March 19, 2020
dLibrary Japan (content)
Two big reasons to sign up for dLibrary Japan are NHK's two flagship series, the weekly Taiga historical drama and the daily Asadora serial. It'd be nice if they showed up on a predictably timetable after their domestic runs, but the licensing windows are all over the map. Check the "End Date" before getting too invested.
dLibrary Japan has a good selection of six recent Taiga series, including three of the most interesting woman-centered stories you'll find anywhere. And they are subtitled!
Go follows the three nieces of the warlord Oda Nobunaga as they play a major role in shaping the end of the Warring States period, two of them marrying into clans on opposite sides of the conflict.Atsuhime examines the life of Tenshoin, the adopted daughter of the province lord of Satsuma. Hoping to become the power behind the throne, he arranged a marriage between her and Tokugawa Iesada, the third-to-last shogun.
Yae's Sakura is about a markswoman who fought on the side of the shogunate during the Boshin War that launched the Meiji Restoration. Her firearm of choice was a Spencer repeating rifle.
And then for a view of the events depicted in Atsuhime and Yae's Sakura from the perspective of Japan's Alexander Hamilton, Ryomaden follows the life of Sakamoto Ryoma, who, like Hamilton, tragically died a violent death before his time.
Asadora serials include Ume-chan Sensei, about a girl who attends medical school and becomes a doctor during the Occupation. Toto Nee-chan is a biopic about Shizuko Ohashi (1920–2013), who in 1948 co-founded Notebook for Living, a home improvement magazine still in print.Though Oshin was the most-watched television program in Japanese history, its Gothic Perils of Pauline plot leaves me disinclined to slog through it. During the 1980s (it debuted in 1983), Oshin became a synonym for perseverance in the face of neverending hostility and opposition.
The cheerfully upbeat Toto Nee-chan is more my speed, and it's been nice to revive my old TV Japan habit of watching a fifteen-minute Asadora episode every night.
Along with the Taiga and Asadora dramas, the scripted content includes family and food dramas, and an eclectic collection of police procedurals and medical dramas, such as the preternaturally cute Aoi Miyazaki playing a teenage super-sleuth in Mobile Detective and Ryoko Yonekura channeling Gregory House in Doctor X.Mobile Detective is worth watching simply as a reminder of what "cutting edge" smart phone technology was like a mere fifteen years ago.
dLibrary Japan has the first three seasons of Midnight Diner, an ensemble series that takes place at an all-night hole-in-the wall restaurant (Netflix has seasons 4 and 5). And speaking of food dramas, dLibrary Japan has six seasons of Solitary Gourmet, pretty much the salaryman version of Wakakozake.
For whatever reason it was shot in a 21:9 aspect ratio. I really don't see the point of that (I don't see the point of shooting anything in 21:9 except as a special effect).
There are a handful of documentaries and talk shows, such as Matsuko no Shiranai Sekai ("The World Unknown To Matsuko"), and the Wildlife and Great Nature documentary series from NHK. Plus a cute travel show in which Tetsuro Degawa rides a electric scooter until the battery is dead and then bums a charge from the locals.
The handful of anime titles on dLibrary Japan are aimed at kids, such as Anpanman, a long-running kid's franchise (1500 episodes and counting) hugely popular in Japan and practically nowhere else. (Tim Lyu explains why.)
So far, there's more than enough to keep me interested. If dLibrary Japan keeps adding new programming at the current rate, it will become the unquestioned home of live-action Japanese television in North America. Though I'm afraid it won't be able to significantly expand beyond the TV Japan and Nippon TV audiences without more localization.
Related links
dLibrary Japan (background)
dLibrary Japan (user experience)
dLibrary Japan
dLibrary Japan Roku app
NHK World
TV Japan
Labels: asadora, dlibjapan, history, japanese tv, nhk, nhk world, streaming, taiga drama, tv japan
March 12, 2020
dLibrary Japan (user experience)
dLibrary Japan has been a work in process since it launched and still is. But, hey, that only means there's lots of room to grow! And it's improving at a reassuring pace.To start with, the picture is great. dLibrary Japan streams HD video, much better quality than I ever had with Dish. The Roku app is snappy and easy to navigate. Though Roku replay button doesn't work, the "skip forward/back" implementation of FF and rewind works better than the typical VCR-style controls.
For example, HIDIVE uses the standard 2x/4x/8x/16x/32x FF/rewind UI, but especially with longer videos, its 32x isn't nearly fast enough. Also unlike HIDIVE, the dLibrary Japan login page has a "remember me" checkbox. Unfortunately, like HIDIVE, it doesn't remember you even when it's checked.
The home page borrows from the Netflix interface (a streaming standard of sorts) though it's a rudimentary implementation. There are a half dozen genre categories but no search function. Seasons from the same series often aren't grouped together. The queue can be bookmarked but not the landing pages for shows.
The Roku app employs a "Windows 8" design approach, with big blocky icons. The catalog can be searched from the app, giving the app better discoverability than the website. The biggest missing feature is the lack of a viewing history or any way to keep track of your progress in a series from the app or website queue.
In order to automatically queue up episodes in order, you have to turn on Auto Play in Settings and launch episodes from Continue Watching. It's a workaround that works well enough most of the time, but these history and queue issues are currently the Roku app's most annoying bugs.
Though with apps like Netflix suffering from feature overload, there is something refreshing about the sheer simplicity of the interface. In any case, along with better progress tracking in the app and a search function on the website, the genre list needs more subcategories, such as for the Taiga and Asadora dramas.
Considering how much the NHK World app has improved, with the VOD catalog and program guide now accessible from the app, I expect dLibrary Japan to keep pace as well. Perhaps NHK Cosmomedia can take the lessons learned from NHK World and dLibrary Japan and create a streaming triple play with TV Japan.
Related links
dLibrary Japan (background)
dLibrary Japan (content)
dLibrary Japan
dLibrary Japan Roku app
NHK World
TV Japan
Labels: asadora, dlibjapan, hidive, japanese tv, netflix, nhk, nhk cosmomedia, nhk world, roku, streaming, taiga drama, television, tv japan
September 12, 2019
The orphan's saga
Anne of Green Gables has been a perennial bestseller in Japan ever since the publication of the first translation by Hanako Muraoka in 1952.The character of the spunky orphan (or a girl who becomes a "social orphan" when she sets off alone for the big city) has long been beloved in Japan. NHK built an entire franchise around the concept, with the Asadora morning melodrama now entering its sixth decade.
When it comes to cheerful and resourceful optimism in the face of punishing circumstances, Tohru from Fruits Basket is every bit Anne's equal. She needs to be when she ends up the only "normal" person in a household whose members are the actual animals of the Chinese zodiac.
The orphaned Takashi in Natsume's Book of Names (a guy for a change) has the ability to see the spiritual beings that haunt the Japanese countryside. Like Anne, he was fortunate enough to finally end up with adoptive parents who truly care for him.
The far less fortunate Chise in The Ancient Magus Bride has the same abilities as Takashi (a common trope). She was orphaned when her mother committed suicide and blamed her in the process. Little wonder she's a borderline basketcase when we first meet her.In a twist on Beauty and the Beast, the Beauty (Chise) is saved by the Beast (the monstrous Elias Ainsworth). Although Elias isn't exactly a rock of stability either. He's not even human, to start with.
Speaking of borderline basketcases, Rei in March Comes in Like a Lion is a shogi prodigy orphaned when the rest of his family is killed in an automobile accident. He turns pro in large part to get away from his screwed up adoptive family.
