Certain facts of life we know to be true. The tide will turn. The sun will rise. Hayao Miyazaki is the god of Japanese anime. Still, the throne may be ready for a shakedown – or even a partial step down on the part of Miyazaki. Anime filmmaker extraordinaire Makoto Shinkai (Your Name) has blown a huge hole in the fortress of Miyazaki’s storied production company Studio Ghibli, with his latest: Tenki no Ko (International Title: ‘Weathering With You’).” It’s a semi-utopian spin on the dismally dystopian subject of climate change, and the ending has instigated a controversial firestorm on social media. The question at the eye of the storm is this: “Should we forgive the protagonists for putting their personal happiness before the greater good?”
Though the verdict is still out, my guess is that Hayao Miyazaki would probably say a loud “no way”. As the ultra-stoic-but-always-benevolent tyrant of Japanese anime, he has consistently sacrificed his characters’ romantic inclinations to “much bigger things,” as he once said in an interview – i.e., the benefit or survival, of human society. In a Miyazaki story, boy and girl will get to meet but they will never get together, as there are much bigger things at stake.
In Weathering With You the Tokyo metropolitan area is locked into a rainy season that won’t go away. No one has felt the feeblest of sunshine or glimpsed a patch of blue sky for months. The only exit out of this perpetual wetness seems to lie in the hands of a pretty teenage girl named Hina (voiced by Nana Mori) Her sort-of-boyfriend Hodaka (voiced by Kotaro Daigo) is sort of her boyfriend, because they don’t exchange so much as a kiss–gleans Hina’s secret power. Initially, he advises Hina to cash in by starting a fair weather business and Hina agrees to go on social media and advertise her abilities as the “good weather girl”. Soon, orders for good weather start pouring in and Hina is summoned to a barbecue party here, a sports event there, or even an ancestral ritual at an old lady’s home. The money’s not bad either, and as Hina’s little brother Nagi (voiced by Sakura Kiryu) joins in, the trio start to feel like a cozy little family.
Sixteen-year old Hodaka is too shy to admit his love for Hina–especially since she has informed him that her 18th birthday is coming up and therefore, she’s way too old for a kid like him. That doesn’t stop Hodaka from going online and researching the perfect birthday gift, which he buys with the money he made with Hina. All this will most certainly elicit stern disapproval from their parents but thankfully, there are no such people in Weathering With You. Hodaka has run away, from home and parents left behind on one of the Izu islands scattered along the Pacific. Hina’s mother died a short while ago and she is supporting Nagi in a tiny apartment near Shinjuku. First, she was on the night shift at a McDonald’s and when that didn’t work out, she made a half-hearted attempt to become a porn actress before Hodaka pulled her back.
All the while, the rain never stops.
Fans of Shinkai know dark skies and heavy rains are a big part of his m.o. Plus, the precise, almost photographic depictions of Tokyo’s train stations (mostly the Yamanote line) and streets, especially in the Shinjuku area. Weathering With You has ample portions of both – the story opens on rain-soaked streets, inky puddles and the lesser known alleyways in the Yoyogi neighborhood. When Hina clenches her fingers and prays to the heavens, the clouds part, exposing a glorious patch of azure sky and splendid slants of sunshine. People put their umbrellas away to look up with a smile, and Hodaka rightly observes that “it’s amazing how good you feel when it’s cleared up.”
The contrast of bad weather and good, is one of the factors that propel the story forward – you get a feeling of how badly people need the sun, and what lengths they will go to get it.
The implication is that Tokyoites are ready to sacrifice Hina on the altar of blue skies, even if they’re only very vaguely aware of her powers or even her presence. In the movie, Hina is a ghostly figure whispered about on the Net, and her abilities are never totally understood. The terrible truth is that the more Hina makes good weather happen, the less there is of her own self; her trade-off with fine weather is her own, physical existence.
One morning when Hodaka wakes up, she’s gone without a trace, save for the bathrobe she was wearing the night before.
(SPOILER ALERT: That is nowhere near the ending for Hina or Hodaka、so don’t let this review make you feel like we’ve ruined the movie. ↖)
In reality, Japan braces itself for a rainy season (usually occuring at the beginning of June and lasting four to five weeks) that wreaks havoc on many areas across the archipelago. This year, southwestern Japan was flooded by torrential rains and in Fukuoka city, trucks and cars were submerged in rainwater while soil erosion led to landslides that caused thousands of people to lose their homes. Tokyo wasn’t as bad but enough water came down to partially shut down public transportation and delay construction on Olympic facilities.
In Weathering With You rainfall spells dire consequences for the metropolis as entire neighborhoods disappear underwater and mighty architectural monuments like the Rainbow Bridge, become steeped in water. Still, as a sage old woman in the movie remarks, “It’s all right, Tokyo has gone back to its natural state. That’s all this is.” Indeed, the Japanese capital is a 400-year old artificial island made on a landfill and the greater part of Shinjuku as we know it today, used to be swampland. If we can live with that, surely we can live with Hina getting to have a life of her own, and maybe, eventually–perhaps–falling in love with Hodaka. And the greater good be damned.
Japan Subculture Research Center asked Elizaveta to explain why she wrote the song and for the lyrics to the song. Here is what she had to say.
I wrote “Meet Again” not long after finding out about the tragic fire at Kyoto Animation. I had met some people from KyoAni, although just very casually, through a network of animators and visual artists I am occasionally part of, when in Tokyo.…
I was hoping to be able to tour the studio and visit their shop, when visiting Kyoto next. I was also aware of their positive reputation, as they were known for being an employee-friendly company in an industry, which often overworks and underpays animators. They had a lot of women working for them, too, which was unusual, and a breath of fresh air.
In the hours and days following the tragedy, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened, and following the news, which just got more and more grim.
The contrast between the beautiful, hopeful art produced by KyoAni and what happened to them, was very hard to reconcile with. I am not a starry-eyed optimist,
but I do prefer to believe that good things happen to those who put out good things into the world. While I know it’s a naive worldview, it’s better than the alternative. This event, though, was not an accident, but an act of deliberate evil. All circumstances aligned for it to be as awful as could be. It was incredibly hard for me to accept it as reality. There had been no magic hero to save the day, and nothing to soften the blow. Kyoto is a peaceful, mystical city of a few thousand temples. But no deity stepped in to offer protection.
Once you accept that something terrible like this happened and there’s no way to explain it, you must allow for healing to start, or at least attempt to get on the path towards it. I can’t even start to imagine the pain and trauma of those who had gone through this experience and survived are now having to deal, and probably for years to come. My heart also goes out to those who got the call that day to find out their loved ones were no longer with them. Furthermore, the trauma to KyoAni fans around the world may not have been as direct, but it’s real nonetheless. When you make art, those who love and consume it, become believers of the things your art brings into the world. For KyoAni fans, it would have been beauty, hope and harmony. A tragedy such as this one kills faith that the world is in any way fair and a worthwhile place to be part of.
