October 09, 2024
Anime reassessed (pacing matters)
The result of this little experiment? Far and away, anime remains my preferred medium for scripted entertainment. So I dropped Jme TV and won't renew Viki. Netflix stays on hiatus until its anime catalog refreshes.
It's not just me.
As Miles Atherton reports on Anime News Network, according to recent data released by Netflix, in terms of total hours viewed, anime not only overperforms in its category overall but makes up almost 80 percent of all Japanese language content viewed.
Starting with deep wells of proven source material, the inherent constraints of anime production sufficiently discipline the process (no anime studio has the resources to crank out a $200 million CGI flop) so that when everything comes together, a watchable work of art is the result on a reasonably regular basis.
Good stories told well.
To start with, this isn't about production values. HD video technology has largely leveled the playing field in that regard. Rather, the underlying problems come down to how the stories are structured, paced, and told.
Many hour-long Jdrama episodes should be thirty minutes shorter. (So should most movies.) I usually skip anime compilation films but doing the opposite works better. Editing Demon Slayer: Mugen Train into seven episodes improved on the movie. When it comes to single arc stories, a runtime longer than that just drags everything out.
The extended Yor arc in the second season of Spy x Family could have been easily compiled into a two-hour movie. But it works better in a five-episode format. And, frankly, I would have rather seen Code White handled the same way, creating a complete second season instead of a single cour.
Incidentally, comparing Kamen Rider: Kuuga (2001) and Kamen Rider: Zero-One (2020) illustrates how extraordinarily far budget CGI has progressed in the past two decades.
Yet despite the superior production values of the latter, the acting and dialogue elevate the former, even with its near-fatal plot holes and running a full two seasons (that's one season too many).
When Hollywood is running on all cylinders, it gets episodic television exactly right, with standalone episodes loosely linked by season-long dramatic arcs running in the background. So Fuyuhiko Takahori has the cause and effect backwards. The common point of failure is stretching a single story over more episodes than are needed to tell it.
There are writers who have mastered the formula. 99.9 Criminal Lawyer and Unnatural both run standalone episodes against background narrative arcs that pay off reasonably well. Three Star Bar in Nishi Ogikubo tells a complete story in six half-hour standalone episodes and completes a satisfying series-long arc.
This is why I prefer the slice-of-life genre. Challenges are taken on episode by episode, with an emphasis on the character arcs. In Komi Can't Communicate, Komi struggling toward her goal and Tadano simply being a genuinely good person (harder to depict than it sounds) make the story compelling.
Likewise, in the plot-heavy My Happy Marriage (Cinderella in early 20th century Japan), I find myself more interested in Miyo's self-actualization (that tired term actually applies here) than the tangled web of political machinations.
Interesting characters create interesting stories, not the other way around. In Jdrama romances especially, the realization too often dawns that, aside from the sturm und drang of the romance itself, these are really boring people. That and a smattering of common sense would fix most of their issues.
Both the abstract nature of anime as an artistic medium and the physical constraints of the production process make it easier to align the story to the viewing time in ways that are both more concrete and rewarding to the viewer.
Related posts
Anime reassessed (pacing matters)
Anime reassessed (culture matters)
Anime reassessed (numbers matter)
Labels: anime, anime lists, japanese culture, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, jdrama, jme, netflix, streaming, tubi, viki
April 26, 2018
Family Gekijyo (weeks 3-4)
Garo: Yami o Terasu Mono concluded its run and was followed by Garo: Makai no Hana ("Flowers of Hell"). The latter debuted in 2014, with Masei Nakayama as Raiga Saezima, the son of Kouga Saezima from the first series (he grew up fast).
The fourth series returns to established conventions. I didn't see the point of the alternate universe business in Yami o Terasu Mono and the serial format is only good for bingeing. Makai no Hana is more episodic, making non-linear viewing more tolerable.
This series takes place in present-day Tokyo. Imagine that Buffy lived in Wayne Manor and Giles was Alfred. That's sort of what we have here, and it plays to the inherent strengths of the genre: Spirit World Warriors battling evil in the shadows of the "normal."
Japanese urban fantasy is adept at locating magical mayhem in the midst of the modern world. Being a ghostbuster in Japan will keep you busy.
"Flowers of Hell" doesn't constantly take itself too seriously. Masei Nakayama even manages to smile now and then. The Halloween episode (beginning with an old-fashioned credit scroll in English) has him battling villains from popular Hollywood horror movies.
In another episode, a demonic manga artist attacks him with his literally animated illustrations. And then there's the traditional Japanese house that stomps around like out of Howl's Moving Castle.
The episodes follow a similar set-up and resolution, so the most interesting element is the creature-of-the-week, although the little vignettes that play during the closing credit scroll constitute a show of their own.
Or give it the Silence of the Lambs treatment and you could end up with a first-rate psychological thriller or a fantasy horror flick.
I do have to wonder about the casting call: "You'll be naked and mostly dead while Tokio Emoto hauls your body around." Well, not wonder all that much. The Japanese website tags the three as "AV" actresses. Not all that unusual in Japan.
Tokio Emoto plays the serial killer. He's only 28 but qualifies as a "veteran" character actor, with supporting roles in several NHK series as well.
That episode got skipped during the daytime portion of the rerun loop, which is in accordance with how Japanese commercial television works too (granted, no American over-the-air television station would broadcast anything like "Shiiku" at any time ever).
Family Gekijyo is likely showing the third and fourth series because the first two seasons were licensed for North America by Kraken Releasing (née Sentai Filmworks) and are available on Blu-ray. Several of the animated spin-offs are streaming on Crunchyroll.
As for the rest of the programming, it's the same only—no, for now it's more of the same.
• Garo: Makai no Hana (2014)
But change is coming! According to the news ticker that occasionally appears at the bottom of the screen, a fresh slate of programs is scheduled to begin May 1.
Related posts
Family Gekijyo
Family Gekijyo (weeks 1-2)
Family Gekijyo (weeks 5-6)
Labels: dish, family gekijyo, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, nhk, television
July 22, 2015
The book detectives
Shioriko Shinokawa (Ayame Gouriki) runs the "Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia" in the old historic town of Kamakura. She's quiet as a mouse, pretty as a picture, and brilliant as Sherlock Holmes.
The series begins with Daisuke Goura (Akira) coming to sell a collection of Natsume Soseki books that once belonged to his grandmother. In particular, one prized volume that appears to bear the famous author's signature, along with a mysterious dedication.
Shioriko concludes that the signature is a forgery, and that Daisuke's grandmother was the likely forger. That she would do so in a book she had always kept to herself only points to another mystery, one that reveals a curious truth about Daisuke's own past.
This first episode gets our two protagonists together so they can solve more mysteries of a literary nature. Each episode involves a specific classical work or famous author and Shioriko's exhaustive knowledge of world literature and the book collecting business.
Many of the episodes don't even involve a crime per se. The A Clockwork Orange episode starts as a shoplifting case and revolves around the missing last chapter in the first edition. An actual felony occurs at the end of that episode.
But nobody gets murdered, so this Kamakura isn't like those sleepy English villages where people are dropping dead right and left.
Ayame Gouriki pulls off the tricky task of being preternaturally pretty but more that bookish enough for the part. Despite the physical mismatch (he's eight inches taller), Akira (née, Ryohei Kurosawa of the band Exile) nerds it up and makes a good Watson.
Akira shares the Watson duties with veteran character actor Katsumi Takahashi, who also doubles as the Mrs. Hudson.
Thirty miles south of Tokyo, the ancient city of Kamakura is an ideal setting for a musty old bookshop. Minamoto no Yoritomo established Japan's first shogunate there in 1192, though it's better known today as home to the enormous outdoor statue of the Great Buddha.
Much of old Kamakura has been preserved as a veritable walk-through museum, a cozy place for cozy mysteries about books.
Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files is based on the best-selling novels and manga by En Mikami (tragically, no English translations yet). The live-action 2013 Fuji Television series can be viewed on Crunchyroll (subtitled).
(The "free" version of Crunchyroll requires putting up with their obnoxious ad engine, whose primary purpose is to annoy you into buying a subscription. The free-market capitalist in me shrinks from pointing this out, but Adblock Plus works on this site.)
The series begins with Daisuke Goura (Akira) coming to sell a collection of Natsume Soseki books that once belonged to his grandmother. In particular, one prized volume that appears to bear the famous author's signature, along with a mysterious dedication.
Shioriko concludes that the signature is a forgery, and that Daisuke's grandmother was the likely forger. That she would do so in a book she had always kept to herself only points to another mystery, one that reveals a curious truth about Daisuke's own past.
This first episode gets our two protagonists together so they can solve more mysteries of a literary nature. Each episode involves a specific classical work or famous author and Shioriko's exhaustive knowledge of world literature and the book collecting business.
Many of the episodes don't even involve a crime per se. The A Clockwork Orange episode starts as a shoplifting case and revolves around the missing last chapter in the first edition. An actual felony occurs at the end of that episode.
But nobody gets murdered, so this Kamakura isn't like those sleepy English villages where people are dropping dead right and left.
