#230: Hell Teacher Nube: Summer Holiday of Fear! Legend of the Sea of Suspicion (1997)

 

Studio: Toei Animation

Director: Junji Shimizu

Screenplay: Yoshiyuki Suga

Based on the manga by Shō Makura and illustrated by Takeshi Okano

Voice Cast: Emi Uwagawa as Shizuka; Kazunari Tanaka as Katsuya; Machiko Toyoshima as Noriko; Masaya Takahashi as Kisaki; Maya Okamoto as Nagisa; Megumi Urawa as Makoto; Michiko Neya as Ritsuko-sensei; Miina Tominaga as Miki Hosokawa; Rumi Kasahara as Kyoko Inaba; Ryotaro Okiayu as Nube; Takayuki Inoue as Kiyoshi Horie; Toshiko Fujita as Hiroshi Tachino; Yoshiyuki Kouno as Kainanhoushi; Yuri Shiratori as Yukime

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Hell Teacher Nube is a franchise I had never heard of, yet it has a full thirty one volume manga, penned between 1993 to 1999, has a forty nine episode animated series, an OVA series and three films, including this one, though this is a short film, closer to a “special” in only being forty minutes long. It is though a Weekly Shōnen Jump title, which argues why it managed to be adapted as much as it was, one from the nineties which clearly did not cross over into the West or missed the chance to. By the late nineties, Weekly Shōnen Jump, arguably the biggest of the publications for manga if at least one of them, would get Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece (which started in 1997 and was still going into 2022) and Naruto, so it feels that among the titles which became popular hits for the publication, Nube just missed the boat when more Shonen titles, including Shonen Jump itself, were commodities into the West as big selling titles to promote.

This special, produced by Toei, is not an inherently great work, a forty minute “special” in the sense that it has the main characters are in a scenario, for a big spoiler, where they are not going to be in trouble, and the character specifically for this special, who never returns, is the one with the emotional trajectory. The special is a concept which is especially common for Shonen Jump titles, including full length theatrical films, but they are a type of adaptation which can still succeed. This one, even as likely a minor piece of the Hell Teacher Nube franchise, was a great way to be introduced to these characters.

The titular Nube, one of a group of teachers who, when the series started, was a fifth grade teacher for Dōmori Elementary, teaching students normally but with a demon left hand kept gloved and having to fight demonic forces to protect his students. It is a premise in itself, just as someone who likes “occult detective” stories, or narratives about supernatural figures having to deal with supernatural entities each episode, which appeals just to imagine instead “occult teacher” in this case. The opening song to this special was as much a win for the show catching my attention, the female vocal song that is jaunty yet have double kick drum percussion, which is awesome and feels like a thrash metal song, a symphonic rock song, choral backing vocals and J-pop ended up in a blender. Perfect for a tale where, going on summer vacation as a class, the class make the ill-advised decision to go where there is a nearby island shaped like a spider nearby which is cursed, one of the male students spotting what he swears is a nude girl on the rock who will become important, the special’s character of importance connected to the curse of the spider island. Considering that spider island is said by a local to have spiders with human faces that turn into demons after 200 and eat flesh, this was a bad vacation choice for everyone.

The cast of main characters, barely glimpsed include a few archetypes. Ritsuko the female teacher Nube is smitten with, the trope (if here amusing) of the lame male teacher who is horny but will be reliable in the end; Yukime, a yuki-onna who became attracted to Nūbē and followed him; and a motley crew of students, the two who immediately stood out of note being Kyoko, the “tsundere” of the class who punches any male who is a pervert (and has access to hammer space in finding mallets) and Miki, who immediately won me over in her tiny little part in the special as, for her introduction, she breaks the fourth wall, aware of the audience and flirting with them out of jealously that one of the other girls in her class is cuter than her. As a result of this, yes, there is a bit of cheesy fan service here, but the few jokes here managed to land, even the fact that Yukime, alongside sunbathing on a block of ice, is in danger of having the sun melt her figure off.

