マインド・ゲーム/ Mind Game

Before the masterful, childlike Kaiba and the somewhat disturbing Kemonozume, experimental and fast-rising director Yuasa Masaaki made this critically acclaimed but undeniably avant-garde feature.

It is the story of a loser who suffers an extremely humiliating death, only to get a second chance. His rebirth leads to an adventurous escape from the Yakuza with the two girls he just might love, and then in a surrealistic turn and Pinocchio reference, a period of self-contemplation for all three of them with a strange hermit in the belly of a whale. Despite the strangeness of both style and plot, the vast majority of the film flows linearly and makes a kind of internal sense, although the ending is purposely ambiguous, focusing on the idea that tiny changes can bring innumerable possibilities for a person’s life.

There are recognisable stylistic links to Kemonozume, the rather ugly, sketchy drawing style, angular animation and inventive angles in the mise-en-scene. Kaiba is evoked by the pastiche-y clips of a retro anime with the time-turning belt that reinforces the theme of the film, in some of the forms of God and in the strange organic nature of some of the worlds the characters must inhabit, even just for a moment or two, as well as in the often disconcerting editing style. These links are more remarkable given that while Yuasa's later work came from Madhouse, this film was primarily by Studio 4°C – also behind such visually quirky works as Tekkon Kinkreet and Mahou Shoujotai: Arusu – with contributions from Gainax and Production I.G. That the style is similar across studios shows Yuasa’s great influence and command of his productions.

But if anything, Mind Game is weirder than either. Often using photocollage effects, real faces inserted into animated worlds, it constantly draws attention to itself as artistic expression. We see the film changing the media of its art, bursting into a wild and sexualised parody of an animated musical number, slipping between exaggerated parody and heartfelt introspection, and fully utilising the animated medium to express strange things, comedic things, surreal things, always seeming to be aware of Walt Disney’s dictum that animators cannot show the fantastic ‘unless we first know the real.’

But while Disney may have firmly established what is real before using a dream sequence or drunken hallucination to introduce the truly bizarre and formless, Yuasa delights in setting up expectations, and then subverting them, even if those expectations are that there will soon be another shift in style or pace.

What is remarkable, however, is that even though the audience is constantly reminded that the characters are only works of fiction, even though they are presented as shallow, changeable, detached and often duplicitous, even though the situations are weird in the extreme, they are still believable, sympathetic and more human than many in more formulaic and straightforward films. Mind Game’s chief achievement is that while it is incredibly strange, it has heart.

レイトン教授と永遠の歌姫/ Reiton-kyouju to Eien-no Utahime / Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

Let’s face it, I was always going to enjoy this film. I love playing the highly successful games and find the characters really engaging: civilized ‘Eikoku Shinshi’ (English gentleman) Professor Layton and his adorable square-headed ‘apprentice’ Luke go off investigating mysteries and uncovering secrets, all the time stopping to answer puzzle after puzzle, be it offered by the people they meet, all of whom seem to have a puzzler or two, or simply challenging one another, inspired by things like trees or fonts. It’s all very sedate and charming and wholesome.

So a feature-length animation had a lot of appeal to me, even if unfortunately some things in the film rely on knowledge of games not yet released on these shores – although it’s nothing too puzzling. Only a few picarats’ worth.

Professor Layton and Luke are called upon to investigate mysterious rumours of reincarnation and eternal life in an opera house. Going to see the performance, they get wrapped up in an intriguing game, eternal life promised to the winner who solves the puzzles that will eliminate all others.

It’s a sprightly, likeable anime, character designs consistent with the quirky, Hergé-influenced designs of the game, animations from Pokémon’s studio OLM Inc. fluid and vibrant and locales from England lovingly recreated – not only the usual sights like Tower Bridge and Big Ben, but Regent Street, Covent Garden and later, The White Cliffs of Dover, all of which gave me a small thrill. Layton is an engaging Holmes figure, quietly charismatic and at once gentle and formidable. Luke is utterly adorable, especially trying to assert his identity and relationship to the Professor, and the rest of the cast, even the ones with selfish motives, are amusing and hard to dislike.

As with the games, though – and far more so than them – the film is slightly disappointing. Not because it is bad, but because it could have been rather better. Just as the games tend to give the impression some clever twist that shows why the impossible science-fiction world is possible in reality, only to finally fall back on fantasy inventions, I feel the film would have been more of a success had it left aside karate kicks, chase scenes with wolves and, yes, giant mecha, and instead aimed for a Holmes-derived mood of battles of the wit rather than the fist. For a film that had so many puzzles it could have fallen back on, the few that get thrown in here are rather unimpressive and obvious, and it’s a real shame that the overall mystery just gets tossed away when it’s time for the climax to come, essentially boiling down to ‘This whole thing could have just been a simple kidnap of one person and worked far better, the main mystery is just a tempting lie, and our machines do magical things.’

