Nishikata Film Review

02 August 2011

Japan in Germany 2: Green Tea Cycle Katzenzunge

I have just returned from our summer holidays to a backlog of e-mails and blog entries. The first stop in my July travels was the city of Bonn in North Rhine-Westphalia. My husband was there for business, and I tagged along to visit a cousin and do some sightseeing. As the weather was fine – a rarity in Germany this summer – I decided to walk to the Museum Mile rather than take the U-Bahn.

After passing such historical buildings as Villa Hammerschmidt and Palais Schaumburg, I followed Willy-Brandt-Allee to the U-Bahn station at Heussallee. As I waited at the lights to cross Heussallee, my eyes were drawn to a wagon drawn by a bicycle with a sign in Japanese advertising green tea. It was so completely unexpected; I thought that I was seeing things for a moment.

As I forgot my camera that day, I have taken a screencap from the website.

Another sign introduced the wagon as Green Tea Cycle Katzenzunge and the menu offered a wide assortment of green tea from full-flavoured varieties such as Tenko and Shincha to milder green teas such as Kukicha and Hojicha. The menu even offered such modern concoctions as Matchaccino: cappuccino made with matcha (green tea powder ) instead of coffee.

I was greeted by the friendly, smiling face of the proprietor Ryoji Ichikawa (follow him on Twitter where he updates daily on his whereabouts) and as he prepared my Genmaicha, I asked him about how he came to be on the Museum Mile in Bonn. I learned that his wife is German and after living together in Osaka for several years, they had moved to Bonn for her work two years ago. He noticed that proper Japanese tea was hard to come by in Bonn and decided to start up his small business selling green tea.

The name “Katzenzunge” (Cat Tongue) should not be confused with Katzenzungen, the traditional German chocolate confectionery by Feodora . Rather, it is the literal translation of the Japanese neko-jita (猫舌). The term “neko-jita” is used to describe someone who is very sensitive to hot (but not spicy) liquids or foods. In his explanation of why he called his business “Katzenzunge”, Ichikawa-san explains that the name conjures up for him the image of people blowing on their hot drinks in order to cool them down – an image that gives him a kind of cozy feeling.

I certainly felt very cosy as I parked myself on a bench by the Rhine and sipped my Genmaicha out of its stylish (for a disposable cup) white paper cup with black lid.. As I watched the ships pass up and down the river, I must admit that I felt a bit natsukashii. . . it occurred to me that the last time I had sat by myself and watched shipping vessels was in Yokohama back in 2006 when I went for a walk after seeing the Nihonga Painting: Six Provocative Artists exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art. Sigh. . .

If you live in the Bonn area or are planning to visit anytime soon, I highly recommend visiting Green Tea Cycle Katzenzunge and enjoying a traditionally brewed, organic green tea. Weather-permitting, Mondays to Fridays, Ichikawa-san can be founded on Heussallee. On Saturdays, Sundays, and state holidays, he can be found on the Bonn side of the Rhein – a wonderful place to go for a stroll or a bike ride.

One can also purchase about a dozen varieties of loose leaf Keiko Organic Green Tea from Kagoshima. Ichikawa-san also offers lessons in green tea preparation. Visit the Green Tea Cycle Katzenzunge website for more information.

This blog post is part of a new series called Japan in Germany.

22 July 2011

Japan in Germany 1: Glico's Mikado

This year, Japan and Germany have been celebrating “150 Years of Friendship” (日独交流150周年 // 150 Jahre Freundschaft Deutschland–Japan - 2011) – as 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and… well, this part of the world. They are kind of fudging it a bit because Germany did not exist as a country 150 years ago - but any reason to celebrate is good enough for me.

My connection between the two countries is that I met my German husband while teaching English in Japan in 2001. Moving to Germany from Japan in 2007 was a bit of an adjustment as there are a lot of social differences between the two countries. Yet I was delighted to find that Japanese culture has many fans here in Germany. This month is was also wonderful to see how Nadeshiko Japan – the Japanese national women’s football team – captured the hearts of German football fans despite the fact that they had dashed the home team’s chances of victory in the World Cup.

I have, of course, shared my annual experiences of Nippon Connection in Frankfurt – the biggest Japanese film festival in the world – with my loyal readers. This summer, in honour of those 150 years of ties between Japan and Germany/Prussia, I would like to start a new series called Japan in Germany where I share with you some of the quirky and delightful Japanese things I have discovered during my time here.

For my inaugural Japan in Germany blog post, I thought I would start with something humorous. When Japanese friends come to visit us, I always have a box or two of Glico’s Mikado chocolate sticks for them to take home with them as a souvenir. The look on a Japanese person’s face to see Pocky sticks – which got their name from the sound that they make when eaten “pokkin” (ポッキン) – re-branded as Mikado, which of course means “Emperor of Japan”, is absolutely priceless.

Pocky sticks are branded as “Mikado” throughout Europe because of the similarity of their shape to the sticks used in the game that I knew as a child in Canada as pick-up sticks but is called Mikado here in Europe. It is said that the game took its name from the name of the highest scoring blue-coloured stick which is called “Mikado.”