There is not a lot to the special beyond this, except that this mysterious girl is tragically connected to those aforementioned demon spiders. Again, this is a slight story, though it is to the credit to this production, and tantalizing to explore the other animated adaptations of the franchise, this has a creepy and compelling aesthetic to it - hands coming out the sea on mass; a variety of demons in gristly forms; and another in a lone of animating a person turning into a giant spider. Even when it switches to comedy, this is played to such as the unfortunate moment of someone turning their head giant and swallowing the hero up. The people involved on this production would cut their teeth on such Shonen productions, so this feels like a continuation of a type of anime they would feel comfortable with and creating over the decades before and after, used to working with these big titles with big expectations to their animated adaptation – Toei Animation were knee deep in Dragonball titles alone; director Junji Shimizu would move onto One Piece animation, and screenwriter Yoshiyuki Suga was a veteran to penning for these ultra popular franchises with Captain Tsubasa, Hunter X Hunter, Saint Seiya, Slam Dunk and One Piece titles in his career.

Junji Shimizu and Yoshiyuki Suga worked on other Hell Teacher Nube anime, and so they would have gotten these characters over multi adaptations. Again, I suspect this is a minor inclusion in this franchise, but it was a perfect introduction for me, so it worked fully.

#225: Ayakashi - Samurai Horror Tales (2006)

 

Studio: Toei Animation

Directors: Hidehiko Kadota and Kouzou Nagayama (Tenshu Monogatari); Tetsuo Imazawa (Yotsuya Kaidan); Kenji Nakamura (Bakeneko)

Screenplays: Yuuji Sakamoto (Tenshu Monogatari); Chiaki J. Konaka (Yotsuya Kaidan); Michiko Yokote (Bakeneko)

Tenshu Monogatari adapted from the drama by Kyōka Izumi; Yotsuya Kaidan adapted from the play by Nanboku Tsuruya IV

Voice Actors:

a) Tenshu Monogatari

Hikaru Midorikawa / Kirby Morrow as Zushonosuke Himekawa; Houko Kuwashima / Willow Johnson as Tomi Hime;  Saeko Chiba / Tracey Power as Oshizu;  Yui Kano / Anna Cummer as Ominaeshi; Kappei Yamaguchi / Alec Willows as Kaikaimaru; Masaya Onosaka / Samuel Vincent as Kikimaru

Yotsuya Kaidan

Hiroaki Hirata / Brian Dobson as Iemon Tamiya; Mami Koyama / Nicole Oliver as Oiwa Tamiya;  Yūko Nagashima / Rebecca Shoichet as Osode Yotsuya; Keiichi Sonobe / Samuel Vincent as Gonbei Naosuke; Ryō Hirohashi / Lalainia Lindbjerg as Oume Ito; Wataru Takagi / Michael Adamthwaite as Yomoshichi Sato

Bake Neko

Takahiro Sakurai / Andrew Francis as Kusuriuri the Medicine Seller; Yukana / Kelly Sheridan as Kayo;  Tetsu Inada / Trevor Devall as Odajima; Chikao Ohtsuka / Scott McNeil as Clan Lord Yoshiyuki; Naoki Tatsuta / Paul Dobson as Lord Yoshikuni; Seiji Sasaki / John Novak as Lord Yoshiaki; Yōko Sōmi / Alison Matthews as Lady Mizue; Kozue Kamada / Tabitha St. Germain as Lady Mao; Yuu Shimaka / Ken Kramer as Katsuyama; Eiji Takemoto / Andrew Kavadas as Sasaoka; Yurika Hino / Tabitha St. Germain as Miss Sato; Kiyonobu Suzuki / Trevor Devall as Yahei