Rei is saved (psychologically) by an eccentric family of three orphaned sisters (mom died, father ran off) and their grandfather. And by the wealthy Harunobu, another shogi child prodigy who adopts Rei as his best friend. Harunobu is sort of an orphan himself, being raised mostly by his butler.And then there's Motoko Kusangai from Ghost in the Shell, who can be counted on to be resourceful in the face of punishing circumstances, though not necessarily very cheerful about it. In any case, she can count on her "family" from Section 9 to watch her back.
Related links
Fruits Basket (CR Fun)
Natsume's Book of Friends
The Ancient Magus Bride
March Comes in like a Lion
Ghost in the Shell: Arise
Hanako and Anne
Anne illustrated
The drama of the PCB
Labels: anime, anime lists, anne, asadora, books, japanese tv, social studies
December 14, 2017
The strong and the soft of arcs
When it comes to narrative arcs in television dramas, the strong arc requires a soft arc but not necessarily visa-versa.
Most anime series have fairly strong arc storylines. A typical cour runs 13 or so 30-minute episodes, so can be digested in a couple of binge-viewing sessions. Beyond the Boundary ran 11 episodes, at least two episodes too few. Eureka 7 ran a strong arc through 50 episodes, twice as many as needed.
Narrative disasters occur when a dramatic arc expected to last a season or two proves more popular than its creators expected. They then drag out the premise the series began with. The result is that nothing gets resolved and all kinds of nonsensical reasons have to be concocted to keep them from getting resolved.
(On the other hand, Detective Conan has run so long I wonder if anybody remembers the weird premise it began with or expects it to ever get resolved.)
Eventually, the writers run out of things to write about and fall back on melodrama. That's when I stop watching. Nothing is more frustrating than a enjoyable genre series that runs out of material and resorts to characters screwing up their lives with angsty self-involvement and rank stupidity.
I might have watched more than ten cumulative minutes of Friends if Ross and Rachel got hit by an asteroid at the end of the first season so we could focus on Monica and Chandler, whose relationship actually matures. The relationship between Niles and Daphne progressed on Frasier, though took too long getting there.
Big Bang Theory is not only funnier but more entertaining when the characters grow and develop in positive ways, not slip and fall on the same banana peel week after week.
I suspect that soft arcs often harden because the writers worry about running out of story material. Afraid of repeating themselves, they resort to what Kate calls the compulsion to "CHANGE, SHOCK, DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!" But the result isn't "something different." It's endless reruns of Groundhog Day.
Sure, Groundhog Day is amusing for two hours. Year after interminable year, it would define an inner circle of hell. But as Groundhog Day points out, breaking free of this perdition doesn't involve dramatic gestures so much as it requires steady personal growth, mostly ordinary characters improving on being ordinary.
Working with the full knowledge that there is nothing new under the sun is much more liberating. As Kate points out, Agatha Christie built a successful career out of being obvious and doing the "same old thing" over and again.
Overextended strong arcs are bad enough. When the Decima Technologies arc derailed the premise of Person of Interest, it mutated from a series into an updated version of the Saturday morning serial. Individual episodes simply served to chop an increasingly implausible plot into digestible pieces.
That's unfortunately what also happened with the Ori arc on Stargate.
Watching the first season of 24 cured me of the desire to watch any of the sequels. At this point, we're in telenovela territory. Most live-action Japanese dramas are compact versions of the telenovela, with a single cour lasting around 10 episodes. Except for the Asadora, I usually give them a pass too.
Ten hours of conflict and angst is bad enough. When it's the exact same conflict and angst (and no resolution) week after week (until the last episode), it's unbearable. (Though a series like I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper can win me over with unique characters, episodic plotting, and a touch of magical realism.)
Or the exact same crime, as in police procedurals that take a single mystery and stretch it out over a dozen hours. No, I am not going to wait that long to find out whodunit, not when Columbo can figure the whole thing out in ninety minutes.
Most anime series have fairly strong arc storylines. A typical cour runs 13 or so 30-minute episodes, so can be digested in a couple of binge-viewing sessions. Beyond the Boundary ran 11 episodes, at least two episodes too few. Eureka 7 ran a strong arc through 50 episodes, twice as many as needed.
Narrative disasters occur when a dramatic arc expected to last a season or two proves more popular than its creators expected. They then drag out the premise the series began with. The result is that nothing gets resolved and all kinds of nonsensical reasons have to be concocted to keep them from getting resolved.
(On the other hand, Detective Conan has run so long I wonder if anybody remembers the weird premise it began with or expects it to ever get resolved.)
Eventually, the writers run out of things to write about and fall back on melodrama. That's when I stop watching. Nothing is more frustrating than a enjoyable genre series that runs out of material and resorts to characters screwing up their lives with angsty self-involvement and rank stupidity.
I might have watched more than ten cumulative minutes of Friends if Ross and Rachel got hit by an asteroid at the end of the first season so we could focus on Monica and Chandler, whose relationship actually matures. The relationship between Niles and Daphne progressed on Frasier, though took too long getting there.
Big Bang Theory is not only funnier but more entertaining when the characters grow and develop in positive ways, not slip and fall on the same banana peel week after week.
I suspect that soft arcs often harden because the writers worry about running out of story material. Afraid of repeating themselves, they resort to what Kate calls the compulsion to "CHANGE, SHOCK, DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!" But the result isn't "something different." It's endless reruns of Groundhog Day.
Sure, Groundhog Day is amusing for two hours. Year after interminable year, it would define an inner circle of hell. But as Groundhog Day points out, breaking free of this perdition doesn't involve dramatic gestures so much as it requires steady personal growth, mostly ordinary characters improving on being ordinary.
Working with the full knowledge that there is nothing new under the sun is much more liberating. As Kate points out, Agatha Christie built a successful career out of being obvious and doing the "same old thing" over and again.
What makes Christie so great is the simplicity of her story ideas. Story often comes down to one idea. The telling may be elaborate (red herrings plus more red herrings plus more red herrings), but the ultimate denouement is not complicated at all.
Overextended strong arcs are bad enough. When the Decima Technologies arc derailed the premise of Person of Interest, it mutated from a series into an updated version of the Saturday morning serial. Individual episodes simply served to chop an increasingly implausible plot into digestible pieces.
That's unfortunately what also happened with the Ori arc on Stargate.
Watching the first season of 24 cured me of the desire to watch any of the sequels. At this point, we're in telenovela territory. Most live-action Japanese dramas are compact versions of the telenovela, with a single cour lasting around 10 episodes. Except for the Asadora, I usually give them a pass too.
Ten hours of conflict and angst is bad enough. When it's the exact same conflict and angst (and no resolution) week after week (until the last episode), it's unbearable. (Though a series like I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper can win me over with unique characters, episodic plotting, and a touch of magical realism.)
Or the exact same crime, as in police procedurals that take a single mystery and stretch it out over a dozen hours. No, I am not going to wait that long to find out whodunit, not when Columbo can figure the whole thing out in ninety minutes.
Labels: anime, asadora, japanese tv, kate, manga, television, thinking about writing
November 26, 2017
Weather Vane (3)
The depiction of "normal" life in the midst of total war is one of the more interesting aspects of Asadora dramas like Carnation, Toto Nee-chan, Massan, and Ume-chan Sensei. The first episode of Ume-chan Sensei begins with a ordinary scene of the family eating breakfast. And then Umeko runs outside—into an utterly wrecked and charred landscape.
And yet life went on.
And yet life went on.