But as an anime for charming visuals, extremely lovable characters and a real sense of fun, you can’t go wrong. Not to mention that Layton is one of very, very few places where I hold the dub (UK, not US) just as dear as the original, both of which I believe are equally good – as a result, I look forward to hearing the localised version!

Haibane Renmei / 灰羽連盟

The thing you have to know about Haibane Renmei is that it’s not going to give you the answers to the questions it raises. Why are these ‘Haibane’ and the people of the town unable to leave the walls? What happens when they vanish? Where do they come from? Why do they have wings and halos? Well, the answer to the last one is pretty easy – because it looks cute, and the creators thought it would be neat. And here, I think, we get to the crux of Yoshitoshi Abe’s writing: he likes to introduce bizarre circumstances and unorthodox plot developments to his anime, because it makes people think. But ultimately, this is a weak form of storytelling. Some people enjoy vagueness, because it lets them fill in the blanks with what they want to hear. But I only care about what the writer was trying to say. When I’m almost certain that it was nothing more than ‘draw your OWN conclusions’, I am invariably disappointed. So it was with Haibane Renmei.

A new Haibane is hatched from a cocoon. Because she dreamt of plunging to earth from the sky in the cocoon, she is given the name ‘Rakka’, which means ‘falling’ – and it is the Haibane’s tradition to name each newborn after some aspect of their dream. Rakka finds her feet in her strange new world by accompanying each of her new acquaintances to their jobs. Then the limitations of a 13-episode series seem to hit, and all the characters’ stories but one are dumped, giving a sense of climax, albeit a hastily cobbled-together one, to the final episodes.

I’ll say this – it’s a beautiful anime. Gorgeous art, excellent music and animation, nice, varied character designs and beautiful scenery. The characters are mostly drawn from typical anime stock, but that’s okay; in such a brisk series, they don’t get dull, and stock characters have becomes stock characters for good reason. However, the story is deeply unsatisfying, simply because it’s several episodes of excellent exposition and mystery, a climax as one character disappears abruptly, and then there’s an apparent realisation that all these good ideas don’t actually lead anywhere: an interesting backstory set up for the last episodes gets resolved far too quickly, and a false conclusion in the end satisfies none of the evoked curiosity, leaving only a sense of bathos and indifference.

An enjoyable anime, but an irksome ending. Much is promised, little delivered, and it’s very apparent that no matter how hard you look, the answers to your questions will never come. There’s just not enough there.

(originally posted 13.10.05)

Toy Story 3

It’s incredible to me that Toy Story came out in 1995. I know people who weren’t even born then. I’m probably one of very few in my London friendship group who actually remembers going to the cinema to see it on the big screen. That to me seems quite bizarre, although I’m sure there are people a little older than I am who find it just as strange that I wasn’t born for early-80s films.

In many ways, though, this film was for my age group. Not to downplay the significance of the film to younger people, but as something of a farewell to a franchise, as a film fundamentally about the changes that come about when you grow older, it works best for people around my age who were just old enough to appreciate Toy Story’s wry layer of adult-oriented gags and references at the time…and, thinking about it, perhaps even more for those just a few years younger than me, who were entirely caught up in the magic of that first excursion.

Toy Story 3 finds us back in Andy’s house when he is no longer a child. He is 17 now, and off to college. He doesn’t play with his toys any more, and clearing out his room means that it is time to put away childish things in a more definitive way than putting them in the toy box. What will happen to the toys now? Will they be donated to a daycare centre? Put in the trash? Stored away in the attic to quietly stagnate in the hopes that one day Andy will have kids of his own to give them to?
What actually happens in the film is not necessarily what Andy intended, but pretty much all of the different possibilities get explored to some degree. And Pixar as ever capitalise on their magnificent ability to give a film heart, to imbue every situation with high-octane adventure as well as characters that are highly sympathetic.

The remarkable thing about Toy Story, though, is how is well-thought-out everything is. It’s not simply something that comes of working for hundreds of hours on every beautiful frame: that is to simplify the story-writing process and to misrepresent how much work goes into a good live-action film. Pixar simply do not let their stories get sloppy. Coincidences are few and far between and palatable when they do arrive: the one who finds Woody, for example, not only being a girl who lives near the place he must return to, but also having taken home the doll who can give him information that proves invaluable later on. The baddie is more than two-dimensional, and has a fitting fate!

