Rurouni Kenshin                                              

Romaji: Rurouni Kenshin

Japanese Title: るろうに剣心

Release Date: August, 25^th 2012 (Japan)

UK Release Date: August 2013 (UK)

Running Time: 134 mins.

Director: Keishi Ohtomo

Writer: Watsuki Nobuhrio (Original Manga), Kiyomi Fujii, Keishi Ohtomo (Screenplay)

Starring: Takeru Sato, Emi Takei, Yu Aoi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Taketo Tanaka, Munetaka Aoki, Yosuke Eguchi, Koji Kikkawa,

The live-action adaptation of Nobuhiro Watsuki’s classic chanbara manga Rurouni Kenshin is the latest release from Warner Bros. Japan. The company is building a large portfolio of live-action adaptations of anime and manga for the big screen. Previous projects from the Warner Bros. include releases like Wild 7, Ninja Kids!!!, the Death Note films and the Berserk anime. These are titles which are popular in and outside of Japan, safe properties which come with an in-built fan-base. A safe bet if you will and it seems to have payed off because Rurouni Kenshin was one of the highest grossing film in Japan in 2012 and not without reason because it is one of the best adaptations of an anime or manga that I have seen in a while. This post is full of Gifs so apologies for slow loading times.

The film opens with subtitles:

140 years ago, during a time of chaos in the final days of the Edo period there was an assassin known as Battousai the Manslayer. Under the order of the Imperialists, he worked from the shadows in the previous capital of Japan, Kyoto. Everyone feared him for his devilish strength and cold-blooded demeanour. It is the Boshin War, the decisive battle…

 January 1868. We cut from the subtitles to the Battle of Toba-Fushimi  in full swing as the forces of the Emperor and the Tokugawa Shogunate clash for control of the country. Cannon and rifles blast samurai to pieces. Then… one samurai with a distinctive cross shaped scar on his cheek cuts a path through the enemy!

He is the elite swordsman Kenshin Himura. Battousai the Manslayer. He dances and dodges all incoming attacks, slitting throats, breaking rifles and cutting down all who stand before him. He is part of the forces fighting to maintain the current power structures but he alone cannot stop the battle from being lost and a new era for Japan starting…

1878, The early Meiji period in Japan is a time of rapid industrialisation and modernisation as western ideals and science take a hold. It is also a time when samurai like Kenshin Himura are either finding a new place in government or being consigned to the history books. 

Kenshin Himura now finds himself as a wandering samurai who has taken an oath not to kill and offers aid to those in need as atonement for his past actions. During his travels he meets Kaoru Kamiya, an instructor at her father’s Kendo school. She offers Kenshin a place to stay at her dojo and their relationship begins to blossom but Kenshin’s past will soon catch up with him as he discovers that somebody has been using the name “Battousai” while committing murders in Tokyo. This person works for an evil businessman named Kanryu (Kagawa) who is using foul means to build an empire. But Kanryu is a minor threat compared to the mysterious man. Just as Kenshin survived the battle, others have survived and they are using their skills for evil. Even if the world changes one thing holds true for these warriors: Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Rurouni Kenshin is a hugely popular title as shown by the fact that its manga ran for five years (1994 – 1999) and accrued 28 volumes which have sold over 55 million copies in Japan (according to Wikipedia) and spawned a TV anime, films and numerous OVAs, videogames and light novels. Fear not, you don’t need to be a fan of the manga or anime to understand what is going on here. The story cleverly adapts large amount of the original material but remains easy to follow. Furthermore, although firmly rooted in Japanese history you do not need to be an expert in that either because all the relevant events and history are sketched quickly and efficiently. The prime purpose of the film is to be a fun and colourful historical action film and in that regard it succeeds brilliantly.

In complete contrast to 47 Ronin it eschews trying to be portentous and drops the overambitious and distracting fantasy elements and instead focusses on simply being entertaining action film. It holds onto the story of Japan’s transition into a modern state and fates of characters caught up in these changes.

The cast bring to life Japanese taking on new roles and customs as their world changes. Businessmen rub shoulders with people carrying shrines, a newly created police force look after traders and housewives in traditional dress. There are numerous examples of samurai either adapting to the Meiji era by taking up positions in the police or roving around as packs of brigands.

The main characters are all familiar archetypes – Kenshin is a good-looking hero with a dark past, Kanryu is a sneering villain and Kaoru is a bit of a damsel – but they do have points of interest as some are the results of the trauma of previous wars and the new age. Kanryu is a parasitic industrialist who has taken advantage of the modernisation that is going on. Money is the dominating factor and he hires samurai as protection and treats them like dogs, reversing the power structure of the old age where trade was looked down upon by samurai. Kenshin is a former elite assassin full of regrets and accepting poverty and shunning violence and his past to atone for his violent past. Kaoru is a bit of an emancipated woman, a tom-boy who is willing to fight and mostly getting in over her head, but upholding traditional values such as honour.

Despite Kaoru being a damsel she has a major effect on the story as her acceptance of Kenshin begins to show him that change is possible, that men like him are still needed in the modern age.

The characters are all well-portrayed and they have enough quirks and detail written into them and acted out that they appear larger than life and memorable for it. Pretty-boy idol Takeru Sato (BECK) does a good job as the titular samurai. He moves with a litheness and skill that fits the character and maintains a humble look and good-natured personality.

When he has to go dark and turn to the path of violence it is convincing. As Kaoru Emi Takei (Ai to Makoto) playing Kaoru is hardly pushed in the role but her performance provides a steady and vital emotional heart beat that makes Kenshin’s development feel real and the ending that much more effective at evoking the right emotions.

That written, my favourite female character was Megumi who was portrayed by Yu Aoi (Memories of Matsuko, Honey and Clover) who was just so seductive and sexy.

Teruyuki Kagawa (Key of Life, Tokyo Sonata, Serpent’s Path), an amazing actor is a bit of a pantomime villain as Kanryu. He constantly sneers and is prone to veering between glowering and yelling but it fits the tone of the film and fun. Gou Ayano (The Story of Yonosuke) plays a particularly cool dagger-wielding scarred assassin named Gein and his fight with Kenshin was my favourite as it features flurries of furious action.

The film’s cinematography, editing, and direction are just fantastic. The costume and set design are perfectly detailed and breathe a lot of life onto the screen and create a feeling of verisimilitude. The film begins on a gritty battlefield but takes in a lot of locations that reflect the changes in Japanese society and the encroaching westernisation.

The contrast between the humble looking Kenshin and the people around him, those who wear yukata/kimono’s and live in small, simple, traditional houses, could not be more different to Kanryu and his mob of preening attendants who wear western suits and reside in a white-walled mansion made of classical architecture. Just as an elegantly simple dojo gets wrecked in a fight, so do the richly-furnished libraries and studies, with walls adorned with ceramics and numerous windows and glass objects which help make fantastic sets for the good guys to throw the bad guys around in.

The fight choreography is hugely entertaining. This is old-school stuff, wirework and committed physical performances, quick and clean editing and direction which maintains a fast pace and captures the drama and chaos of situations through smart intercutting of moments to create overlapping drama and a growing senses of desperation. Everything is well-designed. Kenshin makes a point of using the reverse-blade technique so as not to kill. Indeed he tries not to draw his sword or fight and relies upon his speed and grace. The bad guys use a variety of weapons, fists, guns, daggers and swords and are all out to kill. Seeing Kenshin up against the villains is thrilling because the fights look realistic, brutal and there is little CGI involved to distract. Every fight scene had me grinning with excitement and were enjoyable affairs much like the movie as a whole.

Before I headed to London to attend the Raindance Independent Film Festival I had found out that the live-action adaptation of Rurouni Kenshin was going to be released across the UK in various cinemas including the one I usually visit. I had already persuaded my mother and sister, two people with no idea of what Rurouni Kenshin is, to watch it with me and it turned out to be a good decision because we all enjoyed the film and found it easy to understand. What we got was a visual treat with awesome action, great fight choreography and great actors to create hugely enjoyable action movie, one that I would recommend for anyone. There are two sequels on the way and I am eagerly anticipating them.

4.5/5

The first of the double-trailer posts for 2014! There are a lot of Japanese films getting released this weekend but the releases started on January 09^th with the continued Neo Ultra Q screenings. Today sees the release of Wake Up, Girls!, a movie created to tie in with a winter anime (and one of my picks) that premieres on today as well. There are some short animated films and a screening of a stage play released tomorrow but I have placed them here today so tomorrow won’t be overloaded. So if I had to pick a film out of this bunch it would be Wake Up Girls!

Neo Ultra Q Special Screening Part III  

Japanese: ネオ ウルトラQ 特別上映 part III

Romaji: Neo Urutorakyū Tokubetsu Jōei part III

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: January 09^th, 2014

Director: Gakuryu Ishii, Yu Nakai, Yu Irie, Kiyotaka Taguchi

Writer: Kiyotaka Inagaki, Akari Yamamoto, Ayako Kato (Screenplay)

Starring: Rin Takanashi, Seiichi Tanabe, Hiroyuki Onoe, Masahiko Shimada, Miyuki Koizumi, Rina Ota, Toru Shinagawa 

Neo Ultra Q is the latest series of adaptations of a sci-fi project created by Eiji Tsuburaya, special effects director on Godzilla, about three characters who investigated supernatural and alien phenomena. Apparently the show ran for 28 episodes from January to July in 1966, received a radio drama and movie edition. This latest one is a collection of 12 episodes from the TV sequel and features excellent actors like Rin Takanashi (Goth: Love of Death) and Shota Sometani (Himizu) and has the director Gakuryu Ishii (Isn’t Anyone Alive?). Yesterday was the 09^th of January and on the 09^th of every month is now known as “Q Day” which means that the latest three episodes of the TV show Visitor Q are rolled into one movie and screened for an appreciative audience. There are also additional treats for said audience at each screening such as a Q&A and old episodes. Sounds and looks fun. This screening comes with an old episode of Ultra Q called Challenge of 2020.

Three people: a psychologist doing research on the supernatural, a young beautiful journalist with an inquisitive mind and a bartender who has sympathy towards other forms of life. Together the trio set out to look into the paranormal and futuristic phenomena that confront our life and society. 

Website

Wake Up, Girls!

Japanese: Wake Up, Girls! 七人のアイドル

Romaji: Wake Up, Girls! Shichijin no Aidoru

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: January 10^th, 2014

Director: Yutaka Yamamoto

Writer: Touko Machida (Screenplay)

Starring: Airi Nagano (Airi Hayashida), Kaya Okuno (Kaya Kikuma), Minami Tanaka (Minami Katayama), Mayu Yoshioka (Mayu Shimada), Miyu Okamoto (Miyu Takagi), Noriko Hidaka (Junko Tange)

As mentioned above, this anime is one of my winter 2014 picks because of the potential that the topic and setting involve. The topic is a bunch of idols located in Sendai in Japan’s Tohoku region which was one of the locations heavily affected by the Earthquake and Tsunami. I’m hoping that the TV anime is going to be a source of good drama. This film is part of a multimedia project orchestrated by Yutaka Yamamoto that involves an anime, movie and music. The animation is a co-production between Ordet and Tatsunoko Productions.

A small production agency in Sendai called The Green Leaves Entertainment is on the verge of bankruptcy following the flight of its roster of stars but the president has an idea – produce a new idol group! We follow seven girls who want to star in the “ideol sengoku jidai” Idol Warring States Period! of the modern day.

Website

Golden Time  

Japanese: ゴールデンタイム

Romaji: Go-ruden Taimu

Running Time: 23 mins.

Release Date: January 10^th, 2014

Director: Takuya Inaba

Writer: Takuya Inaba(Screenplay)

Starring: N/A

Golden Time is a short animation written, directed and animated by Takuya Inabe and it is the first part of the trailer. It’s set I the 1980s in a Japan entering its bubble economy moment when the economy really went into overdrive. The stuff at the junkyard are the products that have been abandoned including the TV which is from the 1960s.

Website

Tap-kun                 

Japanese: タップ君

Romaji: Tapu-kun

Running Time: 23 mins.

Release Date: January 10^th, 2014

Director: An Masako

Writer: Tatsuya Shimamura (Screenplay)

Starring: N/A

This is another short film but it is set in Europe before and after World War II and we see a shoemaker named Mr Smith who repairs some tap dancing shoes which carry a history which is gradually revealed. Both films end with a Q&A with the directors.

Website

Romaji: Meidjiza Korokke Tokubetsu Kōen Horafuki to Musashi Korokke mo no Mane Onsutēji 2013 gekijōban        

Japanese: 明治座コロッケ特別公演　ほら吹きと武蔵　コロッケものまねオンステージ2013 劇場編集版

Romaji: Meidjiza Korokke Tokubetsu Kōen Horafuki to Musashi Korokke mo no Mane Onsutēji 2013 gekijōban

Running Time: 130 mins

Release Date: January 10^th, 2014

Director: Gakuryu Ishii, Yu Nakai, Yu Irie, Kiyotaka Taguchi

Writer: Kiyotaka Inagaki, Akari Yamamoto, Ayako Kato (Screenplay)

Starring: Croket

The Japanese comedian Croket/Croquette? Was at the Meijiza throughout the second half of 2013 where he took to the stage to play a man who is mistaken for the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. There’s singing and dancing, period costumes and setsm it looks like a fun night out. Head over to the website to see the trailer.

Website

Hello the first full week of 2014. It has been packed with lots anime as I got started with the 2013/14 winter season. Nobunaga the Fool was cool and Nobunagun was LOTS of fun but my highlight so far has to be Hoozuki no Reitetsu! If you like grown-up comedy you should watch it!

