#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."

#181: Submarine 707R (2003)

 

Director: Shoichi Masuo

Screenplay: Hiroshi Ohnogi

Based on the manga by Satoru Ozawa

Voice Cast: Akira Ishida as Goro Kusaka; Ben Hiura as Youhei Hayami; Daisuke Sakaguchi as Senta Umino; Hideo Ishikawa as Ichiro Suzuki; Hiroshi Yanaka as Hayato Nango; Kensho Ono as Kenji Minahaya; Unshō Ishizuka as Admiral Red

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Adapted from a manga first started in 1963, and adapted once already for a 1997 one-shot OVA, Submarine 707R is another title from the transition of Manga Entertainment into the early 2000s, where there would still be OVAs over the decade but eventually television shows alongside theatrical features would dominate their catalogue. Released by Geneon USA in the United States, that company (an off-shot of NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan) would fold in 2007, with the added fascination that this is also an Aniplex title. Aniplex are more known in the States, and are more controversial from the 2010s onwards for distributing their titles for physical media under prices closer to the Japanese market, which means very expensive and limited print runs, managing (unlike Bandai Visual in the 2000s) to actually succeed. This is almost quaint to look back on, with this two part OVA, before they were ever that company and merely one of the producers of such titles as Submarine 707R, perverse to consider.

Submarine 707R is what is says on the tin, about submarines, all that entails with eluding attacks from other submarines and ships above water, all with the danger that if the lead vessel is destroyed, the crew cannot escape the bottom of the ocean. The one touch which you may not gather even if you read the synopsis is that this is effectively set in an unknown future, a war between the world above the ocean on land, united despite frictions, and the USR (the Undersea Silence Revolution), an underwater civilisation where members like Admirable Red in his submarine attack boats and ships above to stop the surface civilisation exploiting the ocean. A lot of anime has had villains fighting, even wishing to destroy humanity, to protect the Earth's ecosystem, always a fascinating conundrum. That we see Red's family - his wife, three daughters and one infant son - shows an alternative to someone who can be seen as a cartoonish figure here otherwise, and enticing lead in for moral complexity.

Contrasting him is Captain Yōhei Hayami, captain of the 707, originally an older diesel ship not held in high regard until, whilst being taken to a conference for all nations, appears when everyone is being attacked with ease by Red, Hayami sacrificing his vessel to protect others after most were decimated beforehand. With the first episode dealing with a lot of the narrative prologue, the 707 is resurrected as a new ship immediately afterwards. As a straightforward plot progression, that Hayami is to clash with Captain Red once again, this adds a nice touch as he contrasts as a portly man who yet, alongside a talented crew, has an incredible mind for tactics.

Here I must confess that I accidentally put on the second episode on first, before stopping a quarter of its length in and watching Episode 1. As an accident, this emphasised the disappointments with the OVAs greatly. Watching Episode 2 blind, before realising the mistake, I have a more enticing work in front of me of a science fiction world, set in media res revealed to actually by the underwater civilisation of the USR, with a dominant number of female characters, including three older women commanding battleships for the surface. The show suggests an atmospheric and distinct nautical story, barring one odd creative choice, especially in a work you could show to kids, of a female staff member having a pronounced bounce in her bust moving in her seat in a scene, which is crass to point out if not so abruptly and deliberately animated by a potentially bored animator.

In reality, the OVA proves to be far less interesting than this, starting off with the true leads being a submarine ran entirely by men, including a trio of male teenagers, who never really stand out. The exception is Hayami himself, as a commander who does not use brawn but his mind, but even then you do not get much with him. Odder is that, whilst it is good we get to see his home life with his wife and daughter, there is an uncomfortable and pointless interest in his child daughter as a moe character, including an end credits for the first OVA, all in spite of not being a real character of note at all.  