Labels: 12 kingdoms, asadora, hisho, history, ww2
August 10, 2017
The drama of the PCB
The current NHK Asadora takes place during the 1960s. Mineko, a country girl, ventures from her rural farming village in northern Ibaraki prefecture (the "sticks" at the time, now a one-hour commute by Shinkansen) to Tokyo to help support her family.
During Japan's boom years in the 1960s, recruiters often turned to these outlying areas to supply factories with assembly line workers. The factories provided room and board (and many still do today).
Mineko's first job is "stuffing" or "populating" printed circuit boards (PCBs) for the brand new transistor radios. Women were deemed better suited for the job because of their slender fingers.
The 1964 Olympics was a big, big deal in Japan (even Hollywood got into the act). So much so that it produced an economic bubble, thanks to the accelerated work on the first showcase Shinkansen line and all the people buying the very latest radios and TVs.
The bubble popped when the Olympics ended, producing a short recession before the economic juggernaut got back up to speed again.
During this economic downturn, the company Mineko is working for goes bankrupt. Unsurprisingly. It was basically an overgrown mom & pop operation with factory floor the size of a basketball court and no room to expand.
Not much in the way of productivity gains could be made by hiring more girls to insert electronic components into circuit boards. This labor-intensive production model gave way to larger economies of scale and automation techniques such as wave soldering (patented in 1956).
In the drama, Mineko ends up working at a restaurant. Alas, the Asadora audience isn't as interested in electronics manufacturing as I am.
Populating PCBs is one of those invisible manufacturing processes our lives have grown dependent upon. Over the past half-century, the technology has become astoundingly efficient, not even counting the productivity gains made by replacing most of the components with integrated circuits.
The old way (what Mineko did on her assembly line) is "PCB Assembly Through Hole." The leads of the electronic components are literally fed through holes in the PCB and soldered.
Since the 1980s, "Surface Mount" PCBs have overtaken "Through Hole." With Surface Mount, there's no "threading the needle." The parts are glued onto the surface of the PCB and and then soldered using, for example, pre-soldered contacts and precision hot air guns.
But "Through Hole" remains alive and kicking wherever ruggedness and power transmission are primary concerns. Yeah, AI and humanoid robots are plenty cool, but the machines that populate PCBs never fail to impress me.
During Japan's boom years in the 1960s, recruiters often turned to these outlying areas to supply factories with assembly line workers. The factories provided room and board (and many still do today).
Mineko's first job is "stuffing" or "populating" printed circuit boards (PCBs) for the brand new transistor radios. Women were deemed better suited for the job because of their slender fingers.
The 1964 Olympics was a big, big deal in Japan (even Hollywood got into the act). So much so that it produced an economic bubble, thanks to the accelerated work on the first showcase Shinkansen line and all the people buying the very latest radios and TVs.
The bubble popped when the Olympics ended, producing a short recession before the economic juggernaut got back up to speed again.
During this economic downturn, the company Mineko is working for goes bankrupt. Unsurprisingly. It was basically an overgrown mom & pop operation with factory floor the size of a basketball court and no room to expand.
Not much in the way of productivity gains could be made by hiring more girls to insert electronic components into circuit boards. This labor-intensive production model gave way to larger economies of scale and automation techniques such as wave soldering (patented in 1956).
In the drama, Mineko ends up working at a restaurant. Alas, the Asadora audience isn't as interested in electronics manufacturing as I am.
Populating PCBs is one of those invisible manufacturing processes our lives have grown dependent upon. Over the past half-century, the technology has become astoundingly efficient, not even counting the productivity gains made by replacing most of the components with integrated circuits.
The old way (what Mineko did on her assembly line) is "PCB Assembly Through Hole." The leads of the electronic components are literally fed through holes in the PCB and soldered.
Since the 1980s, "Surface Mount" PCBs have overtaken "Through Hole." With Surface Mount, there's no "threading the needle." The parts are glued onto the surface of the PCB and and then soldered using, for example, pre-soldered contacts and precision hot air guns.
But "Through Hole" remains alive and kicking wherever ruggedness and power transmission are primary concerns. Yeah, AI and humanoid robots are plenty cool, but the machines that populate PCBs never fail to impress me.
Related posts
Moore's Law illustrated
The accidental standard
The last picture tube show
Labels: asadora, economics, japanese culture, japanese tv, nhk, sports, tech history, technology
August 04, 2016
The rebirth of Japan's mass media
 |
| Mitsuki Takahata (bottom right) plays Shizuko Ohashi in the NHK series. |
Because MacArthur believed in the power of the mass media to spread the good word of freedom and democracy. His good word. It wasn't simply a political pose. MacArthur was Ronald Reagan with ten times the ego and a papal sense of infallibility.
In other words, the perfect personality for a Japanese shogun (with access to a radio studio).
In fact, the first few years of the Occupation saw a spate of surprisingly liberal reforms (that drove Shigeru Yoshida up a wall). Leftists, labor organizers, and even communists were let out of jail and the press was unleashed.
In Embracing Defeat, John Dower documents how enthusiastically the Japanese embraced these freedoms. Soon SCAP was censoring as many articles and broadcasts as it was approving. A free press, you see, wasn't free to criticize SCAP.
But the fire had been lit. It's telling that the moral backlash that "brought about the collapse of the comic book industry in the 1950s" was shrugged off almost as soon as it arrived in Japan (though, to be sure, it never entirely went away).
The NHK Asadora, Toto Nee-chan, is a fictionalized biography of Shizuko Ohashi (1920–2013), who in 1948 co-founded 「暮しの手帖」 ("Notebook for Living"), a home improvement magazine for women still in print.
This retrospective at the magazine's website is in Japanese, but the illustrations largely speak for themselves.
This was an era when movie makers as well were yanking themselves up by their bootstraps. Akira Kurosawa turned the devastated landscape of Tokyo into a movie set in his second post-war film, One Wonderful Sunday, released in 1947.
Labels: asadora, embracing defeat, history, japan, japanese culture, japanese tv, movies about japan, nhk, politics, publishing, social studies, ww2
April 02, 2015
"Massan" wrapup
Massan concluded its six-month run on March 27 (new series begin in April and October). This was the first Asadora ("morning drama") featuring a non-Japanese actor in the lead role, newcomer Charlotte Kate Fox (Northern Illinois University, MFA Acting).
To recap, Massan is a fictionalized biography of two real people: Scotswoman 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.
For Fox, this wasn't only an extreme case of "method acting," but of real-time language acquisition. Like Fox, her character arrived in Japan knowing no Japanese. Unlike Fox, she spent the rest of her life in what was a near "total immersion" environment.
But over the past six months (closer to ten months of actual shooting), Fox has memorized--spoken and reacted to--over 40 hours of Japanese dialogue. And the results?
She did very well! By the end of the series (during which time her character has aged forty years) her Japanese had improved markedly. In interviews, she laughs at how bad her Japanese was the first few weeks. But, of course, that was the point!
It probably helps that Fox has a good ear and a fine singing voice. She's released an EP in Japan with the full versions of the folk songs she sang on the show. I hope they invite her back for NHK's gala Red and White Song Competition on New Year's Eve.
She'll next be appearing on Broadway in Chicago. I'd like to hear her belt out a show-stopper.
Fox also reminds me that, yes, there is such a thing as acting talent. I don't mean simply being able to emote on cue, but being able to naturally interact with people (you didn't know from Adam a week ago) as if you and they were those characters.
(I contrast this with the "Meryl Streep school": never let the audience forget that you are a famous actor acting! Watching Moneyball, I had to remind myself: Oh, yeah, he's Brad Pitt. And then I forgot who he was again. That's good acting.)