I wrote “Meet Again” the day I went to the recording studio, and the song practically wrote itself. I heard it in my head, and the lyrics came to be just minutes before I walked out to catch the train. This recording is the first take, which we recorded and filmed. It wasn’t quite perfect in a couple of places, and so I did another take, but I had a hard time singing then, because I was too close to tears. And so I made the decision to keep the first take, as it was, and record no more.
I wrote this song as a way to heal myself, even though I was just a bystander of this tragedy. I hope it may serve as a source of healing to others affected by it. I still have hope and faith. There are so many things we do not know, and so much happens every day, which makes it hard to take heart and carry on. But carry on we must, and help those around us do so, too.
I don’t remember when I got the call that day They said you were no more And then the ground gave way
I sat and cried all night Still hoping they’d been wrong A part of me had died How could I carry on
As sunrise painted red Inside my sleepless eyes Still lying on my bed I thought I heard a voice
It sounded like my love A distant precious sound But there was not a soul That I could see around
I know you’re still with me In other shape or form Our union has survived A deadly firestorm
And when I look above I can transcend the pain Soar high with me, my love I know we’ll meet again.
＜日本語歌詞＞
何時のことか 覚えてない もういないと 立ち尽くした
泣き明かした まちがいだと 身を裂かれて 歩みようも
夜明けの赤 腫れ目を染め 伏せたままで 聞こえたのは
君のような 遠くの音 影ひとつも 見えないのに
今も そばに 形を変え つながりだけ 焼け残った
仰ぎ見ては 痛みを超え 君を連れて また会うまで あの高みへ また会うまで
Born in USA, Russian-raised Elizaveta made her debut on Universal Records (US) in 2012. Since then she became the voice of the Tavern Bard in Dragon Age, has toured USA, Russia and Europe, was a repeat guest performer at the main TED stage, and released a number of multi-lingual recordings, heard in multiple films and TV series. She produced and released an all-Japanese language duet album Mezameru Riyuu earlier this year, followed by a 16-city tour of Japan.
I am the British widow of Akihisa Yukawa who was one of the 520 victims who died in the Japan Airlines Boeing 747 flight 123 from Tokyo to Osaka crashed into Mount Osutaka – the world’s largest single aviation disaster.
I came to Japan to fight for justice – 34 years after his death. For the first time I have joined the Japanese bereaved to request a reinvestigation of the crash based on new evidence.
On 16th July I participated in a symposium at Waseda University which outlined the need for information disclosure of the Japan Airline flight 123 crash. The details of the symposium are here and why we feel that the real cause of this terrible disaster is still not known–please read here or read the Professor’s comments at the bottom of this post.
I am aware the Japanese government announced in 2000 that the documents about the crash were copied onto microfilms and would never be destroyed. I am joining the bereaved in asking for these documents to be released now. We all know that part of the plane is still in Sugami Bay, I am campaigning to have it salvaged and re-investigated. There is considerable evidence that was not included in the original crash report – these significant new facts simply cannot be ignored. In accordance with international guidelines there is a necessity to re-open the crash investigation based on these facts. This is the worst single Boeing crash in history, the bereaved – and the world deserve to know what really happened. It is a human right to know the truth. Powerful corporations over the world over continue to escape accountability and victims have no route to remedy. I am calling for a new international law to protect everyone from the harm caused by the lack of truth and accountability. I am speaking with a number of Japanese journalists/documentary makers and have agreed to be interviewed on the 12th August on the anniversary of the crash in Gunma.
I am campaigning for the bereaved and my own personal case – both issues are about corporate accountability and transparency. Akihisa Yukawa and I lived together for seven years as de-facto man and wife and bore him two daughters, we could not have been happier, we had every intention to marry. Akihisa was working as a senior Sumitomo executive at the time of his death, he was building the aviation leasing business for his company. He was working very closely with Japan Airlines before the crash as the lead of the syndicate which led to the largest order of Boeing aircraft on record from Japan in 1985. This order was announced just nine days before the crash, the aircraft were delivered after his death: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1985/1985%20-%202341.html?search=JAL
On Monday 12th August 1985, Akihisa was requested by his company to attend a business meeting in Osaka. He was feeling unwell that day and had a very strong sense that he should not go – he tried his very best to cancel but his head office insisted it was necessary for him to go which led to his death in the JAL 123 crash.
I think it is time we all knew the truth about everything that happened.
“On July 16, the Waseda University Faculty of Law and the Waseda University Comparative Law Research Institute co-hosted an academic symposium asking for information disclosure of the Nikko flight 123 (JAL123). For the first time, UK bereaved Susan Bailey Yukawa (Susanne Bayly-Yukawa) came to Japan and issued a statement asking for a reinvestigation with Japanese bereaved. Professor Christopher P. Hood at Cardiff University in the UK also sent a video message. The keynote speech was held by Mr. Hiroshi Miyake, a member of the Cabinet Office Public Document Management Act, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications information disclosure system member, vice chairman of the bar association and chairman of the board. I also mentioned the necessity of the reinvestigation. The legal path to reinvestigation has finally come to light.
Now I would like to share with you overseas people about the Nikko123 Flight crash and the story that is not written in the official accident investigation report.
On August 12, 1985, Japan Airlines flight123 crashed in Ueno village, Gunma Prefecture, and 520 people were killed. This is the world’s largest single airplane crash still now. Twenty-two of the victims were foreign nationals, including the United Kingdom, India, the United States, Korea, China, and Italy. At the time I worked for JAL as a stewardess belonged to the same group of the flight attendants who encountered the accident, but I was relieved because of the duties for an international flight. 34 years have passed since then. I got married and retired, put myself in the education world, then got a doctoral degree from the University of Tokyo. In the meanwhile, I have always questioned the cause of the crash of the Nikko123 and continued my research. As a result, I wrote four books.
One of them “New facts of the Nikko123 crash -close to the truth at the eyewitness accounts” breaks through 100,000 copies, thereby making the general public aware of the cause of the accident different from the accident investigation report. After a 34 years survey, I was convinced that the crash of the Nikko123 was not an accident but an incident.
According to the accident investigation report of the official announcement at that time, the aft pressure bulkhead that had been damaged by a hard tail-hit against runway in the landing at Osaka airport in 1978, was repaired in the incomplete manner by Boeing. Its bulkhead broke again in the operation of the Nikko 123 due to a repair error and its mount of pressurized air in the cabin darted out and accumulated inside of the vertical fin, finally blew up the top corner of the fin with pressure. However, despite all this the Japanese judiciary did not prosecute anyone for this reason. In other words, no one had any responsibility for the death of 520 people. It was written that the reason for the crash is that Boeing made a repair mistake and Japan Airlines missed it. But even after the accident, Japan Airlines purchased Boeing’s airplanes in following year one after another. Not only JAL but all rivals of JAL and Japanese Self-Defense Force also purchased aircrafts under the intention of the government (Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone). As a result, Boeing’s sales in Japan were the highest which resulted in 520 victims.