Example of Biene Maja ice cream from Eiscafe Dolce Vita

I have found Mikado sticks here in milk chocolate and dark chocolate flavours. While they are just as delicious as Pocky sticks – read a thorough comparison of the two over at Otaku News - I must admit that I miss the wider variety of flavours one can get in Japan such as matcha and almond. Mikado sticks have also made their way into German Eiscafés (Italian gelato cafés in Germany). The Biene Maja (Maya the Bee/みつばちマーヤ from the anime series by Nippon Animation in the mid-1970s – a very popular children’s series here in Germany) ice cream for kids usually uses Mikado sticks for the antennae.

Also read: Japan in Germany 2: Green Tea Cycle Katzenzunge

20 July 2011

Story of a Certain Street Corner (ある街角の物語, 1962)

Osamu Tezuka’s childhood experiences in wartime Japan indelibly shaped the themes and motifs of his manga and anime. His award-winning animation Story of a Certain Street Corner (aka Tales of the Street Corner/ ある街角の物語, 1962) is the most lyrical expression of Tezuka’s humanist, anti-war sentiments.

It is the first of Tezuka’s jikken animation – or experimental works – which Tezuka made for artistic rather than commercial purposes. Although the animation does employ some unusual techniques such as a POV shot of a plane tree seed flying to the ground, it is not “experimental” in the usual sense of the word. When I think of experimental Japanese animation, I think of Yōji Kuri, Takashi Itō, Naoyuki Tsuji, Mirai Mizue, and others – animators who actually experiment with image, narrative, and sound. Although Story of a Certain Street Corner appears more indulgent in terms of visual aesthetic than Astro Boy (1963-75), it was done using Mushi Pro’s usual practice of “limited animation”: using as few cels as possible in order to keep the budget down. Story of a Certain Street Corner took over a year to complete and was funding by Tezuka’s work as a manga-ka. It was co-directed by Eiichi Yamamoto (Cleopatra, One Thousand and One Nights) and Yusaku Sakamoto. Gisaburo Sugii (Night on the Galactic Railroad) worked as an animator on the film.

The 39-minute animation opens by introducing the central characters one-by-one using title cards – a method dating back to the earliest silent feature films. Living in the attic of a tall city apartment is a young girl with her blue teddy bear. In a hole in the wall of the same building lives a mischievous mouse named Kanku-Bōya and his enormous family. On the street below is an alley way lined by colourful posters. On the corner sits a Platanus – known as a plane tree in English – who is given a delightful sequence in which she releases her seeds. Other star turns are put in by an impish “chinpira” moth, an old street light, and the centerpiece of the film: the figures on the posters themselves.

The setting is a kind of idealized European setting – with a colour palette reminiscent of MGM musicals of the 1950s like An American in Paris (Vincente Minelli, 1951) and Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen, 1952). The drama begins when a red balloon escapes from a street vendor passing down the street. It distracts the little girl who drops her teddy bear. The teddy bear gets stuck in the eaves trough, where the little mouse encounters it and mistakes it for being a real animal.

The most impressive sequences of the film begin when the mouse accidentally falls down the downspout and stares dizzily at the posters. One of male figures takes on the role of conductor and leads the others in a musical number. The posters feature romance – between a violinist on one poster and a pianist on another – and comedy. Although the setting is distinctly European in flavour, there are posters that reference Japanese culture, while others play up the comedy of using stereotypes of world cultures such as kangaroos for Australia or bull fighters for Spain. There are also references to world art such as Rodin’s The Thinker (1902) and Toulouse-Lautrec’s famous Moulin Rouge – La Goulue (1891) poster. The comic effect of this sequence is enhanced by the delightful original music by Tatsuo Takai (who was also responsible for the Astro Boy music).

The strongest influence aesthetically to the animation is 1950s graphic design and illustration. The vibrant colour palette is similar to that of the collage work of Ezra Jack Keats (Peter’s Chair, A Snowy Day) and both the style and colours are reminiscent of the work of Walt Peregoy. Check out examples of Walt Peregoy and other illustrators from this period at Amid Amidi’s excellent blog Cartoon Modern to see what I mean.

The delightful poster sequence comes to an abrupt halt with the arrival of a pair of military boots marching down the street. The feet stop and hands put up a poster of a decorated military official – in a style that clearly demarcates it as regime propaganda. The other posters are clearly intimidated by this poster and freeze in fear. The mood is briefly lifted again by sequences that feature the plane tree, the moth and the streetlight, and the mouse and the teddy bear in the rain. But the idyll of this romantic street corner is again interrupted by the forces of totalitarian propaganda. Some of the posters – such as that of the girl on piano and the male violinist – resist the totalitarian forces. The papering of posters escalates into full scale war which ends in the destruction of the neighbourhood. Among the rubble, however, there is a fluttering of hope for both humanity and the natural world in form of the young girl being reunited with her teddy bear and the sprouting of the seeds of the plane tree.

This film won Tezuka the first ever Noburō Ōfuji Award, which the Mainichi Film Concours established the year following the death of esteemed animation pioneer Noburō Ōfuji (大藤信郎, 1900-1961). It is an interesting choice considering the fact that Yoji Kuri had just won the Special Jury Prize at Annecy in 1962 for Clap Vocalism. Kuri would be honoured with a Noburō Ōfuji Award a few years later, but for the inaugural prize, they decided to go with a film with an uplifting social message. The Story of a Certain Street Corner is not only an antiwar film, but also a story about the importance of freedom of expression.