I started the week off with my favourite game of 2013, and followed it up with posts with reviews for two films I saw last year, the dull 47 Ronin and fantastic and fun Rurouni Kenshin. The Gifs I made for those reviews have proven to be quite popular on my Tumblr blog! Yesterday’s trailer post was all about the small films and anime and this post is packed full of blockbusters. Here they are:

Idol is Dead: Non-chan’s Propaganda Major War 

Japanese: アイドル・イズ・デッド-ノンちゃんのプロパガンダ大戦争-

Romaji: Aidoru Izu Deddo – Nonchan no Puropaganda Daisenso

Running Time: 84 mins.

Release Date: January 10^th, 2014

Director: Yukihiro Kato

Writer: Yukihiro Kato (Screenplay)

Starring:Rio Michibayashi, Yufu Terashima, Nozomi Hirano, Pour Lui, Toko Miura, Eliksa Yanagi, Saori Kaneko, Shingo Mizusawa

This is the first idol film of the year and it stars the girls of BiS and Electric★Kiss who battle each other in various contests.

Website

Judge (2014)  

Japanese: ジャッジ！

Romaji: Jajji!

Running Time: 105 mins.

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Director: Akira Nagai

Writer: Yoshimitsu Sawamoto (Screenplay)

Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Keiko Kitagawa, Lily Franky, Kyoka Suzuki, YosiYosi Arakawa, Yoji Tanaka, Denden, Ryo Kase, Etsushi Toyokawa, Iyo Matsumoto,

Apparently this is based on an original idea which poles fun at international TV advertising. There’s a large cast of excellent actors like Satoshi Tsumabuki (For Love’s Sake), Denden (Cold Fish), Lily Franky (Like Father, Like Son) and YosiYosi Arakawa (Fine, Totally Fine).

Kiichiro Ota (Tsumabuki) has just scored a job at an advertising agency and already he is sent to the world’s biggest TV advertising festival with Hikari Ota (Kitagawa). They get to pretend to be husband and wife due to their similar family names but tey couldn’t be more different since she is serious and he is a bit of a geek (his Urusei Yatsura T-shirt is a giveaway) who loves to party. Kiichiro’s party soon ends when he finds out that unless his company’s commercial wins a prize he’ll be fired and soon he finds himself scheming and bargaining to get the prize.

Website

Seventh Code            

Japanese Title:  Seventh Code

Romaji: Sebunsu Kodo

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Running Time: 60 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Starring: Atsuko Maeda, Ryohei Suzuki, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Aissy

Kiyoshi Kurosawa ended 2013 on a high as his latest film Seventh Code won two awards at the Rome Film Festival. The for Best director and technical contribution and was very surprised to get them. This is a 60 minute thriller starring Atsuko Maeda, a former member of AKB48 and rising actress who has worked on titles like The Drudgery Train and Tamako in Moratorium. The film looks really, really intriguing and I can watch Atsuko in anything.

Akiko (Maeda) travels to Vladivostok to track down Matsunaga (Suzuki), the man she is convinced, who is the love of her life. When they meet Matsunaga claims not to remember her and tells her not to trust anyone in a foreign country. He then leaves. When Akiko tries to find Matsunaga again she is attacked by the mafia and thrown into a wasteland with no money.

Website

Oh! My! God!!! Kamisama Kara no Okurimono

Japanese: おー!まい!ごっど!神様からの贈り物

Romaji: Oh! My! God!!! Kamisama Kara no Okurimono

Running Time: 92 mins.

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Director: Shunji Muguruma

Writer: Rie Nakajima (Original Novel) Shunji Muguruma, Keisuke Makino (Screenplay)

Starring: Hiromi Sakimoto, Saaya Irie, Shiro Tsubuyaki, Ai Watari

A musical comedy with a cross-dressing dude. I wouldn’t be caught dead watching this… and yet… OH! MY! GOD! It could be fun! No. Just re-watched the trailer. No. The main character is played by Hiromi Sakimoto (Zero Focus)

Seiki Fujimoto (Sakimoto) was a rather lethargic teacher until a woman committing suicide by throwing herself off a building used him as a landing pad. Now he’s in a purgatory like place between Heaven and Hell and given a task by a person named Gongensama – make four women personify feminine beauty (“Yamato Nadeshiko”) and he can get into heaven. And so it’s back to reality with Fujimoto who meets some strange characters…

Website

Trick the Movie: Last Stage 

Japanese: トリック劇場版 ラストステージ

Romaji: Torikku Gekijoban Rasto Suteji

Running Time: 112 mins.

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Writer: Koji Makita (Screenplay)

Starring: Hiroshi Abe, Yukie Nakama, Katsuhisa Namase, Kazuki Kitamura, Kiko Mizuhara,

Apparently the final chapter (and fourth movie) of the popular mystery comedy series where the magician Naoko (Nakama) and the physicist Jiro (Abe) embark on an adventure and encounter strange things. In this adventure Shinichi Kagami (Higashiyama) has got the mining rights in an unexploed location where the local people believe in magic and are casuing trouble. They head into a jungle where they meet a tribal shaman (Mizuhara).

Website

Shippu Nijimaru-gumi  

Japanese: 疾風・虹丸組

Romaji: Shippu Nijimaru-gumi

Running Time: 112 mins.

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Director: Norihisa Yoshimura

Writer: Norihisa Yoshimura (Screenplay), Shinya Kuwahara (Original Manga)

Starring: Manpei Takagi, Toshi Takeuchi, Natsuki Ikeda

This is the live-action film adaptation of the delinquent gang manga Shippu Nijimarugumi which was created by Shinya Kuwahara and is still being released. This accompanies a TV adaptation and it stars Manpei Tagaki as chief yankee dude Yun Nijikawa who wants to get “Infinity Gold,” a treasure awarded to the number one gang in the area. Here’s the music video for the theme song:

Yankee action as thuggish young men punch each other, scowl and growl and makes school girl’s hearts flutter with their roguishness

Website

Ho Scars of Desire

Japanese: HO 欲望の爪痕

Romaji: HO Yokubo no Tsumeato

Running Time: 120 mins.

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Director: Shibata Ainosuke

Writer: Hiroyasu Kubota (Screenplay)

Starring: Miyuki Yokoyama, Hiroaki Kawazure, Mitsuki Koga

I’d usually make some crass and borderline offensive comment about sexy women that paints me as a lecherous swine but I was sent on a “Diversity Course” this week and so I’ll be good. That and the trailer for this looked like junk and I’m not as lecherous as I make out.

Website

Yamauchi Keisuke THE Kayō Mūbī Shōwa Kayō Kikiippatsu!

Japanese: 山内惠介・THE歌謡ムービー　昭和歌謡危機一髪！

Romaji: Yamauchi Keisuke THE Kayō Mūbī Shōwa Kayō Kikiippatsu!

Running Time: 112 mins.

Release Date: January 11^th, 2014

Director: Suzu Masa

Writer: Suzu Masa (Screenplay)

Starring: Keisuke Yamauchi, Toru Takeuchi, Hiroshi Shimizu,

Keisuke Yamauchi is an Enka singer who makes his silver screen debut with this film which is a story that sees him endure the troubles of show-business and a rare disease that prevents him from singing. Will he overcome his troubles?

Website

One of my new year’s resolutions for 2013 was to review more anime and I have done that. By combining my writing for Anime UK News with my blog and by carving out 30 minutes a day for viewing titles I have upped my anime output. As a result of these efforts I have lot of titles to choose from for my Best Anime of 2013. I’ll split this into the two categories of film and TV simply because I have seen some great films and TV. When I originally wrote this Spirited Away was on Film4 so it continues!

My top ten anime of 2013 is below followed by my final choices for my favourites of the year.

1. Attack on Titan First Impression, Part 2 , Final Thoughts / Joint Number 1: Kyousogiga
2. Mai Mai Miracle , Joint Number 2: Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story
3. No Matter How I Look at it, it’s Yous Guys Fault I’m Unpopular (Watamote) First Impression, Final Thoughts
4.  My Youth Romantic Comedy is a Failure as Expected First Impression, Final Thoughts
5. Gatchaman Crowds First Impression, Final Thoughts
6. Galilei Donna
7. Red Data Girl First Impression, Final Thoughts
8. Sunday Without God First Impression, Final Thoughts
9. Aku no Hana First Impression, Final Thoughts
10. Kyoukai no Kanata

There were a lot of strong TV anime this year like Kyousogiga and Attack on Titan. I wanted to include Samurai Flamenco because it started out brilliantly as my First Impression, Turning Point, Loses the Plot posts sort detail. I liked how the show started as a slice-of-life title with shades of comedy thanks to the super sentai angle which charmed me with its relatable characters and sideways take on reality all the way through to the show transforming into full-on super sentai and that aspect I don’t really care for. As a result the comedy falls flat and I fear for the characterisation. Aku no Hana was a particular favourite of mine. It was a title caught between otaku bait tropes and slow cinema execution and it suffered for it because the otaku hated the style and the art house crowd generally look down on anime anyway. Those of us more open to difference loved it until the very last episode which blew all of the tension and drama that was built up. As far as anime films go there were only two that I watched this year that I really loved, Mai Mai Miracle and Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story. Anyway, for 2014 I’ll do a quick first impression post for all of the titles and then lengthier posts at the end of the series instead of the other way around.

Best Film – Mai Mai Miracle

I saw Mai Mai Miracle at the Japan Foundation’s Touring Film Programme at the ICA. It adapts Nobuko Takagi’s autobiography and the best way to describe it is as a slice-of-life tale of friendship and imagination that takes place in the lighter and darker aspects of 1950’s Japan.

The tale follows Shinko, a girl who lives in rural Japan in the 1950’s who befriends a girl named Kiiko, a recent arrival in town who is reserved and melancholy because of a personal tragedy she carries. Shinko has an incredible imagination and interest in history which she uses to make friends with Kiiko and draw her out of her shell. The two form a deep friendship through the power of imagination and get a large circle of friends. Imagination proves to be important as it allows Shinko to adapt to the harsh realities of life and overcome various real-world troubles and coming out the other side being able to see the positivity in life.

Going into the film I was expecting My Neighbour Totoro but it became a title of its own as I was charmed by its great animation and its use of the children’s perspective to tell a complex story of adapting to the harshness of real life and maturing. Each of the characters introduced is believable and the stories they bring to the screen enrich the film as the children become aware of how complex life can be. The animation relayed the post-1940’s world with great detail and managed to combine it with flights of imagination and speculation as Shinko dreams up ancient kingdoms and customs. It’s very beautiful, the story is well written and the characters are loveable. We care for them and as they grow we become absorbed in their journey.

Fuse: A Gun Girl’s Detective Story

I had been following this film for Anime UK News back when the first teasers and trailers were released in 2011. Two years on and I finally watched it and I enjoyed it a lot.

The film’s main selling point for me was the clever re-writing of the original fantasy tale it is based on to lace it into a very real period of history. The story was made more effective for me because of the gorgeous animation and colours and because of the loveable characters including the central brother and sister.

Best TV Series – Attack on Titan/Kyousogiga

Attack on Titan

I think I made clear my feelings on Attack on Titan but you may not have read that post so I’ll recycle them here. I started to read the manga in 2011 and was fascinated by the world and designs. I was excited at the prospect of watching the anime but I could never have guessed how much it would hook me. It impressed me so much that I was excited at the mere prospect of watching every episode before they aired and by the end I had started making Gifs, buying figures and soundtracks and written many, many words about the show. This was must-watch TV for me.

The show manages to brilliantly adapts and even improve on Hajime Isayama’s manga. The animation and sound design capture the unique world that Hajime Iseyama create but relayed it with even more force and intensity – which is the power open to animation although I find it hard to imagine anime beating Tsutomu Nihei’s works. The details of the Titans and the humans they devoured, their movements and the battles between them were very well painted. The Titans, their movements and freakish faces, the damage they could do were terrifying and the way the humans soared through the skies and did battle with these huge creatures was exciting. I cared about each of the characters and so I was carried along by the series.

The focus of the anime was on darkness and struggle and it was fun to watch something so gritty. I loved the themes that were with its dark story of death and sacrifice and existential growth and the black humour that was present made things. Overall I found it exciting, enthralling and energetic and excellent.

Kyousogiga

Kyousogiga is magic and chaos. It is pure emotion and love that is gleefully yet carefully revealed and it is the type of show that will not make as much of an impact on as broad of an audience as it should. The writing has been unconventional, favouring an elliptical structure to slowly paint its picture. The animation has been wild and anybody who lacks the genki gene will find all of the visual noise tiresome. It’s not just the visuals because the themes, cultural cues and symbolism are so dense that some of my Japanese friends have been unable to fathom out every aspect of what is on screen. When the final picture is revealed it’s all so simple and can be boiled down to the words love and family.

Now I’m a bit of a cynic and I can steel my heart to many things but lately I’ve been going soft lately and this anime penetrated my armour. Like Mawaru Penguindrum, get past the surreal aspects and it’s all about the adorable and likeable characters with various foibles and their family ties. It is all about love, how we love others and, when all is said and done, find a way to love ourselves as well. Love is shown in its many forms and here it is beautiful and painful to watch as the characters cling to each other and push each other away at points. It is hard to watch this and not get emotional which is a sign of just how invested I was in the series.

Moreover, the love on show comes from the creative team behind the show. Rie Matsumoto, writer and director, and her team have lavished so much love and attention on this show. They have drawn on 12^th century Japanese picture scrolls and updated it with style and skill and even took the time to throw in an entire episode where some of the seiyuu visited the locations and saw the scroll and explained how the adaptation works. The imagination on show is astounding at times as the gorgeous visuals twist and tease our perceptions but what really makes this special is the way that characters connect to each other and the depiction of these connections shows how much the Rie Matsumoto and her team cared. Please, someone give her money to make something else.