In 2015, News reported that most of the vertical fin and tails constructions blew off were still in the sea. Despite the direct cause of oneself, it is still sunk to the seabed 160m of Sagami Bay, below the flight route. This is the origin of the accident, nevertheless the Japan Transport Safety Commission which is in the Ministry of (Land, Infrastructure,) Transport (and Tourism,) refused the wishes of the bereaved and rejected to pull them up from the seabed for the reinvestigation. It was natural to do so because of a lot of doubts and an unconvincing non-prosecution.
I will briefly explain why they refuse so much, based on the facts.
The accident investigation report disregarded all the testimonies of many witnesses.
According to them, immediately after the emergency happened on JAL 123, the two phantoms that were launched urgently tracked the JAL aircraft, and near the crash point, local children said “A large airplane and two small airplanes are chasing” they were sure to look the situation.
In the ultra-low altitude flight of JAL 123, it was observed that an elliptical thing like a red airplane was stuck near the fuselage. In the vicinity of the crash site, adults also witnessed a bright red small plane flying. A non-duty SDF member witnessed that two SDF Phantom aircrafts were flying in an unusual situation, and this was described in the police report too.
I interviewed the chief of Ueno village of a crash site (Takeo Kurosawa). He said that he called the central government many times for crashing in his village. Nevertheless, coverage of the unknown continued throughout the night.
In the village at the crash site, many people gathered, including many SDF vehicles, police and riot police and so on, all night long. There was a big fire at the crash site on the mountain and there were many helicopters on it. It had been witnessed that they were going back and forth and raising and lowering things.
According to Mr. Antonucci’s testimony of the US military, the crash site was identified in 15 minutes after the accident, “so I went for relief, but the Japanese rescue team came and ordered a return”. However, he knew a report next morning that it was unknown all night, and he was hampered to say nothing.
If the two Phantoms were flying with JAL 123 at a bright time before the crash, the location was identified and reports that “the crash site was unknown all night” would not be held. In response to this comment, the SDF’s official announcement said that one minute after the crash, we sent out two phantoms, but we did do nothing before that, we had not had even one fly.
So what did the Japanese government and the Self-Defense Forces do all night without saving the passengers? I also briefly report scientific findings.
(1) I examined the remains (a few rocky blocks) collected at the crash point with a university research institute. As a result, it was found that the material was made of duralumin and was the remnant of JAL 123. Further, when black deposits were analyzed, a large amount of benzene ring, sulfur, chloroform were detected. Jet fuel used by JAL was kerosene JTA-1, which was a good product of high purity refined from kerosene, so why is a large amount of gasoline component benzene ring and sulfur detected in the crash site? This is a biggest question. Naturally, there was no gasoline on the product also no sulfur component in this mountain. Furthermore, why was the non-load chloroform attached?
(2) According to the detailed data for the condition of the body that was obtained and analyzed by the autopsy doctor, one third of the bodies were abnormal carbonized, one third of them were complete bodies, and another two thousand fragmental parts of bodies. The plane crashed on the summit of the ridge called “Osutaka no One” was broken into four parts, and one of them, the E compartment just in front of the rear pressure partition where the four survivors were sitting, slipped off from the summit and fell to a point completely invisible from the summit. It was deep bushes of trees.
Their tympanic membranes were normal despite the survivor experiencing a sudden decompression as the vertical tail blew off. The four survivors were listening to a large number of voices and encouraging each other. However, the helicopters flying above did not rescue them. According to the doctor, “100 people must be alive if they were discovered immediately after the crash”. In the crash site near the summit, the flames were rising until morning, and according to a local fire brigade who accidentally found a survivors, it was full of gasoline and tar odors. Why was the smell of non-load dangerous goods gasoline full? Tar was not a cargo. What did the existence of the SDF helicopters witness around the scene all night tell you? By the way, the components of the weapon fuel (flamethrower) possessed by the SDF members were gasoline and tar.
⑶ According to the autopsy doctor, there were many charred remains those completely carbonized on both the back and front near the summit. In addition, there were neither an engine nor a wing part (as storage located for kerosene fuel tank) in the vicinity. Carbonized to an extent that was clearly different from other aircraft accidents and traces of double burns.
⑷ The remaining fuel for about 1 hour flight rage burned for 11hours. The body must be burned twice. There was evidence that firearms were used, and material of the fuel promoter was discovered. Because of a component different from kerosene.
⑸ There is a shower toward evening every day at the crash site, the humidity is 75%, and summer mountain is not particularly likely to be a forest fire. In addition, it is obvious that summer clothes are not suitable for burning for a long time. The thick human body does not carbonize to bone, even if the surface is burnt and black. Why did you carbonize the bones?
All of the above are interviews with police doctor, local people, former SDF personnel, and transport minister at the time (Tokuo Yamashita), Secretary of Defense Agency at the time (Koichi Kato). Research were conducted at the professional research institute. The answer is that the SDF had some involvement in the crash. In fact, daily newspaper reports for a week before the crash were articles on domestic missile development and missile test success. On the day of the accident, the self-defense ship Matsuyuki was in public testing and was under missile testing.
This year, we are requesting disclosure of information, including a 34-year-old live voice recorder and the genuine flight recorder to clarify these in accordance with the law.
There should be no problem even if the materials and information are disclosed to the bereaved, since Japan Airlines and Boeing as the parties to the official cause of the accident have officially apologized and acknowledged. The government is obliged to answer the bereaved questions seriously. The reinvestigation is natural because it has not been prosecuted in the past. However, the accident investigation committee has refused to release materials for 34 years long with citing various reasons. This is the actual condition of Japan.
Japanese side bereaved family members are seeking to disclose information with their bereaved overseas, and formally request a reinvestigation regarding this unclear incident. There should be no reason for anyone to refuse this. There are many military involvement in what is considered to be an aircraft accident whose cause is unclear. This may be happening around the world. For that, Legal maintenance is indispensable in the international framework in the future, and British bereaved and Japanese bereaved are aiming for it.
Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Ms. Yukawa who has tried to hold a press conference in Tokyo. There are many theories about what happened to Flight 123, and many are dismissed as conspiracy theories. However, it seems reasonable that the information collected so far should be released to the public and to settle any doubts that the missing piece of the plane be recovered and examined. The blog below makes some interesting claims–the English is a little rough but read and reflect.
Japanese theatres offer a wide variety of performances, but Youth Theatre Japan (YTJ) offers the younger generations a chance to perform on the same stages as the pros that they admire. And, don’t think for a minute that they are simply just kids on stage, these young musically inclined talents spend countless hours honing their skills at YTJ auditioning for a role. Then only best out of hundreds of hopefuls are chosen, and from there they go into intensive dance, acting, and vocal training to be ready for the stage.
YTJ believes that through performing arts youth are able to grow and develop into stronger individuals who are able to clearly communicate their thoughts and emotions in a healthy way. Thus, Members at YTJ are constantly learning new skills, practicing their English during lessons, and getting ready for showcases. By use of Partnership, Project, and Performance YTJ-staff remind members to focus on the whys behind each new skill and task that they are required to learn.
