Iwa ni Hana

The Chinese illustrator Hansey and his illustrations for the PRC edition of 'The Legend of Galactic Heroes' novels

Imagine my surprise on discovering (better late than never) that a few years ago a huge controversy was caused by the original covers for the legitimate PRC edition of Tanaka Yoshiki's novels The Legend of Galactic Heroes, illustrated by the Chinese artist Hansey (see below):

 

The gist of the controversy was that fans in the PRC seem to reject them with overwhelming hatred. In the end, the covers were pulled from publication. Of course I am curious to know why the PRC fans find these covers despicable. Unfortunately, from what I glimpse online I found it rather difficult to discern any clarity of expression behind all the hate message as to why they hated the novels to the point of calling for a boycott. Much of it seems to be mired in personal attacks against the illustrator than any rational assessment of why the covers do not suit The Legend of Galactic Heroes. Worse, I seem to sense the undercurrent sentiment that 'anything made in China is rubbish'.

I personally am delighted with the air of mysteriousness of Hansey's covers - I actually prefer them to the more dull-looking but more hard-sci-fi looking covers of the Japanese edition. I learned that in the end the PRC publisher recycled the illustrations of Michihara Katsumi (道原かつみ), the Japanese shoujo artist who illustrates and adapts the story into manga format. Her artwork has a shoujo-feel which I always adore (see below), but to be honest,  I love the bold and imaginative style of Hansey that is somehow expressive of the vastness of time and the galaxy as novel covers better. Michihara's illustrations in themselves may be nice - but I find the colour coordination of the background of the novel covers rather wanting - it looks as though her drawings were cut and pasted against dull backgrounds of red, blue, yellow and what-have-you.

So, tell me, you fans of The Legend of Galactic Heroes - what do you feel about Hansey's illustrated covers? Am I the only one to think that they are wonderful? That the PRC fans do not know what they are missing out?

Fans of 'The Legend of Galactic Heroes' rejoice! Tanaka Yoshiki's space opera 'Titania' to be animated!

Breaking news indeed! Just 2 days after we learned that Titania is to be adapted into manga format, we now learn that it is to be animated as well. 

Referring back to my 2008 wishlist, it seems that I can now check off item 2 (ie. a revival of interest in Tanaka Yoshiki). As for the remaining items:

1) Gankutsuou-like art direction in Amatsuki

I have more or less given up on this after looking at the pictures on the official website.

2) At least one adaptation from an old-school shoujo classic

Nothing like that on the horizon yet. Though one wonders if Shimizu Reiko may be considered as 'old school shoujo'.

3) At least one series of serious historic drama

Maybe Mugen no Juunin (無限の住人) will fit the bill, but I have yet to learn more about this series.

4) A new series from Watanabe Shinichirou

No news from the creator of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo yet.

5) Shinbo Akiyuki coming to his senses at last

No sign of that happening any time soon.

6) Something groundbreaking in terms of art direction

Thankfully, Kaiba will fit this description quite nicely.

Tanaka Yoshiki's novel series 'Titania' to be adapted into manga

Breaking news! Apparently, the space opera novel series Titania (タイタニア) by Tanaka Yoshiki (田中芳樹) is to be adapted into manga format on the magazine Shounen Sirius:

Here is what I have learned so far about Titania compared The Legend of Galactic Heroes, a.k.a. the space opera classic Tanaka Yoshiki is famous for:

• The novel series is not yet finished.
• Titania portrays a multipolar political world as opposed to a bipolar political world like in The Legend of Galactic Heroes.
• The characters just sort of go with the flow of events and no clear winner has emerged in the process.
• Whereas The Legend of Galactic Heroes places a greater emphasis on military issues, Titania is heavier on the political side of things.
• Whereas The Legend of Galactic Heroes has quite a few quotable passages, Titania has very little of those. Instead, there are more depictions of the characters' interactions with each other and their psychology.
• Titania is on the whole darker than The Legend of Galactic Heroes. Instead of splendid military strategies, you get dirty political plots winning the day.

What do I know? Referring to my 2008 wishlist, perhaps Tanaka Yoshiki is to experience a comeback after all. Now if only Titania is to become an anime series...

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!

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...)

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 aesthetics of the 'deliberate blank' in anime

By deliberate blank, I mean artistic restraint which may be characterized as:

1) The thing that is deliberately left unsaid

For example, in Gilgamesh when Tatsuya asks Fuuko what she used to do for a living, she whispers something to his ear which the audience cannot hear, though the audience can see Tatsuya's facial expression of shock.

The overall effect of this is not unlike that of Henry James' short story The Turn of the Screw. In Jame' story, it is never spelled out what is the 'bad' and 'corrupting' thing which the ghost of Peter Quint (the male servant) taught Miles (the boy-master), not even when the boy-master seems to have spread that 'bad' and 'corrupting' thing to his classmates at boarding school and got expelled. However, it may be inferred indirectly that the taboo so abhorrent as to be unmentionable (in the Victorian context) is probably homosexuality, or more specfically sodomy.

To come back to Gilgamesh, I believe Fuuko was probably a child prostitute by the same analogy, since I cannot think of anything more abhorrent as to be unmentionable.

I rather like this sort of deliberate silence which engages the audience's imagination and powers of inference. Another example is the ending of Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohahihoheto, where Akizuki asks Kakunojou not to tell him her real and save it for the time they meet again. Such deliberate silence kills two birds with one stone - it makes the audience wonder i) what Kakunojou's real name is and ii) what their reunion would be like.

2) The scene that is deliberately not shown

In  Episode 25 of Samurai Champloo, Fuu is captured by some villain and there is a scene hinting at some sort of prelude to rape. We never see the rape (even though Samurai Champloo is not a series to be coy with 'adult situations'). We never know for sure if the villain was only teasing her or did proceed to rape her, and there is nothing that in the subsequent scenes where Fuu appears which suggests either.

I find the deliberately missing scene to be prevalent in some classic Japanese movies as well. In a number of Ozu Yasujiro's movies about marrying a daughter off such as Equinox Flower (1958) or An Autumn Afternoon (1962), the wedding scene is never shown. One would have thought the wedding ought to be the climax of such a movie, but instead, it is just not there. Such artistic restraint effectively leaves room for the imagination.

3)  The scenario that is within possibility but never happened

Plot-driven series (as opposed to character-driven series) tend to flirt with possibilities and makes the audience wonder what if. For example, The Legend of Galactic Heroes is full of questions of how the whole galaxy's history would have turned out differently if so-and-so had not died.

I think in the protagonists' plan to visit the sea in Honey and Clover II is another example, albeit an example of a different shade. Here the characters could vividly visualize in their heads what it would be like to visit the sea together, so much so that the visualization is burned into their memory. But the trip to the sea never takes place because of various subsequent incidents in their lives, and so all they vividly remember is a trip to the sea that is never realized...

I love these touches of deliberate blanks in anime, and would like to know if there are more examples along those lines. As usual, please do not hesitate to let me know if you can think of any.