Iwa ni Hana

Wishlist for 2008

• Gankutsuou-like art direction in Amatsuki

Since Amatsuki is set in a computer-generated recreation of Edo Japan (albeit with some supernatural stuff), I hope they may as well make it sassy and borrow a leaf from Gankutsuou's art direction. The manga covers themselves are full of bright, vibrant colours. I hope the colours will be no less a pleasure to look at in the anime.

• A revival of interest in Tanaka Yoshiki

I think the lately announced adaptation of Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jiken will be sure to bring it off. Tanaka Yoshiki has been rather off-the-radar since the Gineiden boom in the late 80s. Efforts to animate his other works such as The Heroic Legend of Arslan and Shichi Toshi Monogatari had been abandoned halfway. A pity that is.

• At least one adaptation from an old-school shoujo classic

In 2007, we had Toward the Terra (though there is some hairsplitting debate as to whether it qualifies as shounen or shoujo). The point is, I would love to see the likes of Ikeda-sensei's The Window of Orpheus (or something grand and epic in the old-school shoujo genre) animated. The original stories are so packed and meaty that the animators would have to try very hard in failing to produce an interesting series.

(Speaking of which, whatever happened to that The Rose of Versailles movie which was announced at TAF 2007?)

• At least one series of serious historic drama

Just as convention seems to have it that summer is usually the season for supernatural thrillers, one would have thought that the fall/winter season would be the time for serious historic drama. There was none to speak of in the fall/winter of 2007/2008, which was something of a disappointment.

• A new series from Watanabe Shinichirou

Likewise, Watanabe-sensei has been rather off-the-radar since Samurai Champloo in 2004-2005. There are directors out there who churn out work every season, but Wanatabe-sensei seems to have been on a rather long vacation. I hope 2008 will be the year he makes a comeback.

• Shinbo Akiyuki coming to his senses at last
  

The man who brought us Le portrait de petit Cossette is really doing himself a disservice with works like Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei and that what's-its-name series. Zetsubou-sensei is all the more heartbreaking to behold because there is so much promise in terms of graphical creativity – the show is like... a beautiful woman who is all dressed up but has nowhere to go.

• Something groundbreaking in terms of art direction

I am a big fan of art direction. The year 2004-2005 had Gankutsuou. The year 2006 had Kemonozume. The year 2007 had Mononoke. I am just hoping that there will be at least one such effort to break new ground every year.

So what is your wishlist for 2008? I would love to hear from you all.

'Le portrait de petit Cossette コゼットの肖像' by Shinbo Akiyuki (新房昭之)

[Massive spoilers ahead.]

1) There are, of course multiple ways to read this allegoric story, which is just what a good story should be like - it is a word to the wise and a tale to the simple. As a tale to the simple, it is the story of an introverted young college student, Kurahashi, falling in love with the dead spirit of Cossette, who was killed by Kurahashi in his past life and now resides in a Venetian glass that has come into Kurahashi's possession. Nobody sees her except him - and for all we know she may well be a product of his imagination. To add a twist to the story, Kurahashi in his past life murdered Cossette, who was the model of many of his paintings as well as his fiancee (though she could not have been more than twelve or thirteen at the time). You see - she was a young beauty, and he could not bear the thought of her ever growing up into a woman. My preferred approach to such a plot would be the Jungian approach, for the psychology of Kurahashi is a fascinating case of paedophilia and a man whose personal growth is, so to speak, arrested by his anima. My points are set out as follows:

a) Cossette is Kurahashi's anima. An anima, according to Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz's definition, is "a personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man's psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, and -- last but not least -- his relation to the unconscious. It is no mere chance that in olden times priestesses (like the Greek Sibyl) were used to fathom the divine will and to make connection with the gods." Well, Cossette is all that.

b) Kurahashi's coma is closely related to the traditional Shamanic descent, which every apprentice of Shamanism must undergo in order to become a shaman. Cossette is his guide in the Unconscious, in which he creates art by having Cossette as his model. It is in that 'other world' (ie. his coma) that he undergoes a breakthrough as an artist.

c) That 'other world' collapses the moment he realizes that the Cossette he sees is some eternal embodiment of Beauty in art - and not Cossette the actual girl who had lived many centuries ago. The 'false' Cossette, of couse, retorts by saying that she is more real than the real Cossette - a formidable statement indeed. It is not rare among those who are sensitive to beauty at all that artifice could have a 'more real' presence in the mind than reality itself.

d) As his anima, Cossette is the personification of Eros and Pathos - she facilitates his capacity for love and suffering. Indeed she goes out of her way to make him suffer, for having killed her in his past life for growing up. The ugly monsters she conjures up to expressly inflict harm on him are not just ugly monsters out of nowhere, but the Dark Anima - in other words, the other half of her whose existence is denied by him because he has his eyes fixed on some unattainable vision of beauty. And what one denies in one's psyche inevitably takes its revenge on one by turning into a demon in one's mind - the more one suppresses it, the more powerful it becomes.

e) So why Cossette's tender young age? Methinks this setup is more than just a marketing trick to lure the 'Lolita fashion' crowd. Kurahashi has all the characteristics of an immature young man. She cannot grow up because he does not want to grow up.

f) But here is the Catch-22, when he does grow up (ie. come to terms with the fact that she is not real), she is no longer to be found. In a way, artists, regardless of their actual age, must remain 'young', or at least retain 'the eyes of a child,' to create art. This may account for their immature outlook or conduct in life, which tends to invite troubles that any sensible adult would be able to avoid. In old age, they may compensate for their lack of fiery spirit with their mastery of the techniques of their craft, but it is that fiery spirit of youth that is the forge from which art is created. Hence the Catch-22.

2) I must say, whoever responsible for the soundtrack of this outstanding anime must have been an Orpehus who has gone down into the Underworld and come back to the human world.

3) The voice actress of Cossette, Inoue Marina 井上麻里奈, has officially become my favourite voice actress. The theme song she sings is also a jewel among anime theme songs. And that scream of hers at the end of the third episode is purely classic in the history of Japanese anime voice acting.