In the first OVA, the pair effectively making up a feature length narrative, a lot of plot happens, including the destruction of the original 707, but the show never really hits a high gear. Considering the villain is effectively an eco-terrorist, or gets into the whole issue of the entire ocean becoming its own sovereignty, the anime does not really provide enough time to flesh this out. The first episode does tell a lot, all mentioned in the synopsis, but also a bit of jingoism. That, when all other nations boost of their new ships and squabble over who commands as they are all being obliterated, a little Japanese submarine that could wins. It is cheese, never good regardless of the country which does it, but thankfully less of a concern after that when it is about one ship, for all the surface nations, with a good captain against another submarine in a game of whit. It is perplexing though that, devoting the second episode entirely to that conflict, it manages to last over forty minutes and yet feels like nothing happened which is the ultimate flat note in spite of the promise.

The production also feels its age. Post the 2000s, this was created when digital animation took over. The notable thing for me is the clear use of digital models such as for the submarine, which would become common place into the decades after, but look noticeably separate from the normal animation in appearance with jarring effect. It is a work that, barring one scene in between its credit sequences, does not really stand out in imagination. That one scene, when I accidentally watched the first quarter of Episode 2, is Captain Red's wife on a giant industrial elevator with orchestral music playing, leading to her with her children in a domed room as outside is seemingly in Arctic tundra, completely masked in white snow. Even if the digital models for the elevator look aged, it all had an appropriate atmosphere which you do not find elsewhere. Everything else is pretty basic, and the irony is that the one really elaborate aspect of the production aesthetically, the best of the entire OVA, is the opening credits. Set to calm jazz, we see blueprints of the titular submarine being built and animation that is designed to look like sketch works as the submarine is created. That opening was directed by Hideaki Anno, of Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), with Submarine 707R being directed by Shoichi Masuo, who worked on that series and Anno's own Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990-1) series, as a Episode Director, so it makes sense for Anno to be involved.

But it says a lot that the opening credits are the one thing I pick out but cannot elaborate further from. Submarine 707R is a case of an anime which, with all the potential there, is just average. Simple as that, and it is not worth elaborating on.

#180: Ocean Waves (1993)

 

Director: Tomomi Mochizuki

Screenplay: Keiko Niwa

Based on the novel by Saeko Himuro

Voice Cast: Nobuo Tobita as Taku Morisaki; Toshihiko Seki as Yutaka Matsuno; Youko Sakamoto as Rikako Mutou; Ai Satou as Taku's mother; Hikaru Midorikawa as Tadashi Yamao; Jun-ichi Kanemaru as Okada; Kae Araki as Yumi Kohama

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Ocean Waves is an obscurity in Studio Ghibli's catalogue, an experiment in producing an animated television movie, broadcast on Nippon TV, for a young adult audience. Involving neither Hayao Miyazaki nor Isao Takahata, this was instead helmed by a young figure at the time named Tomomi Mochizuki, meant to have been a quickly made and cheap production which allowed the staff to cut their teeth. It naturally went over budget and time, to the point that Mochizuki himself even developed a peptic ulcer as a result of the stress¹. It was a title few likely knew of in the West until decades later.

Ocean Waves is, however, a gem, and it holds tightly a trait that, for the reputation as Japan's Disney, Studio Ghibli was a lot more willing to tackle a lot of adult content, even if you did not take into consideration a title like Grave of the Fireflies (1988). Ocean Waves is a high school drama, set in Kōchi of the Kōchi Prefecture where two students, in a prologue bonding after being the two willing to fully protest a school trip being cancelled, become interested in a transfer student. The two boys Taku and Yutaka are intrigued by Rikako, a city girl moved to their region from Tokyo and transferring into the school, who keeps her distance throughout her school life as the narrative moves forth gracefully. At only seventy plus minutes, the drama is slow burn, the biggest event being as we learn that Rikako, her parents having divorced, is as much emotionally effected by this as she is uncomfortable with where she had been forced to moved with her mother. Said event, even in a film which briefly has a trip to Hawaii for the school, is her secret plan to go to Tokyo to met her father, Taku out of the two boys the one being drawn the closest to her despite Yutaka having the open crush on her.  