YTJ staff help members understand the importance of setting goals, learning a new skill, trying their best, and moving forward with passion. All while helping members learn to communicate and express themselves through song, dance, and interpersonal skills. As Youth Theatre Japan`s mission to provide innovative, creative and positive youth development through a fusion of “Entertainment” and “Education”. YTJ staff treat each child as an equal partner to help them develop a deeper sense of pride in their roles at YTJ and build up their self-esteem.
Over the past 10 years YTJ has successfully blended “Education” and “Entertainment” into their company and now has 35 studios and over 8,000 members in the Kanto, Kansai and Chubu areas. In addition to producing musicals they also host the Japan Youth Dance Festival.
Their next production will be the YTJ Alice in Wonderland Jukebox Musical! Please check the dates below for a show near you!
YTJ’s talented performers will be performing each song in English. This event is family friendly and please be sure to come dressed in your best Wonderland attire. There will be a special prize for a lucky guest who reads the Queen’s Decrees on the Alice Official Site or English Facebook Page and comes wearing the special item she requested! Tickets are 6,000 per person, be sure to reserve your seat at the tea party of the year.
Then later on this summer come follow Kaito and his friends! Jump and sing along as they embark on an adventure that helps bridge cultural gaps through music. During the journey they will learn more about themselves and the world around them they build up new interest in other cultures and diversity. This musical features popular songs from around the world performed in English. Tickets are on sale now and only cost 6,000 per person. Please follow the link for more information and to see showtimes and location https://show.ytj.gr.jp/info/worldmusic.
It’s 35 degrees Celsius in Nagoya City and the mercury is expected to rise even further. Maybe the recent incident at the Aichi Triennale has something to do with it – the heat feels merciless and suffocating, much like the protest calls that continue to plague an otherwise celebratory art event.
Whether in the state of California or on the prefecure of Aichi, Japan, statues of comfort women, raise the ire of certain Japanese males who would like to sweep the past under the chair.
For those not in the know, here’s a rough sketch of what happened: On August 1, the Aichi Triennale kicked off. Directed by celebrity artist Daisuke Tsuda, the Triennale aimed to close the gender gap and encourage increased participation from women artists and feminist themes. One of the main exhibits, “The Non-Freedom of Expression – What Happens Later,” caused a huge stir. Created by a Korean sculptor couple (whose identities have not been revealed in mainstream media), the centerpiece is a statue of a young Korean girl. The description says she is a comfort woman, forcibly taken from her home by the Japanese military during WWII.
On August 2, the Triennale offices are flooded with calls of protests and outrage, including one from Nagoya mayor Takashi Kawamura, who it was said, sputtered with anger all over his phone screen, and then followed that up with a written statement. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also phoned in his appearance, expressing concerns that a government funded art event was showcasing a statue loaded with anti-government sentiments – is this right? There were more than a few death threats, many of which expressed intentions to replay the recent Kyoto Animation arson incident that killed 35 people.
On August 3, Daisuke Tsuda holds a press conference announcing the cancellation of the exhibit. A controversial firestorm erupts across the archipelago.
It feels like the Japanese will never see eye-to-eye on the comfort women issue with their neighbors on the peninsula. On the list of old wounds that Japan would prefer to forget, or failing memory lapse, ignore completely – the sexual slaves known as “ianfu” or comfort women” to the western world, occupies first place. There’s something about this chunk of history that grates on Japanese male nerves, for it’s usually the men: politicians, commentators, academics and the rotund salariman sitting next to me on the subway – that get incoherent with indignation at the mere mention of the term. Last summer, I happened to be at an informal gathering when the subject came up. We were standing around a small table of drinks, and as soon as the word “ianfu” was uttered, the women scattered like sparrows and the men launched into a tirade that amounted to: “Of course there were comfort women in wartime. What else were they expecting? We were at war!”
Infuriatingly, the Japanese term for “comfort women” (慰安婦・ianfu) is comprised of the kanji characters ‘ian’ which means to console and heal, and ‘fu’ which means female. ‘Ian” is still in circulation, most often in terms like ‘ianryokou,’ which refers to annual trips that many corporations dole out to their employees, ostensibly to let them relax and have a good time. Back in the mid-Heisei era, it was still quite common for these consolation trips to include geisha attendance and jaunts to strip bars, for the benefit of their male employees. In some companies, it was the norm for executives to invite prostitutes to their hotel rooms, and put it on their company tabs. For many, many Japanese men, a woman’s value is measured by how well she consoles and heals their tired nerves. One of the highest praises that can be bestowed on a woman, remains: ‘iyasareru’ (癒やされる）meaning, “you heal me.” When the outside world (in this case South Korea) dares to put a dent in that beautiful, traditional, man-woman relationship (i.e., the brave male being healed by a willing sexual slave, regardless of nationality) which Japanese men apparently see as their birthright, it probably feels like a punch in the face. Nagoya mayor Kawamura said as much when he wrote in his statement: “The collective Japanese heart has been trampled to bits.”
Awww, what a shame.
But the incident at the Aichi Triennale shows that though their hearts are trampled, Japanese men are capable of pushing back, albeit over their smartphones. At the press conference, Triennale director Daisuke Tsuda stressed that the cancellation wasn’t due to Mayor Kawamura, or the Chief Cabinet Secretary, or anything political. “It was because of the phone calls,” he said. “The office lines were jammed with protest calls and there simply weren’t enough staff to deal with them. Everyone was working overtime anyway, and I could not, in good conscience, ask these people to deal with angry callers on top of their already considerable workloads.”
Tsuda went on to say that the decision was “heartrending” because “this will create a precedent of being able to crush work of art with anonymous phone calls.”
And now that the statue has been taken away, we have yet to assess the repercussions. As the dust settles, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party members are getting their act together to say – altogether now, boys! – that threats and violence are BAD. Freedom of expression is GOOD.
Now that we’re clear on that matter, who’s ready to address the problem of comfort women?
Shinbun Kisha (The Journalist) is getting great box office and rave reviews, belying the myth that a Japanese movie about newsrooms and politics just won’t cut it. Based on the bestselling autobiography by audacious Tokyo Shinbun (東京新聞) reporter Isoko Mochizuki, The Journalist is a suspense thriller about how the titular woman journalist dared go after the government to unveil conspiracies and cover-ups. Infuriatingly, most of her male colleagues are intent on adhering to the status quo. Alone and isolated, the journalist teams up with a young bureaucrat from ‘Naicho’ – the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office – to expose a government scandal that’s almost an exact reenactment of Prime Minister Abe’s ‘Morikake’ incident.
“All Japan needs is a mere facade of democracy,” goes a line in this movie, implying that the nation neither needs or wants the real deal.