Ayame Gouriki pulls off the tricky task of being preternaturally pretty but more that bookish enough for the part. Despite the physical mismatch (he's eight inches taller), Akira (née, Ryohei Kurosawa of the band Exile) nerds it up and makes a good Watson.
Akira shares the Watson duties with veteran character actor Katsumi Takahashi, who also doubles as the Mrs. Hudson.
Thirty miles south of Tokyo, the ancient city of Kamakura is an ideal setting for a musty old bookshop. Minamoto no Yoritomo established Japan's first shogunate there in 1192, though it's better known today as home to the enormous outdoor statue of the Great Buddha.
Much of old Kamakura has been preserved as a veritable walk-through museum, a cozy place for cozy mysteries about books.
Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files is based on the best-selling novels and manga by En Mikami (tragically, no English translations yet). The live-action 2013 Fuji Television series can be viewed on Crunchyroll (subtitled).
(The "free" version of Crunchyroll requires putting up with their obnoxious ad engine, whose primary purpose is to annoy you into buying a subscription. The free-market capitalist in me shrinks from pointing this out, but Adblock Plus works on this site.)
Labels: books, geography, japanese culture, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews
December 11, 2014
Massan
NHK's current morning melodrama (Asadora) is doing something it's never done before: cast a non-Japanese actor in the title role.
Newcomer Charlotte Kate Fox (Northern Illinois University, MFA Acting) plays Scotswoman Ellie Kameyama, wife of Masaharu Kameyama (Tetsuji Tamayama), the scion of a sake-brewing family who brought whiskey to Japan.
Like Hanako and Anne, this is a fictionalized account of real people: Jessie "Rita" Cowan (1896-1961) and Masataka Taketsuru (1894-1979), the "father" of Japan's distilled spirits industry. "Massan" was Cowen's nickname for her husband.
They met in Scotland while Masataka was researching whiskey making. His research paid off well: this year, "Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013" was named the world's finest. Masataka Taketsuru was one of the founders of the Yamazaki distillery.
Yamazaki was subsequently acquired by Suntory. Masataka and Rita moved to Hokkaido to establish Nikka (now owned by brewing giant Asahi).
Fox isn't Scottish and doesn't have to be: 95 percent of her dialogue is in Japanese. Besides her acting skills and onscreen presence, she was probably hired for her ability to speak Japanese. Or recite Japanese, since she hadn't studied Japanese before.
This isn't unheard of for Hollywood actors, though some do better than others. Marlon Brando speaks pretty good Japanese in Teahouse of the August Moon. Richard Chamberlain tries hard in Shogun (but not hard enough). Tom Cruise does surprisingly well in The Last Samurai.
But Fox is tackling a huge amount of material: six 15-minute episodes a week for half a year. When all is said and done, she will have memorized—spoken or reacted to—about 40 solid hours of Japanese dialogue, most of it fairly practical, everyday material.
Boy, is there a dissertation in this. Her pronunciation already qualifies as above average, thanks in large part to her tutor, who preps her scripts using heavily modified romaji. It'd be fascinating to regularly test her language abilities along the way.
She has a fine singing voice and probably a good ear for accents. Though the one thing she readily admits she can't do is speak Japanese with a Scottish accent (her Scottish English accent sounds okay to me).
In any case, considering the challenges of performing in a just-learned language, Fox is doing quite well. She has nice chemistry with Tetsuji Tamayama. Together they reveal Massan to really be a modern family sit-com with a historical setting.
As Peter Payne likes to point out, Japanese women often voice the same complaint as Emma Watson (and idealize American men no less):
In that light, by using Fox's Ellie as the extroverted "interloper" in a traditional Japanese family and business, Massan becomes a clever way to talk about marital relationships, and analogize that to Japan's relationships with the outside world.
Newcomer Charlotte Kate Fox (Northern Illinois University, MFA Acting) plays Scotswoman Ellie Kameyama, wife of Masaharu Kameyama (Tetsuji Tamayama), the scion of a sake-brewing family who brought whiskey to Japan.
Like Hanako and Anne, this is a fictionalized account of real people: Jessie "Rita" Cowan (1896-1961) and Masataka Taketsuru (1894-1979), the "father" of Japan's distilled spirits industry. "Massan" was Cowen's nickname for her husband.
They met in Scotland while Masataka was researching whiskey making. His research paid off well: this year, "Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013" was named the world's finest. Masataka Taketsuru was one of the founders of the Yamazaki distillery.
Yamazaki was subsequently acquired by Suntory. Masataka and Rita moved to Hokkaido to establish Nikka (now owned by brewing giant Asahi).
Fox isn't Scottish and doesn't have to be: 95 percent of her dialogue is in Japanese. Besides her acting skills and onscreen presence, she was probably hired for her ability to speak Japanese. Or recite Japanese, since she hadn't studied Japanese before.
This isn't unheard of for Hollywood actors, though some do better than others. Marlon Brando speaks pretty good Japanese in Teahouse of the August Moon. Richard Chamberlain tries hard in Shogun (but not hard enough). Tom Cruise does surprisingly well in The Last Samurai.
But Fox is tackling a huge amount of material: six 15-minute episodes a week for half a year. When all is said and done, she will have memorized—spoken or reacted to—about 40 solid hours of Japanese dialogue, most of it fairly practical, everyday material.
Boy, is there a dissertation in this. Her pronunciation already qualifies as above average, thanks in large part to her tutor, who preps her scripts using heavily modified romaji. It'd be fascinating to regularly test her language abilities along the way.
She has a fine singing voice and probably a good ear for accents. Though the one thing she readily admits she can't do is speak Japanese with a Scottish accent (her Scottish English accent sounds okay to me).
In any case, considering the challenges of performing in a just-learned language, Fox is doing quite well. She has nice chemistry with Tetsuji Tamayama. Together they reveal Massan to really be a modern family sit-com with a historical setting.
As Peter Payne likes to point out, Japanese women often voice the same complaint as Emma Watson (and idealize American men no less):
The Harry Potter star said that even though men from the UK dress well and have good manners they take two months just to ask her out. Instead an American will come up to her straight away and suggest a date, a boldness she finds attractive.
In that light, by using Fox's Ellie as the extroverted "interloper" in a traditional Japanese family and business, Massan becomes a clever way to talk about marital relationships, and analogize that to Japan's relationships with the outside world.
Labels: asadora, history, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, nhk, shogun, showa period
November 13, 2014
Hero
Hero (2014 season) is a (mostly lighthearted) police procedural about an oddball bunch of Tokyo public prosecutors. The most eccentric of which is Kohei Kuryu (Takuya Kimura), the Dr. House of prosecutors. He never wears a suit and is addicted to American infomercials.
In the 2014 series, he's paired up with the extremely cute Keiko Kitagawa and hangs out at a bar whose remarkably resourceful bartender can produce practically any obscure item on a moment's notice.
What makes it a police procedural rather than a legal drama is that Kuryu insists on re-investigating the cases he's given. Given the propensity of the police to extract convenient confessions, this would greatly improve the Japanese justice system if actually done.
Especially considering that defendants are regularly grilled by prosecutors without a defense attorney in sight. In fact, the appearance of a defense attorney pre-trial is cause for curious looks and raised eyebrows, not an expected part of "due process."
Guaranteed access to a lawyer is there in the law, but surprisingly few defendants (in real life too) take advantage.
Unlike Law & Order, only the final episode ends up in court. Most cases are plea-bargained in the U.S. as well. However, based on television ratios, Law & Order is no less accurate, as only a teeny-tiny percentage of criminal cases ever go to trial in Japan.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is the only series in the franchise that I watch, perhaps because it is the least realistic and most "Holmesian." In the real world, half of the cases they "solve" would get thrown out of court. In Japan, they'd all be slam dunks.
Essentially—and this is stated rather plainly in the show—prosecutors don't bother prosecuting unless you're already guilty.
If you are indicted in Japan, you have about a 0.1 percent chance of being acquitted. So Japanese courtroom dramas are about as realistic as Japanese murder mysteries. Or, for that matter, British murder mysteries (especially the ones that take place in Oxford).
But this does mean that the public prosecutor's office in Japan is where a defendant's fate is truly decided, so Hero is pretty accurate in that regard.
In the 2014 series, he's paired up with the extremely cute Keiko Kitagawa and hangs out at a bar whose remarkably resourceful bartender can produce practically any obscure item on a moment's notice.
What makes it a police procedural rather than a legal drama is that Kuryu insists on re-investigating the cases he's given. Given the propensity of the police to extract convenient confessions, this would greatly improve the Japanese justice system if actually done.
Especially considering that defendants are regularly grilled by prosecutors without a defense attorney in sight. In fact, the appearance of a defense attorney pre-trial is cause for curious looks and raised eyebrows, not an expected part of "due process."
Guaranteed access to a lawyer is there in the law, but surprisingly few defendants (in real life too) take advantage.
