Erleuchtung garantiert (Enlightenment Guaranteed/もんぜん, 1999)

Brothers Uwe (Uwe Ochsenknecht) and Gustav (Gustav-Peter Wöhler) have very little in common with each other apart from their bad marriages.  Uwe is a self-absorbed kitchen salesman with four children whose wife Petra (Petra Zieser) gets fed up with him and walks out on their marriage.  Meanwhile, Gustav is in a sterile, childless relationship with his wife Ulrike (Ulrike Kriener).   Unlike chaotic Uwe, Gustav makes a concerted effort to find inner peace in his life, working as a Feng Shui expert, raking his miniature Zen Garden, memorizing Asian proverbs, and practicing meditation.

Consumed by grief over his failing marriage, Uwe crashes Gustav’s planned Zen Buddhist retreat to the Monzen monastery on the Noto Peninsula.  When the brothers arrive in Tokyo, Gustav’s façade of inner peace is torn away as both men find themselves overwhelmed by their new environment.  After a night on the town, the men are unable to find their hotel again and have run out of cash because they spent it all on booze.  Their inability to communicate with a taxi driver lands them in an unfamiliar neighbourhood,  and they wander aimlessly through the darkened city streets.  They eventually end up in the Taito ward where they follow the example of the homeless people there by spending the night sleeping in cardboard boxes.

The next morning, their situation does not improve and they manage to lose each other while crossing Shibuya’s famous scramble crossing in the middle of the day.  With Uwe armed only with his video camera, which he uses to record a video diary of his journey, and Gustav armed only with a book of Zen sayings, the two men must take on this next phase of their journey alone.  Eventually the brothers find each other again and make their way through a series of misadventures to the Monzen monastery where they are given the opportunity to see their lives from a new perspective through a regime of hard work and meditation. 

Erleuchtung garantiert (Enlightenment Guaranteed/もんぜん, 1999) was shot entirely on digital video and has an intimate feel to it.  I enjoyed this film more than Doris Dörrie’s other Japan-themed feature Kirschblüten– Hanami (Cherry Blossoms, 2008) which was much hyped in the German media the year after I moved here from Tokyo.  The journey of self discovery in Cherry Blossoms seemed forced, whereas the story of Uwe and Gustav seems so effortless.  There is a realness and a spontaneity to the characters which reminded me of the works of Mike Leigh.  Above all, the humour that Uwe Ochsenknecht and Gustav-Peter Wöhler bring to their roles keeps the film from taking itself too seriously.  It's a great film for people reevaluating their own lives and in need of a good laugh at the inanities of human nature. 

Enlightenment Guaranteed is one of five films that I wrote about for World Film Locations: Tokyo (ed. Chris MaGee, 2011).  I chose the Yanaka Cemetary as the location to focus on.  Support independent film critics by ordering the book today:

The film is available on DVD in the States:



. . . in Germany:



.  .  .  and even in Japan:

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Kakera: A Piece of Our Life (カケラ, 2009)

It is rare to find an individual who is completely happy with themselves.  Most people, especially those without love in their lives, find themselves constantly searching for a way to improve or replace these pieces of themselves that they find lacking.  Momoko Andō’s Kakera: A Piece of Our Life (カケラ, 2009) is peopled with characters who are unhappy with their present circumstances and are looking without rather than within in order to fulfill their needs and desires.

Kakera tells the story of a college student named Haru  Kitagawa (Hikari Mitsushima of Love Exposure), who stays with her boyfriend (Tasuku Nagaoka of Moon and Cherry) despite the fact that he treats her quite badly.  One day in a café, she is approached by an older woman named Riko Sakata (Eriko Nakamura) who finds her attractive.  This awkward, yet tender scene marks the beginning of a complicated relationship between the two women which runs the gamut of emotions from warmth and affection to jealousy and confusion.  