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Commissioned for Fuji TV's Noitamina block, highly regarded for its artistically and narratively different anime shows - where Masaaki Yuasa's The Tatami Galaxy (2010) or Princess Jellyfish (2010) came from - Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales befits the slot early in its existence, as it is three different horror tales between three to four episodes, of period set folktales and yōkai I am fascinated by. Two of the three are adapting classic authors for their tales too, adding to this an air of artistry, and even when the Noitamina started over the decades, from their 2005 inception to step away from a stereotypical young male target audience, to have more action and pulpier productions, this was not a bad thing either. This has led to shows like Samurai Flamenco (2013-14), and  with well regarded productions like The Promised Neverland (2019-2020) getting popular, the block can still claim respect for producing some of the best and most interesting in animated television series. My interest in Samurai Horror Tales beyond just horror anime would have been cemented by its connection to Mononoke (2007), another Noitamina block member and one of the most unique looking series of any genre, having been a spin-off from of the Ayakashi stories itself not based on a classic tale.

The three tales are very straightforward in what they are about, each taking very different directions to how to tell them however. Depending on how you watch this, the Discotek Blu Ray release, released on October 29th 2019¹, oddly has it that you can watch the second story's episodes, for Tenshu Monogatari, first before the others, but the structure was set up for broadcast as Yotsuya Kaidan (four episodes), Tenshu Monogatari (four episodes), and Bakeneko (three episodes). Going by how I had watched this, Tenshu Monogatari as the first watched is a supernatural melodrama, adapted from a drama by Kyōka Izumi. Izumi was a prolific novelist, dramatist and writer, who I am aware of for Demon Pond. It is a play even one of my favourite filmmakers Takashi Miike, in one of his many idiosyncratic leaps into any type of filmmaking he has wanted to try, tried his hand at filming, in a very good 2005 theatrical production he recorded, based on a Keishi Nagatsuka re-adaptation of the source material. It is a work too also adapted to cinema by Masahiro Shinoda in 1979.

In Tenshu Monogatari, a falconer named Zushonosuke, thanks to his evil feudal lord, has to retrieve a prized falcon only to find a mansion of forgotten gods, housing all women who as immortal beings, figures who succumb to hunger and consume the life force of any mortals who wander there. One, Tomi Hime, starts to fall for him, which has the issue that the more she is drawn to humanity, that will mean she loses her immortality, which is sadly also infectious to everyone else there in the mansion. The evil lord eventually catches wind of this, which leads to him sending his soldiers to take the mansion by the final episode, a tragedy of figures doomed to love each other despite them being different entities, or that at home Zushonosuke has a fiancée named Oshizu who is naturally heartbroken by all of this, becoming involved. This is the most conventional of the three narratives, but as a bittersweet story, that in itself is a curveball. It still has a ghoulish edge, and there is the fact that there are two monsters as a comedy duo and Greek chorus, two thieves who only help Zushonosuke out to steal from the mansion if they can. 

All the stories have their own distinct looks. Also of note is that, throughout the series, they have their own opening credits, with their own visual motifs and designs, even if they all have the same opening theme song. It is probably the least expected in such a context, HEAT ISLAND by Rhymester, a hip hop song with backing by a koto, a traditional Japanese string instrument, which is as strange as that songs but is yet an inspired choice, befitting a production which is idiosyncratic. It befits how, whilst Tenshu Monogatari is a very emotional drama at its heart, even the traditional ghost story, Yotsuya Kaidan, is not conventionally told at all, all the narratives here standing out with their idiosyncrasies. All the stories have their own authors, Tenshu Monogatari's Yuuji Sakamoto, who only has that one credit in their career strangely, Michiko Yokote for Bakeneko someone we will get to for that story later in the review, and a figure I know very well for Yotsuya Kaidan, Chiaki J. Konaka.