Unlike Law & Order, only the final episode ends up in court. Most cases are plea-bargained in the U.S. as well. However, based on television ratios, Law & Order is no less accurate, as only a teeny-tiny percentage of criminal cases ever go to trial in Japan.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is the only series in the franchise that I watch, perhaps because it is the least realistic and most "Holmesian." In the real world, half of the cases they "solve" would get thrown out of court. In Japan, they'd all be slam dunks.
Essentially—and this is stated rather plainly in the show—prosecutors don't bother prosecuting unless you're already guilty.
If you are indicted in Japan, you have about a 0.1 percent chance of being acquitted. So Japanese courtroom dramas are about as realistic as Japanese murder mysteries. Or, for that matter, British murder mysteries (especially the ones that take place in Oxford).
But this does mean that the public prosecutor's office in Japan is where a defendant's fate is truly decided, so Hero is pretty accurate in that regard.
Related posts
Lawyering Up
Justice for all (Japanese)
Less Crime and Less Punishment
Labels: japan, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, law, personal favs, politics
September 22, 2014
"Galileo" (streaming)
Galileo is now streaming on dLibrary Japan. It's a police procedural similar to Numbers or Bones, with a physicist (Masaharu Fukuyama) in the Sherlock Holmes role. I also greatly appreciate that it's an episodic series, with one complete mystery per show.
In the second season, Yuriko Yoshitaka (seated above) replaced Kou Shibasaki as the stymied cop who seeks out the professor's advice.
In the second season, Yuriko Yoshitaka (seated above) replaced Kou Shibasaki as the stymied cop who seeks out the professor's advice.
More videos
No Dropping Out
I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper
Labels: crunchyroll, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, streaming, television
June 16, 2014
Japanese TV updates
Two live-action Japanese television series I previously discussed (here and here) are now streaming on Crunchyroll.
In No Dropping Out, the fabulous Ryoko Yonekura is a screwed-up overaged high school student attending a screwed-up high school. And in I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper, the creepy Nanako Matsushima takes over a screwed-up middle-class family.
Despite the dark mood starting out, both are essentially ripped-from-the-headlines, problem-of-the-week series with over-the-top plotting that come to (overly) sentimental happy endings.
But they give you a fun, hugely melodramatic ride getting there. Though the sentimentality in No Dropping Out does end up inadvertently turning it instead into a parable about the difficulty of changing hidebound social institutions.
Because no matter how bad the status quo sucks, we're suckers for the devil we know. Like the extremely competent but sociopathic housekeeper you just can bear to let go.
In No Dropping Out, the fabulous Ryoko Yonekura is a screwed-up overaged high school student attending a screwed-up high school. And in I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper, the creepy Nanako Matsushima takes over a screwed-up middle-class family.
Despite the dark mood starting out, both are essentially ripped-from-the-headlines, problem-of-the-week series with over-the-top plotting that come to (overly) sentimental happy endings.
But they give you a fun, hugely melodramatic ride getting there. Though the sentimentality in No Dropping Out does end up inadvertently turning it instead into a parable about the difficulty of changing hidebound social institutions.
Because no matter how bad the status quo sucks, we're suckers for the devil we know. Like the extremely competent but sociopathic housekeeper you just can bear to let go.
Related posts
The Housekeeper
Ryoko Yonekura
Labels: crunchyroll, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, streaming
October 28, 2013
Planetes
Gravity is garnering a lot of kudos as the most realistic space movie made to date, though the script still has our heroic pair violating several fundamental laws of physics to make the plot work. As real astronaut Garrett Reisman graciously concedes,
The same can be said about Planetes (2003), one of best ever "near-future" hard-SF anime series. It also involves space debris, in this case a crew of astronaut janitors responsible for cleaning up the dangerous junk zipping around in low Earth orbit.
The first half of the series follows rookie Ai Tanabe as she joins Debris Section, under the tutelage of the young and brash "Hachi" Hoshino. These procedural episodes are some of the best, made all the better by interesting characters and attention to accuracy.
In a way, Planetes, is scientifically honest enough to argue against the idealism of its own premise: showing a child raised in a low-gravity environment to frail to ever return to Earth, and the debilitating effects of long-term exposure to radiation.
The series then gets taken over by Hachi's efforts to qualify for a 2001-style exploratory mission to Jupiter, and a bunch of economic terrorists determined to sabotage the project.
The latter of these two storylines is the weakest. The litanies of zero-sum, socialist complaints about poverty quickly become tiresome, though in the same way that activists of this sort always wear out their rhetorical welcome. So maybe it's on purpose.
In the end, the political arm of the movement sells out the militant arm in exchange for a legislative pat on the head. I did find that totally believable.
The former storyline, about Hachi joining the crew of the Von Braun, is also punishing, except here the writers are taking seriously Kurt Vonnegut's advice for creating compelling dramatic fiction:
In the process, Hachi becomes a monomaniacal astronaut jerk, and inevitably ends up in a life-or-death struggle with a monomaniacal terrorist jerk. That these are realistic depictions of human nature doesn't make them any more pleasant to watch.
But stick with it. In the final episodes, Hachi's and Ai's character arcs fully develop, intersect, and pay off big time, giving Planetes one of the most rewarding endings--while not losing anything in terms of authenticity--of any anime series.
Hachi's eventual change of heart and reformed outlook on life is real and earned.
In purely scientific terms, Planetes suffers from some of the same technical quibbles as Gravity: the orbital changes required to complete their missions would be impossible with the technology on hand. Orbiting a planet is not like flying a plane.
The more glaring anachronisms include the chain-smoking Fee Carmichael (her nicotine addiction does make for funny comic relief). And a large lunar base would be completely buried to shield it against cosmic rays, solar flares, and micrometeoroids.
But when it comes to science fiction on the big screen and small, making a good-faith effort to get things right counts for a lot. The producers of Planetes paid attention to their JAXA advisors. In that light, the science in this science fiction gets an "A" for effort.
The inaccuracies were done to help advance the plot or to add drama to the film which is exactly the artistic license we should be willing to grant the filmmakers. This is entertainment, not a documentary.
The same can be said about Planetes (2003), one of best ever "near-future" hard-SF anime series. It also involves space debris, in this case a crew of astronaut janitors responsible for cleaning up the dangerous junk zipping around in low Earth orbit.
The first half of the series follows rookie Ai Tanabe as she joins Debris Section, under the tutelage of the young and brash "Hachi" Hoshino. These procedural episodes are some of the best, made all the better by interesting characters and attention to accuracy.
In a way, Planetes, is scientifically honest enough to argue against the idealism of its own premise: showing a child raised in a low-gravity environment to frail to ever return to Earth, and the debilitating effects of long-term exposure to radiation.
The series then gets taken over by Hachi's efforts to qualify for a 2001-style exploratory mission to Jupiter, and a bunch of economic terrorists determined to sabotage the project.
The latter of these two storylines is the weakest. The litanies of zero-sum, socialist complaints about poverty quickly become tiresome, though in the same way that activists of this sort always wear out their rhetorical welcome. So maybe it's on purpose.
In the end, the political arm of the movement sells out the militant arm in exchange for a legislative pat on the head. I did find that totally believable.
The former storyline, about Hachi joining the crew of the Von Braun, is also punishing, except here the writers are taking seriously Kurt Vonnegut's advice for creating compelling dramatic fiction:
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them, in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
In the process, Hachi becomes a monomaniacal astronaut jerk, and inevitably ends up in a life-or-death struggle with a monomaniacal terrorist jerk. That these are realistic depictions of human nature doesn't make them any more pleasant to watch.
But stick with it. In the final episodes, Hachi's and Ai's character arcs fully develop, intersect, and pay off big time, giving Planetes one of the most rewarding endings--while not losing anything in terms of authenticity--of any anime series.
Hachi's eventual change of heart and reformed outlook on life is real and earned.
In purely scientific terms, Planetes suffers from some of the same technical quibbles as Gravity: the orbital changes required to complete their missions would be impossible with the technology on hand. Orbiting a planet is not like flying a plane.
The more glaring anachronisms include the chain-smoking Fee Carmichael (her nicotine addiction does make for funny comic relief). And a large lunar base would be completely buried to shield it against cosmic rays, solar flares, and micrometeoroids.
But when it comes to science fiction on the big screen and small, making a good-faith effort to get things right counts for a lot. The producers of Planetes paid attention to their JAXA advisors. In that light, the science in this science fiction gets an "A" for effort.
Labels: japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, personal favs, science, science fiction, space, technology
October 14, 2013
Ryoko Yonekura
To paraphrase Dirty Harry in Magnum Force: "An actor's got to know her limitations."
Ryoko Yonekura has carved out a niche playing tsundere characters: intelligent, competent, and indifferent to her own looks, presenting a brusque exterior to the world. Think Thirteen mindmelded with House.
Recent roles include a tax inspector, a SWAT negotiator, and a surgeon (currently scheduled for a second season), pretty much the same only different.
Though in 2012, she appeared in the Broadway production of Chicago. She's not just a pretty face, but she is picky about her medium of choice. She does a lot of television, some theater, but few feature films.
Actually, this is something I applaud. Actors who fit a particular character type and are comfortable playing it do much better in their roles than those who feel the incessant need to "act."
