#137: Tekkonkinkreet (2006)

Director: Michael Arias

Screenplay: Anthony Weintraub

Based on the manga by Taiyō Matsumoto

Voice Cast: Kazunari Ninomiya as Kuro (Black); Yū Aoi as Shiro (White); Yūsuke Iseya as Kimura; Kankurō Kudō as Sawada; Min Tanaka as Suzuki; Rokurō Naya as Gramps; Tomomichi Nishimura as Fujimura; Mugihito as The Boss; Nao Ōmori as Choco; Yoshinori Okada as Vanilla; Yukiko Tamaki as Dawn; Mayumi Yamaguchi as Dusk; Masahiro Motoki as Snake

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Tekkonkinkreet stands out in the Japanese animation industry as the first theatrical feature directed by a non-Japanese creator. Michael Arias, originally from the United Kingdom, had a long career before he even got to animation such as visual and digital effects in cinema, and developing and patenting Toon Shaders, rendering software to allow the integration of computer graphics imagery with cel animation, which has been used even in productions like Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke (1997). Here, Arias makes an important historical note as the first non-Japanese director of an anime project, adapting this adaptation of a Taiyō Matsumoto project with Studio 4°C.

Tekkonkinkreet is set in Treasure Town, an amalgamation of periods which I suspect is as much influenced by the period after World War II, considering a huge plot point being drastic redevelopment including an amusement park replacing slums and strip joints, feeling less like the bubble period of the eighties, and a scene where real film posters are decorating the wall, mostly yakuza and crime films which would've predominantly be popular between the fifties to the seventies at the latest. Personally this feels like one of the sixties yakuza films of the "Mukokuseki" (stateless) era from the likes of Nikkatsu studios, where the yakuza try to take over with a divide between the modern world and a creepy cold blooded figure named Snake, and the old honourable guard, with a super powered boy named Kuro (Black) in the middle in the way of development whilst he protects a child-like boy named Shiro (White).

This being a Studio 4°C production means this is a very idiosyncratic looking work. I cannot really pinpoint what their trademarks are, even if you ignore the Masaaki Yuasa productions, aside from the fact they have always taken risks in distinct animation and exploring unique artistic styles, sustained in commissioned work like music videos. Their work is always artistically bold, taking experimental risks and this action drama immediately shows the talent behind the production when it opens up with characters chasing each other on moving traffic, float in the air after taking leaps off buildings, and the world itself being utterly alien to our own, from its general timelessness to bars the size of cubes having giant eyes on the wallpaper. The designs are also interesting in how manga author Taiyō Matsumoto is very distinctive, exaggerated but with touches of greater realism in his character designs. This is possibly paradoxical but with a sense that when characters are meant to stand out, like the mysterious foreign assassins Snake hires to kill Black who act like aliens, they do; in contrast others such as the wife of Kimura, a yakuza who slowly starts to question his support of Snake especially when he learns he will soon become a father, look far more realistic in context of a lot of anime being very exaggerated already.

The world is openly exaggerated with this clash in tones intention, especially as this is indeed a world of the openly unnatural where super minions can fly and Kuro's spiritual side includes "The Minotaur", an evil side to himself hidden inside.  Tekkonkinkreet is surprisingly dark; the world is kinetic, with incredibly animation and a score by British electronic duo Plaid having a pop electronic buzz to it, but the film's a melancholic tale where change is inevitable to Treasure Town with no way back. Kuro is all anger and passion, whilst Shiro is a rare case of a character who is child-like who isn't annoying, who acts like he is five and likes things like his collection of weird hats, but is someone with moments of supreme wisdom with the tale continuing to the point it clearly shows he is Black's sanity in literal form. The finale act is literally a subconscious struggle in influence as Kuro by this point is insane, staggering around the town as a pure beast of violence, leading to most surreal and enigmatic sequences.

I did initially consider Tekkonkinkreet to probably a flawed film, but with time having passed, it is yet become a spectacular debut that I cannot really suggest any major flaw with, a rush of energy and imagination which does touch on some real emotion. Its darker, grimmer moments stand out, but there's also the subplot of an older gangster who believes in honour and finds the changes to the town utterly alienation, the conclusion where Kimura is forced to finally deal with him played with the male angst of a yakuza film fully and heartfelt. It is a gem, one that also had the benefit of a wider audience beyond anime circles as in the 2000s, when anime was a big trend, Sony Pictures Entertainment released this alongside Satoshi Kon's Paprika (2006) on DVD and Blu-Ray, which means that Tekkonkinkreet was probably more heavily advertised and available for people to stumble across this medium. Certainly, this is a good thing for this production. In terms of Arias' own career, he's been slow but has made more work in the medium, with the added knowledge that his cel shading software innovations would've been enough to provide a huge impact on animation in general beyond just Japan. With this film under his belt, he has an additional success, whilst Studio 4°C, who were more than likely helped by this film's accessibility alongside their growing cult audience, would just stand out as a cool and idiosyncratic company still.

