#184: The Book of the Dead (2005)

 

Director: Kihachiro Kawamoto 

Based on a novel by Shinobu Origuchi

Voice Cast: Kyôko Kishida as the Narrator; Tetsuko Kuroyanagi as the Story Teller; Rie Miyazawa as Iratsume of Fujiwara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

A new fangled wall would bring curses upon your sons!

A film I had always wanted to see, this is a curveball in that this is a stop motion puppet work, stepping outside the confines of hand drawn animation, and focusing on a figure of high regard in puppet and stop motion filmmaking. Kihachirō Kawamoto is sadly a figure not as widely known, and for me only in passing knowledge, among the string of widely acclaimed international animation directors who sadly seem cut off from wider accessibility. This is prominent in that Yuri Norstein, a legendary Russian animation director behind the likes of Tale of Tales (1979), worked on this project as a guest collaborator.

The Book of the Dead itself would defy categorisation, something which would tragically go against being able to sell it to many. It is not a horror tale, yet it is explicitly about the supernatural. It is also religious as it tells the legend of Chūjō-hime (called "Iratsume" here), the daughter of an imperial minister whose obsession with copying Buddhist mandalas, in a time period when Buddhism was first introduced to Japan historically, will eventually lead to her creating the Taima Mandala. The Mandala, reproduced in this tale, is a real artefact in Japan, part of their own version of Buddhism. In spite of being a sacred object depiction the "pure land" of Buddha, this Mandala in this tale is ironically crafted out of love for another.

This is where The Book of the Dead takes an interesting side, a beautiful film to look at in terms of a well crafted tale told entirely by puppets, even to the point of full locations which, lovingly, have panoramic camera shots overlooking the setting. The film could be considered "dry", if only in the sense that, be you anime fan or film fan expecting a fast pace supernatural story, you are instead watching a sombre and matter-of-fact folktale which, even over just an hour or so, is restrained. It is entirely about a point in Japanese culture where it was first being influenced by Buddhism, and its simple tale has a lot of cultural details specific to the time to adapt to, such as the fact that, when she first sees the visage of a sacred figure who capture her heart, Iratsume transgresses the rule that women are not allowed in the temple ground where that figure looms. What is fascinating is that, for a narrative told of how a real piece of art of such sacredness came to be, this film is as much about the emotions of its creator. A woven cultural object that (even if having sadly degraded over the eras) has still been preserved in real life, and is of great importance in Japan, this film tells the tale of it being the craft of a young woman, a young maiden, smitten by a godlike figure and makes that fact as profound. Specifically a nobleman, as told to her by an old woman, killed and whose ghost still haunts the land.  

For me personally, this tale as told here is captivating. The lack of any "thrills", that his haunting is not to possess her, but are explicitly about wishing to have a child he never had alive, is as rewarding, especially as the course of the narrative instead has her create a clock to wrap his giant beautiful naked form, a cloth that turns into a Mandala of great artistic and spiritual worth, her act of love subversive in itself. A playfulness spans the calm mood of the film, of the dangers of angering spirits of old houses if you include new wall refurbishments, something to learn from in the modern day, or that we encounter a group of gods by a haunted tree briefly, fifty years later returning to the land and feeling old now. A lot in this film, for a story which is as much a tribute to Buddhist ideals, is also fascinating to see as a very human tale of love, including Iratsume's own reaction to her masterwork in the finale, more so as this is told with puppets rather than live action actors. That the ghostly figure she comes to adore is a fictionalised version of a real figure, a poet and a son to an Emperor Tenmu called Prince Ōtsu, continues this film being as much looking to real Japanese history and artistic culture and bringing it alive again.

It would be a disservice, at the moment of writing those words, to not mention this is an adaptation of a novel Shisha no sho by Shinobu Orikuchi, a figure whose reputation in study and writings in countless fields, from Japanese folklore to performing arts to the Japanese language itself, is in itself a nod to what the intention of writing such a work was meant at, his own career and life devoted to looking at his own culture and bringing it in full vibrancy. Likewise, The Book of the Dead itself as an animation does feel like production meant to bring culture alive onscreen, with Orikuchi as much as Kihachirō Kawamoto himself figures in their homeland who have contributed so much for a lasting legacy in looking at their heritage. In terms of the film itself, there are many moments where, beyond itself simple tale, Kawamoto's adapted material has its own idiosyncratic touches which you could easily miss. It is a very deceptively unconventional narrative, a romantic narrative by a living young woman and a figure that wakes up in his tomb dead which blurs the living and the dead, and is entirely a passive romance. That this leads to a creation of a masterpiece, in her love for him which involves painstaking work of her own, is befittingly being adapted too by an animation director, bringing his characters alive with puppets alongside a team of animators.