There are accomplished actors like Hugh Laurie who can so completely become a character that the brain struggles to connect them to previous roles (Bertie Wooster), and even to the real actor himself.
Ever since House, my initial reaction to seeing the Hugh Laurie on a talk show is: What's he speaking in a British accent for?
David Boreanaz isn't a "great actor," but he's more convincing being the latest version of a David Boreanaz character than, say, Meryl Streep, who's never anything but Meryl Streep pretending.
Kate points to Cary Grant as "the only actor I can think of, off the top of my head, who both utterly vanishes into his roles and who one never, ever ever ever ever forgets is Cary Grant."
I'm not a big Brad Pitt fan, but I believe he accomplishes this in Moneyball. Every now and then it occurred to me: Oh, yeah, that's Brad Pitt. And then I completely forgot who he was again.
Anyway, this year, Ryoko Yonekura goes back to high school in a series appropriately titled: The 35-Year-Old High School Student (Nippon Television).
This isn't Never Been Kissed. She's exactly what the title says. Except that, as with the House-like surgeon she plays in Doctor X, nobody knows who she is or what she's doing there.
It's a setup for an "issue" series: every episode deals with a "ripped from the headlines" issue about public education. From the flashbacks, Yonekura's character has (or had) every single one of those "issues" too.
This lends every episode a repetitive, "After School Special" vibe. And, frankly, if the only way you can deal with your mid-life crisis is by going back to high school, boy, are you ever screwed up.
The simmering pot of melodrama boils over in the two-part finale. A borderline sociopathic kid freaks out, the class bully gets his commupance (and repents), and everybody's issue gets resolved big time.
Think of all the angst and moralizing from all four seasons (so far) of Glee (minus the music and the comic relief) compressed into eleven episodes. That kind of thing.
But the writers can get away with it because, you know, it's Ryoko Yonekura. Honestly, I was impressed by how well she pulled it off. It takes real talent to sell such a preposterous premise.
Ryoko Yonekura has carved out a niche playing tsundere characters: intelligent, competent, and indifferent to her own looks, presenting a brusque exterior to the world. Think Thirteen mindmelded with House.
Recent roles include a tax inspector, a SWAT negotiator, and a surgeon (currently scheduled for a second season), pretty much the same only different.
Though in 2012, she appeared in the Broadway production of Chicago. She's not just a pretty face, but she is picky about her medium of choice. She does a lot of television, some theater, but few feature films.
Actually, this is something I applaud. Actors who fit a particular character type and are comfortable playing it do much better in their roles than those who feel the incessant need to "act."
There are accomplished actors like Hugh Laurie who can so completely become a character that the brain struggles to connect them to previous roles (Bertie Wooster), and even to the real actor himself.
Ever since House, my initial reaction to seeing the Hugh Laurie on a talk show is: What's he speaking in a British accent for?
David Boreanaz isn't a "great actor," but he's more convincing being the latest version of a David Boreanaz character than, say, Meryl Streep, who's never anything but Meryl Streep pretending.
Kate points to Cary Grant as "the only actor I can think of, off the top of my head, who both utterly vanishes into his roles and who one never, ever ever ever ever forgets is Cary Grant."
I'm not a big Brad Pitt fan, but I believe he accomplishes this in Moneyball. Every now and then it occurred to me: Oh, yeah, that's Brad Pitt. And then I completely forgot who he was again.
Anyway, this year, Ryoko Yonekura goes back to high school in a series appropriately titled: The 35-Year-Old High School Student (Nippon Television).
 |
| "You gotta problem with that?" |
This isn't Never Been Kissed. She's exactly what the title says. Except that, as with the House-like surgeon she plays in Doctor X, nobody knows who she is or what she's doing there.
It's a setup for an "issue" series: every episode deals with a "ripped from the headlines" issue about public education. From the flashbacks, Yonekura's character has (or had) every single one of those "issues" too.
This lends every episode a repetitive, "After School Special" vibe. And, frankly, if the only way you can deal with your mid-life crisis is by going back to high school, boy, are you ever screwed up.
The simmering pot of melodrama boils over in the two-part finale. A borderline sociopathic kid freaks out, the class bully gets his commupance (and repents), and everybody's issue gets resolved big time.
Think of all the angst and moralizing from all four seasons (so far) of Glee (minus the music and the comic relief) compressed into eleven episodes. That kind of thing.
But the writers can get away with it because, you know, it's Ryoko Yonekura. Honestly, I was impressed by how well she pulled it off. It takes real talent to sell such a preposterous premise.
Labels: crunchyroll, japanese tv reviews, television reviews
February 18, 2013
Yaeko Yamamoto
NHK's 2013 year-long historical (Taiga) drama features another one of those amazing Meiji period women, Yaeko Yamamoto. To quote from Wikipedia:
Yaeko later served as a nurse during the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese wars.
She and her husband were a remarkably modern couple, causing a minor scandal in stuffy Kyoto by addressing each other as equals (not using honorifics) in public. Their house was equipped with central heating and had one of the first western-style, indoor toilets in Japan.
The television series begins with an equally fascinating juxtaposition. The very first scene is, in fact, a vivid depiction of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg (1863). It then seamlessly transitions to the seige of Aizu Castle during the height of the Boshin Civil War (1868-69).
And then back to the Gettysburg Address.
Like the U.S., Japan was going through a revolutionary change, attempting to transition from a thousand years of feudalism to a "government of the people, by the people, for the people." And it'd be doing it practically overnight.
The next scene is that of a Japanese man walking down a Boston street in 1865.
He's Yaeko's future husband, Joseph Hardy Neesima (his Americanized name), who attended Phillips Academy and Amherst College from 1865 to 1870. Like Yaeko's Spencer repeating rifle, the Meiji reformers were in no way hamstrung by a "not invented here" mindset.
The producers at NHK pointedly intended these twins themes of a woman and a country liberating itself from the past to resonate with contemporary Fukushima, where Aizu-Wakamatsu is located. Fukushima took the brunt of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear melt-down.
One of Japan's biggest stars, Haruka Ayase, was cast in the lead role (you can watch her playing well against type as a blind swordsman in Ichi, a Zatoichi spinoff).
Back in the real world, describing his wife to a friend in the U.S., her husband wrote, "She is not a handsome woman, but she does handsome." Hey, there's no need to pretend that a big draw of NHK's historical dramas isn't the very attractive women they cast in the lead roles.
Yaeko was the daughter of Yamamoto Gonpachi, one of the Aizu domain's official gunnery instructors. She herself was skilled in gunnery, and took part in the defense of Aizu during the Boshin War. After the war, Yaeko went to Kyoto to care for her brother Yamamoto Kakuma, who had been a prisoner of war in Satsuma custody. She remained in Kyoto, and became a Christian in the 1870s. Soon after, she married Rev. Joseph Hardy Neesima [Jo Niijima] and, together with Neesima and Kakuma, played an integral role in the founding of Doshisha University.
Yaeko later served as a nurse during the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese wars.
She and her husband were a remarkably modern couple, causing a minor scandal in stuffy Kyoto by addressing each other as equals (not using honorifics) in public. Their house was equipped with central heating and had one of the first western-style, indoor toilets in Japan.
The television series begins with an equally fascinating juxtaposition. The very first scene is, in fact, a vivid depiction of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg (1863). It then seamlessly transitions to the seige of Aizu Castle during the height of the Boshin Civil War (1868-69).
And then back to the Gettysburg Address.
Like the U.S., Japan was going through a revolutionary change, attempting to transition from a thousand years of feudalism to a "government of the people, by the people, for the people." And it'd be doing it practically overnight.
The next scene is that of a Japanese man walking down a Boston street in 1865.
He's Yaeko's future husband, Joseph Hardy Neesima (his Americanized name), who attended Phillips Academy and Amherst College from 1865 to 1870. Like Yaeko's Spencer repeating rifle, the Meiji reformers were in no way hamstrung by a "not invented here" mindset.
The producers at NHK pointedly intended these twins themes of a woman and a country liberating itself from the past to resonate with contemporary Fukushima, where Aizu-Wakamatsu is located. Fukushima took the brunt of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear melt-down.
One of Japan's biggest stars, Haruka Ayase, was cast in the lead role (you can watch her playing well against type as a blind swordsman in Ichi, a Zatoichi spinoff).
Back in the real world, describing his wife to a friend in the U.S., her husband wrote, "She is not a handsome woman, but she does handsome." Hey, there's no need to pretend that a big draw of NHK's historical dramas isn't the very attractive women they cast in the lead roles.
Labels: history, japan, japanese culture, japanese tv reviews, taiga drama
August 06, 2012
Kitchen Car
Each week, the host (Taiyo Sugiura) teams up with a guest chef and they trundle off to some quaint part of Japan in a kitchen-on-wheels. There they visit the local farms and fisheries, sample the flora and fauna, and collect the ingredient to cook up a banquet for the townspeople.
It's a cute and creative show, though one that inadvertently shines a light on a far darker reality.
You can't help but be struck by how awfully convenient it is to have so many tiny truck farms scattered across the countryside. I'm sure that's in large part due to work of the advance team. But what you see on screen isn't too far from the reality.