I left the cinema with the impression that not only had the writers thought of what would make a good, emotionally rich story, but they also thought of the impact this story would have on an impressionable young audience. Making a story in which we must feel sympathetic for toys getting thrown away could have influenced a whole generation to be hoarders of vast amounts of toys, but instead the message ends up being that it is better to give them to someone who will really value them. The film came close to making it seem like donating toys will only get them smashed up and abused, but averted that at the last minute.

But the real achievement remains the ability to encourage an audience to be emotionally invested. Betrayal, indignation, exultant relief…the sad beauty of being resigned to what seems an inevitable fate but facing it together with your friends – these are the kind of emotional points that more live-action films ought to embrace.

Pixar films are always beautiful, so I wanted to see it in the best possible way. Was slightly disappointed, then, to find that unlike Waterloo’s immense screen, the IMAX at Greenwich is about half the size, and certainly not able to fill the entire field of vision. It was simply a large and very crisp screen with a good sound system. However, once the film got going I realized I was actually getting a better experience than many I have in the full-sized IMAX. The 3D glasses worked the best of any I’ve used since polarizing methods were introduced save in the Taiwan aquarium, and I got no ghosting or blur at all, for a change. Everything was lovely and crisp and fluid. As for the size of the screen, well, sometimes in the full IMAX it’s a nuisance knowing you’re not seeing every detail, but you never are in any film in any case, and I have to say I do prefer it as large as possible!

But it is well worth seeing the film in the best possible visual format. It’s beautiful to look at: action sequences are choreographed with genius, sight gags are timed to perfection, and the pastiches of different film styles are, as ever, note-perfect, from the harsh light of a crime film police interview on Buzz’s face to Ken’s brilliant fashion parade.

My generation will undoubtedly have less prejudice against animation than any before it, and it is increasingly being taken seriously as an art form. Pixar are never going to produce something shockingly mature and adult, but that does not detract from the fact that they create some of the most important films of any currently in production. All reinforced, to my mind, by special thanks to Ghibli staff members and the surprisingly prominent role for Totoro.

しおんの王 / Shion no Ou / Shion’s King

Perhaps unusually, I’m predisposed to like manga and anime about board games. Shounen Jump’s Hikaru no Go remains my favourite manga, and amongst my favourite anime. So even when people were mocking the exaggerated animations for shougi players making their moves, I wasn’t at all phased by the concept. This was one of the series the anime club watched in my masters’ year on the day of the week I didn’t attend, but the club president’s taste was usually pretty spot-on (possibly excepting Allison and Lillia) so I picked this up.

It’s taken me until now, more than a year later, to actually finish watching it, and however similar the titles sound, Shion no Ou is certainly no Hikaru no Go. While both revolve around teenagers playing board games with, despite any exaggerated animations for placing pieces, a generally realistic tone, the genres each borrow from to create their drama are very different, and I find Shion no Ou markedly less sophisticated.

While, despite its supernatural conceit, Hikaru no Go mainly revolved around the relationship between two rivals and interpersonal relationships, Shion no Ou has at its centre a murder mystery. Murder stories can be sophisticated and extremely clever, but this one is rather predictable, obvious and cheesy.

Shion was born into the world of shougi, or Japanese chess. Her father is a Kishi, a professional player, and by the age of four she was recognized as prodigiously talented. However, an unknown murderer kills both her parents, the trauma leaving her struck dumb. However, she is taken in by fellow shougi players, and the story starts when she is in her teens and ready to enter the world of professional players. Is the killer somewhere amongst them?

It’s slightly odd, considering the thought processes behind these characters. Shion is adorable, childlike and while very strong in her chosen field, rather hapless and very naïve outside it. It’s an increasingly familiar type of character, seen in other works aimed at an older-teenaged male audience, like Bamboo Blade, Gunslinger Girl, even the likes of Lucky Star. Essentially, she is a little child that the insecure male would feel comfortable dominating and find extremely sweet. Normally that’s just fine for me, but the way this anime seems to seek to make a character moé by making her experience a grisly murder and giving her a disability that can most likely be magically overcome later on doesn’t sit quite right with me, even if Shion is extremely likeable. The rest of the cast are largely uninteresting: a cross-dressing boy who will very soon see his duplicity is wrong, a girl whose primary characteristic is hero-worship of a father figure, a prime suspect who seems to snarl and posture far too much and thus more or less counts himself out as the actual villain, leaving only one other person it could have been, making for a very obvious ending.

For its shortcomings, though, I enjoyed Shion no Ou quite a lot. These characters may be unoriginal but they were all likeable, and Shion’s sweet nature and painful past makes you care what happens to her, even for rather cheap reasons in writing terms. There is real warmth in the interactions between the friendly characters and even if Kawasumi Ayako is just doing her default thoughtful-Nodame voice and Paku Romi has done this exact performance a zillion times already, the voice acting is strong. The animation is largely stilted and functional, but the penultimate episode has some nice experimental segments, unusual for Studio Deen.