Nobunaga the Fool    

Director: Hidekazu Sato, Series Composition/Original Creator/Main Mecha Design: Shoji Kawamori, Character Designer: Yone Kazuki

Voice Actors: Yoko Hikasa (Jeanne Kaguya d’Arc), Tomokazu Sugita (Leonardo da Vinci), Mamoru Miyano (Oda Nobunaga), Takahiro Sakurai (Akechi Mitsuhide), Minori Chihara (Ichihime), Yuuki Kaji (Toyotomi Hideyoshi),

Studio: Satelight

Website

Synopsis

The story takes place on both the Western Planet and the Eastern Planet, both of which were once bound by the “Dragon Pulse” which spanned the heavens. A civilisation that once prospered has turned into a tale of dreams as war tears the realm asunder. The return of super technology known as “sacred treasures” could alter the status quo but only one person knows of it – a heretical girl from the Western Planet known as Jeanne Kaguya d’Arc. She had heavenly visions of the birth of a “Star Messiah” who will save the world and so she, together with Leonard da Vinci, head to the Eastern Planet where they encounter another heretic, “the greatest fool of the day,” Oda Nobunaga.

Trying to make sense of this synopsis is pointless. I think when I was writing it I just gave up and typed on autopilot in the expectation that there would be huge drama and action since this is a series created by Shoji Kawamori, one of the big guns in anime with titles like Aquarion EVOL and Escaflowne under his belt but this story could turn into a mess with its large cast and even larger setting if he mishandles things.

The best way to think about this show is that Kawamori is reinterpreting these historical figures into a bit of a space opera in a parallel universe. The anime starts off in the real world with Joan of Arc’s burning and Oda Nobunaga’s death but that was all a dream since the characters we follow live in an age of lasers and intergalactic travel. Forget actual times, dates and realism just prepare yourself to meet a who’s who of the 15^th and 16^th century and see them piloting giant robots with laser cannons.

The setting of the western and eastern planets reflect the various historical periods of east and west with a sci-fi twist.

Jeanne Kaguya d’Arc lives in a medieval world where she’s an outcast in a village because she hears the voice of God.

Her ruled over by King Arthur and he has a fleet of spaceships overseen by Ferdinand Magellan and these spaceships have giant mecha on board. Awesome. I’ll buy that! She’s also hooked up with Leonard da Vinci who is pretty amusing because of his eccentricities and the fact he seems to be an itinerant inventor with a penchant for snazzy dressing.

Meanwhile over on the eastern planet…

Oda Nobunaga lives in a planet based on Sengoku period Japan. It is full of warring states where armies move around forests and mountains and use giant robots and Nobunaga rides some sort of lizard creature instead of a horse and seems to be the black sheep of his family who likes to hang out with his friends.

There are a lot of changes not least the fact that Nobunaga looks like a good-natured pretty boy protag and isn’t a ruthless warlord who mercilessly crushes his enemies. I wonder if they’ll keep that shudo aspect of the character since he’s surrounded by other pretty boys….

I doubt it because the characters are falling into familiar “safe” gender roles.

Things get a bit disappointing when one sees that Jean Kaguya d’Arc has been turned into a well-endowed damsel in distress and not a war like leader (dare I say religious fanatic?) who leads her people to victory. She’s also following Leonardo da Vinci around like a lost puppy and has already been rescued by Nobunaga in episode one!

Perhaps she will get her moment of martyrdom and destroy King Arthur and his evil empire. I’m guessing this now because King Arthur hasn’t been fully introduced and we don’t know if he runs the bad guys yet but I bet that this is how it’s going to go since King Arthur is a legendary figure in British history and Joan of Arc fought off the English during the 100 years war. I’m intrigued by how all of these historical figures and time periods are going to be linked together and who this Star Messiah could be. Plus the robot action is heating up. Hopefully things improve in terms of story and character.

If the story still sounds a mess then take comfort in the animation which is solid. Nothing really stands out, not the art or voice acting. Actually the CG was rather bad and the drama and some of the dialogue was very cheesy. I can see myself watching it even if I don’t really enjoy it all that much. It was a solid start but the weakest of the anime I have watched so far. Much better came later on that day when I watched Nobunagun…

Here are the OP and ED which aren’t that bad.

Nobunagun   

Director: Nobuhiro Kondo, Original Creator: Masato Hisa, Series Composition: Hiroshi Yamaguchi,Character Design: Hiromi Matsushita, KAZZ T, Mechanical Design: Hirofumi Nakata, Kenichi Takase,

Voice Actors: Shiori Muto (Shio Ogura), Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Jack), Chiwa Saito (Geronimo), Yuu Asakawa (Newton), Sumire Uesaka (Galileo), Akira Ishida (Vidocq), Nobunaga Shimazaki (Ghandi),

Studio: Bridge

Website

Synopsis

High school girl Shio Ogura is visiting Taiwan on a school trip when monsters attack. These creatures are called “Evolved Invaders” and the military is useless against them but then… the mysterious E-Gene Holder agents from the government organisation DOGOO appear! What is special about these guys is that they wield weapons infused with the spirits of great historical figures – Gandhi s a barrier and Newton is a gravitational manoeuvre. It just so happens that Shio Ogura has the e-gene and can wield a weapon! Shio’s E-Gene is infused with the spirit of Oda Nobunaga. He is now a giant machinegun. He is… Nobunagun. Genius. Let the battle commence!

Yeah, Nobunaga as a machine gun named Nobunagun. Just plain genius.

OH MY GOSH.

This is so awesome. All the emotions and drama that anime can provide is nice and all. I mean, I do love the tragedy seen in Attack on Titan, the family aspects of Kyousogiga and the awkward lives of the cast of Aku no Hana but sometimes I just want to have fun and those shows are really entertaining when sh*t gets blown up. The opening two episodes of Nobunagun did this and were fun!

What makes this show is that it is both packed full of action and light-hearted. It has one simple goal, entertainment and nothing more. There is a story but it is an easily digestible one that follows a familiar formula and sets up some cool characters.

All I could think at certain points during this anime was how much fun things were. The visuals and animation are fast flowing, the editing fluid. Camera placement can range from the inspired to the bizarre but it’s never boring.

Everything starts at Nobunaga’s worst moment as he is about to die, his fortress is under attack and he is woken up and in a sequence where we get a first person perspective as he turns badass and battles back his enemies before an alien steals some of his genes. F*ck historical accuracy, lets just get the show in the road! The editing is fast and fluid, the camera angles switch rapidly and action is only a moment away.

Then we get drawn to our main protagonist Shio Ogura.

Shio isn’t a delinquent or a moe girl or a genki girl or some other over-used stereotype that may annoy or act as otaku-bait, she’s just a nice girl, a slight outcast and a bit socially inept and aware of it but essentially lovely.

Anyway, what distinguishes her is her unhealthy interest in weapons – she reads books about them in class, has model tanks and jets at home and daydreams about gones – which is part of the reason she’s frozen out of the cool girl gang. I guess modern teenage girls are starting to get an appetite for destruction in a major way which is cool. I feared she might be a ditzy airhead since when we first meet her she’s late for school and when she sleeps she drools but that was a false alarm. She’s cool.

God, it’s nice to meet a nice girl every so often. I liked the early scenes when she was in Taiwan with her class and disappears by herself to try some local culture instead of hanging around a girl gang trying to fit in. She took in the sights and tried speaking to a stall holder and bumbled through the conversation to earn an extra sweet bun. It humanises her a lot and I identified with her because I’ve done that myself. Anyway she’s not totally unpopular because the idol of the class tries to include her in the trip (they even did a selfie – I bloody hate that word) and it was sweet seeing Shio’s hesitant happiness.

Then we get to the alien invasion. Underwater space aliens emerge and engage the Taiwanese military in a battle that was well-animated, full of flashing lights and explosions and people dying. The switch was a bit like a Kaiju eiga with distant ominous signs soon elbowing their way into reality. Shio was having a nice trip luxuriating in a park and is suddenly thrown into scenes of all out carnage as people are blown apart and skewered on claws!

The switch is dramatic but it works. Throw this into a mix of exciting editing and camera placement and the show becomes an excitement engine. It is very like episode one of Evangelion where conventional military forces gather to attack the aliens (Shio nerding out over the military porn as she stands aghast at all the hardware gathering) and are comprehensively wiped out. It deviates from Evangelion in the fact that Shio isn’t a hyper-depressive who doesn’t believe in herself and runs at the first sign of trouble. No, Shio is brave and she tries to help her classmates and teacher and in doing so unlocks her hidden power. Yeah, we’ve heard that a million times before but this one’s fun.

Remember Nobunaga had some of his DNA stolen by an alien? Turns out that it’s in Shio. The hidden power she has is Nobunaga in the form of a machine gun!

And she turns into what looks to be a hyper-destructive gun-slinger.

Not only that but he appears in her mind to give her tactical advice during battle and encourage her widespread murder of alien beasties and laugh like a lunatic!

She’s not alone because there’s a sociopathic killer who holds the genes of Jack the Ripper who slices and dices his way through the aliens!

And that’s it. The story is that simple to grasp one of the main protagonist discovering hidden powers and blowing sh*t up with other crazy people. This is one of the reasons I watch anime. It appeals to me on a base level. I am reduced to a giddy schoolboy.

The second episode is all about the fallout from the alien invasion and the mix of feelings that Shio has at being given the powers and what she’s fighting for. There’s the revelation that a secret organisation has been watching these creatures and assembled a group of people with similar special powers and their number includes Ghandi and Isaac Newton and Shio will soon enter the training arc.

Two episodes down and Nobunagun has proven to be one of the most fun shows of the Winter 2014 season. Only Sekai Seifuku beats it in entertainment stakes. To top it off the show has awesome heavy metal OP and a sparkly electro ED.

As soon as I hear the opening theme I burst into maniacal laughter and thank the gods that some shows just don’t give a damn about being serious!

The 43^rd International Film Festival Rotterdam launches on January 22^nd and finishes on February 02^nd. The line-up of Asian films has been revealed and there are strong titles from Japan. A lot of these have played at other festivals but there are some really great indie titles. There are quite a lot and the choice is so great! Enough from me, here’s the selection!

The Pinkie

Running Time: 65 mins.

Director: Lisa Takeba

Writer: Lisa Takeba (Screenplay),

Starring: Ryota Ozawa, Miwako Wagatsuma, Haruka Suenaga, Kanji Tsuda

Wow, this looks like a lot of fun which is why I put it first. It comes from Lisa Takeba who was at last year’s festival with a short film about an alien private detective who is wandering around earth. If that sounds a little random, this one reads a lot more interesting as it looks like a mash-up of anime, film and Japanese pop culture and fashion where a female stalker has her way with the guy of her dreams. Lisa Takeba has a background in advertising and writing videogames so she’s got a lot of experience with different styles to work with! It stars Miwako Wagatsuma who is an actress worth tracking because she is taking on interesting roles as can be seen from her filmography which includes Guilty of Romance, The End of Puberty, sentimental Yasuko, Kuro and Shing Shing Shing.

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko – the ugliest girl in the village. Momoko’s love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste – but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke is more interested in the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when the boss finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke’s little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko’s hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself – and that’s the first five minutes.

The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji

Japanese Title: 土竜の唄 潜入捜査官 REIJI

Romaji: Mogura no Uta Sennuu Sosakan REIJI

Running Time: 130 mins.

Director: Takashi Miike

Writer: Kudo Kankuro (Screenplay), Noboru Takahashi (Original Manga)

Starring: Toma Ikuta, Ren Osugi, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Riisa Naka, Takayuki Yamada, Mitsuru Fukikoshi

When I first read the synopsis I thought of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs but this is based on a manga by Noboru Takahashi. The trailer is crazy but that’s par for the course with Takashi Miike (For Love’s Sake). The film has a great cast of characters like Shinichi Tsutsumi (Why Don’t You Play in Hell?), Ren Osugi (Exte) and Mitsuru Fukikoshi (Cold Fish).

Reiji Kikukawa (Ikuta) has a strong sense of justice but graduates at the bottom of his class from the police academy. He is so useless his superiors send him on what should be a suicide mission. First the police chief fires him for disciplinary issues and then sets him up as a mole in the Sukiyaki gang, the largest crime group in the Kanto area. His target is Shuho Todoroki, the boss, and so Reiji goes through hell to get his man!

R-100                                         

Japanese Title: R-100

Romaji: R-100

Running Time: 100 mins.

Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto

Writer: Hitoshi Matsumoto (Screenplay)

Starring: Nao Omori, Mao Daichi, Atsuro Watabe, Shinobu Terajima, Hairi Katagiri, Ai Tominaga, Eriko Sato, You, Suzuki Matsuo, Hitoshi Matsumoto, Gin Maeda, Naomi Watanabe, Haruki Nishimoto

R100 comes from Hitoshi Matsumoto (Big Man Japan) and stars Nao Omori (Mushishi), Atsuro Watabe (Love Exposure, Heat After Dark), Shinobu Terajima (Kitaro and the Millennium Curse, Vibrator), Eriko Sato (Crime or Punishment?!?), You (Nobody Knows, Still Walking). This one was playing at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and reviews I have read have been mixed but I reckon it looks good and if nothing else, seeing a guy get hounded by dominatrixes sounds funny.

Takafumi Katayama (Omori) is a mild-mannered father who escapes the pressures of everyday life by joining a mysterious S&M club where the dominatrix will visit the client in real life settings. At first the pinch and tickle treatment he receives from these girls in leather is fun but it becomes relentless. He is now at the mercy of a gang of dominatrixes who torment him!