Unfortunately, all this "localvore" goodness is killing Japan's economy.
The revolutionary land reform measures enacted in 1947 during the American Occupation successfully turned hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers into land owners and small businessmen (and anti-communist conservatives).
Half a century later, the political power bought with decades of increasingly generous government subsidies (far exceeding those in the U.S.) have kept politicians of all stripes from touching that third rail and changing laws that encourage monstrous inefficiencies across the board.
Aurelia George Mulgan (professor of politics at the University of New South Wales) sums up the downward spiral that has resulted.
Keeping small-scale farms in production blocks the scale expansion of farming by discouraging the transfer of agricultural land to full-time professional farmers. It thus traps the sector in a cycle of low productivity, low profitability, and subsidy dependence.
The Japanese consumer not only pays the taxes that go to these absurdly rich subsidies, but also forks out more than twice the world market prices for staples such as rice. All to support many "farmers" who would barely qualify as backyard gardeners in the U.S.
Mulgan concludes, "The direst prediction is that if the current situation continues, there will probably be no farmers left in Japan after ten years and [home-grown] food production will stop."
This pretty much sums up my bad news/good news view on the world economic meltdown. The same way municipalities in California can't adopt reasonable budgets until they plumb run out of money, Japan won't adopt reasonable farming policies until it plumb runs out of farmers.
The good news is that the way things are going, it's going to happen sooner than later. They won't have to wait long.
Labels: cooking shows, food, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, politics, taxes, television reviews
July 23, 2012
Tsurube's Salute to Families
NHK's Somewhere Street is a travel show that doesn't have a host and never breaks the fourth wall. All you see is what the camera sees. It's the "first-person shooter" of travel shows.
Tsurube's Salute to Families is the exact opposite. Shofukutei Tsurube doesn't break the fourth wall, he stomps through it. The camera crew hustles to keep up, not stopping filming while changing the filters or bothering to do retakes when the boom mike dips into the frame.
(Though not Steadicam cameras, they do a good job avoiding the annoying "shaky-cam" effect.)
Tsurube shoots each episode with a celebrity co-host, who picks some small corner of Japan to visit. They wander around the place, taking in the local attractions, sampling the local dishes, and visiting the town's school. The end result is two forty-five minute episodes.
Tsurube and his co-host do the first episode together, then split up for the second. I suspect a production crew picks out the most promising locations, though Tsurube makes it look completely spontaneous. There is a good deal of editing for time, which consists of simple jump cuts.
As the name of the show implies, Tsurube makes a point of looking for people who have been living in the area for ages, and then meeting as many of their extended family as possible. He's been doing the show for fifteen years so people can trust him not to make them look bad.
He's a frumpy, affable, garrulous man, who's typical outfit is a T-shirt and jeans. If you're old enough to remember, he has the homespun presence of Charles Kuralt in his "On the Road" segments.
Tsurube has a long acting career in movies and television. He is by training a rakugo artist, a monologist that specializes in traditional Japanese storytelling. Rakugo artists are popular choices for television shows that depend on improvisational patter to keep the pace going.
In particular, Tsurube posses that extraordinary talent to become anybody's best friend about five minutes after meeting them. He brings to mind John Althouse Cohen's observation that
In a country of 128 million introverts, Tsurube is the extrovert everybody imagines they would like to be or be with. He's your favorite, slightly eccentric uncle, that you love having around, though for no more than forty-five minute a week.
Tsurube's Salute to Families is the exact opposite. Shofukutei Tsurube doesn't break the fourth wall, he stomps through it. The camera crew hustles to keep up, not stopping filming while changing the filters or bothering to do retakes when the boom mike dips into the frame.
(Though not Steadicam cameras, they do a good job avoiding the annoying "shaky-cam" effect.)
Tsurube shoots each episode with a celebrity co-host, who picks some small corner of Japan to visit. They wander around the place, taking in the local attractions, sampling the local dishes, and visiting the town's school. The end result is two forty-five minute episodes.
Tsurube and his co-host do the first episode together, then split up for the second. I suspect a production crew picks out the most promising locations, though Tsurube makes it look completely spontaneous. There is a good deal of editing for time, which consists of simple jump cuts.
As the name of the show implies, Tsurube makes a point of looking for people who have been living in the area for ages, and then meeting as many of their extended family as possible. He's been doing the show for fifteen years so people can trust him not to make them look bad.
He's a frumpy, affable, garrulous man, who's typical outfit is a T-shirt and jeans. If you're old enough to remember, he has the homespun presence of Charles Kuralt in his "On the Road" segments.
Tsurube has a long acting career in movies and television. He is by training a rakugo artist, a monologist that specializes in traditional Japanese storytelling. Rakugo artists are popular choices for television shows that depend on improvisational patter to keep the pace going.
In particular, Tsurube posses that extraordinary talent to become anybody's best friend about five minutes after meeting them. He brings to mind John Althouse Cohen's observation that
Most ordinary citizens who tried to run for president would probably come off as wooden and unhip. The candidate who can "connect" with most people is actually unlike most people.
In a country of 128 million introverts, Tsurube is the extrovert everybody imagines they would like to be or be with. He's your favorite, slightly eccentric uncle, that you love having around, though for no more than forty-five minute a week.
Labels: introversion, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, television reviews
June 18, 2012
Somewhere Street
I can't think of another travel program as simple and serenely compelling as Somewhere Street (NHK) (NHK World).The basic crew (I'm sure there are more) is a Steadicam operator, a producer, and a sound man. The producer and the mikes are kept off screen. You experience only what the Steadicam operator sees and hears.
A "host" never appears on camera.
They avoid the tourist traps, gliding instead into little shops, peeking around open doors, encountering slices of life here and there, stopping people to ask what is going on and where.
The narration has the air of a curious tourist thinking out loud as he strolls along. And happens to be perfectly fluent in the language.
Here's where mike placement come into play. The conversations are engaged in the local language. The interviewee is subtitled. The interviewer (off camera) is looped in Japanese (English for NHK World), while preserving the ambient sound.
The Steadicam is the key to the whole thing. Nothing about the cinematography breaks the fourth wall and reminds the viewer, "Hey, I've got a camera! Hey, look at me and the camera!" The "frame" completely disappears.
You really are there. The effect is as if you had your own Babel Fish. They understand everything you say, and you understand everything they say.
Somewhere Street could be easily localized--just loop in English narration and change the subtitles--or shamelessly copied. Somebody at PBS really ought to.
Shusei Murai (村井秀清) composed the music. Starting with the theme song, the first 15 tracks of Merged Images III are from the show. The CD is available at Amazon-JP and CD Japan (English site). The WMP versions are here.
Labels: japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, nhk world, television reviews
April 23, 2012
Ume-chan Sensei
NHK's Asadora or "morning (asa) drama (dorama)" is a fifteen-minute family melodrama that runs six days a week. The latest series is a "Showa drama," meaning it takes place in the middle part of the 20th century.
Showa dramas typically depict Japan (symbolized by the spunky female protagonist) struggling through the ashes of WWII to make a place for herself in the world. In this case, scaling the very high hurdle of becoming a medical doctor.
The television season in Japan officially begins in April, and Ume-chan Sensei is now the third Showa drama in a row since the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, and the fourth of the last five (only two of the nine before that were Showa dramas).
Unlike the previous four, where the end of the war came at the climax of the first or second act, the very first episode of Ume-chan Sensei takes place on August 15, with the Emperor's radio speech announcing the surrender.
One thing this and previous Asadora have pointed out is that the Emperor had never made a radio address before, used stilted and dated language, and nobody under the age of forty could understand a thing he said. No King's Speech here.
The previous Showa dramas I've seen took place far from Tokyo, where the only damage came from an off-course B-29. Ume-chan Sensei begins in Kamata. I've been there. It's right between Tokyo and the industrial port city of Kawasaki.
Pretty much ground zero. The first scene starts with the family eating breakfast. Then Umeko runs outside—into an utterly wrecked and charred landscape. It was hard not to think of post-tsunami scenes from the Northern Japan.
I'm sure the director intended the connection to be drawn, and it makes for a fascinating and detailed look at post-war Japan I haven't seen before. Needless to say, the lead actress, Maki Horikita, makes it very much worth looking at too.
Showa dramas typically depict Japan (symbolized by the spunky female protagonist) struggling through the ashes of WWII to make a place for herself in the world. In this case, scaling the very high hurdle of becoming a medical doctor.
The television season in Japan officially begins in April, and Ume-chan Sensei is now the third Showa drama in a row since the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, and the fourth of the last five (only two of the nine before that were Showa dramas).
Unlike the previous four, where the end of the war came at the climax of the first or second act, the very first episode of Ume-chan Sensei takes place on August 15, with the Emperor's radio speech announcing the surrender.
One thing this and previous Asadora have pointed out is that the Emperor had never made a radio address before, used stilted and dated language, and nobody under the age of forty could understand a thing he said. No King's Speech here.