But now, with the House of Councillors election happening on Sunday, politics is on many peoples’ minds, including millennials that had shown zero interest in the past. Tickets in 42 theaters have sold out and the movie’s distributors announced that they will be printing 10,000 new copies of The Journalist pamphlet, as they’ve been selling off the shelves in theaters across Japan. Next week, the two main cast members will appear on stage at a theater in Shinjuku, to take their bows and answer questions from the audience. It looks like politics and newsrooms are a winning combination!
The Journalist is gripping, wrenching and ultimately cathartic, even if the plucky heroine doesn’t oust the evil government agents or get an enormous raise for her efforts. No, what happens is that news hound Erica Yoshioka (played by South Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung), after a series of grueling assignments that require round-the-clock investigating, not to mention the actual writing –gets to keep her job so she can start the cycle all over again in the name of quality journalism. Yoshioka also keeps her dignity and integrity intact, which is much more than one can say for Japanese movies about professional women, or let’s face it, women protagonists in general.
The role of Erica Yoshioka is gutsy and intriguing and you can’t help but wonder why a Japanese actress didn’t snap it up. Rumors are going around that all the possible candidates had turned it down because they didn’t want to get involved in anything anti-government and were afraid of the backlash. Shim can return to South Korea, but Japanese actresses have to live and work here.
Personally, I’ll take what I can get, and bask in the fact that The Journalist got made at all. Usually, such projects never get off the ground. Not only does The Journalist dig at some old scars the current Administration would rather forget, it bears the hallmarks of a well-meaning dud. There is no love story. There are no sex scenes or girl idols to alleviate the complete seriousness of the proceedings. And the director, Michihito Fujii, is only 32 years old with no blockbusters on his resume. Initially, Fujii turned down the offer of director since, as he professed in an online interview, “I didn’t know anything about politics or the news.” Still, once he signed on, Fujii did the research, hit the books and lined up interviews with government officials. The story benefits from his efforts but the directing seems just a tad stiff and two-dimensional. Perhaps Fujii was too caught up in the material to do more than connect the dots, albeit with meticulous expertise.
As it is, The Journalists belong to Shim and Tohri Matsuzaka who plays Sugihara, the elite bureaucrat working for ‘Naicho’. They give their all to film and Matsuzaka has been commended on social media for taking on a “dangerous” role that could potentially give him a bad name (the anti-government name).
Compared to Shim’s Yoshioka, Sugihara is more nuanced and inwardly tortured. His job is to protect the current administration and make sure the press don’t get their hands on any problematic information, but he has his misgivings. When his boss commits suicide to cover up another cover-up, Sugihara is shaken.
(Editor’s note–this is based on the suicide of a Finance Ministry official who killed himself rather than take part in deleting or altering government documents that implicated Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a scandal relating to a government land-sale to a right-wing elementary school, run by his crony. None of the other officials who participated in forging public documents, which is a criminal offense, were charged; the female prosecutor who dropped the case was promoted)
The boss’s last words to Sugihara had been “don’t end up like me,” and Sugihara can’t fathom whether that meant “don’t die” or “don’t get involved in anything bad.” For a Naicho bureaucrat, the two most likely mean the same thing. Matsuzaka is a revelation – he has always been good but The Journalist shows his range. Last year, he was doing sex scenes ad nauseum in Call Boy and here, he never even takes off his jacket.
A word about Shim as Yoshioka: in the movie, her character has a Japanese father and a Korean mother, hence her accent when she speaks Japanese. Yoshioka completely lives for her job, to the point of excluding everything else from her life. It turns out that her father (also a journalist) had killed himself over an incident involving fake news. As his daughter, she had vowed to pursue the truth, whatever the cost. Shim’s performance is excellent, and one can only hope there will be a future where Japanese actresses will go for roles like this – far, far away from the planet of ‘Kawaii’.
In real life, there aren’t a whole lot of women journalists working for Japanese newspapers. Many don’t make it past the first five years; what with the long hours combined with frequent transfers to regional branches, incidents of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and of course, that thick glass ceiling – the job doesn’t exactly encourage them to stay on.
Isoko Mochizuki, the author of the book on which the film is based, however, is changing the scenery. As mentioned above, she’s a veteran reporter for Tokyo Shinbun which is famed for its hard-hitting investigative journalism and for being the Abe Administration’s most vocal critic. Her frequent cross questioning of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, has ripped a big hole in Japan’s infamous ‘kisha club’ system (where only the reporters of major newspapers are allowed to attend closed press conferences). And now, with the unexpected success of The Journalist, perhaps we can start discussing hard-hitting issues like democracy and freedom of the press. Who’s to say the Japanese don’t need it ? They seem to love films that bring up these issues.
I am at the reception counter of Muji Hotel – the much touted and long awaited hotel produced by Muji, Japan’s popular minimalist clothing and household products brand. Muji, as you may know, stands for Mujirushi (無印) which literally means “no seal or stamp”; it’s a brand who’s trademark is no (visible) brand. Which is very Zen-like unless you look at the label inside.
When the hotel first opened in early April, rumor had it that every room was booked solid for the next 2 years. In late May, procuring a room (on a weekday) proved easy. Muji (rhymes with Fuji) has grown into a global label touting Japan-style simplicity and aesthetics but to the average non-minimalist Japanese, it remains inscrutable, even unfathomable. Many see the pared down surfaces and uniform designs of Muji products as a tad too aggressively simple to fit into their own lives.
Aggressive maybe, but never offensive. There’s not the tiniest fragment of offensiveness anywhere in the Muji Hotel, including the young woman who checks me in. She’s an epitome of serenity and calm, her hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck and wearing what is clearly a Muji outfit (white shirt and loose black cardigan plus black pants) the uniform of the hotel staff. She speaks almost flawless Japanese along with English and Urdu which she says is her native language. Before handing me the card key to my room, the young woman gives me an ‘omamori’ or talisman, compliments of Muji – and explains that inside the tiny cloth satchel there’s an emergency whistle (“in case of a natural disaster and other unforeseen events”) and a tiny leaflet containing instructions on getting through emergencies great and small. I open this leaflet and on the last page there is this advice: “If you should feel lonely, look up at the stars in the night sky.”
My room which is a single, feels spacious thanks to the high ceiling measuring over 3.5 meters. In Tokyo, high ceilings are a luxury and when it comes to hotel rooms, they’re the exclusive domain of high-end imported brands like the Peninsula, the Park Hyatt and the Ritz Carlton. Muji is distinctive in that it’s a genuine Japanese hotel, located in one of the choicest pieces of real estate in Tokyo, but only charges a fixed rate of 140 USD per single room, per night. Most importantly, it doesn’t suck or resemble a prison cell.
On the other hand, you can’t imagine anyone having a tryst here– it’s far too pristine and devoid of emotion. And a hotel without a tryst is like a cupcake without icing. Or am I being offensive? (Editor’s note: Not offensive. ‘A donut without a hole’ might have been an offensive metaphor but then again they eat donut holes in Australia, so who’s to say?)