#136: Tesagure! Bukatsumono Spin-off Purupurun Sharumu to Asobou (2015)

a.k.a. Tesagure! Season 3

Director: Kōtarō Ishidate

Screenplay: Kōtarō Ishidate

Cast: Asuka Nishi as Yua Suzuki, Ayaka Ohashi as Koharu Tanaka, Karin Ogino as Aoi Takahashi, Mikako Komatsu as Hina Usami, Natsumi Takamori as Yui Enjoji, Reina Ueda as Mobuko Sonota, Rumi Okubo as Kanon Izayoi, Satomi Akesaka as Hina Satō, Shiori Mikami as Rin Arisugawa, Sumire Uesaka as Tomomi Okonogi, Kaoru Mizuhara as Mio Watanabe

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

The Tesagure train finishes, and with a considerable risk in how it jumps up from fifteen minute episodes to full length ones. The other change is that Tesagure is invaded by an entirely different series, in this case bringing in the case of a manga series called Minarai Megami Puru Purun Sharumu, revolving around five personalities part of the radio program A&G NEXT GENERATION Lady Go!!. Effectively a spin-off than a third series, these new characters are only really defined as being five high school girls meant to train as cosmic goddesses, a detail which is quickly dismissed in favour of them joining in on long absurd discussions.

Whatever the case the length was necessary, as the show through the character Yua Suzuki, who now for most of the episodes speaks to the audience and her cast members in the openings of the show, is now openly as much a way to promote the characters in-between them organising what to do for each episode. They shuffle the cast members, or have full group events, but it's usually the Puru Purun Sharumu cast first, than the original Tesagure cast. Tragically the Mobuko family, the insanely numerous identical sisters, get put by the wayside as there's not a lot of activities anymore baring a couple. Thankfully, voice actresses Reina Ueda got the end of episode previews, which tell a strange Mobuko family tale rather than preview the main show, as compensation.

The show is mainly conversations now for Season 3 and continuing improvisation with the voice actresses, more about the casts coming up with new and wacky takes on ideas like zoos to dentists. Some of the more focused and sillier jokes, like a card game of constructing sentences which lead to incompetent zookeepers who still have jobs or having to complete a mathematic test as you get your teeth done, are legitimately funny. When the voice cast break character, or find the work funny in character, is when Tesagure succeeds.

Unfortunately stretching this premise to over twenty minutes per episode is with huge pacing issues, creator Kōtarō Ishidate's obsession with improvised dialogue one which cannot be extended this long without respite. The activities from the two series before sadly don't appear frequently as mentioned which causes a problem, a sense of malaise felt as cast are just sat around chairs for the most part, never necessarily building to a great deal as, whilst the original Tesagure characters have established personalities, the Puru Purun Sharumu cast don't stand out except in rare occasions. Examples like this, occasional, are such as one voice actress breaking character to explain to another heavy metal or a Russian speaking girl who has access to a tank but is tragically not as frequently used as possible, possibly in a fourth wall breaking joke due to her actress having scheduling conflicts.

When the activities do appear, like a musical theatre version of the show or ping pong with intimate questions needing to be answered as you strike the ball back over the net, its appreciated. Thankfully the production gets a much needed shot in the arm when it was decided to send the original Tesagure actresses off to real life locations, like a haunted house or a zoo, record the real exchanges and scenic sounds as they try to "stay in character" and animating the results. This does really stretch what is required of the cast to a virtue, also really getting into some unexpected things rarely found in anime, such as the one recorded on a Ferris wheel where unless she's acting Satomi Akesaka as Hina really doesn't like heights and shows it in that escapade. Also its sweet just to hear voice actors get easily amused by meerkats, even if the critters animated are caught about to get it on in the open.