Momoko Andō has managed to capture the fragile beauty of a romance between women with an authenticity and sensitivity rarely seen in feature films.  Each of the characters in the film has a kind of void in their lives that they try to fill with the love they have for another character and as in real life the course of these relationships never runs smooth.  Riko’s love for Haru is complicated by Haru’s unresolved feelings for her boyfriend and her own sexuality.  Haru’s boyfriend is one of those types of people who seem to always desire what he cannot have.  And Riko’s client and lover Tōko (Rino Katase) is also consumed by desires that remain only partially fulfilled.  This theme is visually represented in the film by the prosthetics that Riko designs for people who have lost body parts.  Prosthetics allow their wearers to disguise the ravages of illness or accidents that they have suffered, but they are not a permanent replacement for what has been lost.

Kakera is a film that examines female sexuality in all its ambiguities.  Riko’s love for Haru is complex.  She can be loving and kind, but she can also be possessive and jealous.  It is a brave film in many respects, though might have been even braver if Andō had included less chaste lovemaking scenes between the female protagonists.  This would have been a welcome contrast to the cold, empty sex scenes between Haru and her boyfriend that look more like rape than love-making.

The film has a feeling of authenticity about it thanks to not only the sincere performances of the actors but also the use of recognizable locations from around Tokyo, which ground the film in a very realistic, contemporary setting.  As a female spectator, I also took great delight in Andō’s use of female spaces that normally get left out of films.  There is one wonderful scene in which Haru is shot from a high angle using a public squat toilet to put a menstruation pad into her underpants.  It is an intimate moment that marks a new phase in Haru and Riko’s relationship.  This scene should not have been as surprising as it was as it’s a part of women’s everyday lives, but  startles because these moments always get omitted from films.  

  

Order the DVD

Kakera was adapted by Andō from the popular manga Love Vibes by Erica Sakurazawa  and was filmed beautifully by cinematographer Hirokazu Ishii.  The soundtrack was written by James Iha, the former guitarist of Smashing Pumpkins.  It is available on DVD in the UK from Third Window Films.  It is also available from cdjapan (JP only).

This post is part of the Queer Film Blogathon hosted by Garbo Laughs. To read more LGBT posts from the blogathon click here.

Manji (卍, 1964)

The impassioned voice of Kiyoko Kishida in the lead role of Sonoko Kakiuchi dominates the narrative of Yasuzo Masumura’s 1964 classic feature film Manji (卍, 1964). Just as in the original novel Quicksand (Manji/卍, 1928-30) by Junichirō Tanizaki, the story is told from Sonoko’s point of view to a man she refers to as “sensei”.

  

The Taniguchi novel

Sonoko is stuck in a loveless arranged marriage to Kotaro Kakiuchi (Eiji Funakoshi). The marriage is childless because Sonoko is secretly taking measures to prevent pregnancy, and she fills her empty days with art. She attends art lessons at a local women’s college. During life drawing classes, it is brought to Sonoko’s attention that she has become the subject of gossip because instead of drawing the model’s face, she has been drawing the face of beautiful fellow student Mitsuko Sido (Ayako Wakao).

Sonoko is brought to her knees by Michiko's unadorned beauty

The two women develop a friendship with each other that blossoms into a full-fledged love affair. The passion Sonoko feels for Mitsuko is so strong that she brazenly conducts the affair in her own marital bed and defies her husband’s wishes for her to end the relationship. It does not take long however for cracks to appear in what Sonoko believed to be a perfect love. She soon discovers that Mitsuko has a secret fiancé Eijiro Wakanuki (Yuusuke Kawazu), a man whose impotence leads him to behave in a jealous, irrational manner. This awkward ménage-à-trois becomes even more complicated when Mitsuko also draws Sonoko’s husband into the fray.

Michiko embraces Sonoko.

It’s a frenetic narrative that rarely stops for air as it races towards its dramatic conclusion. Set among the Osakan upper classes, we rarely see a glimpse of the city streets as the story for the most part unfolds in the interiors of the Kakiuchi home or in anonymous rented rooms. The use of interior spaces and frequent use of close-ups adds to the stifled atmosphere created by the oppressive passions of the four narcissistic lovers. The Japanese title “Manji” is the Buddhist swastika with its four arms representing each of the four lovers. Sonoko also uses Mitsuko as the model for her painting of the Goddess of Mercy, which serves an ironic function in the plot as Mitsuko turns out to be anything but merciful in the way that she skillfully manipulates her lovers.

Sonoko and Michiko's love letters.