Back in my room, a faint scent of linen combined with lavender lingers in the air, piped out from a portable aroma diffuser, one of Muji’s most popular items. Actually, everything in the room is made by Muji, from the bed to the packets of shampoo and conditioner precisely laid out in an oak chest (also Muji), to the little bag of complimentary snacks and the bottled water in the mini-fridge (also Muji). The idea is to let the guests get a taste of what it’s like to live a life defined by Muji, by spending some time in a space designed and totally controlled by Muji. And afterwards, we can take the escalator down to any of the five floors of Muji’s flagship store that’s located right below the hotel. The hotel and the shop are in the same building, and some of the tourists check in with empty suitcases, to stock up on Muji products during their stay. It’s a pretty nifty arrangement for Muji and The Minimalists–which could be a great ambient music band name.
The brand has always opted for discretion, restraint, understatement with a whiff of snobbishness. To admit to a love of Muji is to tell the world that as a consumer, you’re very woke. Muji covers all the bases that would gladden the heart of a discerning shopper: recyclable materials, ethical off-shore manufacturing, diversity among the staff, organic cotton in the clothing line and energy efficient appliances. Add to that the flat, unobtrusive, utterly desexualized designs and it all totals up to something that is for many minimalists, a guilty pleasure. Indeed, many Japanese minimalists admit on their blogs that if they have to shop at all, they shop at Muji. Others have taken it several levels higher by buying Muji houses (yes, they will make an entire house from the ground up) and outfitting it with Muji kitchens and bathrooms, after which they proceed to fill it up with Muji furniture and Muji food.
Muji was launched in 1980 by retail giant Seibu Conglomerates, as an alternative brand to what (then) Seibu CEO Seiji Tsutsumi saw as the nation’s misguided and excessive consumerism. Japanese consumers were hurling themselves into the go-go economy, believing that shopping nirvana was the closest thing to paradise. All of a sudden, the cramped living spaces of the average Japanese were overflowing with stuff. Few of it matched or made sense, and perhaps for the first time in Japanese history, people found themselves in possession of with more STUFF than they ever thought possible.
Muji offered an escape hatch from the clueless clutter of it all, with uniform, collapsible shelves and drawers designed to hold the simplest, most non-intrusive products. Now, forty years later, any discussion of Japanese minimalism almost always precludes a discussion of Muji. Konmari may be riding on her big wave at the moment, but Muji had been on the beach long before she was decluttering the ocean.
But as the hotel room shows, Muji has perhaps, gone a bit overboard. They had always walked the fine line between selling their ideals and selling their products but with the opening of the hotel, it seems that boundary has been obliterated. Muji has merged the product with the ideal, and the whole package comes with a price tag.
Consequently, the last thing you’d want to do in this space is to indulge in carnal pleasures, though to be fair, the hotel does encourage it. (Muji Prophylactics are sold on the third floor.) But since I was alone, what else was there to do but open my laptop to work at the Muji desk, lit by a Muji lamp, wearing Muji slippers after taking a shower in the Muji bathroom? Maybe I’ll even follow Muji’s suggestion and look up at the night sky for a few twinkling stars–and then fall into a dreamless Muji sleep.
Note: In a homage to Muji style, none of the photos in this article have been captioned.
This out of print book allegedly details the sexual abuse committed by Idol-Maker Johnny Kitagawa towards the young men in his stable and beyond.
Editor’s note: Japan’s most beloved pederast (a male who sexually assaults young men) , Johnny Kitagawa, died last week. He was an idol maker, the brains behind such super male idol bands as SMAP, Kinki Kids, and an entertainment legend. He was also so powerful that the seedy and dark side of his life was swept under the table even after his death.
There were some in the media that dared challenge the sleazy smooth Svengali. Weekly magazine, Shukan Bunshun ran a series of well-researched articles in 1999 describing how Kitagawa systematically abused young boys. Kitagawa then sued the publisher for libel but despite the testimony of alleged rape victims interviewed for the piece, the Tokyo District Court ruled in his favor. They ordered the publisher to pay 8.8 million yen in damages to Kitagawa and his company in 2002.
However, The Tokyo High Court overturned this decision in July 2003. They concluded that the allegations were true. “The agency failed to discredit the allegations in the detailed testimony of his young victims,” ruled the presiding Judge Hidekazu Yazaki. The case stood. The story was barely a blip in the Japanese media horizon. In an entertainment world where Johny’s stable of young boys was a prerequisite to ratings success, his ‘indulgences’ weren’t deemed worthy of reporting.
Johny granted few interviews–here is the story of one of them:
My interview with Johnny
By Steve McClure
It was only after I’d interviewed Johnny Kitagawa that I realized I’d scored a bit of a scoop.
“You interviewed Johnny? That’s amazing – he never does interviews,” my Japanese media and music-biz colleagues said. “How on earth did you manage to do that?”
It was 1996 and I was Billboard magazine’s Japan bureau chief. I was hanging out with an American producer/songwriter who had written several hit tunes for acts managed by Kitagawa’s agency, Johnny’s Jimusho.
“Want to hear a funny story about Johnny?” Bob (not his real name) asked me.
“Sure,” I said.
“Well, the other day, Johnny told me he’d discovered a promising male vocal duo. I asked him what they were called.
“‘I’m going to call them the Kinki Kids,’ Johnny told me.
“I told him that ‘kinky’ means sexually abnormal in English slang.
“‘Oh, that’s great!,’ Johnny said.
Bob and I laughed.
“Say, Steve, would you like me to set up an interview with Johnny for you?” Bob asked.
I told him that would be swell.
Some days later I was informed that Kitagawa would grant me an audience at his private residence. I was enjoined not to reveal where the great man lived (it was Ark Hills in Akasaka, for the record).
I showed up at the appointed day and hour, and rang the doorbell of the condo high up in one of the Ark Hills towers. A browbeaten middle-aged woman answered the door. Evidently a domestic of some kind, she said I was expected and asked me to come in. She led me into a garishly decorated living room full of Greek statuary, Louis XV-style furniture and sundry examples of rococo frippery. There were no Ganymedean cup-bearers offering libations or any other signs of sybaritic excess.
I was ushered into the presence of the pop panjandrum. Johnny was sitting in an armchair beside a window with a stunning view of Tokyo. He was small, bespectacled and unprepossessing. If you saw him in the street, you’d never imagine he was the notorious and feared Svengali who had a stranglehold on the geinokai (芸能界/Japan’s entertainment world).
After we exchanged pleasantries, I got down to business. I asked Johnny about his early life in Los Angeles. “My dad ran the local church,” he told me without elaboration in a quiet, rather high-pitched voice. I later found out that Kitagawa père had been the head of a Japanese American Buddhist congregation in L.A.
Johnny was equally vague about when he first came to Japan. He reportedly arrived while serving as an interpreter for the U.S. military during the Korean War.
This set the tone for the rest of the interview – it was hard to get a straight answer out of Johnny, at least when it came to his personal history. He was more interested in talking about all the boy bands he’d groomed and propelled to stardom during his long and extraordinarily successful career.