Unfortunately, the attempts at new ideas do lead to two bad episodes, the two part "Yuriwolf" game. Ishidate likes having his casts playing games, felt when a later show Himote House (2018) ends with an intentional whimper of a card game for the last sequence. The game here is "Werewolf", in which two people have are assigned as werewolves and in trials the group have to try to vote out them to win, with the later picking off a person after each trial if not voted off and deceiving everyone else¹. Changing it to "yuriwolf", in reference to "yuri" (lesbian or gay female) stories, has an unfortunate connotation someone didn't think too carefully of, though Ishidate to his credit with Himote House had the "Yuri Game of Life" episode, an episode that has stuck with me in a flawed series which was probably as biting about the problematic LGBT politics in Japan as you could get away with and then some. It doesn't excuse the Yuriwolf episodes, actually called Let's play with werewolves and yuri ((1) and (2)), being frightfully boring, painfully so as the two episodes drag. What makes it worse as, showing clips of another bonus game, the final episode tells use this can only be found on the Blu-Rays as extras, suddenly turning this series in an advertisement for material we cannot get in the West for added insult to injury.

The question of whether the entire three seasons of Tesagure ultimately works is a complicated one. Everyone clearly had fun, managing to get away with a clip show that's good at one point by having it redubbed, the cast sorted by categories as esoteric as who accidentally called their teacher "mother" for rounds where some may have to say everything in the verge of sexual arousal to shouting from outside the recording booth. With the original cast too, they have grown these characters into idiosyncratic figures over time. Or there's the further existential adventures of Karin Ogino, as the boisterous Aoi, who eventually becomes more puerile, biting and bored as she continues onwards baring her continued obsession with making all her jokes puns, culminating in the final episode where she's meant to play her character in a comedy competition against everyone only for baffled amusement at what mood she is in to take place.   

I will be blunt though in saying, if taken as a whole, the franchise doesn't succeed. Mainly this is because fifteen minute micro episodes are bite sized but as a whole, there's not as many successes as there should be even if the cast are admirable in personality. There is a lot of experimentation here which does indulge without enough risk or pay off, to which I will always go back to gdgd Fairies (2011/2013) which Ishidate worked on for the first season. That series did stand out for the improvised sequences but was both focused on one idea with rich potential (the magical "dubbing lake" of 3D models taken off the internet crudely animated), and also had many other segments which were great and became some of the funniest material by the season.

There's also not a lot of growth in Season 3 here, as baring the much welcomed sequences at public attractions the only aspects which succeed are the jokes that lasted ("worn panties" a reoccurring gag since season one that clearly caught on) or characters who have been able to evolving a little over time, such as the initial "protagonist" Koharu now the put upon and sympathetic butt of a lot of jokes. Neither most of the manga and anime references, nor many of the conversations in themselves, beyond this stand out. It is a surprise for me that the series got three seasons, as it's really peculiar. The likelihood is that, as I have found, there's developed a taste in these type of simple shows about esoteric con esoteric conversations and jokes which usually rely on puns more fluid in Japanese, but even then this franchise's a real curiosity in its longevity.

Arguably, as animation, it's always skirted on the seat of its (worn) pants by being very basic and improvised. Even in spite of how easily it must've been to produce, which is a thing to consider as the show is constantly joking in season three in some of the better jokes that the production is behind, even early on recycling sequences from before for jarring results. Even then, I look to the strange experience that was Virtual-SAN Looking (2019), a show I missed most of the humour of but still liked, as a show which sold itself on the hot trend of virtual YouTubbers and thus becoming a fascinating sociological piece in the making. Tesagure in contrast ebbed into something I am glad to have completed the whole of but may sadly disappear entirely from memory barring few highlights. Even in terms of Kōtarō Ishidate's career, which I want to continue and find as much of in interest of his very unique style, the good moments through two (and a spin-off's) worth of a franchise don't necessarily hit as high moments as other projects I've seen of his.

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1) According to history, it's been traced back to 1986 to a Russian named Dimitry Davidoff as a social deduction game originally called Mafia, befittingly with the Russian speaking character here the one that plays the hostess/narrator.

#135: The Case of Hana & Alice (2015)

Director: Shunji Iwai

Screenplay: Shunji Iwai

Cast: Yū Aoi as Tetsuko "Alice" Arisugawa; Anne Suzuki as Hana Arai; Ryo Katsuji as Kotaro Yuda; Haru Kuroki as Ogino; Tae Kimura as Yuki Sakaki; Sei Hiraizumi as Kenji Kuroyanagi; Shoko Aida as Kayo Arisugawa; Ranran Suzuki as Mutsu Mutsumi; Tomohiro Kaku as Tomonaga; Midoriko Kimura as Tomomi Arai

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Today we have a curious one-off in that the director of Hana & Alice is not an anime industry director but Shunji Iwai, a well regarded Japanese director behind titles like All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001), a figure still obscure to many but is held highly by others who know of him. In context, The Case of Hana & Alice follows from Vampire (2011), an American set horror film which qualifies as a tangent in itself as his first English language film, whilst the film I am talking about today makes more sense when you know it's a prequel to a live action 2004 production of his called Hana and Alice.

