Iwa ni Hana

I remember Yasuhiko Yoshikazu (安彦良和): 'My Name is Nero (我が名はネロ)'

The other day I was searching for a Wikipedia entry on Yasuhiko Yoshikazu (安彦良和) and was surprised to find such a short entry for such a notable figure in the anime/manga industry.

Among his works, what left the deepest impression in me were a few manga in which he takes a very interesting and creative stand on history. They are so little known that I would like to introduce them here on this blog. I would like to begin with:

My Name Is Nero / 我が名はネロ / Wagana wa Nero         

This 2-volume manga begins with the Nero's reign at the age of 14. It was Nero's mother Agrippina (wife of the late Emperor Claudius and sister to Caligula) who engineered his ascent to the throne. With the wise philosopher Seneca by his side, the beginning years of his reign flies by easily enough. However, as time goes on, Nero proves to be a hysteric, nervous and absurdly theatrical youth. Soon Agrippina threatens to replace Nero with his younger brother, Britannicus. Nero murders Britannicus with poisoned mushrooms (as an implicit warning to Agrippina that he knows she murdered Claudius in exactly the same way).

Meanwhile, Nero discovers a captured slave whom he thinks looks exactly like him. Nero calls this slave 'Remus' (as a reference to the myth of Romulus and Remus where Remus is the twin brother of the crowned Romulus). Possibly on account of his guilt over the murder of Britannicus, Nero comes to regard Remus as his 'younger brother' in his craze. Remus, on the other hand, does not think he looks like Nero at all.

We know the rest of history (or what has been passed down to us as history) - he throws himself wholeheartedly into various debaucheries in his adulthood and at some point a military coup is staged against him. However, the manga takes a flight of fancy based (I believe among other things) on a little known passage from The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius on Emperor Nero:

He met his death in the thirty-second year of his age, on the anniversary of the murder of Octavia, and such was the public rejoicing that the people put on liberty-caps and ran about all over the city. Yet there were some who for a long time decorated his tomb with spring and summer flowers, and now produced his statues on the Rostra in the fringed toga, and now his edicts, as if he were still alive and would shortly return and deal destruction to his enemies. Nay more, Vologaesus, King of the Parthians, when he sent envoys to the Senate to renew his alliance, earnestly begged this too, that honor be paid to the memory of Nero. In fact, twenty years later, when I was a young man, a person of obscure origin appeared, who gave out that he was Nero, and the name was still in such favor with the Parthians, that they supported him vigorously and surrendered him with great reluctance.

In other words, the manga is based on the premise that Nero survived the suicide he is believed to have committed (as you may have guessed - Remus the slave has something to do with this). There are many fascinating points made in the manga story - but to say more would be giving away too much spoilers. I can only urge you all to check it out if you get the chance.

Brain food for this winter: 'Yabou no Enbukyoku (The Waltz of Ambition)', 'Rain no Ryoshuu (The Prisoner of the Rhein)' and 'The Heroic Legend of Arslan (アルスラーン戦記)' by Tanaka Yoshiki (田中芳樹)

By way of defiance against all the moe crap this season, I am ordering some novels from the creator of The Legend of Galactic Heroes (銀河英雄伝説) and The Heroic Legend of Arslan (アルスラーン戦記):

野望の円舞曲 / Yabou no Enbukyoku / The Waltz of Ambition

An epic of economic warfare set in the future and staged across the galaxy. The protagonist is a young woman who vows to take her revenge on her father for the death of her mother and vyes with him for the mastery of the galaxy. The only weapon she has is money.

You may think of this as The Legend of Galactic Heroes except the focus is on economics and finance instead of war and politics. I am also curious as to how a female protagonist with all the brains you would expect in a Tanaka Yoshiki novel would fare. Will she be Reinhard von Lohengramm in a dress? As I was saying earlier, in anime/manga, the intellectual and personal growth of a female character is typically supported by an understanding father in the absence of a mother (and even then the female character typically crossdresses as man and renounces her femininity). In contrast, the intellectual and personal growth of a male character tends to be pitted against his father, or at least a father figure, or the concept of 'father' in the abstract. The set up in Yabou no Enbukyoku seems to be an exception to this. The female protagonist does not crossdress (is in fact well-dressed in a feminine way), has brains and is in revolt against her father to be the new master of the universe.