Knowing the origins, the film does not feel like a compromise in terms of production. One of the studio's more grounded films, it looks beautiful in terms of evoking this type of high school drama. What is unexpected, whilst played as a romantic drama with a happy conclusion, is that Ocean Waves gets quite grave in a lot of its story at the least likely of moments. I would not expect Disney, their apparent equivalent, to tackle this material like this, just from the open references to alcohol consumption. Not just the later scene as adults at a class reunion, where people confess crushes finally and one character gets ridiculously soused, but even a minor touch involving coke and hinted at alcohol in a hotel room involving the characters as young adults, not to get drunk but explicit in substance taking in a moment of needed help for one of them in a solace.

This is also in terms of characters not being always likable, where other narratives would avoid anything that made characters not always wise and make them idealised. In a lot of ways, Rikako is not an idea person, who looks down on Kōchi and is deliberately anti-social, only for her story of having been pulled from her home and friends to be more poignant; that, and when challenged by girls in her class about not helping in the school festival, for them to have an almost hive mind nature than anyone considering asking why she has been like this for all her school life there. Even Taku himself, a more interesting protagonist, is capable of ignorance or flip-flopping, a large portion of his arch (beyond being stuck sleeping in a hotel room bathtub) juggling whether he actually likes Rikako as a person or not when she is secretly getting money from him and others to fund her trip back to her father.

This is not a film populated by stereotypes like the tsundere, not easily distinct to filter these characters in such forms. It neither pulls back its punches, even as a family friendly story, which will surprise some. One male teacher in an off-comment, when faced with protesting students about a school trip being cancelled, will complain they are only acting up because their teacher being female, the film not touching up an idealised version of school life as teachers can say sexist things like this without anyone batting an eye, or that, her mother not seen but her father and a potential new girlfriend shown, Rikako's situation, is not with any side of the split family being idealised as she had presumed. One moment will make some even uncomfortable, when a scene involving rumours being spread leads to Taku and Rikako outside in a class room hallway slapping each other, the film not going to sugar coat its drama whether it works for a viewer or not.

That the film still has a happy ending makes sense in the maturity of the narrative, as it naturally comes after everyone has graduated and is an adult, with time healing even wounds. The film is altogether compelling, calm and matter-of-fact as a drama, able to crack open a lot of emotion from these being ordinary teenagers who are not perfect and capable of ill thought-out behaviour. That Ocean Waves does conclude with reconciliation is not felt like a compromise. That is not even considering that viewers, for a film which is not necessarily held in high regard in the Studio Ghibli canon, have even considered a queer subtext to the film by way of Taku and Yutaka's bond, which does add layers to the film even with its finale about the love of Rikako².

The last paragraph to this review should refer to Tomomi Mochizuki, in mind that this production was meant for others in Studio Ghibli to create a film, befitting for a review of this underrated production to think of him. Ghibli, for the love they have gained, has had an unfortunate problem in terms of trying to find directors aside from Takahata and especially Miyazaki. Mochizuki's filmography in the nineties to the modern day is full of idiosyncratic sounding productions, now standing out with interest and happiness, despite the literal stress he went under, that he became a hard working man in the industry. He also helmed Pupa (2014), notoriously not well regarded as a horror micro-series about two mutated siblings, one male and one female, where the younger sister has to overcome her flesh eating urges by eating her indestructible older sibling. It is hilarious to think I can end a review Studio Ghibli review, of a worthwhile and under seen tale of school drama, with a reference to that, or maybe I have a weird sense of humour. It also shows how weird a person's career can be, in direction, regardless of what the occupation is.

 

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1) Referred to HERE.

2) As talked of HERE.