The previous Showa dramas I've seen took place far from Tokyo, where the only damage came from an off-course B-29. Ume-chan Sensei begins in Kamata. I've been there. It's right between Tokyo and the industrial port city of Kawasaki.
Pretty much ground zero. The first scene starts with the family eating breakfast. Then Umeko runs outside—into an utterly wrecked and charred landscape. It was hard not to think of post-tsunami scenes from the Northern Japan.
I'm sure the director intended the connection to be drawn, and it makes for a fascinating and detailed look at post-war Japan I haven't seen before. Needless to say, the lead actress, Maki Horikita, makes it very much worth looking at too.
Related posts
Asadora
Ganbarou! Japan
Labels: asadora, history, japan, japanese tv reviews, radio, showa period, television, television reviews, ww2
October 06, 2011
Before and After
Before and After (not a translation) on ABC (Asahi Broadcasting) is like This Old House, except they do one house an episode. That means they race through the interesting stuff--the foundations and framing and plumbing--and spend more time on the boring stuff like interior decor.
Enough attention is paid to the nuts and bolts to make it clear that while ferroconcrete structures in Japan are the most solidly built in the world, and residential building codes have improved since the Great Hanshin earthquake, they still aren't as strict as building codes in the U.S.
One week on This Old House, while tearing down an old floor, Tom Silva pointed out all the once-standard construction methods that were no longer code. That same week on Before and After, there was an army of carpenters busily repeating pretty much every single one of them.
One of the big challenges on This Old House is retrofitting old structures for modern plumbing, heating and AC. The biggest plumbing challenge on Before and After is allowing the o-furo water heater to be turned on from inside the bathroom, instead of leaning out the window.
As I noted previously, south of Hokkaido, Japanese houses aren't likely to have central HVAC, high pressure hot water, or insulation. In my apartment in Port Town, the hot water in the bathroom and kitchen sinks ran off the heater attached to the o-furo, but only one faucet could be on at a time.
Another thing that becomes clear is that, as Alex Kerr laments, Japanese are pretty unsentimental about ordinary old stuff. The debut episode involved restoring a century old house. In the U.S., historical preservationists would have been crawling all over it. Break out the jackhammers!
To be sure, the idea of buying a house as an investment is a foreign one in Japan. The only worthwhile investment is in the property it sits on. You build a house in Japan knowing that the next earthquake may knock it down, and the next tsunami may wash it away. But there are exceptions.
The laundromat I used in Osaka was off a street crowded with old, two-story residences. Over the span of six months, I watched one get torn down to the ground--leaving a gap in the street like a missing tooth--and then rebuilt exactly the same, but using a frame of steel I-beams.
That's one house that isn't going anywhere, come hell or high water.
Enough attention is paid to the nuts and bolts to make it clear that while ferroconcrete structures in Japan are the most solidly built in the world, and residential building codes have improved since the Great Hanshin earthquake, they still aren't as strict as building codes in the U.S.
One week on This Old House, while tearing down an old floor, Tom Silva pointed out all the once-standard construction methods that were no longer code. That same week on Before and After, there was an army of carpenters busily repeating pretty much every single one of them.
One of the big challenges on This Old House is retrofitting old structures for modern plumbing, heating and AC. The biggest plumbing challenge on Before and After is allowing the o-furo water heater to be turned on from inside the bathroom, instead of leaning out the window.
As I noted previously, south of Hokkaido, Japanese houses aren't likely to have central HVAC, high pressure hot water, or insulation. In my apartment in Port Town, the hot water in the bathroom and kitchen sinks ran off the heater attached to the o-furo, but only one faucet could be on at a time.
Another thing that becomes clear is that, as Alex Kerr laments, Japanese are pretty unsentimental about ordinary old stuff. The debut episode involved restoring a century old house. In the U.S., historical preservationists would have been crawling all over it. Break out the jackhammers!
To be sure, the idea of buying a house as an investment is a foreign one in Japan. The only worthwhile investment is in the property it sits on. You build a house in Japan knowing that the next earthquake may knock it down, and the next tsunami may wash it away. But there are exceptions.
The laundromat I used in Osaka was off a street crowded with old, two-story residences. Over the span of six months, I watched one get torn down to the ground--leaving a gap in the street like a missing tooth--and then rebuilt exactly the same, but using a frame of steel I-beams.
That's one house that isn't going anywhere, come hell or high water.
Related posts
Unfurnished
Dogs, demons, and construction companies
Labels: culture, geology, japan, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, technology, television reviews
August 08, 2011
The Bow-wow Detective
The prize for the police procedural with the goofiest premise goes to Deka Wanko ("Bow-wow Detective"). Based on a manga by Gokusen creator Kozueko Morimoto, it's about Ichiko Hanamori, a rookie cop who possesses a dog's olfactory powers.
For unknown reasons, Ichiko runs around in impractically poofy outfits and manages several costume changes an episode. Well the reason is that Mikako Tabe looks really cute in them. She's the moe version of Abby Sciuto (NCIS).
Tabe makes the whole thing work because she's an excellent comic actress and plays the whole thing with a straight face.
The show is flagged as a goof from the start. The give-away is that Ichiko carries a gun. Cops rarely carry guns in Japan. The entire country can go years without a single police shooting (Utah is lucky to go a month without a police shooting).
A nice touch is that Ichiko can figure out things with her nose that would never stand up on court. So she has to work with her "ordinary" detective partners (who don't necessary believe in her superpowers) to provide the proof that will convict the bad guys.
Hollywood could make a go of the concept, albeit toned way down, something like Lie to Me, which I consider more a superhero show (and perhaps is even better when considered in that context).
Most manga premises of this sort tend to turn the volume up to eleven, which might work when you're maybe doing a dozen shows, max. But in a continuing series, they end up burning out the actors and quickly burning through all the plausible plots.
Here are three more quasi-superhero shows based on manga that would make good Hollywood properties (again, toned way down and paced for longevity):
My version of Hellsing would be Angel, except with an only grudgingly good Spike in the lead (and who might actually be the devil himself, but got bored with modern evil). And I'd lose the whole X-File-ish backstory.
The last one is basically Ghost Whisperer, except the heroine works in an S&M club (because ghosts don't hang out in S&M clubs) and she hates dead people. She also has a head of hair that strangles people who piss her off.
She gets talked into working for the local exorcism agency that cleans up crime scenes after the cops are done (and ends up playing detective). Like Someday's Dreamers it posits the existence of the supernatural in a very workaday fashion.
The manga can be quite good (I haven't read the English translation). A hacked-together anime version is quite awful. Incidentally, the anime version of Gokusen is quite good. A live action television series was hugely popular and I loathed it utterly.
 |
| "Something about this case stinks!" |
For unknown reasons, Ichiko runs around in impractically poofy outfits and manages several costume changes an episode. Well the reason is that Mikako Tabe looks really cute in them. She's the moe version of Abby Sciuto (NCIS).
Tabe makes the whole thing work because she's an excellent comic actress and plays the whole thing with a straight face.
The show is flagged as a goof from the start. The give-away is that Ichiko carries a gun. Cops rarely carry guns in Japan. The entire country can go years without a single police shooting (Utah is lucky to go a month without a police shooting).
A nice touch is that Ichiko can figure out things with her nose that would never stand up on court. So she has to work with her "ordinary" detective partners (who don't necessary believe in her superpowers) to provide the proof that will convict the bad guys.
Hollywood could make a go of the concept, albeit toned way down, something like Lie to Me, which I consider more a superhero show (and perhaps is even better when considered in that context).
Most manga premises of this sort tend to turn the volume up to eleven, which might work when you're maybe doing a dozen shows, max. But in a continuing series, they end up burning out the actors and quickly burning through all the plausible plots.
Here are three more quasi-superhero shows based on manga that would make good Hollywood properties (again, toned way down and paced for longevity):
• Hellsing
• Someday's Dreamers
• Ghost Talker's Daydream
My version of Hellsing would be Angel, except with an only grudgingly good Spike in the lead (and who might actually be the devil himself, but got bored with modern evil). And I'd lose the whole X-File-ish backstory.
The last one is basically Ghost Whisperer, except the heroine works in an S&M club (because ghosts don't hang out in S&M clubs) and she hates dead people. She also has a head of hair that strangles people who piss her off.
She gets talked into working for the local exorcism agency that cleans up crime scenes after the cops are done (and ends up playing detective). Like Someday's Dreamers it posits the existence of the supernatural in a very workaday fashion.
The manga can be quite good (I haven't read the English translation). A hacked-together anime version is quite awful. Incidentally, the anime version of Gokusen is quite good. A live action television series was hugely popular and I loathed it utterly.
Labels: anime, hellsing, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, manga, mikako tabe, pop culture, television reviews
December 06, 2010
The magic door
I previously mentioned the delightful romantic dramedy I'll Still Love You in Ten Years.
To summarize: imagine that Leonard Hofstadter and Penny (but make her a young editorial assistant) from Big Bang Theory get married. She de-geekifies him, he becomes rich and famous, they end up loathing each other. So he borrows his old professor's time machine and goes back to when they first met in order to break up the relationship.
(Incidentally, I identify completely. This is exactly how geeky introverts think.)