Real                                                                                 

Japanese Title: リアル　完全なる首長　竜の日

Romaji: Riaru Kanzen’naru Shuchou Ryuu no Hi

Running Time: 127 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Screenplay), Rokuro Inui (Original Novel)

Starring: Takeru Sato, Haruka Ayase, Jo Odagiri, Miki Nakatani, Shota Sometani, Keisuke Horibe, Kyoko Koizumi, Keisuke Horibe, Yuki Kan

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s early horror films like Pulse and Cure found a receptive audience at the Rotterdam Film Festival and helped kick off his international recognition so it comes as no surprise that his two latest films show up. Real is the film he made after the TV drama Penance. It was a big-budget sci-fi thriller based on the 2011 novel Riaru Kanzen’naru Shuchou Ryuu no Hi, written by Rokuro Inui and it stars a mixture of new and familiar actors like Takeru Sato (Rurouni Kenshin), Shota Sometani (Himizu), Haruka Ayase (Ichi), Miki Nakatani (Loft, Zero Focus), Joe Odagiri (Adrift in Tokyo, Mushishi, Retribution and Bright Future) and Kyoko Koizumi, (Tokyo Sonata, Survive Style 5+). I have heard that it is not very good but I reckon any Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a good film.

Koichi (Sato) and Atsumi (Ayase) are childhood friends who have become lovers. Despite this closeness when Atsumi attempts suicide Koichi is at a loss as to what the reason that drove her to do such a thing could be. Now she is in a coma and Koichi needs to find out the reason. Since Koichi is a neurosurgeon he has access to the latest studies and so he takes part in a medical procedure that will allow him to enter Atsumi’s subconscious through her central nervous system.

When he arrives she asks him to find a picture of a plesiosaur she drew as a child. It is the key to a suppressed memory connected to a childhood trauma. Finding this picture will allow Koichi to truly get close to knowing his love.

Seventh Code  

Japanese Title:  Seventh Code

Romaji: Sebunsu Kodo

Running Time: 60 mins.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Starring: Atsuko Maeda, Ryohei Suzuki, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Aissy

The second Kiyoshi Kurosawa film at the festival is an award winner since it took away two prizes at the Rome Film Festival last year for best director and technical contribution. It stars former AKB48 leader Atsuko Maeda who is in another film at this festival.

Akiko (Maeda) travels to Vladivostok to track down Matsunaga (Suzuki), the man she is convinced, who is the love of her life. When they meet Matsunaga claims not to remember her and tells her not to trust anyone in a foreign country. He then leaves. When Akiko tries to find Matsunaga again she is attacked by the mafia and thrown into a wasteland with no money.

Tamako in Moratorium         

Japanese: もらとりあむ　タマ子

Romaji: Moratoriamu Tamako

Running Time: 78 mins.

Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita

Writer: Kosuke Mukai (Screenplay),

Starring: Atsuko Maeda, Suon Kan, Keiichi Suzuki, Kumi Nakamura, Yasuko Tomita

Atsuko Maeda is back and with another great director in the form of Nobuhiro Yamashita who she worked with on The Drudgery Train. The film’s genesis started with short film segments on the TV channel MUSIC ON! TV.

Tamako (Maeda) is a university graduate who lives with her father. She spends her days lazing around reading manga, watching television and bemoaning the fate of modern Japan.

Anatomy of a Paperclip                

Japanese Title:  山守クリップ工場の辺り

Romaji: Yamamori Kurippu Koujou no Atari

Running Time: 99 mins.

Director: Akira Ikeda

Writer: Akira Ikeda (Screenplay),

Starring: Sakae Tomomatsu, Kazutoshi Kato, Yukari Hara, Toshiyuki Takahashi, Akiko An, Hirofumi Shiba, Wani Kansai, Shu Ono.

This is a droll, deadpan story about a man named Kogure who has a McJob on the production line of a small workshop which makes paperclips by hand. His boss is a bully, and Kogure is also bullied by two thugs, one tall, one short, who keep ambushing him on the street and routinely steal his clothes. The butterfly shows up in his room one night, and when he releases it back into the wild it returns as a woman speaking an unknown language and consuming unknown food and drink. Through this relationship he finds his life improving and liberation is not far away.

The Great Passage                

Japanese Title: 舟を編む

Romaji: Fune wo Amu

Running Time: 133 mins.

Director: Yuya Ishii

Writer: Shion Miura (Original Novel), Kensaku Watanabe (Screenplay),

Starring: Ryuhei Matsuda, Aoi Miyazaki, Joe Odagiri, Haru Kuroki, Misako Watanabe, Kumiko Aso, Shingo Tsurumi, Chizuru Ikewaki, Hiroko Isayama, Kaouru Kobayashi, Go Kato, Kaoru Yachigusa, Ryu Morioka, Shohei Uno, Kazuki Namioka

I saw this at the BFI London Film Festival and recommend it. Although a little on the long side it is still a fantastic low-key character based comedy typical of Yuya Ishii (Sawako Decides). It stars Ryuhei Matsuda (Nightmare Detective), Aoi Miyazaki (Eureka), Joe Odagiri (Mushishi, Adrift in Tokyo). My review is complete and will be coming out in the near future. For now, here’s a trailer.

Mitsuya Majime (Matsuda) has the talent to comprehend different languages and so he is roped in to helping create a new dictionary called The Great Passage. He soon becomes the most important member of the editorial team of the dictionary but he struggles to find the words to tell Kaguya Hayashi (Miyazaki), a cook and the granddaughter o the owner of Majime’s boarding home, how he feels about her.

Mejima

Japanese Title: 女島

Romaji: Mejima

Running Time: 79 mins.

Director: Tomonori Izutani

Writer: Takahisa Yamaguchi (Screenplay)

Starring: Ban Michio, Satsuki Okazaki, Ronkik

Mejima is the feature film debut of director Tomonori Izutani who has created an atmospheric crime film about the differences between Japan and China and a melancholy reflection on the meaning of life as a Chinese gangster, a Japanese butcher and a sex worer find themselves questioning all of their values when they encounter each other.

“Mejima is a young Japanese man who earns his living in a small slaughterhouse. He is very proud of not having any goal in life, even though his eyes sometimes give the game away. Sex worker Mon thinks she was made for her job, as she never gets her period and so cannot become pregnant. Her Chinese boss, Lee, is a young criminal – the opposite of Mejima in every way. The illegal Chinese community in Tokyo see him as their saviour, and Japanese Mon also admires him. When Mejima encounters the pair, his indifference starts to make way for romantic desires and jealousy, and his smouldering resentment finally explodes.”

Strangers When We Meet

Running Time: 45 mins.

Director: Masahiro Kobayashi

Writer: Masahiro Kobayashi (Screenplay)

Starring: Yuko Nakamura, Kikuo Honda, Masahiro Kobayashi

Masahiro Kobayashi was at last year’s festival with Japan’s Tragedy and he’s here again but with a short. Alas, no trailer but the festival describes it as “a sensitive observation of a couple who, tormented by loss, blame and guilt, adhere rigidly to their daily routine. Will they ever find each other again?”

Au revoir l’ete                              

Japanese: ほとり　の　朔子

Romaji: Hotori no Sakuko

Running Time: 125 mins.

Director: Koji Fukada

Writer: Koji Fukada (Screenplay)

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Mayu Tsuruta, Kanji Furutachi, Taiga, Ena Koshino, Makiko Watanabe, Kiki Sugino

This is due for release over this weekend in Japan but it sneaks into the festival now. It has a selection of great actors so it is a must-see especially for fans of rising star Fumi Nikaido. She takes the lead as a girl named Noriko who is preparing to take her university entrance exam and on the advice of her aunt Kie (Tsuruta) stays over at a relative’s house where she meets her aunt’s childhood friend Usagikichi (Furutachi), his daughter Tatsuko (Sugino) and his nephew Takashi (Taiga) who is from Fukushima. A great cast of actors and an intriguing trailer have me interested in this one.

The Day She Commits Suicide

Running Time: 8 mins.

Director: Yuichi Suita

Writer: Yuichi Suita (Screenplay)

Starring: Reika Miwa

Yuichi Suita’s short is about the final moments from what might possibly be a young woman’s last day alive and it focusses particularly on her daily activities. Not the greatest trailer but the page has more intriguing images.

It Has Already Been Ended Before You Can See the End

Running Time: 8 mins.

Director: Arikawa Shigeo

Writer: Arikawa Shigeo (Screenplay)

Starring: N/A

The trailer is a bit disturbing but mysterious and maybe a little fun at the same time. This short comes from Shigeo Arikawa and it is about our experiences with time. “A window opens, but the perspective never really moves outside. This universe is created solely indoors with some insects, cacti and the movement of light.”

The Lake

Running Time: 44 mins.

Director: Shinichi Miyakawa

Writer: Shinichi Miyakawa (Screenplay)

Starring: N/A

This short film is a collection of video letters  sent between two filmmakers. The festival info elaborates on the form, “ These generally feel real and honest, like journals, and are very serious, but that is not the case here. Here the genre is lampooned. Film about film, but then as satire.” This short screens before the film The Pinkie.

Welcome to the first of two trailer posts to cover a weekend where there are about thirteen new Japanese films released. I’ve mixed the films up about to place the low-budget dramas, documentaries and super-sentai shows together with the big budget anime/manga adaptations and the star studded titles so there is a nice mix of titles for everyone. There are some great titles released this weekend like Au revoir l’ete which stars the ace actress Fumi Nikaido and is going to play at this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival and lots of dramas in tomorrow’s post like Bilocation, Futaridetsukuru, and Plastic Love Story.

Au revoir l’ete          

Japanese: ほとり　の　朔子

Romaji: Hotori no Sakuko

Running Time: 125 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Koji Fukada

Writer: Koji Fukada (Screenplay)

Starring: Fumi Nikaido, Mayu Tsuruta, Kanji Furutachi, Taiga, Ena Koshino, Makiko Watanabe, Kiki Sugino

Fumi Nikaido takes the lead as a girl named Noriko who is preparing to take her university entrance exam and on the advice of her aunt Kie (Tsuruta) stays over at a relative’s house where she meets her aunt’s childhood friend Usagikichi (Furutachi), his daughter Tatsuko (Sugino) and his nephew Takashi (Taiga) who is from Fukushima. A great cast of actors and an intriguing trailer have me interested in this one.

Website

Black Butler      

Japanese: 黒執事

Romaji: Kuroshitsuji

Running Time: 119 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Kentaro Otani, Keiichi Sato

Writer: Tsutomu Kuroiwa (Screenplay), Yana Toboso (Original Manga)

Starring: Hiro Mizushima, Ayame Gouriki, Mizuki Yamamoto, Takuro Ohno, Yuka, Ken Yasuda

Warner Bros. Japan strike again in an adaptation of a manga for girls! This is the live-action adaptation of Yana Toboso’s manga but it deviates considerably since the original was set in 19th Century England. I have not read the manga but this looks reasonably entertaining.

The year is 2020 and the place is an Asian city where western and Asian cultures mix. In this society exist the ancient English aristocratic Phantomhive family and it’s a very traditional one (especially for 2020!) where only males can run the family business. Alas, the only person available for the job is a woman named Shiori (Gouriki) who dresses as a boy and takes the name Kyoharu and takes on the job of solving cases for the Queen who now rules the Western nations who wants to unify the world. Cases like a “Serial mummified murder spree” and the disappearances of women. Shiori finds evidence that links the two together but requires the help of her demonic butler Sebastien (Mizushima) who is awesome in every aspect from cooking to good looks but comes with the downside of devouring Shiori’s soul! 

Website

The Story of CNBlue Never Stop  

Running Time: 125 mins.

Release Date: January 17^th, 2014

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: CNBlue

CNBlue are a rockband from South Korea who went to Japan to make it big and this documentary follows their performances and passion!

Website

Message from Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium Sea 

Japanese: 沖縄美ら海水族館　海からのメッセージ

Romaji: Okinawa Churaumisuizokukan Umi kara no Messeji

Running Time: 60 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Aah, here’s a film set in the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium designed for parents and children to enjoy together. Viewers get to see some beautiful creatures on the big screen.

Website

Kazu-chan to Ore  

Japanese: 和ちゃんとオレ

Romaji: Kazu-chan to Ore

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Every developed country in the world is facing the problem of ageing baby boomers and slowing birth rates and Japan is no exception as this film shows. It aims to shed light on the situation through the story of a son who takes care of his mother who has dementia.

Website

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger vs. Go-Busters: Dinosaur Great Battle! Farewell, Eternal Friends

Japanese: 獣電戦隊キョウリュウジャーVSゴーバスターズ　恐竜大決戦！さらば永遠の友よ

Romaji: Jûden Sentai Kyôryûjâ tai Gôbasutâzu: Kyôryû Daisakusen! Saraba Eien no Tomo yo

Running Time: N/A

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Koichi Sakamoto

Writer: Riku Sanjyo (Screenplay),

Starring: Yuichi Nakamura, Takayuki Sugo, Yuuta Mochizuki, Haruka Tomatsu, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Ai Orikasa, Hideo Sakaki, Ai Morikita

This is what Samurai Flamenco has now become. I weep for the show I once loved. Anyway, this looks like good fun for fans of super sentai shows with plenty of action and special effects. If only I caught the bug when I was a little boy… It is directed by Koichi Sakamoto who has lots of experience directing and producing these films and was once a blue ranger.