#183: She, the Ultimate Weapon (2002)

 

a.k.a. Saikano

Director: Mitsuko Kase

Screenplay: Itaru Era

Based on the manga by Shin Takahashi

Voice Cast: Fumiko Orikasa as Chise; Shirou Ishimoda as Shuji; Miki Itō as Fuyumi; Shinichiro Miki as Tetsu; Tetsu Shiratori as Atsushi; Yuu Sugimoto as Akemi; Atsushi Ii as Kawahara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

[Major Plot Spoilers Throughout]

Returning to She, the Ultimate Weapon it is amazing to think of how heavily publicized this show was especially in the United Kingdom for its release. A big license for Manga Entertainment, it has effectively disappeared despite also having a lot of praise for it at the time. Whilst this may be odd considering so many anime having these tropes and plot threats this has, She... is also quite a peculiar animated series in hindsight, which in itself becomes part of why it still clings with something of note for me and likely why the tide turned to its obscurity.

Set in a coastal city of Hokkaidō in Japan, this is set up like a conventional anime romance. A shy young woman, technically a teenager but older than most in other stories, named Chise is clumsy and awkward but is lovable. She finally gets the courage to date Shuji, a reserved seventeen year old boy in her school, and they blossom immediately together. She... is however a war story, set in a world where Japan is at war. The touch, adding to the strangeness of how the story is told, which stands out is that this entirely focuses on the world of these characters rather than focusing on the war. We see the battlefield in Japan, soldiers fighting on their own soil in an invasion, and the aftermath, but the show is entirely focused on the effect of the war on the ordinary people from the soldiers to the leads, living in Hokkaidō. This is also a science fiction show where Chise is also a figure of great importance to protect Japan, which is bizarre for an outsider to consider, of a story of a teenager being the ultimate weapon, expect that anime and manga have always had teenagers in war stories like this, as much to appeal to the emotions of a target audience as an obsession to have youthful characters, so we fans accept the logic.

The strangeness and uniqueness is the tone. Completely sober, a lot of the world is never explained. An spin off OVA called Saikano: Another Love Song (2005) explained more detail to why Chise is the titular weapon, in a side story on another human weapon, but in the series we learn little context. We never learn what the war is, with only a few of the opposite side as actual human beings seen, and the war itself is ultimately an apocalyptic one. Chise's use in the war, whilst conventional in any other narrative, emphasises this as she herself is literally the weapon, with body horror tropes that she can even produce heat seeking missiles from her body even against her will which can be painful. The sombreness of the narrative, and how little is explained on the science fiction plot, emphasises the distinct way the show is told, a tragedy where from the get-go the show's subtitle "The Last Love Song on This Little Planet" emphasises that this will become a bleak show in terms of humanity, once mysterious earthquakes hit the country and Chise herself becomes more inhuman to the point she can accidentally obliterate whole cities from existence.

The show does have some levity - even some cartoonish distortion of the characters when Chise and a soldier named Testu she befriends decide to have a day out away from work, including liberal attitudes to going "shopping" by blowing doors open - but this is melodramatic and tragic to an extreme. Eventually by Episode 9, titled after a side character named Akemi, Chise and Shuji's tomboy friend who becomes the latter's consciousness, this show is ill-advised to binge for how bleak it gets. This tone is one of the more divisive aspects of She... as it has no qualms even beforehand of emotional gut punches over and over in-between its very quiet dramatic tone and moments of war which, never depicted as action scenes, are dramatic in their pointlessness. Some of it in hindsight is ridiculous - in mind to how this type of scene makes some viewers uncomfortable, having Shuji slap Akemi twice in the series in a moment of emotional distress is absurd if likely to upset viewers. Some of it is heightened with an appropriate tone, befitting a show where you have to accept this premise of a seventeen year old girl with robot wings as the ultimate doomsday weapon.

The people behind the show are worth looking into to think about the series. A rare female director, Mitsuko Kase has mostly a career of Episode Directors and other positions on projects, but she has been at the helm of a couple of titles. That you have a female director on this project does cause one to think of how she would handle this material very differently from someone else. In mind to this, if this is the same figure and there is no confusion by accident between two people, screenwriter Itaru Era has also worked with Takeshi Miike, of all people to hire for this project also the figure who has worked with him sporadically over the years including on Visitor Q (2001). A notorious film in Miike's career, it is however also a reinterpretation of Teorema (1968), a subversive Pier Paolo Pasolini film, which means Visitor Q is not just a film notorious for having disturbing taboo scenes of incest and breast milk but a social critique. I cannot help but think, in particular with the screenwriter, that She, The Ultimate Weapon was much more carefully built that it may suggests, especially with mind to someone whose career has been focused on a lot of genre and pulp narratives, deciding to bleed them into a much more idiosyncratic narrative.