Konaka, someone I admired for his work, sadly has to be taken now by me as a fan with a pinch of salt in recent years. A divisive screenwriter for how obtuse he could be, from Serial Experiments Lain (1998) to one of the strangest narrative arches of Mononoke itself, I admire how esoteric and experimental his work is, even when, such as a live action film like Evil Dead Trap 2 (1992), figuring out what is transpiring and in what reality can be lost entirely even on multiple viewings. For a live reading of a script for Digimon Tamers, a follow up to the show that many of us (including myself) saw episodes of as a kid, he had a villain, which took on the form of "Political Correctness," that threatens the real and digital worlds, and had a special attack called "Cancel Culture"¹. Thankfully nothing from this raised concerns of far greater and more problematic ideas he has had, but at a time where his own personal blog expressed questioning views on COVID-19's reporting in worldwide news², sadly it did paint a picture for me of someone undermining himself when, if brutal to say, his work in screenwriting usually, even if frustrated viewers, was a lot more nuanced even with some of his hardest the grasp scripts in anime storytelling. When watching Yotsuya Kaidan even this came up here, as this is a really meta and clever retelling of the titular tale, which feels alien in comparison, originally written as a kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku IV, as Tōkaidō Yotsiya Kaidan, which becomes a story in itself as this version tells.

Nanboku himself is the narrator, and the play itself, as much as a new retelling here, is the subject. The story itself is about a woman Oiwa who, when her husband, Iemon Tamiya, is complicit in a poison she is given, which disfigures half of her face, and the disposal of her body after her death, taking revenge on him from the grave Iemon Tamiya is already established as a unscrupulous rōnin, who even killed Oiwa's father, pretending bandits had done so, to win her hand in marraige, before another woman wished him for her own and concocted the plan to disfigure and disgrace her. This is a morbid melodrama, where there is also her sister-in-law, lied to in a deceit by another man who kills her suitor and pretends bandits also did it, and the story takes on additional angst and wrought drama with its betrayals, seductions and heartbreaks. Konaka's take goes further in how the finale becomes Kaidan's lasting legacy, Tsuruya Nanboku IV revealed to have passed his mortal form and existing in an afterlife on the Earth, considering his story and how it has lasted in Japanese popular culture, even developing a curse around the plan where people adapting it have been maimed or even killed. Were it not for a certain tale coming afterwards which is clearly the gem of this entire anthology, I would hold this as a perfect piece in itself worth seeing. All three are, and Yotsuya Kaidan does feel like a perfect retelling of folklore in dissecting the text, something also for me to show Chiaki J. Konaka as a talented writer even if the real man stumbles in some bad ideas too in his thought process.

However it was Bakeneko which became a spin-off show in itself own right, and alongside that spin-off Mononoke, no anime looks and feels tonally like this these stories about a mysterious "Medicine Seller" at all. Bakeneko, alongside its distinct art style and character designs by Takashi Hashimoto, looks like it was illustrated on glossy waxed paper, done with digital animation as I aware of with Mononoke, but absolutely distinct in its composition. It is a horror story which yet uses bright colours, has a precise use of environment design (patterns, illustrations, even setting out locations), and where, clearly indebted to art styles from Japanese history, such as Japanese woodblock prints, it brings it into the modern era as a digitally animated production in movement. Even in mind that the series got Yoshitaka Amano to do the original character designs for Yotsuya Kaidan, and have his illustrations on the opening credits for that tale, one of the most iconic designers in anime and light novels who an acclaimed artist outside of the mediums, Bakeneko is an artistic masterpiece just in appearance, even in mind that this is a prototype to what became Mononoke the series.

It is also, with fair warning, a bleaker narrative than Mononoke could get, bearing in mind that the later series tackled heavy subjects, its first arch surrounding the ghosts of aborted foetuses of brothel workers. It says a lot in context however that Bakeneko manages to have the bleakest narrative of this world, introducing us here to the Medicine Seller, a figure here and in the later series whose job is exorcise demons, a magic sword on his person (alongside other tools) which can only be open when three criteria explaining the entity's existence come to light. A bride is killed on her wedding day in a proud samurai clan, and whilst suspicion comes on him, the Medicine Seller is quickly the only person able to deal with the problem, the Bekeneko. This is a "goblin cat", cats of supernatural form in Japanese mythology which are not necessarily as extreme as this, a monster claiming vengeance, but symbolically meaningful here with the context. This story will be uncomfortable for some, so fair warning is recommended, as this is the case as was in Mononoke that, as the truth and cause of the demon is revealed, it involves showing up the wrongs of human beings, alongside this explicitly dealing with how people lie, forget details or view it in a different perspective. Michiko Yokote was the screenwriter for this story, and whilst multiple writers all contributed good work to Mononoke, Chiaki J. Konaka, this is a great time, with the virtues she shows here, to praise Yokote. She is not someone I have frequently encountered, but I am aware of her, whilst not the only screenwriting contributor, for series composition, the person putting everything narratively together, for Princess Tutu (2002-3), an exceptional and unique fantasy tale about around ballet and fairy tales that, again with Konaka getting briefly involved, was a meta-text on fairy tales which was also a beautiful gem. Here, dealing with an incredibly umcomfortable subject exceptionally at the heart of this tale, the only not adapted from another source, I see another example of her talent.