Well, I am often impressed by NHK's ability to cast new talent in big roles, and to nurture young talent through its "farm system."
Starting on Sunday/Monday, the Asadora returned to form with Ma're, a contemporary YA dramedy. Also according to form, the first week features the pre-teen version of the heroine. These little kids blow my socks off, they're that good.
This is one of those real-world cases (probably more the rule than the exception) where the person who got the "lucky break" deserved it.
Thanks to her father's spendthrift ways, the family ends up broke in the sticks, where the titular character overcomes one obstacle after another as she strives to become a patissier.
To recap, Massan is a fictionalized biography of two real people: Scotswoman 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.
For Fox, this wasn't only an extreme case of "method acting," but of real-time language acquisition. Like Fox, her character arrived in Japan knowing no Japanese. Unlike Fox, she spent the rest of her life in what was a near "total immersion" environment.
But over the past six months (closer to ten months of actual shooting), Fox has memorized--spoken and reacted to--over 40 hours of Japanese dialogue. And the results?
She did very well! By the end of the series (during which time her character has aged forty years) her Japanese had improved markedly. In interviews, she laughs at how bad her Japanese was the first few weeks. But, of course, that was the point!
It probably helps that Fox has a good ear and a fine singing voice. She's released an EP in Japan with the full versions of the folk songs she sang on the show. I hope they invite her back for NHK's gala Red and White Song Competition on New Year's Eve.
She'll next be appearing on Broadway in Chicago. I'd like to hear her belt out a show-stopper.
Fox also reminds me that, yes, there is such a thing as acting talent. I don't mean simply being able to emote on cue, but being able to naturally interact with people (you didn't know from Adam a week ago) as if you and they were those characters.
(I contrast this with the "Meryl Streep school": never let the audience forget that you are a famous actor acting! Watching Moneyball, I had to remind myself: Oh, yeah, he's Brad Pitt. And then I forgot who he was again. That's good acting.)
Well, I am often impressed by NHK's ability to cast new talent in big roles, and to nurture young talent through its "farm system."
 |
| The new heroine meets the old protagonists (Tao Tsuchiya's third Asadora, first time as the lead). |
Starting on Sunday/Monday, the Asadora returned to form with Ma're, a contemporary YA dramedy. Also according to form, the first week features the pre-teen version of the heroine. These little kids blow my socks off, they're that good.
This is one of those real-world cases (probably more the rule than the exception) where the person who got the "lucky break" deserved it.
 |
| Tao Tsuchiya with her younger self (Ramu Matsumoto) and her cinematic parents (Yo Oizumi, Takako Tokiwa). |
Thanks to her father's spendthrift ways, the family ends up broke in the sticks, where the titular character overcomes one obstacle after another as she strives to become a patissier.
Labels: asadora, japanese tv, nhk, television
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
September 29, 2014
Hanako and Anne
Yuriko Yoshitaka (featured in the second season of Galileo) just finished playing Anne of Green Gables translator Hanako Muraoka in NHK's Asadora morning melodrama, Hanako and Anne.
The series is based on a biographical novel written by her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka. The fictional version streamlines and simplifies her childhood, and goes out of its way to draw parallels between Hanako's life and Anne's story.
Hanako had seven siblings in real life, three in the series. As in Anne of Green Gables, the farming out of "excess" children to relatives was common practice. Hanako's daughter was actually her sister's child. Her own son died at the age of five.
This adoption (once quite common in Japan and still done today) is depicted in the series.
A Christian, Hanako's father had his daughter baptized into the Methodist Church (that part left out). From the age of ten, Hanako boarded at a missionary school for girls in Tokyo. The school, Toyo Eiwa Junior High and High School, still exists.
Like Anne, after graduating (with the equivalent of an associate's degree), she taught school before marrying and becoming a full-time writer. In the 1930s, she hosted a weekly children's program on NHK radio.
Hanako translated just about every popular work of young adult English literature published in the 19th and early 20th centuries, starting with The Prince and the Pauper and including Polyanna, The Secret Garden, and Anne of Green Gables.
Between 1927 and 1968, she translated two books a year on average. Published in 1952, her abridged version of Anne of Green Gables (completed in secret during the war) became a bestseller.
Over a dozen new translations and annotated editions of "Red-Haired Anne" (as it's titled in Japan) have been published since. The book appeared at exactly the right time in 1952 to leave a lasting imprint on the culture.
Hanako's life and career are also a good example of necessary and sufficient conditions coming together. Hanako was born with all the right tweaks in her Broca's area to make the most of a unique opportunity, and coupled that with tons of drive.
The television series depicts her as fanatical about learning English, far more than her classmates, which I think is exactly right. Nobody devotes that fabled "10,000 hours" to mastering a skill if they don't like it and don't consistently improve at it.
The series ends with the publication of Anne of Green Gables. Hanako traveled to North America for the first time in 1967. She died the next year at the age of 75.
The life of a translator is not all that interesting, so the series devotes a considerable amount of screen time to the real-life soap opera of Hanako's classmate and friend, Byakuren Yanagihara ("Renko" in the series), a cousin of the Taisho Emperor.
Their friendship reveals the sociolinguistic conventions of the time: Hanako always refers to Renko using the honorific "-sama" while Renko addresses Hanako using the diminutive "-chan."
Byakuren married three times. The first two were blatant exchanges of titles for money, her brother having screwed up the family finances. She ended the second marriage (to a coal magnate thirty years her senior) with a scandalous affair and very public divorce.
Along the way she published several collections of tanka poetry and became a vocal advocate for women's rights.
Stripped of her title, she lived a much happier life as a commoner (though was devastated by the war-time death of her son in 1945). She and her third husband were married for 46 years, until her death in 1967.
The series is based on a biographical novel written by her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka. The fictional version streamlines and simplifies her childhood, and goes out of its way to draw parallels between Hanako's life and Anne's story.
Hanako had seven siblings in real life, three in the series. As in Anne of Green Gables, the farming out of "excess" children to relatives was common practice. Hanako's daughter was actually her sister's child. Her own son died at the age of five.
This adoption (once quite common in Japan and still done today) is depicted in the series.
A Christian, Hanako's father had his daughter baptized into the Methodist Church (that part left out). From the age of ten, Hanako boarded at a missionary school for girls in Tokyo. The school, Toyo Eiwa Junior High and High School, still exists.
Like Anne, after graduating (with the equivalent of an associate's degree), she taught school before marrying and becoming a full-time writer. In the 1930s, she hosted a weekly children's program on NHK radio.
Hanako translated just about every popular work of young adult English literature published in the 19th and early 20th centuries, starting with The Prince and the Pauper and including Polyanna, The Secret Garden, and Anne of Green Gables.
Between 1927 and 1968, she translated two books a year on average. Published in 1952, her abridged version of Anne of Green Gables (completed in secret during the war) became a bestseller.
Over a dozen new translations and annotated editions of "Red-Haired Anne" (as it's titled in Japan) have been published since. The book appeared at exactly the right time in 1952 to leave a lasting imprint on the culture.
Hanako's life and career are also a good example of necessary and sufficient conditions coming together. Hanako was born with all the right tweaks in her Broca's area to make the most of a unique opportunity, and coupled that with tons of drive.
The television series depicts her as fanatical about learning English, far more than her classmates, which I think is exactly right. Nobody devotes that fabled "10,000 hours" to mastering a skill if they don't like it and don't consistently improve at it.
The series ends with the publication of Anne of Green Gables. Hanako traveled to North America for the first time in 1967. She died the next year at the age of 75.