ラインの虜囚 / Rain no Ryoshuu / The Prisoner of the Rhein

An historic adventure set in 19th century Europe that involves a girl from Canada, a pirate from the Carribbeans, a swordsman who is always drunk and a writer who calls himself a genius. They are involved in an intrigue about a man imprisoned in a tower on the Rhein, who may be the supposedly dead Napoleon.

This seems to be a fun thing to read.

アルスラーン戦記 / Arusuraan Senki / The Heroic Legend of Arslan

As I have only seen the anime, I figure it is about time I give the original novels a try. I gather that a new novel volume came out in December 2006, after an interval many years. 

(As an aside - may I just say that I yearn for anime series that engage the left brain? I really do. I just hope all the moe crap is not here to stay and we will see the swing of the pendulum at some point in the near future...)

New anime announced: 'Amatsuki (あまつき)' to be directed by Furuhashi Kazuhiro (古橋一浩) of Le Chevalier D'Eon fame

There are good and bad news about this. The bad news is that the manga on which the anime is based is yet another alternative world fantasy:

Rikugou Tokidoki, who failed his Japanese history test, goes to a fair on the Bakumatsu Era as extra study during springbreak. There he is attacked by a mysterious Nue and is saved by a swordswoman called Kuchiha. Before he knows it, he is transported into a world called Amatsuki, which is similar to Bakumatsu Japan except that you (妖) exists.  As a result of Nue's attack, Rikugou loses the sight of one eye. There he also meets his ex-classmate Shinonome Kon who was transported into Amatsuki some time before Rikugou. The two try to find a way to return to the modern world, and Rikugou is asked by both humans and you for help, as his decision to help one side or the other would determine the fate of Amatsuki.

As you can see, the plot is quite pedestrian. I may be mistaken but this looks to be a character-driven anime as opposed to a theme-driven anime like Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi  (another anime series set in the Bakumatsu Era with otherworldy creatures called youi). And while Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi has a script of a certain philosophical bent, I have yet to hear any guarantees that Amatsuki appeals to the brain. 

The good news is that Furuhashi Kazuhiro (古橋一浩) will be directing it. He recently directed Le Chevalier D'Eon, and he was also responsible for the storyboard of Mononoke.

The voice-acting cast has not been officially announced yet, but the info on the CD drama based on the manga is available on Wikipedia. Quite a solid cast that is.

On the whole, I will be taking a cautious, wait-and-see approach to this.

Review: 'The Heroic Legend of Arslan (アルスラーン戦記)'

Recently I rewatched The Heroic Legend of Arslan (アルスラーン戦記) after an interval of many years in a bout of nostalgia. I was particularly impressed all by the positioning of people on the fringe instead of the centre of the frame against a vast expanse of natural landscape/archectural structure. A wonderfully epic feel is thereby achieved through this technique:

Arslan also has a lot of other good points to recommend itself:

• Smooth and creative camera work in terms of how things/people enter and exit the frame

I think the opening sequence illustrates this point. First you see Prince Arslan mounted on a horse in a misty and dreamy place. Then you see a close-up of the jewel on his helmet, then a close-up of his face. He seems to be alone, lost in his own thoughts. Then as the camera pans out, you realize that he is actually standing on a battle field, leading an army of men to war. All this occurs in a seamless manner that is quite something to behold.

• Long, flowery and ornate lines reminiscent of Shakespearean plays.

Even the English dub sounds strangely pleasant to the ear, let alone the stellar voice-acting cast in the original Japanese version.

• The beautiful co-ordination of colours and shapes

• I seriously think Farangis is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in anime (though her outfit leaves something to be desired).

Those close-up shots of her are breathtaking. Also, whenever she appears on the screen, one gets the unmistakable feeling that one is in the presence of a mystery. (I sometimes wonder if Alexiel in Angel Sanctuary was modelled after her.)

• Gorgeous background music from one Tsuru Norihiro (都留教博) - who unfortunately seems to have never written background music for any other anime since then

• All the talk of politics, war strategies, government and society

Arslan is primarily a left-brain show - verbal and analytical. (In contrast, most shows nowadays seem to be right-brain shows - holistic and imagistic.)