Johnny told me how he got his start in showbiz when he saw some boys playing baseball in a Tokyo park, and later molded them into a pop group called The Johnnies. That set the template for the rest of his career – scouting for boys and using them as raw material as his pop production line churned out an endless succession of unthreatening quasi-androgynous male idol groups.
A classic showman, Johnny said he was more interested in live performances than records. He made his mark with coups de theatre like having ’80s male idol act Hikaru Genji do choreographed routines on roller skates.
“Once you release a record, you have to sell that record,” Johnny said. “You have to push one song only. You can’t think of anything else. It’s not good for the artist.” The Johnny’s stable of acts has nonetheless racked up dozens of No.1 hits over the years.
Johnny’s English, like that of many longterm expats, was quaintly fossilized. I could hear echoes of ’40s and ’50s America when he said things like “gee,” or “gosh” when answering my questions.
Soon after the interview began, the browbeaten obasan put a steaming dish of katsu-curry in front of me. I begged off, explaining that I’d just eaten lunch. This didn’t prevent the arrival of another dish soon after: spaghetti and “hamburg” steak, as I recall. Hearty fare for starving young idol wannabes was my take on the menu chez Johnny.
Having decided that “Are you or have you ever been a pederast?” might be somewhat too direct a question to put to the dear old chap, I lobbed a series of softball queries with the aim of establishing a friendly rapport. But even the most gently tossed questions elicited amiable but frustratingly vague answers from Johnny.
In the silences between his frequent hems and haws, the wind whined like a sotto voce banshee through the slightly opened window.
Johnny did tell me that he received 300 letters a day from guys wanting to sign up with his agency. I wasn’t sure if he was boasting or bored.
The time came to leave, and Johnny accompanied me to the door. “Come back anytime,” he said with a friendly smile as he waved me goodbye.
As I made my way down the hall to the elevators, I saw the finely chiseled profile of a young man peeking from around a corner, looking in my direction. He caught a glimpse of me and retreated. I resisted the temptation to tell him the katsu-curry was getting cold.
Sadly, I didn’t take up Johnny on his kind offer to come up and see him sometime.
Want to talk about movies? From the vantage point of a film writer, the Heisei Era (January 8, 1989 to April 30, 2019) felt like a relationship that neither party had the courage to end. You know – the one where the occasional moments of joy are almost enough to blot out the periodic outbursts of blah. On the plus side, the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the PIA Film Festival’s indies support system enabled young directors to go from “mom, I think I’ll make movies for a living” to getting listed on imdb.com in an unprecedented short span of time. On the minus side, budgets dried up as the economy sank into the mires of a 20-year recession. Japanese movies lost the clout points earned by the cinematic giants of old, like Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. The films that came out were drastically reduced in scale. In the meantime, rival filmmakers in China and South Korea emigrated to Hollywood and stunned the world with grandiose, mythical stories funded by mega-budgets.
Still, we kept slingin’ that hammer because deep down in the recesses of our souls, we suspected that this is as good as it gets. Here’s a guide to take you through the most memorable movies (including the bad, the good and the ugly) that adorned the Heisei era – in random order.
1) Spirited Away『千と千尋の神隠し』2001
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
顔無し (NoFace)
In many ways, Heisei belongs to Hayao Miyazaki, who at 78, remains Japanese anime’s biggest influencer. As co-founder of anime production company Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki’s works have always been gorgeous to look at but not always easy to understand; he has always avoided there feel-good formulaic plots favored by of Disney, designed to make everyone feel special and loved. Instead, the grand master of Nippon Anime has loftier plans. Part of it comes from his love of flying – Before WWII, Miyazaki’s family owned and operated a small aircrafts manufacturer and apparently, he was drawing airplanes before he could walk. What Japanese film critics describe as the “soar factor” is prevalent in almost every one of Miyazaki’s films, a sensation of flight, freedom and autonomy as the characters aim for the sky and struggle to gain control over their destinies. In Spirited Away,the soar factor is embodied by a flying dragon, and an impossibly high staircase that 10-year old protagonist Sen must navigate several times each day, if she is to survive and rescue her parents who have been changed into pigs. Spirited Away is a great piece of entertainment but it’s also classic Miyazaki – philosophical and stoic to the very last frame.
2) Minbo『ミンボーの女』1992 Directed by Juzo Itami
The Japanese Gentle Art of Extortion
In the west, Juzo Itami is best known for Tampopo, a hilarious and sensual celebration of food. Minbo is far less light-hearted.
As the son of eminent prewar filmmaker Mansaku Itami, Juzo had always banked on his rich-kid image and a man-about-town snobbishness, both of which he deployed to full advantage in his films. But Minbo was a different breed. The story of a lawyer specializing in organized crime (played by Itami’s wife and leading lady Nobuko Miyamoto) hired to deal with yakuza (Japanese gangster) thugs, Minbo is dark and accusatory. The yakuza are depicted for what they are: childish, insecure bullies protected by clans interested only in profit (not honor, as most Japanese movies would have us believe). To prove his point, Itami swaps out Miyamoto’s trademark buoyancy for a rigid and sometimes leaden performance and the some of the action sequences seem over-the-top silly. Still, Minbo is probably Juzo Itami’s most important work, not least because it marks a crossroad in both his career and his life. After the release of Minbo, Itami was attacked by yakuza henchmen sent from the notorious Goto clan and got his face slashed up. Five years later, he jumped to his death from his office window. Whether Itami’s death was voluntary or enforced (by Goto’s men) remains an open mystery.
One out of 7 children in Japan are living below the poverty line, with school lunches as their main source of nourishment. In Hirokazu Koreeda’s The Shoplifters, that number feels like more. Starring the always watchable Lily Franky and Sakura Ando as a down and out couple raising a 10 year old son in the ramshackle house of an elderly ‘obaachan (grandma),’ The Shoplifters won Koreeda the Palme D’Or at Cannes – the first ever for a Japanese director. The Abe Administration took offense at how Koreeda took the nation’s dirty linen and washed it in public so to speak. But The Shoplifters did wonderfully well at the box office, soaring to number 4 in the list of Japan’s highest grossing films of all time. One of the takeaways of this film is that in spite of their shoplifting, hand-to-mouth existence, the family is united by a fierce loyalty and is somehow, amazingly content – a rarity among Japan’s urban families mired in stress and societal pressure. A poignant and ultimately tragic film, The Shoplifters makes you want to see it again and again.
4) Ichi『殺し屋イチ』2001
Directed by Takashi Miike
Does Takashi Miike have nightmares and if so, what can they possibly look like? As the master portrayer of Japanese stab-and-slash violence, Miike is notorious for his unflinching dedication to drenching the screen in blood and gore. Ichi remains his most memorable work, not least because it stars the internationally respected Tadanobu Asano and the deadpan Nao Omori as rival yakuza henchmen ostensibly bent on revenging the death of their boss. The duo’s real objective however, turns out to be the high savored from killing as many human beings as possible, in the most gruesome of ways. The backdrop is Kabukicho, Shinjuku at the turn of the century, and Ichi’s glamorized violence makes the whole place look dangerously alluring. Present day Kabukicho has turned into a staid tourist trap with surveillance cameras placed in every nook and cranny, to nip violent incidents in the bud, apparently. No worries – even the yakuza go around with eyes glued to their phones.