Their friendship reveals the sociolinguistic conventions of the time: Hanako always refers to Renko using the honorific "-sama" while Renko addresses Hanako using the diminutive "-chan."
Byakuren married three times. The first two were blatant exchanges of titles for money, her brother having screwed up the family finances. She ended the second marriage (to a coal magnate thirty years her senior) with a scandalous affair and very public divorce.
Along the way she published several collections of tanka poetry and became a vocal advocate for women's rights.
Stripped of her title, she lived a much happier life as a commoner (though was devastated by the war-time death of her son in 1945). She and her third husband were married for 46 years, until her death in 1967.
Labels: anne, asadora, japanese tv, language, nhk, radio, showa period
March 31, 2014
Full stream ahead
Manga and anime in the U.S. had a thriving fan base long before they were commercially viable. With an already established market, and since their IP was getting pirated anyway, Japanese publishers made the rational decision to license it.
The market for physical media—manga and DVDs—maxed out about ten years ago. Then the bubble burst, driving several established importers/distributors out of business. And yet the demand for content was still there and the licensors were still licensing.
So the sensible solution was streaming, with a side business in printed books and discs. Crunchyroll delivers many anime episodes a week after they air in Japan, beating the pirates to the punch. (Unsurprisingly, Crunchyroll was a pirate site before it went legit.)
Mid-list genre novels and live-action television dramas from Japan have never made that break. With no existing market to feed, Japanese media companies couldn't be bothered to try and create one. (Or they tried once and now are twice shy.)
NHK's year-long Taiga dramas and morning serials are often licensed throughout Asia. But to this date, never in the U.S., even though recent series like Ryomaden, Go, and Atsuhime have accessible storylines and attractive lead characters.
Korean television dramas, by contrast, can be found in abundance. The Japanese section of Netflix has a boatload of anime and only a handful of television series. The Korean section has over 100 live-action television series.
Despite the fact that South Korea has half the population of Japan and a third its GDP. This isn't a supply problem. But how can there be a demand when hardly anybody knows the supply exists, or thinks it consists primarily of gonzo game shows?
As an ethnic group, Korean-Americans (1,822,000) outnumber Japanese-Americans (1,411,000). I suspect the bigger reason is that Korean broadcasters (and the South Korean government) have more realistic expectations about the size of the market.
At Anime News Network, Justin Sevakis explains that anime continues to thrive because
Given its microscopic fan base, the cost of simply subtitling a Japanese live-action dramas would wipe out the profit margin for a series.
Korean television content is also more likely to be distributed with a second-generation demographic in mind, while TV Japan is directed primarily at an expatriate audience. This makes it hard to create a home-grown audience
There are plans in the works to create more export-friendly Japan channels. And NHK is slowly building a fledgling distribution network based on its news and infotainment programs.
Drama-wise, NHK has to put something good out there to start the word-of-mouth going. Such an effort would dovetail with the government's "Cool Japan" initiative, launched in 2010 with the goal of creating a profitable overseas market for Japanese culture.
The market for physical media—manga and DVDs—maxed out about ten years ago. Then the bubble burst, driving several established importers/distributors out of business. And yet the demand for content was still there and the licensors were still licensing.
So the sensible solution was streaming, with a side business in printed books and discs. Crunchyroll delivers many anime episodes a week after they air in Japan, beating the pirates to the punch. (Unsurprisingly, Crunchyroll was a pirate site before it went legit.)
Mid-list genre novels and live-action television dramas from Japan have never made that break. With no existing market to feed, Japanese media companies couldn't be bothered to try and create one. (Or they tried once and now are twice shy.)
NHK's year-long Taiga dramas and morning serials are often licensed throughout Asia. But to this date, never in the U.S., even though recent series like Ryomaden, Go, and Atsuhime have accessible storylines and attractive lead characters.
Korean television dramas, by contrast, can be found in abundance. The Japanese section of Netflix has a boatload of anime and only a handful of television series. The Korean section has over 100 live-action television series.
Despite the fact that South Korea has half the population of Japan and a third its GDP. This isn't a supply problem. But how can there be a demand when hardly anybody knows the supply exists, or thinks it consists primarily of gonzo game shows?
As an ethnic group, Korean-Americans (1,822,000) outnumber Japanese-Americans (1,411,000). I suspect the bigger reason is that Korean broadcasters (and the South Korean government) have more realistic expectations about the size of the market.
At Anime News Network, Justin Sevakis explains that anime continues to thrive because
License fees have fallen to a point where they are relatively reasonably priced, and an American publisher can reasonably be expected to buy the rights to a show, produce subtitles (or occasionally a dub), put it on sale, and make a decent profit.
Given its microscopic fan base, the cost of simply subtitling a Japanese live-action dramas would wipe out the profit margin for a series.
Korean television content is also more likely to be distributed with a second-generation demographic in mind, while TV Japan is directed primarily at an expatriate audience. This makes it hard to create a home-grown audience
There are plans in the works to create more export-friendly Japan channels. And NHK is slowly building a fledgling distribution network based on its news and infotainment programs.
Drama-wise, NHK has to put something good out there to start the word-of-mouth going. Such an effort would dovetail with the government's "Cool Japan" initiative, launched in 2010 with the goal of creating a profitable overseas market for Japanese culture.
Labels: asadora, crunchyroll, hulu, japanese tv, k-drama, netflix, nhk, streaming, taiga drama, technology, tv japan
May 14, 2012
Role of a lifetime
NHK's "Big River" (Taiga) historical series and Asadora Showa dramas usually cover most or all of the protagonist's life. This presents an interesting casting challenge.
A typical approach is to cast a child for six Asadora episodes (a week's worth), and just the ninety-minute premier in a Taiga drama. And then quickly introduce the "star" of the series, who plays the character from her teens to her forties or fifties.
The last two Asadora series, Ohisama and Carnation, made a third casting change, bringing in an older actress to play the protagonist in her seventies and eighties. (This transition is often more jarring than going from child to teenager.)
In the Taiga drama Atsuhime, the main character (Tenshôin) and the actress Aoi Miyazaki were within five years of each other for much of the series. Tenshôin died at the age of 47. The last decade of her life was covered in a single episode.
Another approach is to lie a little. The 25-year-old Juri Ueno played the eponymous character in Gô, the wife of the second Tokugawa shogun. I didn't notice anything amiss until the episodes covering the year Gô lived with her stepfather, Shibata Katsuie.
One of the mini-documentaries that accompanies each Taiga series episode featured the famous statue in Fukui City of Shibata (out of frame to the right), his wife (on the left) and stepdaughters. As you can see here and here, Gô (in front) was ten years old at the time.
In the previous scenes with her famous uncle, Oda Nobunaga (below), Gô couldn't have been older than eight. And while Juri Ueno can pass as fifteen, she can't play ten, let alone eight (she's almost as tall as he is, to start with).
Of course, these scenes were less about Gô than about these towering figures of the Warring States period, whose actions would drastically affect the rest of her life. I consider this sort of cinematic fibbing a perfectly acceptable use of dramatic license.
The current Asadora starts with Umeko as a teenager. The 24-year-old Maki Horikita has a slight build that easily allows her to play half a dozen years younger (for that matter, few teenage characters in Hollywood are played by actual teenagers).
I'll be interested to see how long Maki Horikita stays in the role. Many Japanese women between thirty and fifty are blessed with a timeless quality, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to stretch it that far.
As Dick Clark said, "If you want to stay young-looking, choose your parents very carefully." Or be on good terms with the casting director.