Having said that, my only regret is that Arslan, unlike The Legend of Galactic Heroes (another anime based on the novels of Tanaka Yoshiki 田中芳樹) does not feature two opposing sides of more or less equal merit. I have not read the novels on which the anime is based, but Prince Arslan's political opponents in the anime are the kind who dig their own graves, and that takes away most of the fun in a left-brain show.

Another flaw I perceived in Arslan is that although the screenplay excels in witty banter and repartees, its attempts at comic relief do come across as rather clumsy.

Even so, Arslan is a show I absolutely go ga-ga about. 

The fantasy of growing up fast in older anime/manga

The other day I started entertaining the following idea:

While transition between childhood and adulthood tends to be non-existent, barely noticeable or artificially shortened in older manga/anime (perhaps as a reflection of social and economic realities of the time), the fantasy of growing fast up that seemed to dominate those older works has never completely gone away - it only changed its form into a sort of Messiah complex where a teenage protagonist is saddled with the great responsibility of saving the world, in which case adulthood is artificially achieved fast by means of a role reversal where adults are typically reduced to a relatively helpless state as the teenage protagonist takes charge.

Then I tried to think of examples to support this idea, and realized that the idea does not work out as neatly as I thought it would be.

Below are some examples that seem to characterize the fantasy of growing up fast in older anime/manga:

• Marvelous Melmo, Magical Angel Creamy Mami, Full Moon o Sagashite, Fancy Lala and Magical Fairy Persia all feature an elementary schoolgirl who is able to turn into a teenage girl by means of magic.

• In The Drifting Classroom, elementary school children who have been mysteriously transported into an environmentally doomed wasteland assume adult responsibilities. (For example, the son of a doctor performs surgery.)

In short, you have to be on the right side of the age demarcation in the old days. If you are a child, you do things befitting a child. If you are a grown-up, you do things befitting a grown-up. If you are a child wanting to do things befitting a grown-up, then you had better take on the appearance of a grown-up (by means of magic or otherwise), or you had better have extenuating circumstances to justify your acts.

However, the fantasy of playing or being grown-up works in more oblique ways in other older works:

• In Fly Me to the Moon, a precocious little girl of 10 begs a man of 26 to be her boyfriend. The man has a sort of dating relationship with her, after having travelled to the future and seen what she will grow up to be like. The precocious little girl also saves his life time after time.

Then at some point, the mood seems to have swung from longing for adulthood to discrediting adulthood, typically by means of surpassing it through the sense of validation great acts bestow upon an individual - and there is no greater act than saving the world. As in - 'look what I can do that adults cannot do.'

(And then fastforward to the fall/winter season of 2007. What with all the moe stuff, it seems to me that even the Messiah Complex is in decline...)

As I said, the idea may not work out all that neatly after all. But I like entertaining ideas for the sake of entertaining ideas. Please do not hesitate to let me know your thoughts on this.

A quick note on Episode 01 of 'Ghost Hound'

I think I will just be honest and confess that I fast-forwarded my way through most of the first episode of Ghost Hound. (Not that I haven't seen this coming...)

I hope I am wrong but what with the big names behind the show, the feeling it induces is not unlike a classical music concert that has a bad start - it's classical music, and even if it is badly-performed or mediocre classical music, it feels as though one is holding oneself out to be a philistine in saying frankly that one is bored.

The importance of the interior in 'Mononoke' and other thoughts on confinement/enclosed space in anime

1) I should have been alert to the fact that all the extravagent interior designs in Mononoke may be modeled after one architectural landmark or other. It seems that the brothel in Zashiki Warashi is modeled after Megurogajoen (目黒雅叙園). The pictures below speak for themselves:

It's amazing how they make interiors self-referential in Mononoke. Bad things happened within these enclosed spaces, and these enclosed spaces give us hints as to what happened.

2) The idea of confinement in an artificially enclosed space seems to be a consistent plot device in Mononoke. The characters typically find themselves entrapped in an enclosed space where communication with the outside world is cut off, and they cannot get out until the truth is disclosed. With the exception of some flashbacks, I cannot recall any significant action taking place in open space. And even if it does take place in open space, it is i) an open space from which they cannot get out (the Sea of Ayakashi in Umibouzu), or ii) an open space in which they lose no time in erecting an enclosed space (the wedding room in Nopperabou). The point is, physical enclosure plays a pivotal role in squeezing out the truth from the characters.