Some of it falls into the history of the animation studio which created it as well. Studio Gonzo, even before financial struggles eventually kneecapped them in 2009, is a divisive studio from when they started in 2000. At least for Western anime fans, when I got into anime in the early 2000s and companies like Manga Entertainment but especially ADV Films released many Gonzo releases in the United Kingdom. Gonzo has some titled held as gems - particularly the experimental Alexandre Dumas adaptation Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (2004) - but alongside titles which never succeeded, they had a few where how they were told and put together became divisive. Some was bad luck, as they adapted titles where they could not finish them as the manga were ongoing (Chrno Crusade and Hellsing) and had to improvise anime exclusive narratives. Others, like Trinity Blood (2005), were just shows which (least to my younger self's eyes) merely fell hard over a long stretch of episodes. She, The Ultimate Weapon is a fascinating title, but one where I completely understand an individual viewer being divided between the moments where it succeeds as a risk in storytelling but also can be both manipulative and as awkward as its leads. It befittingly has a premise about a young woman, shy and innocent, struggling with a sinister dehumanising weapon part of herself now, and about a boyfriend who is the same age and not as mature as he thinks he is, as that is a perfect metaphor for a show which has tenderness and yet also so much darkness. One with characters dying with ease and an ultimately hopeless scenario for the war, exaggerated with the naive earnestness of teen leads in how it emphasises the one true love of one's life, something which may cause viewers to roll their eyes, but also with complete sincerity to it.

At least the show also does not beat around the bush too. It does have these characters be imperfect. Chise is a stereotype, but appropriate a person stuck in a horrible position where she can obliterate so many with ease, mandatory for the military. Shuji is not perfect, and in a subplot, with an older woman he had a crush on as a child comes into his life, there is the danger of him breaking Chise's heart as appropriate angst ridden rather than the show being sleazy, more of him being tragically controlled by lusts when the dehumanisation of Chise physically has an influence. The bluntness of the show to eventually be more than platonic love, but also a physical love between the leads, is a damn sight better than a childish one most characters can have in other anime, with no fan service but eventually a consummated romance. This is surprising rare in anime even if this one has many unsettling aspects surrounding it, not least when the woman you love's arm falls off just beforehand and she is clearly not human anymore.

Another factor, which is merely hindsight, is the look of the show. Tragically, time has changed a lot, so an early digital animated work like She... looks of its era. Neither helping is that, whilst there was progression in sound (such as 5.1. stereo which became a huge thing for Manga Entertainment licenses on DVD), this is in standard definition, which still does not mean not watching the show, but together means the show was struggling with limitations even for an animated show avoiding action sci-fi narrative tropes. This was actually an early title in Gonzo's history, and this becomes obvious to see again even if, thankfully, there is style of its own. It tries in spite of this, helped considerably by the character designs adapted from the source material, softer in features and almost even for the adult characters more likely to evoke a happier story, one which intentionally feels against the tragedy of the show's progressing narrative. The music as well, both composer Takeo Miratsu with various versions of the main theme but also the ending song Sayonara by Yuria Yato, really adds a lot of sincere emotional weight to the show too that is admirable. It is hilarious, adding to the curious history of the show, the composer for a Violence Jack OVA, Hell's Wind (1990), can progress to such a good score based on love and tragedy, but sadly they have not done a lot in their career either. Mostly working in the OVA era, if this was one of the last projects before retirement, it was a great way to bow out and defy expectations.

Returning to this series, as I got into She, The Ultimate Weapon when it was released in the United Kingdom, the obvious point of interest now revisiting the series was its ending. She... to its credit, least for this viewer, has characters that I was connecting to. Even the emotional gut punches could have been worse, though there is a reason this review from the get-go has huge spoiler warnings. The narrative even for a character like Akemi, very likable but with an entire episode dealing with the awful deathbed conclusion, is at least aware to give these moments the time for these characters' sake. The show for me became notorious in my mind, instead, for all these years for how unexpectedly it ends.  