In the wrong hands, Tanizaki’s story of obsession and jealousy could have easily been turned into a tawdry film exploiting love between women. Masumura avoids this thanks to Kaneto Shindō's poignant script and his use of highly stylized framing. Love scenes are rendered in fragments with each frame carefully composed with the elegance of an oil painting. The pureness of Sonoko's love for Michiko is emphasized through one of the few outdoor scenes in which the two women stroll through a verdant forest and pause in front of some Buddhist statues.  Throughout it all, the tremulous voice of Kyoko Kishida as Sonoko reminds us that with all the lovers’ threats of suicide at the very least one passionate woman will survive the maelstrom that is Manji. 

This post is part of the Queer Film Blogathon hosted by Garbo Laughs. To read more LGBT posts from the blogathon click here.  This film is widely available on DVD (Fantoma in the US, Yume Pictures in the UK - who have interestingly dropped the swastika from the poster).  Click here to order from Japan (no subs).

Jellyfish Boy (くらげくん, 2009)

 

Jellyfish boy, he is my friend.

He dresses like a Jellyfish, so I named him Jellyfish boy.

He likes me even though we are both boys.

One day, Jellyfish boy told me he's moving.

We can't play together anymore.

He asked me to go somewhere far together.

He told me he wants to run away from his life.

We can't run away from our life, so we went to the sea.

The sexuality of children is normally a taboo subject in the world of filmmaking. It is even rarer to find a film that portrays a young, homosexual boy in an unabashedly postive manner.   In his short film Jelly Fish Boy (くらげくん/Kurage-kun, 2009), young director Shoh Kataoka (片岡翔) tackles the issue head on by presenting the story of two prepubescent boys.

Kotaro (played by Ren Yasuda) is a very masculine type. His hair is shorn short, he wears masculine clothes and he likes to play with toy soldiers. 

In contrast, Kotaro’s best friend Kurage-kun (Daiki Gunji) is very effeminate. Kurage means ‘jellyfish’ and ‘–kun’ is the diminutive placed at the end of boys’ names in Japanese. This is the affectionate nickname that Kotaro gives his friend because the flowy dresses that Kurage-kun likes to wear remind him of a jellyfish. Kurage-kun likes to play music on his ocarina, and in addition to dresses, wears a pink scarf, a necklace, and frilly shoes. 

In spite of the pair’s different outward appearances and different interests – Kotaro likes to play rough, while Kurage-kun has a more gentle nature – the two are fast friends. They play chase, and tease each other and spend a lot of time talking with each other.

When they learn that Kurage-kun will be moving away with his family, the two boys decide to run away to the seaside together. While at the seaside, it becomes clear that Kurage-kun has a slight crush on Kotaro and that his dreams for the future and Kotaro’s vision of the future don’t exactly match up.

The story unfolds in a lyrical manner with beautiful cinematography by Yoshinobu Murahashi and music by Mayumi Nakata. The scene of the two of them sitting on the stairs together was surprisingly dialogue heavy for a film, but as the two young actors made the words seem natural it worked. The best moments of the film were of the two of them playing together or just simply sitting together on the train, for their body language and expressions spoke more than words could say.

The cynic in me thinks that the relationship portrayed in the film is an idealistic one – a relationship that could only develop outside of the pressures of school peers and with liberal-minded parents. On the other hand, the young actors portrayed their characters so convincingly that I wanted to believe that two such boys could have a friendship that transcends the prejudices of society to conform. 

An enchanting and thought-provoking film, Jellyfish Boy won the runner-up prize at the 2010 Pia Film Festival. I had the good fortune to see at the Shinsedai Cinema Festival in Toronto. Definitely check it out if it comes to a festival near you. In the meantime, check out the trailers on Kataoka's Youtube channel.

