Iwa ni Hana

'Wind Along the Coast' by Ivan Maximov: An Inkling of His Camera Style

So I watched this Stage6 video clip of Ivan Maximov's Wind Along the Coast. Stylistically, it is very similar to Rain Down from Above. Watching it, I think I have obtained an inkling of Master Maximov's modus operandi when it comes to camera work:

He seems to favour using a static camera point-of-view to shoot what is taking place within a frame. The camera remains still, only the objects and characters move. He does not like violent camera movements. He uses zoom-in and zoom-out only very rarely. When he moves the camera at all, he tends to move it horizontally and seldom up and down.

I think that pretty much sums it up. Any additional observations would be welcomed.

'Jin-roh' and the problem of depicting history and politics in anime/manga

So I watched Jin-roh (人狼), and what a contradictory work it is: On the one hand, its verisimilitude of real-life objects is deliberately authentic; on the other hand the story is deliberately set in an alternative universe - a Japan of the 1950s that never was.

Why bother to make animation minutely life-like in a setting that is all but a historic fantasy? The closest answer I can think of is that Jin-roh is a parable retelling of WWII and the ensuing aftermath. Ever noticed that history, when it appears in anime/manga at all, often appears as alternative history? Anime is not concerned with telling real history. Anime is concerned with telling traumatic historic events in a manipulated form that is often a recasting of characters and themes that is acceptable to the creators and that they feel comfortable expressing. (It's like flood myths around the world. The same flood happened, but different cultures have chosen different ways to explain why such a flood happened in order to digest it psychologically.)

Even then, I cannot say that I can decipher what Jin-roh is trying to say. The movie seems to speak in a muffled voice about politics in general, just as most anime/manga that tries to deal with politics seem to speak in a muffled voice. There are oblique references, vague suggestions and oh-so-elusive hints, but they just never quite say what they mean. Sex (even the most outrageous sort) is never a taboo in anime/manga. So why is politics such a taboo?

Thought-provoking article from Neojaponisme - 'Macross: War in a Material World'

To those of you who ever thought that rampant consumer culture in the midst of a supposedly galactic war where the fate of humanity is at stake makes no sense in Macross, here is a thoughtful article entitled Macross: War in a Material World from Neojaponisme on that subject.

For the record, I cannot say I have been exposed to Macross or Gundam enough to have a firm opinion. (I tried, but was bored - I have short attention span.)

Translation of the plot summary of 'Kaiba' and comments

Just translating the plot summary of Kaiba posted at WOWOW's website:

It is a world where memories can be turned into data, where the death of the physical body can no longer be called death.
It is possible to save one's memories in a databank, transfer one's memories into a new body, and buy and sell memories. It is also possible to illegally falsify memories and steal memories. Society is plunged into chaos and stagnates.
Then, there is a man who awakes in a destroyed room. His name is Kaiba. He has no memory. There is a picture of a woman he does not know in his pendant. There are electrolytic clouds moving strangely in the sky, and there are memory hunters causing troubles in the streets.
Kaiba, who is suddenly attacked and escapes into space, travels from planet to planet, meets various people, and comes to retrieve his memories - memories of his former self who agonized over the contradictions and banality of this world and his own existence, and of the the woman in the pendant called Neiro...

Some comments:

1) So we have three upcoming sci-fi series that deal with human memories: Kaiba, Himitsu - Top Secret and RD Sennou  Chousashitsu.  Of the three, I reckon that the premise set out in Himitsu - Top Secret is most conductive to cooking up a thought-provoking series - in fact, that is already achieved in the manga and the animators would have to try very hard to fail.

2) As for the component of romance in Kaiba - my gut instinct tells me that Neiro is probably better off being an abstract figure in Kaiba's distant past if the story is to go down the angsty route (see my previous post in which I defined angst as a feeling of profound and intense emotional suffering that has a strange beauty of its own).

Imagine the possibilities that could be afforded by the story's premise - Neiro could have been Kaiba's first love in his former life; they were separated and Kaiba never saw her again. On his (physical) death many decades later, he realizes that she alone is his last persisting thought, and in his new life he resolves to find her, in whichever physical form she may be in. Factor in decades of vicissitudes in human life and I think you would have a good love story there. However, it seems from the trailer that Neiro will be a full-blooded creature that is anything but an abstract memory.

3) The Astroboy artstyle is indeed conspicuous challenge to the generic artstyle in mainstream anime. I am curious as to the choice of going retro with an artstyle that is reminiscent of Astroboy. Any guesses? I suppose we will find out more when the series airs.

(I wonder if the picture on the left is none other than the memory bank?)