The restrained NHK style gets it exactly right, pushing the physical relationship off to the side and focusing on what makes people fall in love despite themselves, without getting too full of its philosophical self. Ten years ago, it would have made a great Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan vehicle. As a stage play, it'd be a nice answer to Saturday's Warrior.
There's only one small special effect in the whole series--a 1000 yen coin from 2020 disappears when the disrupted timeline is restored. We never see the actual time machine. We're only shown a small theoretical prototype in the professor's lab. It's simply stipulated that the time machine exists.
In other words, it's a magic door. That's all we need.
The "magic door" approach comes from an episode on Red Dwarf where the crew discovers a "space-time portal" that will permit them to travel back in time in order to warn themselves of the disaster that will befall them a few weeks hence.
Call it the Goldilocks problem in science fiction and fantasy: explaining too much or explaining too little. Fantasy with pretensions to "hard SF" often succumbs to the former (Star Trek). A good example of the latter is Jin, an otherwise excellent time travel drama from Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Dr. Jin Minakata (Takao Osawa) is a 21st century surgeon who gets caught in a "time slip" (as it's called in Japanese) and saves the life of Saki's (Haruka Ayase, on the left) brother before fully realizing where he is, and before realizing that he has just done something thought utterly impossible back then.
(Incidentally, Osawa and Ayase also pair up in Ichi, a pretty good Zatoichi spin-off, with Ayase playing against type as the blind-but-lethal swordswoman.)
Following the iron-clad rule that time travelers must travel to interesting times and immediately meet interesting people, as soon as he figures out he's in 1860's Edo (Tokyo), he promptly runs into Sakamoto Ryoma (exuberantly played by Seiyou Uchino, Rika's time-traveling husband from I'll Still Love You in Ten Years).
The episodic conflicts involve Dr. Minakata figuring out how to use his skills with mid-19th century technology. Though Japan had yet to go through its industrial revolution, it still had some of the best specialty steel, silk and ceramics makers in the world. So Minakata could have many of his surgical instruments custom made.
He next sets out to invent penicillin. Granted, the most drastic improvements in health over the past two centuries came from public sanitation. But the Edo government was about to collapse, so a major public works project wasn't in the cards. It's a clever choice, as is having a soy sauce factory handle the mass production.
Although the plots have to be manhandled a bit to set up the medical case for each episode, they're well-researched (at least I found them convincing) and completely fascinating. It makes for a good basic course in pharmacology and emergency medicine. I'd like to see what Dr. House could do in a Civil War-era hospital with 21st century knowledge.
The series conflict involves Minakata's 21st century fiancee, who is in a coma after an operation he convinced her to undergo. He has a photograph of the two of them, taken at her bedside. As he begins to treat one particular patient (the geisha on the right, who's the splitting image of his fiance), the photograph begins to change.
In time, his fiance appears to return to health. And then starts to disappear. Minakata concludes that if he cures his patient, a series of cause and effect will cause her to vanish from history. Add to this his knowledge that Ryoma was assassinated in 1867. Does he act in the present or preserve the future he knows?
It's an interesting set of conflicts and dramatically very well done. There's only one problem with the series: there's no magic door.
A magic door is vaguely implied in the pilot episode. But later, what was implied doesn't seem to exist. The premise gets shuffled off stage with a bunch of literary handwaves and pretty cinematic flourishes and a WTF metaphor about a fetus in a bottle that never made any sense (I don't think it made any sense to the director either).
Maybe Minakata hit his head and he's the one in the coma. Maybe he's not a man dreaming he's a butterfly, but a butterfly dreaming he's a man. Whatever. However clever it looks on paper, this "We're too good for concrete fantasy" business gets my goat. My magical realism better have magic. If here be dragons, I expect real dragons.
Though in this case I suspect they're trying to keep all their options open by not committing to any one plot device. Unfortunately, when it comes to the integrity of a narrative, that kind of halfheartedness never serves storytelling well.
The series is good enough that you can answer their hand wave with one of your own and keep watching. But lacking a physical hook on which to hang the premise--an earthquake, say, or an errant MRI machine--despite the satisfying conclusion, the protagonist's lack of other options detracts from the dramatic impact.
Perhaps the manga on which the television series was based handles it differently. And because most series television in Japan consists of a dozen episodes and that's it (or a dozen episodes a year, very frustrating with ongoing series), it's possible they could come back for a season two (and TBS has just announced there will be).
But they'd still have to come up with a magic door.
To summarize: imagine that Leonard Hofstadter and Penny (but make her a young editorial assistant) from Big Bang Theory get married. She de-geekifies him, he becomes rich and famous, they end up loathing each other. So he borrows his old professor's time machine and goes back to when they first met in order to break up the relationship.
(Incidentally, I identify completely. This is exactly how geeky introverts think.)
The restrained NHK style gets it exactly right, pushing the physical relationship off to the side and focusing on what makes people fall in love despite themselves, without getting too full of its philosophical self. Ten years ago, it would have made a great Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan vehicle. As a stage play, it'd be a nice answer to Saturday's Warrior.
There's only one small special effect in the whole series--a 1000 yen coin from 2020 disappears when the disrupted timeline is restored. We never see the actual time machine. We're only shown a small theoretical prototype in the professor's lab. It's simply stipulated that the time machine exists.
In other words, it's a magic door. That's all we need.
The "magic door" approach comes from an episode on Red Dwarf where the crew discovers a "space-time portal" that will permit them to travel back in time in order to warn themselves of the disaster that will befall them a few weeks hence.
"What is it?" Cat wants to know.
Lister offers up the typical technobabble explanations of it being a "interstellar dimensional space-time continuum" or whatnot. But with every explanation, Cat only gets more confused and keeps repeating, "But what is it?"
Finally Lister says, "It's a magic door."
And Cat says, "Oh, a magic door! Why didn't anyone say so!"
Call it the Goldilocks problem in science fiction and fantasy: explaining too much or explaining too little. Fantasy with pretensions to "hard SF" often succumbs to the former (Star Trek). A good example of the latter is Jin, an otherwise excellent time travel drama from Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Dr. Jin Minakata (Takao Osawa) is a 21st century surgeon who gets caught in a "time slip" (as it's called in Japanese) and saves the life of Saki's (Haruka Ayase, on the left) brother before fully realizing where he is, and before realizing that he has just done something thought utterly impossible back then.
(Incidentally, Osawa and Ayase also pair up in Ichi, a pretty good Zatoichi spin-off, with Ayase playing against type as the blind-but-lethal swordswoman.)
Following the iron-clad rule that time travelers must travel to interesting times and immediately meet interesting people, as soon as he figures out he's in 1860's Edo (Tokyo), he promptly runs into Sakamoto Ryoma (exuberantly played by Seiyou Uchino, Rika's time-traveling husband from I'll Still Love You in Ten Years).
The episodic conflicts involve Dr. Minakata figuring out how to use his skills with mid-19th century technology. Though Japan had yet to go through its industrial revolution, it still had some of the best specialty steel, silk and ceramics makers in the world. So Minakata could have many of his surgical instruments custom made.
He next sets out to invent penicillin. Granted, the most drastic improvements in health over the past two centuries came from public sanitation. But the Edo government was about to collapse, so a major public works project wasn't in the cards. It's a clever choice, as is having a soy sauce factory handle the mass production.
Although the plots have to be manhandled a bit to set up the medical case for each episode, they're well-researched (at least I found them convincing) and completely fascinating. It makes for a good basic course in pharmacology and emergency medicine. I'd like to see what Dr. House could do in a Civil War-era hospital with 21st century knowledge.
The series conflict involves Minakata's 21st century fiancee, who is in a coma after an operation he convinced her to undergo. He has a photograph of the two of them, taken at her bedside. As he begins to treat one particular patient (the geisha on the right, who's the splitting image of his fiance), the photograph begins to change.
In time, his fiance appears to return to health. And then starts to disappear. Minakata concludes that if he cures his patient, a series of cause and effect will cause her to vanish from history. Add to this his knowledge that Ryoma was assassinated in 1867. Does he act in the present or preserve the future he knows?
It's an interesting set of conflicts and dramatically very well done. There's only one problem with the series: there's no magic door.
A magic door is vaguely implied in the pilot episode. But later, what was implied doesn't seem to exist. The premise gets shuffled off stage with a bunch of literary handwaves and pretty cinematic flourishes and a WTF metaphor about a fetus in a bottle that never made any sense (I don't think it made any sense to the director either).
Maybe Minakata hit his head and he's the one in the coma. Maybe he's not a man dreaming he's a butterfly, but a butterfly dreaming he's a man. Whatever. However clever it looks on paper, this "We're too good for concrete fantasy" business gets my goat. My magical realism better have magic. If here be dragons, I expect real dragons.
Though in this case I suspect they're trying to keep all their options open by not committing to any one plot device. Unfortunately, when it comes to the integrity of a narrative, that kind of halfheartedness never serves storytelling well.
The series is good enough that you can answer their hand wave with one of your own and keep watching. But lacking a physical hook on which to hang the premise--an earthquake, say, or an errant MRI machine--despite the satisfying conclusion, the protagonist's lack of other options detracts from the dramatic impact.