#179: Judge (1991)

 

Director: Hiroshi Negishi

Screenplay: Katsuhiko Chiba

Based on a manga by Fujihiko Hosono

Voice Cast: Kaneto Shiozawa as Hoichiro Ohma; Daisuke Gouri as Enma-Oh; Issei Futamata as Koji Kawamata; Keiko Yamamoto as Junko Asami; Miki Itō as Nanase; Hideyuki Hori as Ryuichi Murakami; Junko Asami as Keiko Yamamoto; Shinya Ohtaki as Susumu Yamanobe/Watanabe

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Now we have past the era when DVDs where the main source of viewing for anime fans - where streaming has taken over predominantly and physical releases are the source for connoisseurs to collect titles - I wonder what will happen to the history of the OVA (straight-to-video) market. Titles have been released again, many from upscale of video masters which adds another concern in their preservation over celluloid. The bigger concern is just the preservation of the large mass of titles created; the eighties boom which began this format into the Millennium churned out so many that, even if they still exist in some form nowadays, it is a history in itself perilous in being forgotten about. Especially as many were one-offs only around forty to sixty minutes long, fragments in themselves, with complicated rights issues as time has passed, to contend with in trying to re-sell them to an audience. It is a history for all this full of terrible work, and we will not lie to ourselves about that fact, but it is a compelling and fun history too alongside all the legitimately great titles created, especially as so much was churned out and strange concepts were explored.  Before television series were more commonly released in the West, companies like the American distributor Central Park Media made their bread and butter getting OVAs as they did theatrical work as well, even up to their closure for bankruptcy in 2009.

Also in mind to CPM's mascot, and one of the key titles, being M.D. Geist (1986), which is not a great anime in the slightest, the OVAs they released as for other companies had their own personalities and were part of their reputation, bringing up many obscurities not including their porn sub-label Anime 18 that should not be forgotten. Many OVAs, such as Judge here, were never full stories, just adaptations of manga never released in the West as tie-ins. Judge, based on a two volume manga, is such a title, of Hoichiro Oma who by day is a bumbling but charming salary man, but by night is the voice of the judges of the afterlife who, on behalf of the Twelve Gods of the Underworld, is targeting and punishing corrupt businessmen. Unlike Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro (2006), a late animated series about an independent anti-corruption organisation where the titular member has the power of unlimited money to combat embezzlement, Hoichiro here would just follow the Buddhist Hell tradition of horrible torture fitting the crime followed by death. Who needs a designer black gold card as the titular Zaizen Jotaro required, saying "Da bomb!" randomly as he deals with a corrupt middle manager, when Judge's lead despite his meek normal personality dons a costume, with wig, and nails a man's tongue for perjury, whilst topping the ultimate unlimited credit card with a book made from human flesh, magical powers and just killing people.

Barely a fragment, the plot follows his next target after that, another high figure at the company he is currently working at as a lowly member, Koji Kawamata. I will say, whilst this may just be me, most premises no matter how silly always intrigue me to want to see an anime from them, this no different as a supernatural story which is yet fixated on business corruption. One which takes from supernatural lore, with loosely reinterpreted mythology, and could have been a morbid slant on a crime show from the West with trials involved. Like many OVAs, the pleasures are not found in the story, which sadly is only around forty minutes and can do little of this I imagine. Instead, it is by the little touches like the premise. Despite Hoichiro's no tolerance policy to crime, when it introduces an unnamed Defence Lawyer, who offers his services at an expensive price for anyone targeted by the underworld, you get something unconventional in this premise having an actual defence lawyer for the villain, even if he has to use magic himself or even his own magical gloves, able to slide off and choke people by themselves, also made from human flesh.