A typical approach is to cast a child for six Asadora episodes (a week's worth), and just the ninety-minute premier in a Taiga drama. And then quickly introduce the "star" of the series, who plays the character from her teens to her forties or fifties.
The last two Asadora series, Ohisama and Carnation, made a third casting change, bringing in an older actress to play the protagonist in her seventies and eighties. (This transition is often more jarring than going from child to teenager.)
In the Taiga drama Atsuhime, the main character (Tenshôin) and the actress Aoi Miyazaki were within five years of each other for much of the series. Tenshôin died at the age of 47. The last decade of her life was covered in a single episode.
Another approach is to lie a little. The 25-year-old Juri Ueno played the eponymous character in Gô, the wife of the second Tokugawa shogun. I didn't notice anything amiss until the episodes covering the year Gô lived with her stepfather, Shibata Katsuie.
One of the mini-documentaries that accompanies each Taiga series episode featured the famous statue in Fukui City of Shibata (out of frame to the right), his wife (on the left) and stepdaughters. As you can see here and here, Gô (in front) was ten years old at the time.
In the previous scenes with her famous uncle, Oda Nobunaga (below), Gô couldn't have been older than eight. And while Juri Ueno can pass as fifteen, she can't play ten, let alone eight (she's almost as tall as he is, to start with).
Of course, these scenes were less about Gô than about these towering figures of the Warring States period, whose actions would drastically affect the rest of her life. I consider this sort of cinematic fibbing a perfectly acceptable use of dramatic license.
The current Asadora starts with Umeko as a teenager. The 24-year-old Maki Horikita has a slight build that easily allows her to play half a dozen years younger (for that matter, few teenage characters in Hollywood are played by actual teenagers).
I'll be interested to see how long Maki Horikita stays in the role. Many Japanese women between thirty and fifty are blessed with a timeless quality, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to stretch it that far.
As Dick Clark said, "If you want to stay young-looking, choose your parents very carefully." Or be on good terms with the casting director.
Labels: asadora, history, japanese tv, taiga drama, television
April 30, 2012
Occupation economics
Ume-chan Sensei, the current NHK Asadora, starts with the end of WWII, the arrival of MacArthur (swapping one shogun for another) in 1945, and the American Occupation of Japan.
With the economy wrecked and millions of soldiers and civilians being repatriated, MacArthur's first job was to import large amounts of food to keep starvation at bay during the winter of 1945/6, for which he deserves great credit.
But the food was distributed using rationing cards. Futile attempts to squash a parallel system of black markets slowed the creation of above-board distribution networks, and just as did Prohibition, lent great legitimacy to the yakuza.
One thing feudal rulers, utopian socialist and communists have in common is their contempt for merchants and traders, who make and do "nothing" but shuffle goods from one place to another. This contempt often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Alas, a world without merchants and traders is a poor and inefficient one indeed.
In one episode, Umeko's enterprising uncle flashes a big wad of cash and sums up the law of comparative advantage in a single sentence: "Stuff is worth more in some places than it is in others."
Umeko's father is a doctor (with a low opinion of his mercantilist brother), which would have placed them in the upper middle class. But by the end of the war, they've been reduced to a state of poverty only slightly less grinding than their neighbors.
They had more "stuff," such as kimono, but no way to trade it for stuff they could eat. In one episode, Umeko and her brother travel out to the country to find farmers to barter with. Unfortunately, the farmers have no use for their useless stuff either.
A farmer's wife rolls her eyes and says with jerk of her chin at a shed stuffed with clothing, "I already got more kimono than I'll ever need."
The black markets that blossomed around Tokyo was 1945's version of eBay, putting individual buyers and sellers together. What they really lacked was that other miracle of capitalism, a supply chain (not to mention a sound currency).
MacArthur would have done better to observe the black markets instead of prohibiting them, using that "natural" pricing mechanism to measure "real" supply and demand, and then enhancing distribution with the army's trucks and gasoline.
It's the same concept as waiting a couple of months before installing the sidewalks around a quad and seeing where the grass wears down (or waiting for winter and taking pictures).
With the economy wrecked and millions of soldiers and civilians being repatriated, MacArthur's first job was to import large amounts of food to keep starvation at bay during the winter of 1945/6, for which he deserves great credit.
But the food was distributed using rationing cards. Futile attempts to squash a parallel system of black markets slowed the creation of above-board distribution networks, and just as did Prohibition, lent great legitimacy to the yakuza.
One thing feudal rulers, utopian socialist and communists have in common is their contempt for merchants and traders, who make and do "nothing" but shuffle goods from one place to another. This contempt often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Alas, a world without merchants and traders is a poor and inefficient one indeed.
In one episode, Umeko's enterprising uncle flashes a big wad of cash and sums up the law of comparative advantage in a single sentence: "Stuff is worth more in some places than it is in others."
Umeko's father is a doctor (with a low opinion of his mercantilist brother), which would have placed them in the upper middle class. But by the end of the war, they've been reduced to a state of poverty only slightly less grinding than their neighbors.
They had more "stuff," such as kimono, but no way to trade it for stuff they could eat. In one episode, Umeko and her brother travel out to the country to find farmers to barter with. Unfortunately, the farmers have no use for their useless stuff either.
A farmer's wife rolls her eyes and says with jerk of her chin at a shed stuffed with clothing, "I already got more kimono than I'll ever need."
The black markets that blossomed around Tokyo was 1945's version of eBay, putting individual buyers and sellers together. What they really lacked was that other miracle of capitalism, a supply chain (not to mention a sound currency).
MacArthur would have done better to observe the black markets instead of prohibiting them, using that "natural" pricing mechanism to measure "real" supply and demand, and then enhancing distribution with the army's trucks and gasoline.
It's the same concept as waiting a couple of months before installing the sidewalks around a quad and seeing where the grass wears down (or waiting for winter and taking pictures).
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
February 06, 2012
Silver linings
Eamonn Fingleton is a one-note contrarian who mostly plays solo. His basic argument is that Japan isn't quite the economic basketcase it's been made out to be since the real estate bubble burst twenty years ago.
He has a worthy point there, namely that human beings possess a remarkable ability to simply muddle through. (The apocalyptic nuts have all abandoned religion for economics and climatology.) To start with, even including earthquakes and meltdowns, Japan certainly isn't Greece.
Western journalists are just as gullible now as they were back during the rah-rah 1980s when Japan was #1! And Japanese are sanguine about the problem of population growth (despite there being a cabinet minister with the problem of population growth in her portfolio) for good reasons.
The problem is, Fingleton messes up a worthy thesis with nonsensical apples vs. oranges arguments. The grouchy Spike Japan admits that "had Fingleton deigned to mention crime, drugs, or even general orderliness, I would have conceded the advantage to Japan immediately."
But practically everything Fingleton cites in Japan's favor betrays a no less superficial understanding, is unrelated to the actual strength or weakness of Japan's economy, or is a product of Japan being chock full of Japanese. As far as that goes, Japanese live longer and better in the U.S.
Paul Krugman's response, however, in the form of a backhanded compliment, is more revealing.
Krugman quickly points out Fingleton's errors, but then predictably comes to the conclusion that "[the U.S. is] are doing worse than Japan ever did." Except that in arguing that "1990-2000 really was a lost decade," he makes the sort of silly mistake Fingleton likes to crow about.
Krugman bases this on the pre-popped 1990 bubble, the same way cynical economists like to use the inflation-riven 1970s as a benchmark for middle-class malaise. But draw a straight line through Krugman's graph and 2000 performance fall right in line with the previous three decades.