When I said apocalyptic, I was not joking, as this ultimately does become The Last Love Song on This Little Planet. How this comes about in the final episode is still to this day the exclamation mark for how peculiar the show, for good and bad, is. When I first watched this show, engaged with it, the ending did enrage me and to this day, I can still see why. She... is definitely a show that could only work in the heightened, melodramatic world of anime and manga especially with having to make this look credible, something I wonder of now learning a 2006 live action film from Japan exists but has likely disappeared from existence. Even when the obvious is there, that Chise is literally turning into an immortal weapon of God-like power, what happens in pace is perplexing. Even if you see the obvious metaphorical concept not meant to be explained, that the war as a global one that ultimately destroys humankind is there to emphasise the stakes of the central romance, you have to try to depict this and everything ends quickly in the midway of the final episode. The sky is red like this will turn into The End of Evangelion (1997), with Chise apparently now with mechanical tentacles independent of her in the sky, and the world literally being washed away, the earthquakes throughout the series never directly connected to anything in the war or Chise herself. Gonzo is a studio I will evaluate as time goes, but I can immediately see how they developed the notoriety they had for titles for good and bad, stumbling to their finales with an erratic nature, and She... lunges into the world being plunged into total end as abruptly as you can get.

The ending still works, with a bittersweet one, even if the outcome if left open to what will happen to our leads, or that there is some vagueness, such as the possibility this is all due to Chise deciding to kill everything else, something which if the case is definitely vague in its depiction. [Manga Spoiler]] Thankfully, they did not follow the manga by having Chise left as a giant spaceship with Shuji the last human being, though that might have been fascinatingly weird to see animated. [Spoilers End]. If anything, it does emphasise that whilst this is truly a show to divide viewers on its virtues or lack of, I wish She, The Ultimate Weapon was critically evaluated as an example of when anime takes risks. If Gonzo's back catalogue was sadly full of bland titles, which ultimately left them as a studio still in existence today but with less of their status as back then, that would a sad conclusion. Thinking back to when I drifted to Japanese animated television away from Western shows however, live action and otherwise, She... still emphasises why I did as even this deeply imperfect show is taking risks in tone and its curious genre mixing I have to admire. It is a mess in hindsight, but a fascinating one to see again as an adult. One I cannot help but still admire and even, honestly, feel an attachment to. Obviously, nostalgia to seeing this title has to be admitted, as I saw it at an impressionable time. At the same time however, I thankfully liked a show whose actual content even today is very unconventional and still rewarding.

#182: Escaflowne: The Movie (2000)

 

Director: Kazuki Akane

Screenplay: Kazuki Akane and Ryota Yamaguchi

Voice Cast: Maaya Sakamoto as Hitomi Kanzaki; Tomokazu Seki as Van of Adom; Jouji Nakata as Dune / Folken; Aki Takeda as Millerna; Chafurin as Mole Man; Ikue Ōtani as Merle; Jūrōta Kosugi as Dryden; Mayumi Iizuka as Sora; Minami Takayama as Dilandau; Shinichiro Miki as Allen

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

I admit I hesitated watching this, a theatrical reinterpretation of a 1996 television series that I am a huge admirer of. The Sunrise produced television series, spearheaded by Shōji Kawamori, was a fantasy series, proto-isekai, where a young teen girl named Hitomi is whisked off to a realm where there are giant robots but the world is entirely high Western fantasy in iconography, with a huge emphasis on romance as much as drama. It is held with high regard to the modern day, with note to the fact that, whilst gendered audiences are an absurd thing to consider, Escaflowne had a lot on its side to appeal to a female audience, which it did, as well as being an excellent show for any viewer to watch. That aspect of a gendered audience though was a huge influence for Kazuki Akane, director of the series, to take a huge leap in an opposite direction for his theatrical version¹ by changing the narrative and, effectively, making it a more serious story for a more male audience as a contrast. The theatrical film is not well regarded at all, as time has passed.

Notably, this film sets a different tone in that, with the original series heavily influenced by Western aesthetics, including medieval iconography and high fantasy tropes, the world of Gaea the film is set in is instead heavily influenced by Eastern and Japanese aesthetics. It is also a beautiful film to behold, and for any comment I will make, Escaflowne the film is a feast for the eyes. Tragically, this also leaves this film in the cursed world of theatrical anime which were gorgeously put together, but divisive in content. One of the biggest changes in terms of the tone is that Hitomi, a bright optimistic figure in the series for those uninitiated to the narrative, is here a depressed teenage who even flirts with suicide, being caught by a friend with a suicide note and her shoes left by her side laying on a school building rooftop when she had changed her mind.