The premise in its nature has quirks. Having a defence lawyer, also a villain but still demanding a fair trial for defendants, is an interesting note as, whilst never given a name, he is clearly the mirror image to Hoichiro as in many anime. That this defence lawyer's one trademark, rather than smoking or lollipops, is that he always has children's juice boxes with plastic straws was an amusing touch. That human flesh is apparently the ultimate material needed for super-magical objects is a more gruesome, if silly touch, Judge very much part of the horror genre too as Hoichiro will terrorise the guilty with the dead they have wronged, be it a female co-worker emotionally manipulated into embezzlement who committed suicide or, for the main antagonist, a friend he has disposed of in South America in the opening scene. Even this becomes part of the humour as, used to assist him in his endeavours, Hoichiro even as a hellish demon parrot as a pet, creepily drawn with giant eyes but one scene just as capable of mimicking people's speech. Unfortunate as, with Hoichiro is in a romantic relationship with a co-worker Nanase, it can mimic sex noises from the night before for an awkward morning's breakfast.

And some touches are unexplained, like Judge's antagonist, Koji Kawamata, having giant eyes almost bigger than his head, like frog's, which is never explained or mentioned, just a curious touch to the OVA. One which, in quality and plot, is just okay in reality but sustained by a lifelong viewer of this medium because of these curious touches scattered through many titles. It would have not been able to be defended were it not for these at all aspects talked. Thankfully as well it takes a different direction with the ending that, unlike most anime, the finale is not resolved in a conflict but an actual trial with twelve gods of the underworld, witnesses from the grave, and a giant mirror at the back which cheats by having one's reflection confess your guilt if you touch or look at it.

Production wise, it was one of many titles like this made in its era, the thing of note being its director Hiroshi Negishi, someone who was very prolific in the nineties but has, despite working into the 2010s, been a forgotten man in himself. The OVAs like this are an obscurity of the past, but one of Negishi's productions was Saber Marionette J (1996), an anime series which managed to get three follow ups but has been forgotten as time went. Even in terms of history, Judge is just one of the many odd things that Central Park Media were distributing (or legitimate masterpieces like Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)). With the manga not even a known quantity in the West due to scanlations, Judge could tragically be forgotten for simply being okay, a shame as, even if not the best, these curiosities are fascinating too.

#178: Birth (1984)

 

Director: Shinya Sadamitsu

Voice Cast: Ichirō Nagai as Bao Luzen; Kaneto Shiozawa as Junobel Kim; Kazuki Yao as Nam Shurugi; Miina Tominaga as Rasa Yupiter; Fuyumi Shiraishi as Mongaa; Jouji Yanami as Grandpa; Noriko Tsukase as Baby; Reiko Suzuki as Grandma

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

The eighties are held as a time when, with the Japanese economy riding a high, money was freely available to fund esoteric projects in the animation industry. The OVA released film Birth, for better and for worse, is a title you could only have gotten from that era as it exists today. Set on the planet Aqualoid, a magical sword known as the SHADE floats through space and finally lands on the planet, to be picked up by a young man named Nam who is immediately attacked by the Inorganics, a race of artificial figures who, threatened by the sword's power, are the opposite of the natural state of existence, the Organics, and would remove it from existence if possible.

This is a pretty simple plot, including a female friend Rasa being caught up in this, whilst trying to delivery breakfast to him from their village, and two figures in a spaceship, friends, known as Bao and Kim who were following the sword. The Inorganics themselves, robotic, change from humanoid figures on bicycles to giant machines storming the mostly desert environment the film is set in. One is immediately aware, however, Birth will be eccentric when, in its original uncensored form, it instead starts not with set up but with a yellow blob creature, which Rasa will befriend, being chased by a bigger blue blob creature with full appendages and armed with a trident. This lasts a while, a cartoon chase to begin our film here, setting up that Birth in context is tonally all over the place.

What is a very simple premise, an extended chase over the entire length, becomes an erratic mess alongside the fact that, even at just eighty minutes, it extends its content on to the point it has a strangely elongated pace. It is undoubtedly gorgeous to look at, Birth at a time when a weird production like this, whilst not to everyone's taste in its visuals, could at least have some quality to its gorgeous and distinctly cartoonish animation. It however also feels like it was made with a lot of absent mindedness, or was the result of many talented figures brainstorming what was on their minds each day.