But taking Krugman at face value, the more interesting question is why Japan is supposedly "doing better." For reasons, alas, that would not please any liberal's heart:
As a result, the average middle-class Japanese has a significantly lower standard of living than his American (or even Italian) counterpart, which is readily apparent from the residences they live in.
But it also means that the Japanese have a greater ability to conform and adapt (as Gillian Tett points out in this BBC interview), and so are much better prepared to make the "sacrifices" our political scolds like to go on about.
NHK set three of the last four Asadora dramas in the Showa Era. The inescapable message: you think life is tough now? Let's remind you what it was like then.
Japan's productivity is still ranked dead last in the G7 and lags even the OECD-30 average. Looking for the silver lining, that means bringing up productivity could buffer the effects of an aging and declining population. I'll bet on the country that would rather work than not.
He has a worthy point there, namely that human beings possess a remarkable ability to simply muddle through. (The apocalyptic nuts have all abandoned religion for economics and climatology.) To start with, even including earthquakes and meltdowns, Japan certainly isn't Greece.
Western journalists are just as gullible now as they were back during the rah-rah 1980s when Japan was #1! And Japanese are sanguine about the problem of population growth (despite there being a cabinet minister with the problem of population growth in her portfolio) for good reasons.
The problem is, Fingleton messes up a worthy thesis with nonsensical apples vs. oranges arguments. The grouchy Spike Japan admits that "had Fingleton deigned to mention crime, drugs, or even general orderliness, I would have conceded the advantage to Japan immediately."
But practically everything Fingleton cites in Japan's favor betrays a no less superficial understanding, is unrelated to the actual strength or weakness of Japan's economy, or is a product of Japan being chock full of Japanese. As far as that goes, Japanese live longer and better in the U.S.
Paul Krugman's response, however, in the form of a backhanded compliment, is more revealing.
Krugman quickly points out Fingleton's errors, but then predictably comes to the conclusion that "[the U.S. is] are doing worse than Japan ever did." Except that in arguing that "1990-2000 really was a lost decade," he makes the sort of silly mistake Fingleton likes to crow about.
Krugman bases this on the pre-popped 1990 bubble, the same way cynical economists like to use the inflation-riven 1970s as a benchmark for middle-class malaise. But draw a straight line through Krugman's graph and 2000 performance fall right in line with the previous three decades.
But taking Krugman at face value, the more interesting question is why Japan is supposedly "doing better." For reasons, alas, that would not please any liberal's heart:
1.) Japanese prefer underemployment to unemployment. "Extending unemployment benefits" is not a subject that greatly consumes the attention of Japanese politicians.
2.) Probably because population growth is flat and immigration is almost nonexistent, factors that will produce tight labor markets under practically any conditions.
3.) Japanese still have to put 20 percent down to get a secured loan on anything. Unsecured loans (credit cards) remain difficult to come by (short of payday lenders and loan sharks).
4.) Bonus-based pay at all levels means that a "salaryman" has to live with the expectation of losing a big chunk of his take-home pay if his company hits a rough patch.
5.) Which means that he has no choice but to save heavily (at zero real interest rates) or live significantly within his means (or live with his parents).
As a result, the average middle-class Japanese has a significantly lower standard of living than his American (or even Italian) counterpart, which is readily apparent from the residences they live in.
But it also means that the Japanese have a greater ability to conform and adapt (as Gillian Tett points out in this BBC interview), and so are much better prepared to make the "sacrifices" our political scolds like to go on about.
NHK set three of the last four Asadora dramas in the Showa Era. The inescapable message: you think life is tough now? Let's remind you what it was like then.
Japan's productivity is still ranked dead last in the G7 and lags even the OECD-30 average. Looking for the silver lining, that means bringing up productivity could buffer the effects of an aging and declining population. I'll bet on the country that would rather work than not.
Related posts
Before and After
Showa nostalgia
Apocalypse not now
Labels: asadora, economics, japan, politics, showa period
April 11, 2011
Ganbarou! Japan
Quite coincidentally (it's been in pre-production for several months, and was scheduled to start three weeks ago), but perhaps quite appropriately, the current Asadora is a Showa drama. It follows the heroine from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Showa dramas typically depict Japan (symbolized by the protagonist) struggling through the ashes of WWII to reclaim her place in the world. They're romanticizations, to be sure--not that exaggerated--of an era when everybody put their shoulders to the wheel.
It's an ethos and state of mind summed up in the verb ganbaru: "to persist, to hang on, to stick it out." You now see the volitional form on banners everywhere: Ganbarou! Japan (がんばろう！日本). Such as at the spring national high school baseball tournament.
Showa dramas typically depict Japan (symbolized by the protagonist) struggling through the ashes of WWII to reclaim her place in the world. They're romanticizations, to be sure--not that exaggerated--of an era when everybody put their shoulders to the wheel.
It's an ethos and state of mind summed up in the verb ganbaru: "to persist, to hang on, to stick it out." You now see the volitional form on banners everywhere: Ganbarou! Japan (がんばろう！日本). Such as at the spring national high school baseball tournament.
Related posts
Asadora
Showa nostalgia
Sendai earthquake
Labels: asadora, baseball, earthquake, japanese, language, showa period, tohoku earthquake
January 31, 2011
Japanese hybrid
Language is a good measure of cultural influence. English, for example, has the Norman Conquest (plus Latin and the Vulgate) to thank for all the high-brow French cluttering up the low-brow Anglo Saxon, which is Germanic in origin.
A thousand years ago, Japan saw itself in the mirror of China, which unfortunately resulted in the adoption of kanji, even though the languages have nothing in common. A hundred years ago, it patterned its social institutions after Europe. Now it sees itself in the mirror of the United States.
As was recently pointed out on NHK's Nihon-GO! pop-linguistics program, based on a sample of unabridged dictionaries, over the past fifty years, the number of foreign cognates in Japanese--mostly from English--has risen from a few hundred to over ten thousand.
Even I find myself saying at times, "There's a perfectly good Japanese word for that." Although on the aforementioned show, 70 percent of those polled concluded it wasn't worth trying to come up with a substitute for "hybrid [car]" (ハイブリッド), despite not knowing what "hybrid" meant. How many people know what "MP3" stands for?
Then a few days later, NHK's version of Nightline did a show on the "Tsuittaa (ツイッター) Revolution." Sound it out! In the Twitter glossary here, only three terms ("Trending Topics," "Favorites," "Via") contain any native Japanese.
Unlike the French, while professional worriers may wring their hands about it, and now and then an indignant politician demands to know why a political platform is called a "manifesto," once a word comes into vogue, most Japanese don't care to inconvenience themselves enough to get rid of them.
A big reason for this is that katakana works like a kind of cryptographic hash function. Even words that make it through unscathed phonologically, like "manifesto," are still rendered indecipherable to most foreigners (マニフェスト), making them unmistakably Japanese.
Even so, especially in academic contexts, these English cognates have gained the kind of intellectual panache that French once had, setting up a tension represented by the two phonetic scripts, katakana (used to write cognates) and hiragana (used to write native Japanese).
Recently on the serial drama Teppan, Akari was getting advice about how to run her restaurant from a young MBA-type, who peppered her lecture with confusing (to Akari) English business terms until Akari's grandmother snapped, "Quit talking in katakana! You're Japanese! Speak in hiragana!"
A thousand years ago, Japan saw itself in the mirror of China, which unfortunately resulted in the adoption of kanji, even though the languages have nothing in common. A hundred years ago, it patterned its social institutions after Europe. Now it sees itself in the mirror of the United States.
