharu Sato, behind independent Studio 4°C. According to the documentary footage included on the extras of my Rapid Eye DVD of Mind Game, it was Morimoto who saw the artistic potential of Robin Nishi’s abstract manga. However, he felt that he was too enthralled by the manga to have an objective director’s eye for the project and he brought Yuasa on board as director. Yuasa had previously worked on Onkyo seimeitai Noiseman (1997) with Morimoto.

Robin Nishi’s manga stands apart from the usual manga fare because of the roughness of its style and the open-ended nature of the plot. Instead of presenting his readers with a polished final product, Nishi deliberately leaves space for his readers’ to fill in the gaps with their own interpretations. This openness to multifaceted interpretations of his work also led Nishi to allow Yuasa free reign to adapt Mind Game into an animation. This combination of an abstract manga, plus a studio that encourages its artists to experiment, plus a freelance animator not creatively tied to any studio resulted in a film that quite literally blows the mind as a viewing experience.

On the surface, the film has a fairly simple plotline: an aspiring young manga-ka (Nishi) is reunited with his childhood sweetheart (Myon) and this leads to an unfortunate series of events including finding out that she is engaged to someone else and getting shot in the ass by a wayward yakuza in her family restaurant. Normally a film would be headed to disaster if its main protagonist gets killed twenty minutes in, but this is a film about second chances and Nishi refuses to go quietly into his next life and desperately races back into his old life to try again.

This catapults the film even further into the realm of the abstract. Arguably, the film has no objective plotline at all. As the main protagonist bears the name of the mangaka (or at least, his nom de plume, as is the case with most mangaka), it would seem that the journey that the animation takes us on is a subjective trip into the psyche and creative process of the mangaka himself. The psychedelic nature (though not in the drug-induced sense) of the journey is emphasized by the bright colour palette, which could be right out of a painting by Keiichi Tanaami, the jazzy music (including the brilliant pieces performed by Seiichi Yamamoto and Fushigi Robot), and the highly symbolic imagery such being swallowed by a whale – which Robin Nishi admits he borrowed from Pinocchio. The tagline of the film is “Your life is the result of your own decisions” and this message is driven home by a beautifully animated montage that projects not only the possible future narratives of the 4 characters who find themselves stuck in the belly of a whale together, but also in a matter of minutes illustrates the complex history of Osaka and the transformation of its geography over the decades. A spectacular, thought-provoking film that should not be missed.

The German release of the DVD includes a sheet of stickers and four postcards. Disc extras include some documentary footage about the animation process and interviews with key cast among other video clips that highlight some of film’s musical sequences. The Japanese releases (they seem to have released it in different guises) of Mind Game have English subtitles. The links below lead to more info at cdjapan. Unfortunately the soundtrack, which I would love to have, seems to be out of print at the current time.

MIND GAME (English Subtitles) Special Box [Limited Release]

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

This review is part of Nishikata Film's 2011 Noburo Ofuji Award Challenge.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Ain't No Tomorrows (俺たちに明日はないッス, 2008)

Director Yuki Tanada, a special guest at Nippon Connection this year, is one of a number of women directors creating a niche for themselves in Japan. Traditionally, the role of director has been seen as a man’s job, but at the Podium Discussion: What’s Up With the Women?, producer Yukie Kito said that women make up 70% of filmgoers in Japan. Therefore, it only makes sense that more women should go into directing. Women have played key roles behind the scenes since the inception of the cinema industry, doing continuity (like Kurosawa’s assistant Teruyo Nogami) and screenwriting. According to Kito, women dominate the fields of producing and marketing films in contemporary Japan.

If Ain’t No Tomorrows (Oretachi ni asu wa naissu, 2008) is representative of what women directors have to offer, then I am truly excited about the future of Japanese cinema. On the surface, Ain’t No Tomorrows begins as a standard drama about the life of teenagers. Standard teenage types are set up: the rabble-rouser, the fat kid, the teacher’s pet, and so on. Rabble-rousing teen Hiruma (Tokio Emoto) leads his friends in the bullying of fat student Andou (Ini Kusano). They give him the nickname ‘Boobs’ because of the extra fat on his chest, and pay him ¥100 to feel up his man-boobs while they fantasize about their big-chested classmate Akie (Ayame Misaki). Akie, meanwhile, resents that boys lust after her only for her looks and aren’t interested in her as a person. Rounding of the main characters are Miné, the good-looking guy who generally follows what the crowd is doing and bespectacled Miwako plays the role of teachers pet.

The stereotypes begin to get overturned with the introduction of Chizu, a naïve girl who Miné discovers face down in a park with blood running down her thighs. Although her uniform indicates that Chizu is from the same school as Miné, he has never seen her before and we share with him his initial fear that she has been the victim of a rape. When he wakes her, he discovers that she has only been the victim of her own panic. Chizu has gotten her period for the first time quite late, and being motherless doesn’t understand what is happening to her body.

The introduction of Chizu leads to the male and female characters pairing off and tentatively negotiating their first sexual experiences together. The film gives a raw depiction of teenage sexuality and the peer pressure to have sex in all its awkwardness and embarrassment. Tanada foregrounds the ignorance of teenagers about the mechanics of sex and the functioning of their own bodies. Receiving little or no information from their parents and their school, the young people have to learn from each other about how things work.

By the end of the film, each of the six central teenaged characters has risen above character ‘types’ and evolved into complex characters with hidden facets. Tanada has managed to nuture some remarkably sensitive performances out of her young cast. The characters of Miné and Andou were the most nuanced depictions of teenaged boys that I have ever seen. Ini Kusano, who plays the fat boy Andou, appears to actually lose a lot of the weight for the final scenes.

During the Q&A that followed the screening, Yuki Tanada explained that she had had low expectations for the films success because of its limited release, but had been quite pleased so far with the critical response. The film has struck a particular chord with audiences in their 30s and 40s who recall their teenage years with some bitterness.

This film is due out on DVD on May 22nd in Japan. Links are provided below for other films by Yanada that are available on DVD. The original manga for this film is also availabe.

Oretachi ni Asu wa Naissu Deluxe Edition

Director: Yuki Tanada (タナダユキ)
Based on a manga by: Akira Sasō (さそうあきら)
Screenplay: Kōsuke Mukai (向井康介)
Cinematography: Yutaka Yamazaki (山崎裕)


Cast:
Tokio Emoto （柄本時生）as Hiruma (比留間)
Yūya Endō （遠藤雄弥）as Miné (峯)
Ini Kusano （草野イ二）as Andou aka An-pai (安藤 aka 安パイ/Boobs)
Sakura Andō （安藤サクラ）as Chizu (ちづ)
Ayame Misaki （水崎綾女）as Akie (秋恵)
Miwako （みわこ）as Tomono (友野)
Dankan（ダンカン）as Chizu’s father（ちづの父）


Yuki Tanada Filmography

2001 The Mole　（モル）
2004 Takada Wataru: A Japanese Original (タカだワタル的, documentary)
2004 Moon and Cherry (月とチェリー)
2005 Sakuran (さくらん, screenplay only)
2007 Hatsuko’s World (赤い文化住宅の初子)
2008 Aoi Yū X Yottsu no Uso: Camouflage (蒼井優×4つの嘘 カムフラージュ, TV drama)
2008 One Million Yen & the Nigamushi Woman (百万円と苦虫女)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009