5) Kamome Shokudo『かもめ食堂』2006
Directed by Naoko Ogigami
Heisei was an era in which many Japanese women categorically refused to get hitched and even more to give birth. The birth rate plummeted to an all-time low of 1.43. In 10 years, one out of five women (and one out of four men) are expected to live out their lives without ever having a partner which may strike the casual observer as a spectacularly tragic statistic. For director Naoko Ogigami however, the numbers are fodder for her particular genre of filmmaking. Kamome Shokudo is her breakthrough work that deal with a trio of single women who come together in Helsinki. One of them, Sachie (Satomi Kobayashi) runs a local diner and the other two (played by Hairi Katagiri and Masako Motai) decide to work there as well. The utter absence of emotional drama (but an abundance of great food) is incredibly healing as you realize that Japanese women may have more freedom and control over their lives than we thought. Best line: “Onigiri is the soul food of Japan.”
Shinya Tsukamoto is a weird and wonderful film buff. For the entirety of the Heisei Era, he has acted, produced and directed his own films – always on a minuscule budget and a minimal number of staff. He even nabbed a part in Martin Scorsese’s Silence (for which he auditioned along with everyone else), prompting the great Scorsese to seek Tsukamoto out on set and shake his hand.
Last year, Tsukamoto came out with Zan which he shot in less than a month and starred as a wandering samurai in the last days of the Edo Period. The film is brilliant for two reasons: 1) it highlights the samurai class as reluctant murderers who must cut people up to prove themselves, and 2) it shows up the brutally labor-intensive, muck raking poverty of late 19th century Japan. In the midst of the shit-logged ditch water however, you can almost glimpse that gem of hope. An unforgettable cinema experience.
7) Tokyo Sonata『トウキョウソナタ』2008 Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Years have passed since Kiyoshi Kurosawa replaced Akira as the pre-eminent Japanese filmmaker with that surname. Though Kurosawa’s main turf is horror, (Cure, anyone?) Tokyo Sonata is arguably his best and most accessible work, drawing an unexpectedly stunning performance from former pop idol Kyoko Koizumi.
Koizumi plays housewife Megumi, who is ambivalent about her stay-at-home existence in the burbs while having no idea how to break out of her shell. Her husband (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a sarariman (salaryman) who has recently been fired from his job, but pretends to go to work every morning in his suit and tie. The couples’ two reticent teenage sons have plans and desires of their own, of which their parents know nothing. Each of the family members seem to be dancing to a different tune, audible only to themselves until one day, their hidden urges come tumbling out. A haunting beautiful story that amply illustrates the dreariness of Japan’s two-decade long recession.
8) 北野武監督 HANA-BI 1997年
Say what you like about comedian and filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, but there’s no denying that for about 20 years in the Heisei period, the man was the closest thing Japan had to a living deity. The man has a violent streak, as demonstrated in the 1986 attack on the offices of papparazi rag “Friday” for which he was arrested and found guilty (but got off with a suspended sentence). In 1994, a motor bike accident that would have killed another man landed him in the hospital for 6 months but before he got out, he went on the air and cracked jokes about his horribly disfigured face.
In the Heisei era, Kitano made some unforgettable movies but HANA-BI, (meaning ‘fireworks’) is a masterpiece. He directed, co-wrote and starred as Nishi, a cop who has just lost a young son. The tragedy causes Nishi’s life to spin out of control, as his wife (Kayoko Kishimoto) is hospitalized and his buddy Horibe (Ren Osugi) is shot by a perpetrator. Later, Nishi quits the police force to takes his wife on a trip, intending to kill her before putting a bullet in his own head.
Though Kitano has always worked in comedy, he is rarely verbose and HANA-BI is amazingly reticent. The absence of explanatory dialogue matches the extraordinarily lovely visuals, drenched in dark blue and gray tones as the story traces the graceful arc of Nishi’s downfall.
9) “Helter Skelter” 『ヘルタースケルター』2012 Directed by Mika Ninagawa
Mike Ninagawa may have been born with a silver spoon but her talent (and personal struggle) is achingly real. As the daughter of Japan’s foremost theater director Yukio Ninagawa, Mika’s life was both charmed and cursed. Dad’s glorious reputation preceded her everywhere she went so perhaps it was natural for her to choose photography and film instead of the stage. Helter Skelter is her second feature and stars the enfant terrible of the Japanese film industry Erika Sawajiri, as a nymphomaniac actress who lives in fear of losing her beauty. To prevent this from happening, the actress periodically goes under the knife, endangering not just her health but her sanity as well. Helter Skelter is audacious, brilliant and gorgeously shot – and an astute observation of fame and celebrity-dom in Japan’s youth-obsessed media industry.
10) Still the Water 『2つ目の窓』2014 Directed by Naomi Kawase
Naomi Kawase had a chaotic upbringing –her parents more or less abandoned her when she was a baby and the filmmaker was subsequently brought up by a relative. In interviews, Kawase has said she has tried to understand her life by making films about families and indeed, her works show a special fascination (or obsession) with the family dynamic. Still the Water feels especially intimate – a coming of age tale set in gorgeous Amami Oshima island off the coast of Kagoshima prefecture. Two teenagers (Junko Abe and Nijiro MurakamiI) struggle with their roots as their parents fumble about, trying to come to terms with their own identities and personal desires. Miyuki Kumagai plays the island ‘yuta’ (shaman) who must face her own imminent death by cancer, as her family resents her apparent powerlessness over her fate. A film that feels like an solitary, introverted vacation by the beach.
“Being a Foreign Entertainer in the Japanese TV Industry”
To MMA fans all over the world he’s known as “The Beast. Bob Sapp is a former American NFL player, WWE professional wrestler and World Champion kickboxer. Bob has appeared on an episode of HBO Real Sports and has been featured in magazines all over the world and once was ubiquitous in Japanese Television. Bob has appeared on the big-screen as well in ‘Conan the Barbarian’ and with Adam Sandler in ‘The Longest Yard’. No one knows the business and entertainment and MMA world in Japan than Bob Sapp.
If you’d like to meet and greet The Beast. Please reserve in advance, 3211-3161, says the FCCJ.
*Due to space restrictions, please note there will be a limited number of reservations to attend. Reservations will be limited to the first 40 applicants and Reservations cancelled beyond 18:00 Thursday, June 6 will be charged in full. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled. Reservations and cancellations are not complete without confirmation. FCCJ members, including TV cameras, will have priority for the reservation and seating/setting positions and one TV camera for affiliate networks.
Fee: FCCJ members: 2,000 yen / non-FCCJ members: 3,000 yen (Two Drink Tickets included).