As was recently pointed out on NHK's Nihon-GO! pop-linguistics program, based on a sample of unabridged dictionaries, over the past fifty years, the number of foreign cognates in Japanese--mostly from English--has risen from a few hundred to over ten thousand.
Even I find myself saying at times, "There's a perfectly good Japanese word for that." Although on the aforementioned show, 70 percent of those polled concluded it wasn't worth trying to come up with a substitute for "hybrid [car]" (ハイブリッド), despite not knowing what "hybrid" meant. How many people know what "MP3" stands for?
Then a few days later, NHK's version of Nightline did a show on the "Tsuittaa (ツイッター) Revolution." Sound it out! In the Twitter glossary here, only three terms ("Trending Topics," "Favorites," "Via") contain any native Japanese.
Unlike the French, while professional worriers may wring their hands about it, and now and then an indignant politician demands to know why a political platform is called a "manifesto," once a word comes into vogue, most Japanese don't care to inconvenience themselves enough to get rid of them.
A big reason for this is that katakana works like a kind of cryptographic hash function. Even words that make it through unscathed phonologically, like "manifesto," are still rendered indecipherable to most foreigners (マニフェスト), making them unmistakably Japanese.
Even so, especially in academic contexts, these English cognates have gained the kind of intellectual panache that French once had, setting up a tension represented by the two phonetic scripts, katakana (used to write cognates) and hiragana (used to write native Japanese).
Recently on the serial drama Teppan, Akari was getting advice about how to run her restaurant from a young MBA-type, who peppered her lecture with confusing (to Akari) English business terms until Akari's grandmother snapped, "Quit talking in katakana! You're Japanese! Speak in hiragana!"
Labels: asadora, japanese, language, social studies
August 09, 2010
From rent to own
As depicted in the autobiographical Asadora series Ge-Ge-Ge no Nyoubou, Shigeru Mizuki began his career in the 1950s writing for the kashihon (貸本) or "rental book" market, basically small for-profit libraries. He scraped by as a starving artist this way for a decade.
Incidentally, the series shows Mizuki encountering the same comics-are-evil protests during this period that practically destroyed the comic book industry in the U.S. Fortunately for him, as the "rental library" business dried up, so did the protests.
(Bookstores in Japan today do have to distinguish between manga that can be sold "unrestricted" to all customers and those essentially kept "behind the counter." Though those standards are way, way, way more permissive than in the U.S.)
Or everybody was too busy growing the GDP at double-digits to care. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics is seen as the turning point, when all that growth began compounding vigorously. The baby boom kids could afford to buy manga magazines rather than rent manga books.
In 1964, Mizuki was "discovered" by publishing giant Kodansha's Shounen Magazine. He rewrote and relaunched two of his kashihon series--Akuma-kun ("Devil Boy") and Ge Ge Ge no Kitarou--both of which became television series (live action and anime).
In what-goes-around fashion, the kashihon store has been more recently resurrected as the manga kissa, a coffee shop stocked with manga that can be read at the patron's leisure for an hourly cover charge. (Or for that matter, Blockbuster and Netflix.)
Incidentally, the series shows Mizuki encountering the same comics-are-evil protests during this period that practically destroyed the comic book industry in the U.S. Fortunately for him, as the "rental library" business dried up, so did the protests.
(Bookstores in Japan today do have to distinguish between manga that can be sold "unrestricted" to all customers and those essentially kept "behind the counter." Though those standards are way, way, way more permissive than in the U.S.)
Or everybody was too busy growing the GDP at double-digits to care. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics is seen as the turning point, when all that growth began compounding vigorously. The baby boom kids could afford to buy manga magazines rather than rent manga books.
In 1964, Mizuki was "discovered" by publishing giant Kodansha's Shounen Magazine. He rewrote and relaunched two of his kashihon series--Akuma-kun ("Devil Boy") and Ge Ge Ge no Kitarou--both of which became television series (live action and anime).
In what-goes-around fashion, the kashihon store has been more recently resurrected as the manga kissa, a coffee shop stocked with manga that can be read at the patron's leisure for an hourly cover charge. (Or for that matter, Blockbuster and Netflix.)
April 15, 2010
A matter of height
An Asadora protagonist is always a woman. The lead of Ge-Ge-Ge no Nyoubou is played by Nao Matsushita, who is 175 cm (5'9") tall. The average Japanese female is 158 cm (5'2"), the average Japanese male is 172 cm (5'8") tall, so she towers over almost everyone.Watching enka singer Kiyoshi Hikawa's variety show, I was sure he was at least six feet, but it turns out he's 177 cm (5'10"). It's just that he was that much taller than his guests.
I'm 176 cm tall, the exact average for the American male. I used to have a pretty unobstructed view standing in a subway car in Japan. But over the last quarter century, adult male height in Japan has gained 3 cm, so not for long.
The average Japanese eleven-year-old has gained an amazing six inches since the end of the war.
Thirty years ago, Japan's most famous tall actress was Youko Shimada. To prevent a comical mismatch of height in the Shogun miniseries, the 171 cm (5'7") Shimada was cast against the 185 cm (6'1") Richard Chamberlain.
Nao Matsushita's character really was a couple standard deviations taller than the average (Nunoe Mura was repeatedly turned down for marriage proposals because of her height), and she is playing opposite the six foot Osamu Mukai.
So in historical and relative terms, the role does call for someone with height on her side. (Incidentally, theirs was an arranged marriage, and Nunoe Mura and Shigeru Mizuki were married a week after their omiai.)
Labels: asadora, eye-of-beholder, japan, japanese tv, pop culture, science, social studies, television
April 12, 2010
Ge-Ge-Ge no Nyoubou
NHK's daily (six days a week) 15-minute long, family-friendly morning melodrama (Asadora) is doing something a bit different this time around: a non-fiction series. The story is based on the autobiography of Nunoe Mura, wife of famed horror mangaka Shigeru Mizuki.During WWII, Shigeru Mizuki was an infantryman in Papua, New Guinea, and lost his left arm in a bombing raid. Originally left-handed, he had to teach himself to draw with his right. When the war ended, he considered staying behind in Rabaul, but returned to Japan.
His affection for New Guinea has since been reciprocated, with a street in Rabaul being named after him. (The Taiwanese also remain relatively well-disposed toward the Japanese, probably because the Imperial Army treated them better than the Chinese Nationalists.)
Mizuki's most famous work is Ge-Ge-Ge no Kitarou ("Kitarou of the Ge-Ge-Ge"), so the Asadora series is titled Ge-Ge-Ge no Nyoubou, or "Ge-Ge-Ge's Wife." The "Ge-Ge-Ge" are a tribe of youkai, or spirits and demons. Mizuki is largely responsible for popularizing Japan's rich youkai mythology.
Ghibli's Pom Poko belongs to the youkai world, while the creatures in Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke are more Shinto in orientation. They live alongside the gods of Japan's creation myths and various Chinese and European imports. The Venn diagrams overlap quite a bit.
By comparison, think of the difficulty in classifying all the gods and demons in the Western tradition (Greco-Roman, Christian, Norse, just to name a few), along with the pagan religions, fairy and folk tales (original and revised versions), plus recent inventions like Dracula and Frankenstein.
The propensity for human being to create transcendental realities seems bred in the bone (if not the genes). Not satisfied to just create them, we then arrange them into insanely complex taxonomies. This, incidentally, is why evangelical atheism is ultimately doomed to plow the ocean.
Labels: asadora, japan, japanese tv, manga, pop culture, religion, shinto, studio ghibli