Website

Ah, I hope everybody reading this is in good health! The week for me has seen me say goodbye to a Japanese friend as he returns home but we will keep in touch. On a more positive note my Japanese lessons have started again and I am learning a lot and I am on top of my anime and drama pile. I also had a great time at a relative’s house eating pizza and cake and watching the films Primer and the French film Untouchable. In terms of writing for this blog I finished off my list of Best Anime of 2013 and started a series of First Impressions for the 2014 Winter Season with Nobunaga the Fool and the super fun Nobunagun. I then posted about the Japanese Films at the Rotterdam International Film Festival 2014. Yesterday saw me post the first batch of trailers and this is the second post.

Before we get into the trailers, congratulations go out to Shuhei Morita for being nominated for the best Animated Short Film Oscar for his short Possessions

Congratulations are also in order to Studio Ghibli since The Wind Rises has bee nominated for the Animated Feature Film Oscar!

Today’s trailer post has some great films here. The best looking titles are Futaridetsukuru, Bilocation and Plastic Love Story! Here are the trailers!

Bilocation           

Japanese: バイロケーション

Romaji: Bairoke-shon

Running Time: 119 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Mari Asato

Writer: Mari Asato (Screenplay), Haruka Hojo (Original Novel)

Starring: Asami Mizukawa, Kento Senga, Sho Takada, Wakana Sakai, Yosue Asari, Kosuke Toyohara,

Mari Asato, director of The Grudge: Girl in Black, is here with this thriller where an aspiring painter named Shinobu Takamura (Mizukawa) is accused of using counterfeit money even though she was no memory of it. Things get stranger when she encounters a police officer named Kano (Takito) who reveals that Shinobu have something akin to a doppelganger effect in their life that looks and acts like them. This effect is called “bilocation”.

Website

Futaridetsukuru           

Japanese: フタリデツクル

Romaji: Futaridetsukuru

Running Time: 90 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Tomonori Sasaki

Writer: Yusuke Kinai, Ryoko Nitta (Screenplay),

Starring: Kazuha Komiya, Ryo Katayama, Marie Ono, Yasuka Saito

A film about making film and one of the more interesting trailers from this week and I probably haven’t done much justice to the synopsis because it’s probably more dramatic and complicated than I make out.

Yusuke (Katayama) and Ryoko (Komiya) are both screenwriters in search of some good ideas to make a great comedic script. Yukiko (Ono) Ryoko’s younger sister and Yusuke’s friend might hold the key to giving them inspiration as their relationship gets a little messy.

Website

The Love and Death of Kaoru Mitarai   

Japanese: 御手洗　薫　の　愛　と　死

Romaji: Mitarai Kaoru no Ai to Shi

Running Time: 114 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Kazuyuki Morosawa

Writer: Kazuyuki Morosawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Mitsuru Matsuoka, Hijiri Kojima, Yutaka Matsushige, Toru Masuoka

Kaoru Mitarai (Yoshiyuki) is a distinguished novelist of any years but when she causes a car accident she finds herself harassed by the victim’s son Ryuhei Kanzaki (Matsuoka), a failed novelist, who demands that Kaoru ghost write a novel for him. That novel proves to be a success and Ryuhei hits the big time but his relationship with Kaoru becomes confusing as they turn from enemies into lovers. Things get even more complicated when Ryuhei starts a relationship with a much younger editor and Kaoru gets jealous…

Website

Plastic Love Story   

Japanese: Plastic Love Story

Romaji: Plastic Love Story

Running Time: 124 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Ryutaro Nakagawa

Writer: Ryutaro Nakagawa (Screenplay),

Starring: Mai Sakata, Manami Takahashi, Yasuhiro Konno, Yumi Yamawaki

This is an intriguing example of an indie film collective (Tokyo New Cinema) and what they can do. The trailer looks really good, lots of energy and beautiful scenes, and suggests that this film about lives of three women could be interesting. Stalkers, suicide and love all feature.

Website

Toshiue no Kanojo (Hito) The Movie  

Japanese: 年上ノ彼女劇場版

Romaji: Toshiue no Kanojo (Hito) Gekijouban

Running Time: 121 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Ataru Ueda, Daigo Udagawa, Norihisa Yoshimura

Writer: Ryuta Amazume (Original Manga), Kyoko Kawai (Screenplay)

Starring: Shinpei Takagi, Shiho, Tateto Serizawa, Eita Okuno, Miki Takahashi, Hiroko Sato, Yurie Midori, Mikuru Uchino

This is an adaptation of a rather raunchy looking manga named Toshiue no Hito that I have not read. This image below is the cleanest I could find in a quick search.

The story follows a second year university student named Tsutomu Ito (Takagi) who is impotent due to an accident he was involved in while he was a child. He meets a first year student named Ageha Osanai (Shiho) who looks like a girl that appeared in a dream of his. She may look like a young woman but she’s actually twenty-five-years-older than Tsutomu Ito. Proving that age ain’t nothing but a number the two begin to live together.

I hope she doesn’t turn out to be a succubus who sustains her beauty by ensnaring men and devouring their essence. Or maybe Tsutomu will wake up next to a desiccated corpse… or a ghost!

Be careful when looking up this trailer and the manga it’s adapted from because there are moments and images that will be very awkward to explain.

Website

Hana-dama   

Japanese: 華魂

Romaji: Hana-dama

Running Time: 106 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Toshiyasu Sato

Writer: Shinji Imaoka (Screenplay),

Starring: Rina Sakuragi,

A film set in a school full of bullying, screaming, murder, suicide and sexual abuse which lacks the visual poetry of All About Lily Chou-Chou and aims for low-budget Lynchian psychological horror mixed with Cronenbergian body horror. I’ve probably made is sound better than it actually is but from the look of this trailer sex education has never been so scary.

Website

Half Grey vs Yakuza  

Japanese: 半グレvsやくざ

Romaji: Han Gure vs Yakuza

Running Time: 78 mins.

Release Date: January 18^th, 2014

Director: Dai Sato

Writer: Yoshihide Ide, Yayoi  (Screenplay),

Starring: Hideo Nakano, Kazuma Yamane, Emi Kobayashi, Ken Maeda,

Well the trailer didn’t inspire much of a reaction but while looking up the background for the term han-gure I came across this Japan Times article from 2012 which details the emergence of a new culture of criminal called Han-gure. These guys aren’t like your typical Yakuza, they are ex-cons, delinquents, university grads drawn to crime, all sorts who eschew the ties and formalities of traditional organised crime and sound like an army of thugs and evildoers. So in this film we get old-fashioned ‘heroic’ yakuza and this new criminal underclass battling each other.

Website

Pupa       

Staff: Director: Tomomi Mochizuki, Original Creator: Sayaka Mogi, Character Designer: Maki Fujii

Voice Actors: Ibuki Kido (Yume Hasegawa), Nobunaga Shimazaki (Utsutsu Hasegawa), Kyoko Narumi (Maria), Koji Yusa (Shiro  Onijima),

Studio: Studio DEEN

Website

Synopsis

Utsutsu and his little sister Yume Hasegawa are close so when Yume sees a mysterious red butterfly and her body undergoes a strange metamorphosis into a creature that eats humans, Utsutsu struggles to find a way to restore his sister.

 Mild Spoilers for Anyone not Familiar with the Story

I was curious about how this “life-and-death sibling” story based on Sayaka Mogi’s rather gory horror manga would turn out. The story is shot through with incest, cannibalism and an innocent moe girl in peril with onii-chan trying to stop his beloved little sister munching on humans and letting her eat “his meat”.

Out of context that looks wrong but older brother (and siscon) Utsutsu becomes a food source. Normally I would stay away from incest and moe but it’s horror and I’m game for anything when it comes to the horror genre. I was also intrigued that this was directed Tomomi Michizuki who does great drama like House of Five Leaves a unique historical and beautiful drama from a couple of years ago. Then news started to leak out about problems.

The signs for this being a decent anime adaptation were not good. It was delayed supposedly due to censors demanding Studio Deen tone down the explicit content. Then it was revealed that the running time was just shy of five minutes. That is long enough for a gag anime but horror? Maybe.

The final run time comes in at around three minutes if you take out the OP and ED themes. Reading the manga I never got the sense that it would work as a two-cours show with 23 minutes per episode. Maybe an OVA like Gyo. Judging from the two episodes released so far it can still work especially with tight editing and sharp writing. The first episode skips a little ahead into the manga to get to the inciting incident to hook viewers before giving the tragic back-story of the siblings which comes heavily into play later in the manga and so I think the show might be able to pull the horror off with further intelligent decisions that places the drama at the right points. However the censorship issue is more problematic.

The censorship has resulted in Studio Deen toning things down… actually, black it out might be a better way of putting it because whenever anything horrific happens a black haze covers the violence and bloodshed and deadens the impact that the visuals should have. It is very distracting. You cannot see a thing but can still here the disgusting squelching and crunching.

It’s a shame because the animation creates a great dark atmosphere full of foreboding and mystery and I can only imagine what impact the violence would have had in bringing things to a crescendo. When things are shown it is pretty horrific!

It was rather strikingly beautiful with its dull and grim visuals at points and the character designs by Maki Fujii are excellent.  When we do see violence the impact of the bright colours – the red butterflies and gore – is startling.

Coming back to the running time, it will be interesting to see if an anime with as short a duration as Pupa can establish anything like a decent narrative and characterisation and I’ll keep watching.

Wooser no Sono Higurashi 2 Kakusei-hen  

Director: Toyonori Yamada, Original Creator/Character Designer: Yoshiki Usa, Series Composition: Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, Character Design: Tomoko Fujinoki,

Voice Actors: Mamoru Miyano (Wooser), Haruka Nagamune (Ren), TiA (Yuu), Minori Ozawa (Rin), Yuri Sato (Miho),

Studio: Sanzigen

Website

I can imagine people passing over this quite easily. The cute characters and short running time of about three minutes speak of a throw-away project developed on a shoestring budget but I liked the first season of Wooser’s Hand-to-Mouth Life and was happy to jump into the second.

The anime lasts about three to four minutes and each episode is packed full of vignettes. The stories are random and they feature a lot of random anime related things like giant robots and magical girls – usually a mecha Wooser and mahou Rin and Len battle each other or he muses about life and school girl uniforms.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, the end is close at hand. The main draw is the central protagonist. Wooser is a lecherous but lazy mascot character (imagine a yellow dog-like Hello Kitty character) voiced by a louche sounding Mamoru Miyano. Wooser is as corrupt as he looks cute because he loves money, meat and gals and spends his time hanging around with cute girls Rin, Len and their friends.

Those designs could sell merchandise!

He is not a boorish moron, more a character dedicated to pleasure and applying his loose but fun and relatively safe morals in strange scenes full of philosophising that go off in surreal directions.

The animation is for the first season is simple, most of the characters and backgrounds are static but the second season started off without the cute look and I was sort of disappointed that the anime was so detailed! It goes back to normal by the end. The second and third episodes are a return to form as Wooser’s charmingly dissolute world view and simplistic animation took the form of gags surrounding a kaiju attack and a lazy super hero.

Those cute 8-bit cut-aways are also still evident.

The main things are that the scatter-shot humour is still intact and Mamoru Miyano gives a fantastic performance. We’re talking about bringing to life the cutest but sleaziest and burnt out and philosophical character going and it’s a tough task because Wooser is the figure who holds this together and he has the ability to go from a rakish playboy to an enervated aesthete and the performance makes the anime!

I find this anime effective. The gags work and the short running time makes it a bit-size pleasure and it’s fun seeing Wooser.

World Conquest: Stratagem Star (Sekai Seifuku – Bouryaku no Zvezda)

Director/Series Composition: Tensai Okamura, Series Composition/Script: Meteor Hoshizora, Original Character Designer: Kouhaku Kuroboshi, Music: Tatsuya Kato

Voice Actors: Natsuki Hanae (Asuta Jimon), Misaki Kuno (Kate Hoshimiya), Mao Ichimichi (Renge Komadori), Mariya Ise (Itsuka Shikabane), Kana Hanazawa (Natasha), Erii Yamazaki (Robo-ko). Kousuke Toriumi (Yasube Morozumi), Minako Kotobuki (Miki Shirasagi)

Studio: A-1 Pictures

Website

The central premise is one most anime fans have probably wondered about… What would a world ruled by a cute moe girl look like?

Prologue

The world has been conquered. We see rubble strewn everywhere and there is no sound, only silence. The destruction and lack of life is a testament to some epic struggle in the past but in the distance…

In the distance of the opening shot a sparkling city of glass and bright lights punches up into the sky. This city is surrounded by the rubble of a conquered land. A middle-aged man walks through the rubble to a rusting statue of a girl holding a doll and salutes with the crisp motions of a soldier on a parade ground.

He stands before the statue of a little girl named Kate Hoshimiya. She did what nobody ever could before her. She conquered the world…

What a great hook! The world is wrecked and the terrorists win. What the hell is going to happen with this successful example of real world conquest? Can we consider these ruins success? What was so bad in the world before?

We find out as we get into the story proper.

The view remains the same but morphs into a time in the past where we see that the scene was once part of a recognisable city. It looks contemporaneous with our time. Cars roll down orderly streets and people are clocking off from a day at work. We meet the middle-aged man again but this time we meet him as a high school student named Jimon Asuta.

He has just run away from home and is about to spend a night on the streets. Cold and alone he meets a friendly face when he gets into a cheery encounter with a cute girl from high school. Their conversation comes off as something you might find in some harem rom-com until she mentions that he best get home before he gets arrested for breaking martial law. Martial law? 

There are military vehicles patrolling the streets and people are quick to head home and lock their doors. We can only assume that it has something to do with a certain terrorist organisation or an authoritarian government.