That the same leads Yū Aoi (as Alice) and Anne Suzuki (as Hana) have return explains the choice for animation as time has passed for this tale following two schoolgirls. We are first introduced to who we learn to be Alice, the other Hana not fully introduced until considerably later on, a mysterious girl next door to Alice's new home who keeps in her bedroom as a hikikomori. Live action directors making animation is rare, the likelihood for more animators to make live action films, with one of the few exceptions being Wes Anderson, who has done two films in stop motion and has effectively suggested as much that the first wasn't an oddity but a considered interest.

There's also Richard Linklater, who's the perfect person to evoke as his tangents into animation were rotoscope, which is the exact technique The Case of Hana & Alice uses. It's a type of animation which is divisive; I half suspect it's partially a sense of dismissal compared to drawing from scratch, but also because it's a curious aesthetic with very real figures (actors) and sometimes locations drawn over in drawings with a strange aura as a result. The only other prominent example of rotoscope in anime from the same period was The Flowers of Evil (2013), a TV series which was ultra divisive for this aesthetic choice and because it really looked different from the source manga.

It works in Hana & Alice, actresses reprising roles they would be too old to play, fourteen or so year old girls, but with many advantages of actually having actors in staged performances. Once you past the look, and weight is one of the aspects rotoscope has to try to traverse alongside a sense of distance even animation doesn't have, you get the advantage of actor ticks and movements difficult to animate. Prominently Alice is a former ballet student getting back into this among her various charming eccentricities, alongside Hana being the odd figure of the pair whose distinct personality is felt a lot more easily in body language than with a fully animated figure. That the world drawn around them is a heavily detailed modern urban Japan which is just as rich as the best examples found in other theatrical anime helps considerably make the choice of rotoscoping absolutely perfect and a rich aesthetic by itself.

Plot wise, Hana & Alice pulls a fast one. It originally starts as almost as a set-up to a horror anime as the students in Alice's new homeroom have bizarre rituals over the "death" of a male student, even leading to her being spiritually purified by the girl in the class behind this all, said to have been possessed by a ghost and now top dog as a result. It ducks and dives expectations, really coming ahead when Hana is introduced - to the initiated, hikikomori are people who shut themselves off from the outside world fully, a huge phenomenon in modern Japanese culture which is a major issue and a subject that has been covered in anime and manga before. Her choice to be as this is connected to this mysterious death, until eventually her encouragement of Alice to solve the mystery pulls her from her fears out the door.

As an outsider to the medium, Iwai does bring some idiosyncrasy to his tale, yet he could have made a great side job in anime screenwriting if he ever wants to, taking this initial premise and using it to spin a lot of personality in his characters. Little changes and layers are found in them which are peeled away or revealed, and when he gets to the investigation of the case, the film plays as a comedy with wrong people being followed, late night ramen on the run, and eventually a lot of soul searching. His sense of humanity is just to be found in the side plot of an older salaryman who is roped into this case, not play for anything else but light comedy and tenderness as a generational divide doesn't stop some emotional bonding. This is all in mind that, initially setting up a mystery, the story eventually deflates it completely and becomes a great film as a result, the script sparking with a considerable mix of playfulness and heart. The result shouldn't be elaborated on any further. It was a curiosity and a one-off which got a decent release from Anime Limited in the United Kingdom, so it has proudly sat among big titles on the DVD shelf. Again, if Iwai wants to come back to anime at some point he'd be welcomed by me with open arms as he was great here.

#134: Anitore! XX - Hitotsu Yane no Shita de (2016)

Director: Atsushi Nigorikawa

Screenplay: Daisuke Ishibashi

Voice Cast: Miku Itō as Asami Hoshi, Azumi Waki as Eri Higuchi, Eri Suzuki as Sakura Izumi, Kanon Takao as Yū Hiraoka, Maria Naganawa as Shion Tachibana, Miyu Komaki as Shizuno Saotome

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Adding to the bad thoughts about Anitore! is that I accidentally watched the second season without realising so until halfway through. It really doesn't feel like something is lost as a result admittedly.  When I spotted this show on Crunchyroll and found it a) fascinating as an idea and b) short enough to pique my interest, I wasn't expecting this to be this painfully banal.