At first it seems like Birth is going to be a very wacky comedy alongside being a sci-fi action story, with a lot of elaborate machines involved, but in its first half this gets into odd tangents already, even oddly sombre moments like an Inorganic, impaled on the SHADE, suddenly talking of the impermanence of life before its dissolves. An extended chase scene with Rasa, distinct in her red cat suit and getting the unfortunate nickname of "Jiggle-Butt" from a sexist Inorganic chasing her on a motorbike, suddenly has a tinier Inorganic on a bike the size for a small toddler try to help only to breakdown. This character ends up being a reoccuring figure, and suddenly you cut to a tangent of comedic existential angst including a lot of out-of-context scenes, like being at train tracks where a giant head of Rasa passes by, or a scene at a beach, with a lovingly rendered snail crawling past a drink with ice, and a cameo by a cartoonish giant pink octopus straight out of Parodius (1996)¹. It makes no sense, as neither cutting to Nam's grandparents, just to see them talk of tea or food for no reason, repeatedly even in the midst of action scenes.

If Birth had stayed a comedy, I could have expected a deeply silly project like this. It looks exceptional as a production, and whilst his career was mainly in storyboard and animation, the director Shinya Sadamitsu also directed an OVA like Dragon Half (1993). A beloved and incredibly silly fantasy spoof where one joke was a character having to watch a VHS tape of the first episode, all because the motivation for his revenge was a deleted scene excised from the narrative, you can see where the absurd humour comes from. It makes sense to have this level of comedy here as a result in mine to his future career, even if there is a flaw that it extends actions scenes for too long at times, to the point it has tonal problems. Also you have, of all people, Joe Hisaishi as your composer, a frequently collaborator with Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyazaki, having worked on the score of the latter's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, released the same year as Birth was. Considering as well future director Hideaki Anno is credited as an animator on this project does also show Birth's web of connections to many talented people.

And as a result, no matter how haphazard this was, Birth did provide a few moments that even its own languid tone could not dampen, when you encounter a giant Inorganic that shouts "Asparagus" when launching a rocket punch against a horde of yellow blob creatures. It is as bizarre as it sounds and also, because this OVA feature film had the budget and staff, it looks exceptional as animation lovingly renders yellow blobs of Play-Doh with eyes charging on mass and glomping on a giant grocery obsessed Inorganic.

Where Birth gets even more peculiar is when it wants to become more serious but still has the comedy. It has lore, of the Organics versus Inorganics, leading to my beloved trope of an out-of-body realm where one of the members of the cast witnesses the death of a star. It also loses me however, whilst still being compelling, when it gets to the last half, the leads travel to a wasteland that was cordoned off due to being radiated over the decades. With comedic beats still there, you have a set piece in a ruined metropolis underground, with husks of buildings, abandoned cars and piles of skeletons everywhere. It involves a doomsday weapon, the shape of a red toy rocket launcher, and....well, never would I have thought you have so much comedy even up to an ending which is actually tragic. [Major Spoilers] How many anime, mostly set up as a comedy, end with an entire planet and the cast disintegrated, existing afterwards as spirits made into a new star by cosmic feminine figures that eat cakes in the galactic rainbow kingdom? An ending, for added emphasis on its randomness, only happening because they could not convince a child Inorganic not to fire the doomsday weapon, just out of spite, by offering to take him out for soy milk? [Spoilers End]

Birth is bizarre, a tonally erratic mess whose viewing experience was compelling, but I can understand why this title is not well known. Again, returning to the first paragraph, even if titles like this still exist in some form in the modern anime industry, how this one is was made would not be possible outside the eighties and all the money thrown around.

 

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1) I usually explain obscure references. Suffice to say, despite never really being a gamer, I had the niche Sega Saturn console as a young boy with Parodius one of the few games, a parody of shoot-em-ups by Konami where normal spaceships or eccentric characters like a bunny girl on a carrot missile shot at penguin ran pirate ships, giant showgirl dancers, and a lot of penguins and octopuses in general. It makes as suitable a tangent for an anime this tangent laden.