Even if you do not include the shadow of the television series, and view this film as its separate entity, there is a fascinating suicide and depression theme that could have been the most rewarding aspect of the film if fleshed out considerably. It is the most rewarding aspect still in the actual film as, feeling lost and wishing to isolate herself, Hitomi is not connected to a past as was the case in the series, but instead entering Gaea as a person at the point she wished to just disappear as a person. The only lore is that she is the "Wing Goddess" connected to the Escaflowne, a mythological giant robot which can either destroy Gaea or help save it, itself hinted at in this simplistic lore with connections to the depression metaphors. This is effectively a darker take on the material, even if light still thankfully brightens its edges, but that in itself would have been a fascinating new direction to take with a series which did, to its credit, have a lot of serious moments.

In this, there is still a sense of the emotion connection from the series, and even as its own separate story some can be found. Even if Van, the male protagonist, is introduced cutting off limbs without care of his enemies in bloody effect, this film is not as grim as its reputation suggested to me. Even Hitomi herself becomes the optimistic figure of the show eventually, just with some legwork. A lot of the streamlining is due to how extensive the plot and the cast were, for a twenty six episode narrative, and even if you have no idea of the series, the biggest problem is that this film has an overt sense of a film post-Star Wars and eighties high fantasy films that wished to form a plot in 90 minutes with short hand, McGuffins and simplified characterisation, cinema which can entertain from any country but can also be very reductive and unoriginal. I can bang on about the details changed - Princess Millerna has less scenes and now dresses as a warrior woman, important figures like Allen  no longer of any real importance, or Van's brother is now just a villain who destroys only because he was snubbed from their throne - but that would be reductive baring the amusing touch that Mr. Mole, a comedic figure in the series, is the one character who gets upgraded to a quack fortune teller in the one progression in roles. Honestly, the real issue is condensing the premise of an epic into ninety minutes and being very conventional, borrowing from other sources.  

That characters like Van and his brother Folken suddenly have mental force powers, borrowed from Star Wars and anime's flirting with psychics in the eighties, exemplified this. The original series, whilst unbelievably eccentric, was unpredictable with more time to flesh out its cast and leaning heavily on esoteric mysticism, both in Folken being the henchman for a villain never included here and altering fate being a huge narrative (and moral) drama, even managing to make the mythical city of Atlantis a huge plot point. Some details here are interesting especially in contest to the series - the beast people of the world get prominence here, and in mind to the dangers of piloting the Escaflowne originally, as it connects to a person's spirit, this brings in body horror of literally bleeding the pilot into the machine itself to run it. The suicide and depression metaphors, finding hope and purpose, including Van as a king with no land to rule and Hitomi gaining a bond to him, would have worked. But the Achilles' Heel is that this is an oversimplified and bland take undercut as much by its length as it is by the story changes.

This is more miserable as the visuals offer moments of pure beauty. The white wings characters produce from their backs, feathers falling in the air. Hitomi's entrance to Gaea, of a sports stadium in twilight, and suddenly water rising up to her knees as she enters an alien world. The fantasy world itself, of lush natural landscape of green foliage and animals in the wild. The music as well by Yoko Kanno, with Hajime Mizoguchi and Inon Zur, even having to challenge her work against the series is special to consider too in its ethereal and even quieter tone. There will be moments which I will not forget from this film, enough for it to eventually gain a fondness to the feature, but there will be the unfortunate emotion lingering of how it made many mistakes still.

Even without the emotional connection to the series, this has issues, and even in the world of theatrical anime which look beautiful and yet have huge plotting issues, it has a lot which is too predictable to fully embrace as I have found in other titles. I think of Rintaro's X (1996), which must have frustrated fans of CLAMP's unfinished manga, trying to cram a narrative including its own ending into just ninety minutes, yet I still see a gothic dark piece of incredible beauty I admit the flaws of but also adore. Escaflowne the Movie could end up in the same place for me, but knowing as well the original series was also weirder as much as more emotional - blood transfusions which provide luck based powers for example - Escaflowne the film also has the issue that the creators decided to take less risks in places as much as do so in others. As a result, it turned into a bad idea.

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1) Taken a 2002 Bandai interview him for the US R1 DVD, referred in an Anime UK News review HERE: "I wanted the Escaflowne television series to be supported by female fans. And it happened. But it turned out to be too popular among girls (80% of the fans are female in Mr. Akane’s opinion). In addition, there were certain elements that were not allowed on TV – I wanted to show a battle of life and death. To emphasize life, namely sword battles – that automatically requires there to be more graphic visuals – blood, swordplay etc.. These elements led the theatrical version to be different."