This reminds me of how confinement in an artificially enclosed place works in Mushishi: All the characters who are not mushishi seem to live in the same village all their lives. Although we are not told when exactly do the stories in Mushishi take place, Ginko's outfit does suggest modernity, even though the Japan he travels around is either i) a fantasy 'Japan' without railways, or ii) Japan before the proliferation of railways.

Confinement is similarly deployed in Kino no Tabi. In this case, the world seems to consist exclusively of two classes of people: there are travelers who travel from country to country, and there is everybody else who never seem to get out of their own country at all (except when they go to a war with another country).

However you look at it, all these seem be efforts to make the world deliberately small. I may even go further to say that there seems to be a great deal of fascination with the idea of confinement in Japanese anime/manga. In Vexville - 2077 Sakoku -, Japan in the distant future is said to have shut itself off from the rest of the world. In Basara, a post-apocalyptic Japan reverts to close-country policy.

Here is something I would like to hear from you all: Are there other series that i) deploys confinement in enclosed space in a similar way, ii) fantasizes the reversion to close-country policy in Japan, or iii) somehow makes the world deliberately small? Why do you think they are so? 

Japanese Independent Animation: 'Kuma-chan no Monogatari' and 'Hana'

Kuma-chan no Monogatari

Have you ever wondered if the cherished toys of your childhood end up in a wasteland of garbage somewhere? This excellent video clip takes on that idea and adds an environmentalist message to it. Quite touching.

Hana

Another video clip with an environmentalist message. Quite imaginative and well-executed.

An introduction of 'Yumedamaya Kidan' (ゆめだまや奇談)

So Production I.G. posted some screenshots of Yumedamaya Kidan (ゆめだまや奇談), which will begin to air on 25 November 2007:

We also get more details of the story itself:

Naho, an eleven-year-old girl, lives with her father and her two-year-old brother Jun. Her mother died after giving birth to Jun, so Naho has to take care of young Jun at home. Understandingly, this situation is frustrating to little Naho. A girl of her age would be dying to go out and play with friends, but because of Jun, she has to give priority to her duties.

One day, a bizarre man, wearing a long coat and with a big suitcase in his hand, turns up in front of Naho. He introduces himself as "Kotaro the Dreamball Dealer" and tells Naho he can take her to a dreamland away from her everyday life. But after this encounter, strange phenomena begin to happen to Naho.

Now Naho is having fun with her friends, and several different worlds come and go before her eyes. Then she finds herself with his father and mother, only the three of them again... But as she starts feeling anxious, the next moment she finds herself wandering into Jun's dream!

Naho is confused. What would she ask to Kotaro? What does she really desire from the deep of her heart?

I said before that there is something about Yumedamaya Kidan's artstyle that reminds me of  the old-school horror manga master Umezu Kazuo (楳図かずお). I should like to add that there is something retro about the whole feel of the work. It also strangely reminds me of Tezuka Osamu's Marvelous Melmo (ふしぎなメルモ) - see this Wikipedia entry for info.

I hope I am not wrong on this - but the series seems to emit vibes of the sort of combination of harshness (厳しさ) and tenderness (優しさ) you see in old-school works but no longer in newer works. In Marvelous Melmo, for example, I have been told that the protagonist's younger brother turns into a frog and as he cannot consume water as a frog, he cannot take the magic candy to turn back into a human. Later, the younger brother is being cooked as food by someone, and the magic candy turns into steam, which somehow allows him to turn back into a human being. Furthermore, the bottle of candy is supposed to be refilled automatically, but at some point the refilling stops suddenly. By the time there are only two candies left, the protagonist has already become a grown-up. That is the sort of combination of harshness and tenderness I mean.   

Russian animation: 'Bolero' by Ivan Maximov

I have been checking out some Russian animation on YouTube. I would like to make a special point of recommending the above video clip. The amazing thing is that nothing much seems to happen, and yet the animation draws your full attention. You will see what I mean by pressing the play button.

[Off-topic] 'The Queen', 'Bushi no ichibun', 'Hana yori mo naho', 'King and Clown', 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' and pre-war Polish tango

Indulge me while I post off-topic about films I watched and music I listened to recently: