#261: Inu-Oh (2021)

 

Studio: Science SARU

Director: Masaaki Yuasa            

Screenplay: Akiko Nogi

Based on the novel by Hideo Furukawa

Voice Cast: Avu-chan as INU-OH; Mirai Moriyama as Tomona; Kenjiro Tsuda as Inu-Oh's Father; Tasuku Emoto as Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu; Yutaka Matsushige as Tomona's Father; Chikara Honda as Kakuichi

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Long ago, when Noh theatre was not even named as such, and Japan was split into two factions 600 years ago, one child is born in a performance deformed, an entity that is ostracized for being monsterous but will become a talented dancer. This child, INU-OH, will cross paths with Tomona. Tomona was the son of sea divers who search for treasure, and were assigned to find the artifacts of the Heike clan, lost during history, only for the sword that they find in the se to be blind Tomona as is disembowels his father when the later draws the blade. Thus begins a Masaaki Yuasa film, a historical piece based on a novel by Hideo Furukawa that will take an unexpected route. In its tale of these two helping each other with the curses around them based on the artifacts of the Heike, a clan that were decimated during the Battle of Dan-no-ura of April 25th 1185 on the sea, this serious tale of how the past will be interpreted and forced to tow the official line will be told itself by way of rock musical.

It is a wonderful thing to know Masaaki Yuasa was once an obscure cult figure, only to finally by the end of the 2010s to become an acclaimed animation director, with his work mostly available and with his growth in success from the 2010s without compromising his style. Inu-Oh continues this, with the studio Science Saru co-established by him in 2013 allowing the art style Yuasa has had with his productions to only refine here over two decades since his earliest 2000s works, cleaner here but having the flourishes still there when perfect for scenes, like using watercolor silhouettes for certain moments. The narrative itself is very simple with hindsight even if the real life history this is based upon being incredibly elaborate and to be more well understood for a Japanese audience. Contextually, this is dealing with how this important real life battle, the Battle of Dan-no-ura, has ramifications in the period setting a long time later when it is retold in song and stories, where Tomona, needing to free his dead father from the curse of that sword, one of a few artifacts connected to the Heike with supernatural power, encounters Inu-Oh, who is also as he is due to the curse of another artifact from the past, a demonic performance mask. Tomona, in his quest, joins the ranks of blind biwa players, those who tell through song the tales of the like of the Heike, whilst Inu-Oh, despite being banished by his father, still learns the techniques that would become Noh dance, his own curse with the touch that, the more he appeases the Heike ghosts around him, his limbs will turn into more human ones as he continues to perform. When the pair become aware, in a world where the supernatural is completely around humanity, of the Heike ghosts, Tomona becomes the hype man with his proto-rock star biwa playing to promote Inu-Oh’s renegade theatrical dance and song performances, where he is able to talk directly to the slain Heike soldiers, tell their tales in song, and rest their souls in his art.

This is where the film itself takes its most inventive turn as, with Inu-Oh only eventually needing to hide his face under a mask, and Tomona becoming a biwa god for the masses himself, this is deliberately anachronistic in tone. This predates Beatlemania by a good few centuries, in pre-Edo Japan rather than Liverpool, of screaming female fans, as there are also electric guitars in the soundtrack for these rock opera songs.  This is a real virtue to the film, as with music having played a good part in his earlier work – with opening and ending themes for Yuasa‘s television productions being idiosyncratic and brilliant – this is his first musical in his career, as it is his first ancient Japanese period story, and it really works perfectly. I can proudly write that, at one moment, a break dancing glowing samurai skeleton appears at one point within this, and that is not factoring in that the music itself, by Otomo Yoshihide, is insanely good. Not surprisingly, and wisely, one of your key leads to this playing the titular Inu-Oh is a musician, the lead vocalist and songwriter of the band Queen Bee by the name of Avu-chan, who is really good in their voice acting and performance. Mirai Moriyama, as Tomora, does as much a credible job in his role, singing and acting, with Avu-chan, Masaaki Yuasa, soundtrack musician Yohei Matsui, and the film's compouser Otomo Yoshihide creating the original songs' lyrics. Otomo Yoshihide is someone I know through the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and his work here as the main composer is just as perfect for this melding of rock opera, Japanese history, classic Japanese music, and even some songs you could get away with on a Halloween soundtrack, least the one (with a stage show in the film with Inu-Oh surrounded by fake severed hands) dealing with the poor unfortunate Heike soldiers, beaten and clinging to the enemy ships for dear life, having their hands cut off and leading to a tree to grow with them in.

This is all in reflection of a serious theme of this film, The Tale of the Heike, a huge epic account compiled prior to 1330, dealing with the struggle between the Taira (Heike) clan and Minamoto clan for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century in the 1180–1185 Genpei War 1180–1185. With origins blurred to history, and numerous different interpretations from an oral tradition, through the biwa playing bards Tomono here is part of, a theme here is the tale of Heike and trying to control it in power. Tomono and Inu-Oh bring the rich and varying forms of this story in all forms, whilst in contrast, you have a nod to biwa players being murdered to silence or steal the stories, or how tragedy comes into this film in its finale when, to have an official version of the tale that unites the country, any other interpretations must be silenced even if by execution.

Whilst this naturally leads to tragedy, the performances which make up the centre of the film are bombastic and vibrant, as staying within the world of this film rather than turning into their own sequences out of the period context, we see 20th century Japanese rock band performances reinterpreted in terms of how props like safety harnesses for choreography mid-air would transpire in an ancient setting, or how to depict with giant shadows the tale of summoning an unnatural whale made from a thousand dolphins the Heike clan call for mid-sea battle. As a result, including the eventual drama that comes in, including the envy of Inu-Oh’s father as his performances are being undermined by his son, this is a vibrant film to watch, insanely imaginative to view. Science Saru, whose productions include Western co-productions too, are a really good studio of talented animators just from seeing this film, where even their use of computers for the animation shows the best, when it is used for some very cinematic camera travelling shots, in scenes, that would be painstakingly difficult to have animated hand drawn back in the day and are incredible without context when they happen.

This is still one of Masaaki Yuasa’s more grounded productions in terms of style, in that he commits to the period setting, but with break dancing even transpiring among the peasantry here in this historical setting, the willingness to take Japanese cultural history and still be faithful to it with this sense of risk makes the plot more powerful by its end, including a bitter sweet conclusion where despite all that happens, old friends will reunite as ghosts in modern Japan and rock on together in the afterlife. This does not feel like a compromise at all where his sense of vibrancy as a director, including the talent of the studio behind this, show through, whether it is trying to integrate the modern rock aesthetic, even seventies and eighties glam rock/metal, to the world in visuals or music standing out in its melding of a period setting to its idiosyncratic touches. There is even as well streaks of horror storytelling that do crop up throughout and add to this story’s huge emphasis on the afterlife and the ghosts which haunt the living, including the least expected and gory explosion of a human being even if it contextually makes sense. In terms of its creator stretching himself into a different genre or two, Masaaki Yuasa completely succeeded here.