The 'Legend of Galactic Heroes' picture that cannot be had for love or money

If my memory serves me right, I saved this picture some years ago from a Japanese website announcing an art exhibition of Legend of Galactic Heroes (銀河英雄伝説) illustrations by Michihara Katsumi (道原かつみ).

It is simply an illustration that took my breath away. Not only does it seem to capture the essence of the story (ie. the Reich camp and the Free Planets Alliance camp vying for mastery of the universe), there is a lyrical beauty in the image itself that is beyond words. The beautiful galaxy is spinning, and yet it seems to be but a chessboard between Reinhard and Yang. Most of the men you see in the picture live but for a brief glorious moment, yet you can see that intense concentration in their eyes which makes it clear that they are intent on winning this transient game...

Since then I have been on the look out for perhaps a new release of an artbook that may include this picture. Perhaps I have been living under a stone but I really have not heard any artbook forthcoming at all.

In the meantime, I can only yearn for a high-resolution version of this picture to fit my new 22-inch LG monitor with 5000:1 contrast!

Introducing 'Chocolate Underground (チョコレート・アンダーグラウンド)' by Production I.G.

News reached me that the UK novel Bootleg is to be animated by Production I.G. under the title Chocolate Underground (チョコレート・アンダーグラウンド). You can find out more about it here.

It purports to be 'the first original anime to be broadcast through mobile phones in the world' (世界初の携帯電話配信オリジナルアニメ). I have doubts about that. You can watch a lot of anime from Gyao and other websites with internet-connected mobile phones in Japan, and Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto for one was an original anime series shown exclusively on Gyao. Besides, the series Usavich was also broadcast through cellphones.

At any rate, it will be another anime to look forward to this year. It would be nice if they were to sell merchandise like Chocolate Underground chocolate bars or something.

You can find the Japanese official website here: http://www.choco-bar.jp/index/next.html

'The Rose of Versailles' mascara spotted! (and anime-related goods in general)

I went to a cosmetics store the other day to replenish my stock of perfume* and guess what I spotted? None other than The Rose of Versailles mascara which I wrote about back on 30 May 2007.

I did not buy any though - I just took the picture above. (I do not use mascara because I work obscenely long ibank hours and I want to rub my tired eyes when I want to without worrying that I will look like a panda.)

Apparently, there are now The Rose of Versailles bathing powder sets as well.

So let me ask the same question that I already asked before: What is everyone's dream anime-related goods?

I still would like to see Le Chevalier D'eon shampoo and lipstick, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto disposable contact lens, Seirei no Moribito foods, Cowboy Bebop cigarettes (though I don't smoke), and a Honey and Clover clothing line. To this list, I would like to add Mononoke incense sets (see the Nue story arc), as well as Moyashimon sake and miso soup.

* Bulgari's Rose Essentialle

Russian animation: 'Rain Down from Above' by Ivan Maximov

Colour me delighted with Ivan Maximov's latest work Rain Down from Above.

As with his earlier work Bolero, there is not a story per se - although one could argue that the 'story' is really an imaginative description of the effects of a devastating rainstorm on the lives of various fictional characters. Yet there is undeniably a certain irresistible magic in the animation itself that makes you watch on.

The stark use of black, white and grey, coupled with a rich sense of humour and subtle absurdity, all combine to make this endearing to me.

Vintage Soviet animation: 'The Tale of Igor's Campaign'

I was very impressed by this Stage6 video clip, which I believe is a vintage Soviet animation dated 1972. The title in English may be translated as The Tale of Igor's Campaign. You can find out more about the original epic poem dated to the late 12th century on Wikipedia here.

It is a neat combination of creative animation and medieval art, in particular of the iconic paintings of Andrei Rublev. (Has anyone seen the 1966 film by Andrei Tarkovsky about him?)

Some parts of it were - for lack of a better word - somewhat avant-garde. For example, there is a scene which shows (I think) an angel weeping after the slaughter in the battlefield:

I don't think the medieval mind would have portrayed the weeping angel as some shadowy figure in the background. The medieval mind would have portrayed the angel as a full-blooded creature. The divine world and the human world always seems to be one and the same in medieval art.

I also like its rendition of an ominous eclipse - probably the most powerful scene in the whole work. It is amazing how they manage to evoke so much horror, dread and anticipation of doom with minimum effort.

I think a work like this begs for a remastered version in Blue-ray or HD DVD that does the colours justice (although the washed-down colours also add to its vintage charm).

And subtitles in English would be quite nice too.

A housekeeping note

1) Typepad shows only the last 10 months' archive by default. I messed with the code and have set it to include all the months since this blog came into existence back in December 2006. You can find all the archive links in the sidebar.