Ultimately, though, Shion no Ou just lacks a real hook. The characters are likeable, but you’re never on the edge of your seat wanting to see what’s going to happen. The murder angle is clichéd and slow. So rather loathe as I am to say it, I can’t call this anime anything other than mediocre. Cute and worth seeing, but certainly no classic.

Tokyo Godfathers

Today I watched Tokyo Godfathers, from Kon Satoshi, the director behind Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Paranoia Agent. And while I’ve really enjoyed all of those works, I think this is the one I’ve found most striking and enjoyed the most.

The story is simple and down-to-earth: three homeless residents of Tokyo who are closer than they care to admit have their lives profoundly changed when they find an abandoned baby and decide to take it back to its mother.

The three characters, who don’t really fit the term ‘Godfathers’ (derived from an old Western movie the plot riffs upon called ‘Three Godfathers’, also remade by John Ford), are an acerbic drunkard with a painful past, an unconvincing and rather grotesque transsexual (as usual ‘okama’ being a very difficult word to translate, especially without sounding more hateful than is appropriate) and a teenaged girl who is pitched perfectly as flawed, prickly and yet sympathetic all through her growth during the film. It plays out like a more mature, more heartfelt version of the episode of Paranoia Agent with the misfit members of the suicide club – and that was an excellent episode.

Beautiful Madhouse artwork, especially in the backgrounds, some superb, mature pacing and quirky characters make a meandering plot extremely gripping and never does the film get dull. As usual, Kon Satoshi explores some of the darker and more disturbing areas of Japanese society not often dealt with in anime, from immigrant ghettoes and child-snatchers to horrible teenagers who get their kicks hunting down and beating up defenceless old tramps, and shines brief spotlights on things like Christmas traditions, runaways and the dangers of gambling.

Normally, coincidence in plotting annoys me, but in this comedy it was not only acceptable, but an integral part of the plot because it was exaggerated to the point it became integral. Ultimately, the darkness and maturity of the tone were only spice to the sweetness and fun of the comedy and feel-good revelatory moments, making for true richness.

Everything Kon Satoshi has done I have been extremely impressed by. Must check out Paprika too…

涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu/The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (season 1)

Kyoto Animation are fast establishing themselves as one of the best animation companies in Japan, despite being so small that they can only work on one series per season. After the success of last year’s AIR, they have scored another hit with the otaku, the hardcore anime fandom, with Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu.

Just as with AIR, the anime looks beautiful. Cute character designs, superbly detailed backgrounds and animation so fluid it makes water jealous. The cast are all perfect, the music always fits well and action scenes really are explosive.

But like AIR, even though I initially liked the series, I ended up disappointed. Haruhi is a much more entertaining series than AIR overall, but nothing near as brilliant as I had hoped it would be.

I raved about the first episode after I saw it, an inspired pastiche of student filmmaking. It takes some good animation to reproduce bad camera work, and the hilarity of watching a terrible piece of filmmaking, accompanied by the extreme sarcasm of the cameraman as he watched the final edited piece, made me think we were going to have a new Genshiken, but better: a series about normal students with delusions of grandeur, perhaps in a film-making club.

What we got was very different. One boy (two really, but the other is a bit of a non-entity) is in a club with three girls who fit neatly into quiet/mysterious, shy/cute and bossy/heart-of-gold-underneath moulds. There’s more to Haruhi than meets the eye, and indeed, just about everyone gathered around her is possessed of unusual powers as a result. What makes this palatable is that it is all filtered through the perspective of the narrator, Kyon, an extremely sarcastic and sceptical boy who is thrown into an unbelievable world but still sees it in his inimically glib, cynical way. This unusual perspective is what makes the show work. In another twist, the episodes are told out of sequence, mixed up so that often, we hear references to things in the past we have yet to see. This sometimes gives interesting effects, and makes the series start off in a more interesting way, but is occasionally messy and makes one or two episodes seem very inconsequential, crucial in a show of only 14. Several of the action scenes involving the powers of the SOS Brigade (the aforementioned club Haruhi formed to investigate the paranormal, unaware of how much of what she seeks is right in front of her) are extremely impressive, there are some clever genre-hopping moments, and I DID like the characters, but in the end, the lack of story, the frequent humour mis-fires, the blatant targeting of teenaged boys’ sex drives and the laziness of the resolutions of most of the extremely artificial problems made this feel like a fun anime trifle, not the instant classic its proponents wish it to be.

A great-looking and fun series; I would like to see another. Do not, however, believe the hype.

(Originally posted 04.07.2006, before the second season and the movie)