Asuta is very worried so he quickly buys some snacks with the little change he has and ducks into an alley for a miserable night when he bumps into a little girl on her bicycle…

Meet Kate Hoshimiya

This exceedingly cute girl claims to be the head of an organisation dedicated to conquering the world. That organisation is called Zevzda! We’re first introduced to her riding on a bike and harassing Asuta. She is too cute and young to take seriously but there’s something off about her actions, her dedication and intelligence… but we still don’t quite take her seriously! Perhaps that is how she wins because her facial expressions are so damn priceless but beware! She’s not just a cute face! 

She sees potential in Asuta to become an awesome minion so she makes the homeless Asuta an offer he cannot refuse:

Forget snacks for a moment because Asuta gets a taste of how powerful Kate is as he finds himself caught up in a fight between the terrorists and the government. At her command are a group of eccentric individuals who have signed up to her terrorist organisation as generals and these generals have super powers like slicing vehicles in half.

The government have tanks and helicopter gunships while the terrorists have a giant jellyfish made up of these multicoloured plushy things. 

Yeah, this is going to be a silly anime and I love it. 

When all seems lost and the government look like they are going to win Kate Hoshimiya shows up and blows everybody the f*ck up with her teddy bear. 

The cherry on the cake is that whenever she wins a battle, no matter how big or small, the word “Conquered” literally gets imprinted on it. 

Oh man, I had no idea I would respond so well to this anime. Two episodes in and, apart from Space Dandy, this one manages to connect the best with my comedy funny bone. The formula for this anime is the juxtaposition between the serious and the silly, the innocent looking and the seemingly villainous, the adult and the childish. Through excellent writing and cool characters the joke is sustained.

Our protagonist, Asuta, is a typical anime every-man – somewhat bland, his life gets upset by a surge in genki-girls, meganeko and general loons who drag him into all sorts of hilarity. He isn’t so bland as to be off-putting.

His blandness and ineptness are rather charming in the face of the weirdness and seeing him try and keep up with events is amusing.

Through him we will descend into the cutest madness committed to anime. The storytellers do an excellent job of leading the viewers into an intriguing world by withholding full details and parcelling out morsels. The beginning starts with the conclusion: the world gets conquered. Each episode is like a stepping-stone leading us along the path to understanding how this is done.

I say that Kate is leading a terrorist organisation but it’s never clear. We know from the start that some authoritarian government imposes martial law but why? We see the mix of magic and reality and weird monsters but how do these things coexist? How will Asuta cope with the chaos and madness? Especially the madness that takes the form of Kate and all of the cute chaos she will cause. 

Characterisation is as sharp as a razor when it comes to Kate. The incongrouity of a moe girl speaking like Stalin or some other megalomaniac or “freedom fighter” is fantastically caught in the dialogue which goes from high-minded, persuasive ideologies to slipping into something more her age. These lines are constantly littered throughout the anime:

“Why do you drive this tank? To protect your family, your land, your honour? Tanks only exist to justify the military complex!”

Kate adapts famous political speeches for her own purposes:

“Conquest of conquest, by conquest, for conquest!”

Asuta replies tartly, “You’re just quoting Lincoln!”

“Lincoln had potential, his problem was that he couldn’t handle bullets.”

Apparently, it references Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg’s Address – “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” – which is neither here nor there really because Kate’s line about bullets had me in stitches. This next one is one of the best of the season:

Indeed, I laughed hard at these lines because the seiyuu get the tone just right. Misaki Kuno, a relatively new seiyuu, (she voiced Grande Rosso in Galilei Donna) delivers this with a slice of pure cuteness and I can imagine a re-education camp using her voice to brainwash people. She works well with the VA for Asuta, Natsuki Hanae, a rising seiyuu with starring roles in anime like Outbreak Company and Tari Tari who veers from panic to bemusement with every situation.

The money spent on this anime is clearly evident in the fluid and fun animation but what really got me was the pretty candy-coloured city and characters are fun to watch.

These are some of the fun characters of the season. Indeed, the characters are so cute they are all memorable and that is down to some excellent character designs from Kouhaku Kuroboshi who worked on Kino’s Journey, one of my all time favourite anime. Kuroboshi works the magic again with a set of characters I love to watch! Kate is absolutely adorable with a fantastic set of features that contort from authoritarian to… I’ll use the word again, cute. Punishment from her is wonderful.

But two of my other favourite is Itsuka Shikabane voiced by Mariya Ise who, last year, stole my attention as Sawa Nakamura in Aku no Hana.

Like Kate, she’s bigger than life but more sadistic and aggressive (and the one that sliced the armoured vehicle in half above!) and the writing serves her well.

The opening episode was the funniest one of the season and the second episode has managed to keep the laughs going. As the current series I’ve written about reach their third episodes, Nobunagun has stumbled, Nobunaga the Fool has improved slightly and Wooser keeps getting better but it’s this one and Space Dandy that I’m most engaged with. I love the OP and ED songs.

There are seven Japanese films released this weekend but I’m still splitting them up into two posts. This weekend’s lack of quantity sees an upsurge in quality as the dramas, action adventures and documentaries look better than the normal output. The first film today is a Japanese-Korean co-production which stars some great actors and looks a lot of fun. Fireworks Ideas is another title which looks beautiful and intriguing what with its existential crises, screaming and yelling people and dude waltzing around with a horse head.

Genome Hazard           

Japanese: ゲノムハザード　ある天才科学者の5日間

Hangul: 무명인 (Moomyoungin)

Running Time: 120 mins.

Release Date: January 24^th, 2014

Director: Kim Sung-Su

Writer: Kim Sung-Su (Screenplay), Shiro Tsukasaki (Original Novel)

Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Kim Hyo-Jin, Yoko Maki, Masato Ibu, Yuri Nakamura, Manabu Hamada, Lee Kyoung-Young

This is a Japanese-Korean co-production and it has a great cast of actors like Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live) and the super-sexy Yoko Maki (The Ravine of Goodbye). It’s directed by Kim Sung-Su who was the chap who helmed The Flu. Even though I liked that film, when I talked to a Korean girl about it she burst into laughter and said it was awful.

Ishigami’s (Nishijima) life is ticking along like normal until he returns home to find his wife dead and two men who claim to be police are looking for him. Ishigami manages to escape tehm and goes on the run and soon hooks up with a Korean reporter named Kang Ji-Won (Kim Hyo-Jin) who offers to help him. Ishigami surprises the two of them when he starts speaking Korean and having vague memories of being Korean. What’s going on? Ishigami and Kang Ji-Won are on the case.

Website

Little House                             

Japanese: 小さい　おうち

Romaji: Chiisai Ouchi

Running Time: 136 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Yoji Yamada

Writer: Yoji Yamada, Emiko Hiramatsu (Screenplay), Kyoko Nakajima (Original Novel)

Starring: Takako Matsu, Haru Kuroki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Takataro Kataoka, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Chieko Baisho, Fumino Kimura,

This is apparently Yoji (The Twilight Samurai) Yamada’s first romantic film in his long career and it stars Takako Matsu (Dreams for Sale), Haru Kuroki (The Great Passage) and Satoshi Tsumabuki (For Love’s Sake).

Takeshi (Tsumabuki) finds several notebooks left by his recently deceased spinster aunt Taki Nunomiya (Baisho) which tells of her life before and durin World War II.

As a young woman, Taki (Kuroki) worked as a housemaid in a little house with a red triangular roof in Tokyo. She served a family which consiste of a husband Masaki Hirai (Kataoka) who works at a toy factory his wife Tokiko (Matsu) and their son Kyoichi. Taki longs for her employer Tokiko but both women find themselves intrigued by a young artist Hirai brings home. However, the war takes a turn for the worse and so do the relationships n the house.

Website

Fireworks Ideas         

Japanese: 花火思想

Romaji: Hanabi Shishō

Running Time: 93 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Oki Moe

Writer: Ryusuke Asagaya (Screenplay),

Starring: Takuya Sakurai, Kenji Kubo, Eriko Tomioka, Hayato

I love the poster and the screen caps from this little indie film!

In this road movie we see the struggle to escape reality and achieve a dream that many people face. Our protagonist is Yusuke (Sakurai) and he is a part-time worker at a convenience store who has nightmares of a man with a horse head. He was once in a band but that was a long time ago and now his dreams have almost faded but as time passes he finds that the borderbetween dream and reality becomes uncertain and so he goes on a journey as if guided by the guy with the horse head…

Website

My Father Iemoto        

Japanese: 父は家元

Romaji: Chichi ha Iemoto

Running Time: 91 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Hiroki Takano

Writer: Hiroki Takano (Screenplay),

Starring: Sojiro Kobori, Masahiro Kobori, Seigo Matsuoka,

A documentary about traditional Japanese culture where the film follows Sojiro Kobori, a master of the Ensyu tea ceremony, over three years as he teaches people about the tea ceremony, the power of landscapes and art.

Website

THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE: Kagayaki no Mukōgawa e!  

Japanese: THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE 輝きの向こう側へ!

Romaji: THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE: Kagayaki no Mukōgawa e!

Running Time: 93 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Atsushi Nishigori

Writer: Atsushi Nishigori, Tatsuya Takahashi (Screenplay),

Starring: Akiko Hasegawa (Miki Hoshii), Asami Imai (Chihaya Kisaragi), Ibuki Kido (Kana Yabuki), Asami Shimoda (Ami/Mami Futami), Rie Kugimiya (Iori Minase), Kenji Akabane (Producer)

Come on everybody! Let’s be IDOLS! Minna-san, gambarimasu! The title translates as The IDOLM@STER Movie: To the Glittering Other Side! and it looks like it panders to the otaku demographic by showing the adorable girls working hard and looking cute. The film tells the story of how a character named producer is working his idols hard at a training camp for their upcoming arena concert. I’m betting this won’t involve the seedy swimsuit photoshoot section or the”make them dance even if they have a broken leg” part. Oh wait, that last one happened to a Korean idol group…

Website

 Well, less than a week to go before I head off to the Japan Foundation’s Touring Film Programme and I’ve got everything booked and ready to go. I’ll be spending a few days in London and then on the day I go back home I’ll head straight for my Japanese lesson. Since I will be busy next week I have some anime-related posts I have been storing for some time ready to go out. Hopefully this all goes like clockwork.

This week was anime heavy. I posted first impressions with Wooser, Sekai Seifuku – Bouryaku no Zvezda and Pupa. Yesterday was a trailer post with Idol Master. In terms of films, last Sunday I watched the Korean film Mother and last Friday I watched American Hustle. Two awesome films that I hope to review soon. Actually, I have quite a few film reviews stored up that I need to post…

Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research  

Japanese: 神奈川芸術大学映像学科研究室

Romaji: Kanagawa Geijutsu Daigaku Eizo Gakka Kenkyushitsu

Running Time: 70 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Yuichiro Sakashita

Writer: Yuichiro Sakashita (Screenplay),

Starring: Kaori Iida, Chihiro Kasahara, Tomoya Maeno, Kazuhiko Takasu,

Wordy title, unattractive text heavy poster and yet I am intrigued by this film. The trailer had me laughing at some of the deadpan humour. The last film I saw that was about film students was Who’s Camus Anyway? Which I found enormously entertaining. Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research played at last year’s Skip City Internatonal Digital Cinema Festival and it won the Special Jury Prize. Lookng at the trailer makes me think that this is the world that the film nerds from The Kirishima Thing would enter if they continued to pursue a movie career at university.

Okuda works in the Film Department of Kanagawa University of Fine Arts. When he witnesses students stealing school equipment he is ordered by film professors to hide the truth and make a false report. He is torn between reporting the students and not rocking the boat and causing trouble. Then another incident occurs on campus and the situation seems to spiral out of control…

Website

Chiisana Akari  

Japanese: ちいさな、あかり

Romaji: Chiisana Akari

Running Time: 72 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Ryusuke Ono

Writer: N/A

Starring: N/A

Documentary filmmakers descended upon a small village in Shizuoka Prefecture which has few families and a lot of people have to travel outside the village to get to school and so on. It is also a place of great beauty and nature as can be seen from the trailer which is so relaxing.

Website

Nuiguruma- Z         

Japanese: ヌイグルマーZ

Romaji: Nuiguruma- Z

Running Time: 93 mins.

Release Date: January 25^th, 2014

Director: Noboru Iguchi

Writer: Noboru Iguchi, Jun Tsugita (Screenplay), Kenji Otsuki (Original Novel)

Starring: Shoko Nakagawa, Jiji Bu, Norma England, Mao Ichikawa, Chieko Imaizumi, Hiroshi Neko, Takumi Saito, Lisa Takada, Rina Takeda

This trailer kicks ass! I want to see this movie where a girl gets a psycho gun-toting pink teddy bear, turns into a super hero and beats the crap out of zombie! Then flies around a city like Mary Poppins looking all kawaii as f*ck. Hell, even the website kicks ass! Go home Michael Haneke! This is art!

The story is about a woman named Yumeko (Nakagawa) in a fierce battle with an evil villain who launches zombies to take over the city. Simple.

Website

Galilei Donna – Storia di tre sorelle a caccia di un mistero  

Director/Original Creator: Yasuomi Umetsu, Scripts: Atsushi Oka, Hideyuki Kurata, Jun Kumagai, Touko Machida, Character Designer/Chief Animation Director: Shingo Adachi, Music: Shiroh Hamaguchi

Voice Actors: Rina Hidaka (Hozuki Ferrari), Rumi Ookubo (Kazuki Ferrari), Kei Shindou (Hazuki Ferrari), Houko Kuwashima (Sylvia Ferrari), Hiroshi Kamiya (Cicinho), Marina Inoue (Anna Hendrix)

Studio: A-1 Pictures 

It is the year 2061 and global warming has stopped being the chief threat to humanity since a new ice age has started and sky pirates roam the air stealing natural resources!