2)  I have changed the subtitle of this blog from:

Art-house Japanese Anime: Commentary and Analysis (and occasional off-topic posts on Japanese cinema, manga, literature and other aspects of culture)

Into:

Art-house Animation: Commentary and Analysis (and occasional off-topic posts on cinema, manga, literature and other aspects of culture)

The point is, there is a lot of good animation outside Japan that I would like to expose myself to more. I will continue to write about Japanese anime for as long as there are good ones worth writing about, of course.

Don't these new pictures of 'Kaiba' look like gauntlets thrown into the face of the anime industry?

I don't know what you feel when you look at these new pictures of Kaiba (courtesy of Manganimation). I for one think they look like gauntlets thrown into the face of the anime industry. You just have to admire the guts of drawing something that is screamingly different from the generic cookie-cutting artstyle in 95% of Japanese anime out there.

As I was saying earlier, that ubiquitous generic artstyle seems to be in turn reinforced by fans with self-imposed aesthetic criteria of what is 'beautiful' and what is 'ugly' in anime. (Somehow, anything that deviates from the norm is considered 'ugly'.) I beg to differ, and I am sure a minority of anime fans would beg to differ as well.

The definition of 'sci-fi' and Shimizu Reiko (清水玲子)

What is your definition 'sci-fi'? Many years ago, my definition thereof was foggy at best - I used to think that sci-fi just means a fictional story with a lot of robots, high-tech gadgets and perhaps space battles.

Then I started reading the works of Shimizu-sensei, and my definition of 'sci-fi' was refined into this - a sci-fi story is a fictional story which asks the question:

If X becomes Y, then what would happen to Z?

X = a pre-exisiting condition or thing
Y = a new condition or thing brought on by means of new technology that replaces X or changes the nature of X
Z = a fundamental human condition that is at the root of human existence

For example, Himitsu - Top Secret asks the question: if the human brain and all the memories, fantasies and dreams thereof can be scanned and digitalized into viewable format after one's death (and sometimes even before one's true biological death), then what would become of one's secrets, privacy and memories?

I just finished reading up to volume 3 of the manga and it is nothing short of mind-blowing. Volume 3 in particular is a masterpiece in itself. In the manga, there is no longer a safe way to keep one's secret except by smashing one's own head and smashing the heads of others who found out about one's secret.  Sometimes the human brain is used by criminals as a 'piece of paper' for sending a message across (knowing that the police would scan the victim's brain). And of course, the human brain is also used a tool for resurrecting the (often shocking) truth from the long dead.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it a true sci-fi story should be like - speculative, imaginative, and thought-provoking. If any variant of Gundam or Macross starts asking the same question, then I could call it 'sci-fi' instead of 'mecha'.

A follow-up note on Episode 5 of 'Hakaba Kitaro'

In case anyone missed my previous post on Episode 5 of Hakaba Kitaro because of the spoiler warning - I just learned that the animation director for that episode would seem to be none other than Hashimoto Takashi (橋本タカシ), who was also the character designer of the Bakeneko story arc in Ayakashi, as well as the animation director of episode 9 and 11 of that series. He was also the chief animation director of Mononoke.

That explains a lot as to why the episode seems extra impressive.

(Special thanks to w for this piece of info.)

Impressions of Episode 5 of 'Hakaba Kitaro'

[Spoilers up to Episode 5 ahead]

1) The first thing I noticed about this episode is that the art direction seems to have been upgraded by a few notches. I am particularly impressed by the stark use of red, black and white (my favourite colour combination) to depict a psychological state of mind.

I also noticed frequent use of the camera at tilted angles, which gives a disorienting effect as though the world of Hakaba Kitaro is slopped to one side or something.

A break-down of the first half and second half of 'Princess Arete (アリーテ姫)' by Studio 4°C

[Massive spoilers ahead]

I suppose a short-handed way of describing this story is that it is a mish-mash of fairytales and theories of ancient astronauts. Symmetry would be a good word to describe what happens to the titular princess in the first and second half of the story (see below):

First Half	Second Half
Being imprisoned by her father in a tower.	Being imprisoned by 'her hushand' in a dungeon.
Being wooed by men in spite of her plain looks.	Being wooed by no one in spite of her beautiful looks.
Being inspired by a wizard who quits being a wizard.	Being inspired by a wizard's maid servant who quits being a wizard's maid servant.
Her father keeps his kingdom's economy viable with treasures from an advanced civilization in the past.	Her 'husband' keeps his household viable with treasures from an advanced civilization in the past.
Engaging in solitary intellectual pursuits (reading books, playing chess on her own).	Engaging in solitary artistic pursuits (sewing pictures).
Finding her route of escape in the fireplace chimney.	Find her route of escape in a hidden waterway.

The breakdown is by no means exclusive, but you get the idea.