Joe Strike travels through more than 1000 years of Japanese culture in just three days.
I traveled through a thousand-plus years of Japanese culture this week, a journey beginning with a 10th century folk tale and ending in the futuristic world of a synthetic sci-fi anime babe.
On Monday I attended a screening of Isao Takahata’s The Tale of The Princess Kaguya. Even though he’s directed five animated features, Takahata remains the lesser-known half of the Studio Ghibli partnership, overshadowed by the celebrated Hayao Miyazaki.
If there’s anything Kaguya doesn’t look like, it’s standard-issue anime – no oversized eyes, no shiny textures, no mecha, no sir. Instead the 2D, traditionally animated film is awash in understated, sensual watercolor backgrounds and sensitive glimpses of nature—flowers blooming, wind blowing through trees, a forest brightening with sudden sunshine…its character design is storybook simple, employing what looks like a charcoal line to render its diverse cast.
Kaguya is based on the 10th century legend “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,” but it’s really the tale of the titular Princess, found by said woodcutter inside a bamboo stalk. At first the princess is doll-like tiny, but quickly evolves into a normal-sized infant and equally quickly into a toddler, a young child, an adolescent until she is a supernaturally beautiful teen. When the bamboo cutter (James Caan in the American soundtrack) discovers a cache of gold inside a second stalk, he and wife go nouveau riche, moving to the city, building a sprawling home and trying to teach their adopted daughter upper-class airs—but it’s only a matter of time before Kaguya’s otherwordly past catches up to her.
Not that I’m an expert on Japanese culture, but I’d be shocked if this film doesn’t get it right down to the tiniest detail—the dress, the social customs, the feel of what everyday life must’ve been like 10 centuries ago. (Pants are evidently optional for tiny kids and a “fine lady” plucks her eyebrows and paints her teeth black.) Her social climbing dad protests “we’re no hillbillies” (in the subtitles; the dubbed version we were supposed to see died after a few minutes, replaced by the Japanese-language original) while continually bumping his elaborate headwear against his home’s low doorways.
Takahata weaves wondrous, surreal sequences into the film, with his characters occasionally taking to magical flight. In one visually amazing sequence Kaguya flees her home, sheds her finery and runs faster and faster until the background is an abstract blur. In perhaps the film’s most beautiful moment, a gigantic moon is the backdrop for an approaching cloud carrying a supernatural delegation; in its forefront a trio of musicians play a blissful tune on traditional instruments (courtesy of Ghibli’s masterful composer Joe Hisaishi) heralding their arrival.
The nominee list for the best animated feature Oscar often includes a token foreign made, hand drawn film; I’ll be quite surprised if The Tale of The Princess Kaguya doesn’t claim that spot this year.
Flash forward a few centuries and two days later: I’m in a street corner art gallery in Manhattan’s lower east side. Once upon a time the neighborhood was home to an immigrant Jewish community; now it’s awash in young trendsetters sporting eclectic, eccentric garb (platform high heels, ultra-shaggy jackets, red patent leather baseball caps) that would make 1960’s hippies seem dressed in three shades of gray by comparison.
We’re here for an opening reception for “Hatsune Miku Expo 2014.” It’s easier to quote from the booklet given us than trying to explain it myself:
Hatsune Miku started out simply as software designed for music producers who aspired to virtually create vocal parts. But ever since, Hatsune Miku has traveled an interesting path, from vocal synthesizer product to beloved collaboratively constructed cyber celebrity with a growing user community across the world.
Many pop culture icons inspire an endless variety of fan-created variations, but Hatsune Miku may be the first to encourage and promote this kind of participation; the booklet boasts of over a million “derivative artworks,” 120,000 “user-released songs” and apparel, accessory, gadget and “stationary” (their typo, not mine) “collaborations.”
The gallery was filled with paintings and dolls by fans in a variety of anime/manga styles, big and ultra-big eyed versions, oversized head (aka “super-deformed”) chibis, and pure fantasy variations.
The “real” Hatsune’s a full-fledged, high tech, short skirted anime babe with shiny knee length boots and elbow-length cuffs festooned with tiny displays and sensors. She has a posse of buddies, all owned by Crypton Future Media, Inc., each representing different vocal synthesizer software. (Megurine Luka “is popular for her mysterious looks and her voice’s cool expression,” while Kaito, the first guy in the group looks totally yaoi (google it) and is known for “his blue hair and his long blue stole.”)
As a virtual personality it’s easy for Hatsune to get around; she’s throwing an L.A. Halloween party, selling T-shirts at the New York Comic Con and performing in “live” concerts on both coasts. No word on whether the Gorillaz will be performing with her.
Joe Strike has written about animation for numerous publications. He is the author of Furry Nation: The True Story of America's Most Misunderstood Subculture.