And that is true as a warning for anyone interest. [Major Spoiler Warning] The cause of the bekeneko here is that the samurai patriarch kidnapped a woman, kept her in a cage as a sexual object, a peasant girl who was raped, beaten and left to starve to death, which is as grim a narrative reveal, too real for some, to consider. [Major Spoiler Warning]. All three tales to their virtue, but especially Bekeneko, show why I came to love these type of horror anime about folklore and figures like the Medicine Seller, stepping in to resolve supernatural entities, as they become morality tales and dramas with one-off characters, examinations of human beings which the Bekeneko pulls no punches in. Among them, for its artistic innovations, and how impactful the narrative in its centre is, clearly Bakeneko is the masterpiece of the entire set, though it is to the credit of the three tales altogether that they all succeed.

 

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1) Discotek Media's announcement of Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales, dated on Facebook on August 13th 2019.

2) Digimon Tamers Writer Chiaki J. Konaka Responds to Overseas Backlash Over 20th Anniversary Stage Play, written by Kim Morrissy for Anime News Network, dated August 9th 2021.

#169: Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003)

 

Directors: Kazuhisa Takenouchi (with Daisuke Nishio, Hirotoshi Rissen and Leiji Matsumoto)

Original Premise by Thomas Bangalter, Cédric Hervet and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo

Music by: Daft Punk

 

In the early 2000s, we had quite a few moments where anime crossed into the mainstream. Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. Quentin Tarantino one day knocked on Production I.G.'s doorstep, and thus they contributed an animated sequence to Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)¹. The Animatrix (2003) was also commissioned, where Japanese animators (alongside figures like Peter Chung) worked on short films based on the world of The Matrix, with the added weight that the Wachowskis were anime fans, which influenced with their work but also meant that, directly working on the project, they would have allowed the creators they were inspired by to flex their crafting muscles. Another, sadly becoming obscurer, is when the French electronic music duo Daft Punk, in the midst of one of their most well regarded albums Discovery, was coming up with a narrative and ended up collaborating with a childhood hero Leiji Matsumoto.

France has had a healthy relationship with Japanese anime and manga, as Daft Punk themselves Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo) came into this project having grown up as children on the likes of Captain Harlock², which, whether the 1978 or 1982 animated television adaptation of Matsumoto's original manga, was a character exported to France and given the name Albator. Just the fact that Matsumoto, in 2012, was knighted in France made a Knight of the order of Arts and Letters by the French government, a title gained by the likes of Bob Dylan to fellow manga author/anime director Katsuhiro Otomo among many, says a lot of how his work came to the country and left an impression³. 

Matsumoto's history and reputation just in his own country, in manga but also direct interaction with anime productions, is a huge one not only for characters he created like Harlock, but also for shows like the famous Space Battleship Yamato (1974-5), a cultural monolith to say the least in Japanese culture he was an original creator and director on. Note that Leiji Matsumoto is not the director on this project - those would be Kazuhisa Takenouchi as the main director, with Daisuke Nishio and Hirotoshi Rissen as unit directors, and Matsumoto himself the visual supervisor. His trademarks are still visible in Interstella 5555 even just in terms of the character designs, one of his biggest trademarks.