 But that’s just a side show because we’re going to follow three girls!

Hozuki, Hazuki, and Kazuki Ferrari, collectively known as the “Galilei Donna,” are three descendants of the legendary astronomer Galileo Galilei and they live in Tuscany with different parent since mother Sylvia and father Geshio have divorced. Youngest daughter Hozuki is an amazing inventor, middle sister Kazuki is a martial artist and the eldest sister Hazuki is failing her law degree at university.

When a mysterious organization starts searching for the “Galilei Donna” to secure an inherited treasure called the Galileo Tesoro, they work through Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for the three sisters. The family must put aside their differences to join forces, go on the run and fight the organization and learning their true inheritance and destiny!

A globe-trotting action adventure with cute girls and many explosions? Sign me up.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am easily pleased. I really, really liked Kill Me Baby, an anime regarded as pretty poor by some. I picked this one up for a number of reasons. The first was because the key visuals released and the trailers for the first episode looked gorgeous and the characters were cute. I was also familiar with the creator/director Yasuomi Umetsu - writer and director of two anime I like in the form of Mezzo Forte and Kite which were two of the few anime I watched when I had a break from it when I started university back in the early 2000’s. Those shows were nothing spectacular, just fun fan-boy stuff where girls with guns get into cool fights and action is always an easy genre to watch.

Galilei Donna was very easy to watch and it lives up to the sparkly and beautiful visuals, promise of mecha battles and a journey across the world that started out exciting and full of promise but never felt coherent or essential.

I have read on different anime forums that it was meant to be longer than the 11 episodes it was given, a two cour show cut in half. That explains the lack of coherency because the plot feels anaemic, as if plot twists and developments were yanked out of the story characterisation filleted and world-building gutted to stuff a huge idea into a small slot.

The plot feels trivial and events unfold in an arbitrary manner. The strong opening two episodes are jam-packed with potential with a great line-up of protagonists and antagonists and a strange dystopian world but it fell apart as characters, events and world-building details appeared in one episode and were quickly forgotten about in the next as the plot hurtled towards the ending as fast as possible. The sudden inclusion of time travel was a real curved ball and it is never really adequately explained.

There were a lot of points that could make the anime really interesting – hard drinking older sister and genius cute sister, merciless corporate b*stards and a family at each other’s throats but it is never built upon.

The ending was a chaotic day at court which was farcical in its developments with Deus ex Machina being ushered in to help wind up different anaemic plot threads and get the show out of the narrative trouble it was in although it was sort of amusing to see Hazuki’s law skills totally flounder in the end. The final episode best represents the chaos that cuts in running time represent since all of the experiences of the characters at the hands of the bad guys and all of the characterisation that would have led up to Hazuki mounting a successful legal battle would have provided a satisfying ending. Characterisation also suffers since most of the main cast remain two-dimensional from start to finish and never grow beyond their initial traits.

The impossibly cute Hozuki is the only one that gets some development because she serves to push the plot although I am still not sure I liked the slightly sweet slightly creepy incest moments where Hozuki does a reverse Back to the Future with her ancestor.

With a longer running time to establish a stronger background and flesh out the characters Galilei Donna could have been more than just a pretty face but whoa, what a pretty face!

The anime has a great dystopian setting where resources are running low in a world gripped by an ice age. Everywhere from first world countries like Italy, Japan and Holland to remote and uninhabited deserts and islands are given a winter sheen. It is wonderfully visualised where the location visited are layered with snow and veined with rivers and canals of freezing water.

The sky is a dark shade of blue or overcast and the air has a visible chill.

Sunshine is pallid and people go about wrapped up in their warmest clothes most of the time.

You can feel the chill emanating from the locales.

The animation is really good. The backgrounds are all detailed and it presents an evocative picture of this future world where humanity is suffering a big freeze. The well-designed and orchestrated mecha action is also very good. Galilei Donna has a goldfish mecha which blows the f*ck out of evil guys in neat aerial battles which are flashy, fast and fun, full of colourful explosions and missile contrails.

The character designs are also very cute and the voice acting is fun. The seiyuu might not say many interesting or innovative things but they deliver the lines with confidence and the voices are never flat. If only the characters were given time to develop.

So the writing was a let-down because the story is poorly delivered and the characters aren’t pushed anywhere interesting but I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy it at points. The animation was really, really good and the voice acting was catchy. I figured I would be getting cute girls in cool action situations, mindless entertainment if you will, and I was not disappointed. If you’re into that then it will prove to be enjoyable.

I also have to say that Galilei Donna has my favourite OP of the year. Alas,there are no decent versions on YouTube so you’ll have to see Negoto’s video version for it on Jpopsuki.

Coppelion             

Original Manga Creator: Tomonori Inoue, Director/ Character Designer: Shingo Suzuki, Series Composition: Makoto Nakamura, Scripts: N/A, Chief Animation Director: Makoto Furuta

Voice Actors: Haruka Tomatsu (Ibara Naruse), Kana Hanazawa (Aoi Fukasaku), Satomi Akesaka (Taeko Nomura), Yui Horie (Kanon Ozu), Rikiya Koyama (Onihei Mishima), Maaya Sakamoto (Shion Ozu)

Studio: GoHands 

In the year 2016 a meltdown at a nuclear power plant caused Tokyo to suffer huge radioactive contamination which has resulted in the city being put under a blockade. 20 years later and the city is still abandoned but there have been distress signals received from the former bustling metropolis.

The Japanese government allow the creation of a new unit in the 3^rd Division of Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Force which consists of people with special skills to enter the city and find the survivors. An academy was set up to train a new generation of people to be able to enter the city. We follow a team of three high school girls have been sent to the city.

They are Ibara Naruse, Aoi Fukasaku and Taeko Nomura. 

These girls aren’t normal. They have been selected for this deadly mission because they are the results of genetic engineering, the results of gene-splicing from different people. They are impervious to radioactivity and some even have special powers. They also have a very short life-span and have inherited the traits of the people whose genes that have created them. Now the three dedicate themselves to saving people while other members of their Coppelion unit are engaged in other, more unconventional missions…

Much like Galilei Donna, this fulfilled the girls with guns quotient. The lack of seriousness and the inclusion of goofy action was much evident in the PV’s released ahead of the first episode which had schoolgirls wielding a rocket launcher to blow stuff up.

Even though it is a post-apocalyptic story I didn’t expect something as gritty as Fallout 3.

It had the carefree feel of something from the 80s where cute school girls had super powers and got into extreme situations. Something like Project A-Ko only it lacked the same intensity. It felt beautiful and laid-back.

For many of its critics there are these problems:

• The story was too slow,
• It featured no real political critique of nuclear power,
• The characters are school girls,
• The characters are mostly useless.

My responses to those would be:

• Learn to be patient,
• I sincerely doubt anime will be the place for serious political commentary the likes of which can be seen in the films of Koji Wakamatsu, Shohei Imamura and Nagisa Oshima,
• anime,
• melodrama.

The story is nothing new and nothing to take too seriously. It’s a melodrama about some super-powered school girls try to save lives and do a lot of crying and self-sacrificing. It explores what it means to be human and introducing slightly interesting tales of people living outside of society. It does meander a lot. The opening four episodes were sort of slow as a series of vignettes surrounding different characters played out before a larger narrative appeared and a story arc got going with the Ozu sisters.

Much detail is expended upon how the people sending distress signals cope living in an irradiated city and these details, while interesting, promise far more in terms of drama than is actually delivered. Despite the dangerous levels of radiation there is no real tension felt in the situation since the Coppelion are immune to radiation poisoning and everybody else has radiation suits and when the radiation does threaten people the meandering atmosphere strikes down the seriousness of events.

Any criticism of the political classes and nuclear power is light and mostly harmless. All politicians are stereotypically corrupt and inept and it is left to the citizenry and the girls to keep on keeping on. Any expectations for criticism were misplaced. I cannot think of any creatives in the mainstream anime industry who would dare grasp current politics and touching a political hot potato like Fukushima Daichi just isn’t going to happen. If a writer did have these ideas it sure as hell wouldn’t get adapted for the television. Couple that sort of reticence with the fact that the manga was serialised before the Tohoku Earthquake and Tusnami hit Japan on March 11^th, 2011 and you can understand why this was never meant to be scorching criticism like The Land of Hope.

A typical Japanese theme of communitarianism and sacrifice for the betterment of the whole community emerges towards the end. Everybody can be redeemed and it is actually kind of sweet seeing people work together. The characters are all rather two-dimensional and act in silly ways but again, I never expected much. My favourites were Aoi and another set of Coppelion in the form of the Ozu sisters, Kanon and Shion.

These girls were totally cool and resented the fact that they were being used by the government to clean up a mess that wasn’t their fault. Unpredictable and viscious, they make decent antagonists and the battles only get exciting when they are around.

The art was the highlight of the anime with the scenery getting as much prominence as anything else. Animation studio GoHands are known for making good-looking anime like K and they deliver with aplomb in this anime.

The post-apocalyptic (can there be a post-apocalypse???) Tokyo landscape is given lavish treatment with highly detailed backgrounds that the camera pans around and focusses on to allow the audience to pick out details.

There must be places familiar to Tokyoites who will thrill at the sight of a famous street or building being subject to the merciless treatment of time and nature.

Time is given to show the decay and beauty of a Tokyo ravaged by radiation and abandoned by the rest of that nation. Weather plays a heavy part in the story and so weather effects are highlighted in long sequences so we understand what is going on. Weed choked buildings are crumbling, rusting and the girls wandering through the silent streets wonder aloud at what life must have been like in the past.

The final thing I want to point out is that it gets points for using the names of Japanese film directors from the golden age for its characters. It might sound like I’m reaching but take a gander, Haruto Kurosawa (Akira Kurosawa), Kanon and Shion Ozu (Yasujiro Ozu), Taeko Nomura (Yoshitaro Nomura),  Ibara Naruse (Mikio Naruse), and Aoi Fukasaku (Kinji Fukasaku). Alas, no Kenji Mizoguchi or Keisuke Kinoshita.

Overall the anime is perfectly fine if you don’t expect too much from it. Beautiful to look at but a little light on content, it’s an easy way to pass the time and it was the last show of the Autumn 2013 season I watched.

Only one trailer post this week because there aren’t that many films and by the time you read this I’ll probably be in London collecting my tickets for the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme. I will be enjoying two solid days of Japanese films and visiting art galleries before heading back home and writing about them. The films, not the galleries. I’ll leave gallery stuff to better bloggers like Sequins and Cherry Blossom.

Despite all this talk about films, I posted about two anime in the form of Galilei Donna and Coppelion.

Here are the trailers:

Dakishimetai – Shinjitsu no Monogatari

Japanese: 抱きしめたい　－　真実　の　物語　－

Romaji: Dakishimetai – Shinjitsu no Monogatari

Running Time: 122 mins.

Release Date: February 01^st, 2014

Director: Akihiko Shiota

Writer:  Akihiko Shiota, Hiroshi Saito (Screenplay),

Starring: Keiko Kitagawa, Ryo Nishikido, Takumi Saito, Aya Hiryama, Eriko Sato, Megumi Sato, Mastaka Kubota, Jun Kunimura, Jun Fubuki

This is actually based on the story of a real life couple. Tsukasa (Kitagawa) was involved in a car accident that left her in a wheelchair and with memory impairment. Despite these setbacks, she carries on with life and falls in love with a taxi driver named Masaki (Nishikido) who plays basketball. Despite their differences they start a new life together and try to make a family but serious problems emerge…

Website

Killers  

Japanese: キラーズ

Romaji: KILLERS KIRA-ZU

Running Time: 137 mins.

Release Date: February 01^st, 2014

Director: Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto

Writer:  Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto (Screenplay),

Starring: Kazuki Kitamura, Oka Antara, Rin Takanashi, Luna Maya, Mei Kurokawa, Denden, Ray Sahetapy

Killers is a co-production between an Indonesian and Japanese film company and executive produced by Gareth Evas, director of The Raid.

Nomura (Kitamura) is a serial killer who records a murder of a woman and places it on the internet. Bayu (Antara) is a journalist in Jakarta who stumbles upon the video and becomes attracted to what he sees as the beauty in the cruel visuals. When he kills a robber in self-defence he records the robber’s dying moments and uploads his own video. Nomura sees the video and a connection is made! A competition is initiated.

Website

I Don’t Have Many Friends

Japanese: 僕は友達が少ない

Romaji: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

Running Time: 114 mins.

Release Date: February 01^st, 2014

Director: Takuro Oikawa

Writer:  Takuro Oikawa (Screenplay), Yomi Hirasaka (Novel)

Starring: Koji Seto, Kie Kitano, Mio Otani, Sara Takatsuki, Mao Kanjo, Sayu Kubota,

And this week’s lame live-action adaptation of a light novel/animation is this. I actually watched the first season of the anime back in 20…11 but didn’t bother with the second. The 2D anime characters were cute (especially the Fujoshi Rika) but seeing them in 3D is a disappointment plus the plot looks silly with the supernatural stuff. Silly in a bad way.

Kodaka Hasegawa (Seto) has transferred into Saint Chronica Academy. He’s an outsider, viewed as a “yankee” by his schoolmates due to his aggressive eyes and the blonde hair inherited from his English mother. Whilst wandering around school he encounters Yozora Mikazuki (Kitano) while she is talking to her imaginary friend Tomo. They realise that neither of them have friends and decide to make a club in order to make friends and learn how to interact with others. Soon others are joining the club including Sena Kashiwazaki (Otani), the principal’s daughter, an over-achiever and the girl all the boys in school fawn over, a feminine boy named Yukimura who hopes that Kodaka and his yankee reputation can turn him into a man and a scientific genius/fujoshi named Rika. From there on in we watch the growth of the club and its adventures in modern relationship etiquette.