The series is interesting on paper - a micro series where the idea is anime girls teaching the viewer how to exercise. Sounds positive enough, letting otaku get healthy and buff, especially as in 2019 a show called How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? runs with the virtue of exercise in normal length episodes years later to popularity. What you get is something else, a little bit exercise training, more ecchi where you ogle animated girls bending over, and a peculiar first person harem work.

Let's get pass that detail. The show is set up entirely from first person from a male character, harem genre storytelling dictating that (unless a reverse harem with a woman/girl surrounded by men/boys) it's a male character surrounded by female characters, usually tickling fancies (i.e. fetishes) for the male viewer, and usually so bland it's to the point that it feels like they're just cloning the same character, over multiple decades, with the point of being a stand-in for fantasies only on the surface but revealing an uncomfortable amount of psychological issues for men in their quietness and extreme meekness. We never hear our protagonist but the female cast address him and directly to us as well; the ideas is unmistakeably voyeuristic, done alongside usual tropes from the harem genre of sec comedy about compromising positions or a girl falling on him (us). The show has effectively boiled down these bland, blander than white bread male character to the perfect extreme - you, not you the reader, but the metaphorical (male) you. It's weird in a bad way, and the show also breaks its own structural rules numerous and arbitrary amounts of time, cutting to camera angles (like two girls sideways that clearly aren't from a person's perspective) and thus making it an odd creative decision not really implemented. Before you even ask if it's just crass, again I'd have actually been intrigued if this had fully went with this experimental style of first person if it had been more than just for titilation.

In terms of a show, it has the pretence of being educational. When it is, there is a semblance of a fun show here, covering basics as the best ways to do exercise stretches to even cool down techniques, done by way of chiba representations of the cast, diminutive (and cute) versions whose proportions are shrunk to a pocket size version, a trope that exists here with the chibi addressing the audience. (In one of the few funny gags, though it completely destroys reality itself, one chibi is squashed by her normal sized version mid-exercise). Even if some of it, like exercising on a crowded train, might seem absurd it nonetheless is of interest.

It becomes obvious Anitore! is meant to be more of a regular fetish show when a lot of the exercise segments have the girls literally orgasming from the final push of their exercise. I'm not suggesting people don't experience this in real life sometimes, but when it's this frequent, it's quite obvious which side of its bread the show butters. And its continual, with pratfalls and near nudity, never actively placating the horny viewer with actual nudity. It even goes as far as continue a trope I have surprisingly seen a few times in anime to make this a trope now, of a mischievous pet ferret, in this case one that's obsessed with burying itself into a girl's cleavage or making off with underwear/swimming tops¹.

I've never actually mentioned the cast yet but the other issue is that this cast is bland. Your male lead is literally non-existent, the final culmination of all the bland males whittled down to negative space, and this is a rare case where even the female cast in visual design is as generic as you can get. One is defined just by being meek and wearing glasses, another just from having a significantly larger bosom than anyone else has, and so forth. The exceptions are a Segway rider who collects plush toys and lives in a fantasy realm within her own head, and also one character who did redeem this show a little, that of a girl who wants to be the occult Goth in contact to Eldritch Gods but is actually working at a convenience stand and has a really sweet mother appear once to undermine her facade. The picture of someone trying to live a fictitious self is a great idea desperately needing to be rescued for a good show.

Nothing else is to be said as its vignettes of exercise and the actual concern of cheap titillation, to perv over the girls without any real sense of sexuality, just leering from a distance that objectifies them and is just tedious to sit through. The only sense of a real set piece through these episodes is when two of the girls go jogging for one episode, and that the final one is a Christmas episode, a sex fantasy just to see everyone in skimpy clothes. The show is pretty well made - colourful, full of energy as each episode is only four minutes long, a poppy end song set to characters entering doors in gravity defying reality - but it's so vapid and questionable in terms of why it exists it was an utter chore to sit through. And again, this was the second season I accidentally watched first, which works by itself and leads to the question of what would sitting through the first season be like...

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1) Even censored hentai versions of Alien. Thank you Alien of Darkness (1996), for unfortunately being stuck in memory over the years due to that bloody ferret one of staff got included even if it was so tonally inappropriate to.