Coming up with the premise early into the album's origins, the pair does co-exist as they embrace an openly over-the-top plot which is entirely told visually without any dialogue. That on their alien home world, a band is kidnapped and shipped to Earth by the evil Earl de Darkwood, transforming and even brainwashing them to blend with the human populous as the band the Crescendolls. His plan is openly ridiculous - a centuries old prophecy powered by 5555 golden records won at award shows for smash hit singles - but in a world where another alien, Shep, commands his guitar shaped spaceship to rescue the band, this is the house music equivalent to a rock music, suspending conventional reality as it has to also work entirely on visuals provided by Toei Animation, which they pull off.

The music is, well, entirely dependent on your love of Daft Punk or lack of it. Discovery was a huge album at the time it dropped in 2001, and also worth mentioning is that even before Interstella 5555, the enigmatic duo who dressed as robots were already smart with providing the right visuals to their music from working with Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze among others. All their albums have distinct personalities as well, and whilst it was a long time from having listened to the Discovery, just starting this film, that is the length or so of the album and has all the tracks, reminded me of how much I did listen to Discovery. How even the melancholic instrumental piece Nightvision stayed in memory, and that, still to this day, Face to Face is an underappreciated song from the album. Especially for Digital Love, where Shep (in love with the female bassist Stella) has a fantasy of them flying through a psychedelic dream sequence, you have a perfect matching of visuals to audio full of life, the projects intertwining to the point that the singles for the album had sequences from the film as their music videos.

It helps Matsumoto's character designs are uniquely his. Not of any era but very distinctly his, his female characters especially (based on actresses like Marianne Hold, Eleanor Parker, Danielle Darrieux, and Kaoru Yachigusa⁴) like thin ethereal figure than human beings, a style which is helped by the amount of adaptations of his work that exist in anime. Even if the likes of Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (2012-2013) updated the designs, he lent himself a timeless aesthetic to his work even if Interstella 5555 was also meant as a nostalgia piece. He was happy to weave in themes meaningful to him alongside this openly exaggerated premise, of self sacrifice and heroics alongside a film involving such pulpy details like cyborg bodyguard and a Gothic castle full of hooded cultists who push musicians into a volcanic hole. Even in spite of the violence that does transpire through the film, and one very tragic death, it ends on a reconciliation of Earth with the aliens by helping them back home, including the amusement of a world having to explain in the news that aliens do exist in the first place. And the final images, of a boy in a bedroom dreaming all this film, do really gain a power knowing that the musicians who created Daft Punk were able to make a work like this with their childhood hero. It also makes sense that, a decade on, they purposely stepped away from the electronic music they helped solidify by making Random Access Memories, an album stripping back as much artifice as possible and working back to seventies ideals of music without being delusional rose tinted glasses. The likes of Giorgio Moroder and even Paul Williams appearing on that album in itself was them managing to find more childhood heroes and giving them a platform to stand out too.

Contextually, and even now, this film looks gorgeous and was an achievement, a bright and elaborate work whose ability to tell this tale entirely without words, and only breaking from the musical tracks with some ambient noises, shows how much you can pull off in animation just in said visuals. Out of its directors, naturally many of them, working for Toei Animation, worked on Dragonball properties among the many properties the company hold. It is hilarious as one final note, but with a charming weight, that main director Kazuhisa Takenouchi early in his career helmed Vampire Wars (1990), a lurid OVA title that is not fondly remember. I did not know this until writing this review, very familiar with both of them, making this as charming as it is amusing that one man can go from such a title, an old Manga Entertainment license which ended up with vampires from outer space as a plot twist, to something like this a decade later which he can take completely pride in, in collaborating on this impressive production, and has a more positive image of visitors from outer space as two planets in the final scenes get to rock out across space and time.

 

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1) According to Production I.G.'s own website on the subject (as can be read HERE): "Reportedly a fan of Ghost in the Shell and Blood: The Last Vampire, movie maker Quentin Tarantino personally asked Production I.G to produce the animation sequence included in his world-hit Kill Bill..."

2) As documented in a review HERE.

3) As referred to HERE.

4) As revealed in an interview HERE.