Perhaps the manga on which the television series was based handles it differently. And because most series television in Japan consists of a dozen episodes and that's it (or a dozen episodes a year, very frustrating with ongoing series), it's possible they could come back for a season two (and TBS has just announced there will be).
But they'd still have to come up with a magic door.
Labels: criticism, introversion, japan, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, kate, magic, sakamoto, science fiction, television, television reviews, thinking about writing
October 27, 2008
Asadora
I'm not a big fan of television soaps, day or night. I watched the first season of 24, but I just don't like being dragged along from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, so I've avoided it since. I generally avoid sneak previews for the same reason.
One exception to the rule is NHK's Asadora or "morning (asa) drama (dorama)," except that watching on satellite in the U.S. means it's on at night. It belongs to the renzoku terebi shousetsu genre, or "ongoing television novel."
An Asadora features a spunky female lead confronting personal, family and romantic conflicts. The story takes place in a distinct setting. Each episode is fifteen minutes long, broadcast Sunday/Monday through Friday/Saturday. New series start in April and October, last six months, and come to a conclusion.
Every week's worth of episodes is a "chapter," and each chapter adds to the narrative arc of the entire series. Subtracting opening and closing credits leaves 75 minutes or so for each chapter in six acts, including the teaser for the next weeks' chapter.
It's fascinating to see the skeleton of a television drama so plainly exposed. You can watch the plot turns coming down Fifth Avenue. But that doesn't detract from the fun. Granted, some stories work better than others and some casts have better chemistry than others.
Conventional romances fare the worst. As Erica Friedman archly observes, "I can clearly remember a J-Drama I watched for weeks and weeks and when the lead male and female finally got together . . . the kiss sucked the romance right out of my house."
That's been true of every Asadora series I've watched. NHK's writers are much better at family dramas with a strong sense of community and tradition (of which Japan has heaps): everybody related to everybody else, with lots of nosey relatives and neighbors.
Although romantic subplots were hinted at in Hitomi (2008), the story thankfully never went there. Instead, it focused on the estranged relationship between Hitomi's mother and grandfather, and between her mother and father, who divorced when she was a child.
Hitomi's grandfather is a foster parent. Some of the most interesting episodes were about Japan's foster care system. And both Hitomi and Dan Dan have worked in themes about Japan's aging population (this educational aspect is also common; hey, it's NHK).
As noted above, an Asadora series draws attention to a geographical area. Hitomi takes place in the shitamachi neighborhood of the famous Tsukiji Fish Market, exploring the idiosyncratic lives of the people who work there and the history and customs particular to it.
The most recent series is Dan Dan, starring identical twins Mana and Kana Mikura. It begins with the plot device straight out of The Parent Trap, about twins separated at birth whose paths cross on their eighteen birthday.
The one sister aspires to become a folk-rock singer, the other is a maiko (apprentice geisha). The story takes place in Kyoto and scenic Matsue in western Japan. Watching the twins delve into the mystery of their separation is as entertaining as the best whodunit.
As you can see, the first time Nozomi and Megumi meet, Nozomi is heavily made up, which conveniently hides their similiarities, and Nozomi lies about her birthday just to drag out the suspense a few more episodes.
Up to the point they switch roles, we've only seen Nozomi in a kimono, with her hair done up in the momoware ("split peach") style. So when she changes into Megumi's jeans and T-shirt and literally lets her hair down, you really do lose track of who's who.
One exception to the rule is NHK's Asadora or "morning (asa) drama (dorama)," except that watching on satellite in the U.S. means it's on at night. It belongs to the renzoku terebi shousetsu genre, or "ongoing television novel."
An Asadora features a spunky female lead confronting personal, family and romantic conflicts. The story takes place in a distinct setting. Each episode is fifteen minutes long, broadcast Sunday/Monday through Friday/Saturday. New series start in April and October, last six months, and come to a conclusion.
Every week's worth of episodes is a "chapter," and each chapter adds to the narrative arc of the entire series. Subtracting opening and closing credits leaves 75 minutes or so for each chapter in six acts, including the teaser for the next weeks' chapter.
It's fascinating to see the skeleton of a television drama so plainly exposed. You can watch the plot turns coming down Fifth Avenue. But that doesn't detract from the fun. Granted, some stories work better than others and some casts have better chemistry than others.
Conventional romances fare the worst. As Erica Friedman archly observes, "I can clearly remember a J-Drama I watched for weeks and weeks and when the lead male and female finally got together . . . the kiss sucked the romance right out of my house."
That's been true of every Asadora series I've watched. NHK's writers are much better at family dramas with a strong sense of community and tradition (of which Japan has heaps): everybody related to everybody else, with lots of nosey relatives and neighbors.
Although romantic subplots were hinted at in Hitomi (2008), the story thankfully never went there. Instead, it focused on the estranged relationship between Hitomi's mother and grandfather, and between her mother and father, who divorced when she was a child.
Hitomi's grandfather is a foster parent. Some of the most interesting episodes were about Japan's foster care system. And both Hitomi and Dan Dan have worked in themes about Japan's aging population (this educational aspect is also common; hey, it's NHK).
As noted above, an Asadora series draws attention to a geographical area. Hitomi takes place in the shitamachi neighborhood of the famous Tsukiji Fish Market, exploring the idiosyncratic lives of the people who work there and the history and customs particular to it.
The most recent series is Dan Dan, starring identical twins Mana and Kana Mikura. It begins with the plot device straight out of The Parent Trap, about twins separated at birth whose paths cross on their eighteen birthday.
The one sister aspires to become a folk-rock singer, the other is a maiko (apprentice geisha). The story takes place in Kyoto and scenic Matsue in western Japan. Watching the twins delve into the mystery of their separation is as entertaining as the best whodunit.
As you can see, the first time Nozomi and Megumi meet, Nozomi is heavily made up, which conveniently hides their similiarities, and Nozomi lies about her birthday just to drag out the suspense a few more episodes.
Up to the point they switch roles, we've only seen Nozomi in a kimono, with her hair done up in the momoware ("split peach") style. So when she changes into Megumi's jeans and T-shirt and literally lets her hair down, you really do lose track of who's who.
Labels: asadora, japan, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, nhk, television reviews
May 30, 2007
Dragon Zakura
At first glance, the TBS television series Dragon Zakura compares well with the movie Stand and Deliver. In the latter, maverick math teacher Jaime Escalante's goal is to teach and motivate his students at a failing inner-city high school to pass the AP calculus exam.In Dragon Zakura, Kenji Sakuragi is an ex-motorcycle gang member who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and became a lawyer (which is excruciatingly difficult in Japan). Now he's looking to do the same at a baka gakkou, a bottom-ranked Tokyo high school.
High schools in Japan are ranked by entrance exams the same way colleges in the U.S. can be ranked by SAT scores. Compulsory education in Japan ends with junior high and you have to pass an entrance exam to get into a good public high school.
His goal for his students: pass the Tôdai (Tokyo University) entrance exams, perhaps the toughest in the world (ironically, in terms of actual academic performance, Tôdai is pretty middling by world standards; once all those fried brains make it in, they're not particularly eager to set the world on fire).
Dragon Zakura, like Stand and Deliver, is "based on a true story." But while Stand and Deliver is a fairly accurate bio-pic, Dragon Zakura is far more fanciful. For example, the "master teachers" Kenji Sakuragi recruits to teach his hard-luck cases. The physics professor looks just like Einstein, the literature professor looks like Natsume Soseki, that kind of thing.
The knowledge they impart, though, is spot on. The pedagogical approach presented for the English portion of the exam (a subject I am somewhat qualified to address) should be made part and parcel of the curriculum in every Japanese high school. Though even here, Sakuragi is teaching to the test and nothing else.
Despite its uplifting conclusion, however, Dragon Zakura is a depressing indictment of the Japanese education system. While the "soft bigotry of low expectations" can be defeated by the right combination of innovative teaching techniques, the tagline: "Anybody can make it into Tôdai" is profoundly different than the tagline: "Anybody can pass the AP calculus exam."
Because everybody can't make it into Tôdai. For every student who makes it in, another student won't. This zero-sum game has turned the Tôdai exam into little more than a tortuous test of IQ and memorization skills. A high school student trying to get into Tôdai basically succeeds by proving that he's capable of graduating from Tôdai.
It'd be like having to ace the GMAT, MCAT, GRE and LSAT just to get admitted to the freshman class. But if you could pass those exams in the first place, why bother going to school?
The entire planet, on the other hand, could take the AP calculus exam if they were so inclined. And those credits would be treated the same at any institution, from the local community college to Harvard.
Moveover, in the U.S., those of Sakuragi's students who didn't make it into Tôdai on the first try certainly wouldn't waste a year of their lives as rounin treading the same water all over again. Anybody who could "almost" make it into Harvard could easily sail into a dozen other world-leading, top-tier schools that wouldn't hurt their future prospects in the slightest.
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Labels: criticism, education, japan, japanese tv reviews, television reviews