Website

No Man’s Land

Japanese: 無人地帯

Romaji: Mujin Chitai

Running Time: 105 mins.

Release Date: February 01^st, 2014

Director: Toshifumi Fujiwara

Writer:  N/A

Starring: N/A

This was originally released in 2012 and the blurb is taken from my Films about the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami Post: When the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami struck on March 11, 2011 the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant fell into a catastrophic crisis. Within 24 hours, thousands of people in a 200 km wide area were evacuated. Documentarian Toshifumi Fujiwara went into this zone to meet residents as they prepared for evacuation. They are on this film.

Website

Fukushima: Is There A Way Out? 0.23μSv

Japanese: 福島の未来 0.23μSv

Romaji: Fukushima no mirai 0. 23 μSv

Running Time: 69 mins.

Release Date: February 01^st, 2014

Director: Lee Hong-Gi

Writer:  N/A

Starring: N/A

Just when you might have been concerned that the disaster at Fukushima might be forgotten… This is a Korean production about Japan’s nuclear disaster which is playing as a double-bill with No Man’s Land. In this documentary, Lee Hong-Gi follows some people displaced by the Fukushia Daiichi disaster as they visit Chernobyl and he looks at the state of Fukushima in 2013. The music for this is awful. It would be a better fit for some melodramatic action film not a serious documentary.

Website

Topaz / Tokyo Decadence  

Japanese: トパーズ

Romaji: Topaz

Running Time: 113 mins.

Release Date: February 01^st, 2014

Director: Ryu Murakami

Writer:  Ryu Murakami (Script/Original Story)

Starring: Miho Nikaido, Sayoko Amano, Tenmei Kano, Masahiko Shimada, Chie Sema,

A pink film made back in 1992 gets a cinema outing? A sign of how slow things are this weekend… Nope, it’s a re-release using a new 35mm print. Anyway, Ryu murakami adapted one of his novels and had Ryuichi Sakamoto compose the music. Tokyo Decadence is in my local library… The story follows Ai, a timid college girl who descends into prostitution in an S&M club where the extreme desires of rich men are fufilled. She wants the love of an artist who ignores her but finds herself thrown headlong into dark situations…

Website

The Ravine of Goodbye             

Japanese Title: さよなら渓谷

Romaji: Sayonara Keikoku

Release Date: June 22^nd, 2013 (Japan)

Seen at the BFI London Film Festival 2013

Running Time: 117 mins.

Director: Tatsushi Omori

Writer: Shuichi Yoshida (Novel), Tatsushi Omori (Screenplay)

Starring: Yoko Maki, Shima Onishi, Nao Omori, Anne Suzuki, Arata, Hirofumi Arai, Mayu Tsuruta

SPOILER WARNINGS IN EFFECT I have done as much as possible to avoid major spoilers for this mystery drama, even going as far as altering plot synopses from older posts where I mention this film but there are still some spoilers. The official festival synopsis and trailers give a lot away but whether you know the twists or turns is pretty irrelevant because at its heart is a story about sexual violence and witnessing the suffering caused to characters is gruelling and quite affecting. It may be better to watch the film and come back if you are still interested.

A boy has been killed in a valley dense with trees and his mother, Satomi Tachibana, is the prime suspect. As the press besiege her house the police arrive to arrest her.

Meanwhile her neighbours, factory worker Shunsuke Ozaki (Onishi) and his wife Kanako (Maki), a convenience store worker, seem to be uninvolved. Apparently a happy couple, the two try their best to ignore the press and carry on with their lives. 

As the police are investigating the murder rumours emerge that Satomi is romantically involved with Shunsuke Ozaki (Onishi).

Tabloid magazine reporter Watanabe (Omori) has been half-heartedly covering the case but when the new rumours emerge he is assigned by his editor to dig into Shunsuke’s background and discovers that he was once a star baseball player at university but was forced to quit due to murky circumstances.

 As Watanabe continues to dig he finds that the truth, be it the connection Shunsuke has with Satomi or the facts in his past, are far more complicated than he could have ever expected.

Sex is a natural human function but when misused it can be a damaging experience. It can be a way of exerting power over others, humiliating and hurting others. It can scar a person for life. It can be a brutal crime. The issue at the heart of this film is a sex crime and its ramifications for those involved.

The Ravine of Goodbye is based on a story by Shuichi Yoshida, the man who wrote Villain and The Story of Yonosuke. The fact that a novel is its source can be sensed from the structure of the film, a fragmented story which has the through-line of an investigation conducted by a reporter who unearths different sources creating different perspectives on events. This means plenty of flashbacks which slowly fill in character details and the facts surrounding the mysterious crime.

Spoilers in the next paragraphs

The sex at the beginning of the film is disarming. The opening shots stick firmly to the two beautiful bodies of Yoko Maki and Shima Onishi in a darkened room during daylight hours. Curtains drawn, they engage in love making. Curves and flesh are shown interlocking in an act of pleasure and synchronicity. Nothing too rude or explicit since the natural lighting and respectful editing means that working parts are covered. This is erotic without being pornographic.

The actions are passionate and yet gentle and careful, respectful even. This is a healthy relationship especially in contrast to what comes later in the film. As Watanabe’s investigation into Shunsuke’s past slowly uncovers the truth we bear witness to a brutal act and the film becomes uncomfortable viewing for audiences, a harrowing tale of rape and its after effects. We witness the nightmare of male lust and callousness that targets those who are weaker, the masculine attitudes that allow these things to happen and the consequences that result in a nightmare ordeal for the victim as it then turns into a pretty thorough denunciation of societal attitudes to rape victims. Then what follows is a story of survivor and perpetrator guilt and a survivor’s vengeance which, quite frankly, is unexpected and tough.

SPOILERS

Omori and Yoshida carefully pitch early scenes and characterisation to keep events and characters enigmatic as Watanabe circles around the truth. As he picks away at things we actually see Shunsuke’s crime, an awful moment that is not lingered on as the camera drifts away to a horrified witness. As bad as the situation is, worse things are in store for the victim. Through more flashback sequences we then see how the character’s lives fall apart. After surviving the traumatic experience the survivor finds herself a pariah due to the stigma attached to the crime. This initiates a downward slope of mistreatment, violence at the hands of men. The crime continues to rape her, so to speak, even though she tries her best to move away from it and it results in a shattered person on the verge of suicide.

Watanabe, an average guy looking into this, comes to understand the devastating impact of the crime on the victim. Perhaps he is analogous with the audience but every interview that Watanabe conducts comes after research and conversations around the issue of rape so we follow his gradual understanding. He finds out about the indifference some people hold and the differing levels of guilt or arrogance in the men who perpetrate these crimes and how they are able to move on with their lives while the victim suffers. This could be a ham-fisted diatribe against society and men but the script and direction and the acting are even-handed, nimble and believable enough to ensure that it is not the case. We get to meet men like the police who show their disgust at abusers but overall it creates feelings of anger, shame and anxiousness because things like this can happen.

This proves to be just the beginning of a strange and fascinating tale as a twisted and emotionally charged relationship between the victim and Shunsuke occurs as they find each other again. His guilt is a heavy burden and the victim’s anger is so great it renders her helpless to any feeling other than the desire to punish him. The film then turns into a scourging of the soul as emotions are explored and surprising twists occur and while some may have trouble with the end results I believed it. I believed the characters.

MILD SPOILER Throughout it all the film is beautiful. Just like the story structure and characters, things start back to front as we see the results of a thaw in the cold hard anger. It starts in the sticky summer months where sunlight scorches the dusty earth and people are damp with sweat and passion. The colours are bright, yellowing long grass, verdant green leaves and cool greys for water. For the flashback sequences the colours are slightly duller, a wintry tone is noticeable as people are stripped back to their raw emotions and worst aspects.

End of spoilers for now

Nao Omori plays the sad sack middle-aged staff reporter Watanabe skilfully. Essentially oblivious to a woman’s plight at the beginning, maybe even sceptical of victims due to bad relations with his wife and feeling the need to defend a fellow guy with a similar background in sports, the more he finds out about how rape could truly affect a person physically, mentally and societally and through conversations with a plucky young ambitious reporter (Suzuki), the more he seems to mature and grow wise on screen.

The relationship with Suzuki’s reporter is well played, sort of like a reminder to look at things with fresh eyes and not take gender roles for granted.

The real plaudits go to Yoko Maki and Shima Onishi who play their characters brilliantly.

Onishi plays his character placidly. Not given to opening up much, he only breaks after relentless questioning or when dealing with a man from a similar background. Apart from his wife Kanako, he seems to have little joy in his life and accepts this. One senses a bubbling guilt from his past that smothers his anger over his present troubles. His face plays these things out in very well ensuring we are never really certain how his past is linked to the Satomi case.

Maki as Kanako is fantastic. She handles  lot of transformations through this film as her character reacts to Shunsuke’s past coming to light, revealing a depth of understanding and toughness.

Overall this is a thought provoking film. It actually made me want to hug those closest to me much like Watanabe. I was made aware of the fragility of normality and happiness and like the films Poetry, Bedevilled and I Saw the Devil, it made me angry at the way women could be mistreated. Because I wrote the plot synopsis for previews I knew some of the twists but that did not stop the atmosphere and characters getting me. It left me with a feeling of guilt over the way men could thoughtlessly treat women and anger that society could be so cruel to people. Not a fun watch but always beautiful, enigmatic and maybe a little hopeful. If people can survive horror then they can grow again and find happiness.

4/5

That was longer than expected. I’ve worked on this for a while so I’ll go away and re-read it because I need a clear head to see how cumbersome this review is. I get the feeling I really need to be more clear and concise with my reviews… Anyway, this was the fourth film I saw at the BFI London Film Festival and the second starring Yoko Maki after Like Father, Like Son. She’s a great actress I’m totally in love with her right now. Sorry, Kumiko Aso, you’ve been replaced as a favourite actress…

Our Sunhi  

Release Date: September, 12^th 2013 (South Korea)

Seen at the BFI London Film Festival

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Hong Sang-Soo

Writer: Hong Sang-Soo (Screenplay)

Starring: Jung Yu-Mi, Lee Sun-Kyun, Jung Jae-Young, Kim Sang-Joong, Ye Ji-Won, Lee Min-Woo

Meet Sunhi:

She is in her mid-twenties and is studying film. Apparently she went into hiding for one year. She just disappears off the map from time to time, seemingly on the verge of dropping out of her course…

But now she’s back because she needs a reference letter from her lecturer Professor Choi so she can study at a graduate school in the US. He agrees to write something truthful about her but she is unhappy with his description of her and asks for a rewrite. While she is waiting for it she encounters her mopey ex-boyfriend Kim Moonsoo who still harbours feelings for her. She also falls in with her introverted college senior Jaehak who has already made his debut as a filmmaker and is living apart from his wife. As the three men bump into each other and Sunhi, they all give each other advice about their lives and careers and the men cannot stop thinking about her.

And that is what Our Sunhi is about. One intelligent but seemingly uncertain girl and the three love-struck men around her who have one giant circular conversation full of advice repeated to the comic point of absurdity but never taken. The locations are few and often visited and they are the typical student hangouts like coffee shops and fast-food parlours (the film does end in palace grounds). There is the repetition of camera and character placement for scenes and the same innocuous love-ballad is heard as characters talk.

Far from being boring Hong Sang-soo’s carefully constructed film is amusing and quite intelligent, a cutting portrait of people and their hidden weaknesses. You might not see it at first because Hong Sang-soo’s writing and direction is ninja-like in its subtlety. No scene or line of dialogue stands out as important in a typical movie way and everything from performances to direction is synchronised to perfection so we do not see the technical underpinnings so when taken as a whole a meaning emerges as we witness people expose their inner fallibilities through their conversations and routines. Those who seem outwardly successful reveal themselves to be stuck. More specifically, the guys are stuck on Sunhi.

As one character says to Sunhi. “You’re the topic of my life. I can’t explain my feelings.”

All of the men have seemingly achieved more than Sunhi. One is a professor, one is a student about to graduate and with a student film completed and one is a minor filmmaker who has made his debut. However much they have achieved they seem lesser than her. The more we get to know them, the more venal and uncertain they reveal themselves to be and we ultimately see that they are unable to actually move on with their lives with any conviction.

Professor Choi loves to pose as an intelligent elder but his actions are anything but mature and Moonsoo is insecure about his future and very needy. The reality is that they are immature men plagued by indecision while Sunhi has inadvertently charmed them at the moment when she is about to move on with her life.

It is quite amusing hearing every line of dialogue being recycled and repeated in different variations to funny reactions but it becomes gently mocking when we realise that all of the advice that the characters pour out to each other might actually help them find a path to better themselves. However, as is ever the case with those good at giving advice, they do not listen to it and these men are distracting themselves by being fixated on Sunhi like she offers some sort of answer. Sometimes people live the way they please. There’s nothing much others can do. It is funny and embarrassing.

But I can see why Sunhi would be attractive. She is beautiful, intelligent, charmingly childish and earnest and has flashes of gutsiness. She at least has some idea about what she wants to do and she is going to pursue it unlike the men surrounding her. When the final reference is read out you understand a little bit more about her and what she means to each man, the fantasy they have cooked up.

Ultimately the film is amusing and embarrassingly familiar to anybody who has obsessed over someone else and neglected their own aspirations. it is much like the film Fine, Totally Fine, a film about people plagued by uncertainty. It is so well scripted and shot that it feels like reality. Think about it, how every character acts and what they say and the put it together and it all offers an amusing portrait of drift lives.

4/5