Shoh Kataoka Filmography

2006 Can Kick
2007 Nitankasanso
2008 28 (6‘)
2008 hero (3‘)
2008 Guru-guru Mawaru (28‘)
2009 Following (5‘)
2009 Mr. Bubblegum (13‘)
2009 Kuragekun (Jellyfish Boy, 14‘)
2010 Gurunika (21‘)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Waterboys (ウォーターボーイズ, 2001)

Although my viewing habits of late have taken me into the territory of more artsy fare, I do occasionally indulge in a few guilty pleasures. For example, I love a good genre film now and then, no matter how predictable the plot. Waterboys (ウォーターボーイズ, Shinobu Yaguchi, 2001) falls into the category of heartfelt screwball comedy with an Esther Williams twist. I’ll bet, dear reader, that you didn’t even know that such a category exists! The premise: it is nearing the end of the school year for a group of young students at an all male school who have failed to be successful in any clubs for sports or hobbies. A young female teacher arrives on the scene with a passion for synchronized swimming and therein lies the screwball comedy: young men performing a sport which is usually done by women.

Through a sudden and unlikely series of events in which the teacher pukes one moment and the next moment is eight months pregnant and on pregnancy leave, the boys find themselves stuck with a plan to perform at the school summer festival but without anyone to train them. I could imagine a lot of cynical western viewers getting annoyed with the film at this point because of the unrealistic plot devices being thrown at them. However, I suspect that the average Japanese audience takes this as a cue to not take anything seriously and to just sit back and laugh at the gags. The plot really is besides the point. It only acts as a build up for the swimming spectacular (more a choreographed routine using a swimming pool than the actual sport of synchro) which is the centerpiece of the film.

Waterboys is successful because it never takes itself too seriously. The underlying plot device could be described as a kind of ‘if you don’t succeed, try, try again’ story, but the film only expects laughs and not tears from its audience. It’s not really about winning but about going through the process of improving oneself. And of course, although there are individual stories of triumph in the plot, as this is a Japanese film succeeding as a group is what is most important. Or, as Naoto Takenaka in the role of Sea World boss Isomura-san tells Suzuki-san (Satoshi Tsumabuki): getting out there, having fun, and making a fool of yourself is much better than feeling worthless for the rest of your life.

The film is also successful because it doesn’t overdo offensive stereotypes that sometimes creep into Japanese comedies. The jokes surrounding the transvestites who fund the boys in their efforts to learn synchro are relatively tame and the uncomfortable tension surrounding the one gay character Saotome (Takatoshi Kaneko) who has a crush on one of his teammates (Sato, played by Hiroshi Tamaki) is normalized rather than mocked. The big laughs in the film come from seeing geeky guys performing amusing routines – such as when Ohta (Akifumi Miura) gets discovered doing a workout video in tight red briefs. The director even managed to reign in the performance of Naoto Takenaka as Isomura the dolphin instructor. Takenaka is known for his over-the-top characters in films like Shall We Dance? (hilarious!) and Nodame Cantabile (a dreadful performance!). My favourite cameo of his was in Twentieth Century Boys where he gets killed off moments after making his appearance (I do have a black sense of humour).

Waterboys was so successful that there was a follow-up TV series on Fuji TV (2003-4) which ran for two seasons and a sequel Waterboys 2 (Yuji Sato, 2004). It’s a fun film for the young, yet perhaps surprisingly there may actually be some food for thought for the more academically inclined. For example, I believe there may be a great academic paper in there somewhere about male bodies subverting a typically female genre film. Being a big fan of 1930s genre films, I can say without hesitation that it’s a film that would indeed make Esther Williams and Busby Berkeley proud of their legacy. Available on DVD and Blu-ray with English subtitles.

Waterboys (English Subtitles) [Standard Edition]

Waterboys (English Subtitles) [Blu-ray]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Anime Alice in Wonderland

There’s a lot of hype in the blogosphere at the moment over Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (see recently leaked images) despite the fact that the film won’t be released until spring 2010. It got me thinking about the prevalence of Alice in Wonderland-type themes in Japanese animation.


The first one that comes to mind is the classic anime series Alice in Wonderland (ふしぎの国のアリス/Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu, 1983-1984) directed by Shigeo Koshi and Taku Sugiyama. The series was a German-Japanese co-production involving Nippon Animation which aired on in Japan on the NHK and in West Germany on ZDF. Nippon Animation (formerly Zuiyo Eizo) has a long history of producing classics from world children’s literature. They were the studio responsible for the World Masterpiece Theatre (世界名作劇場/ Sekai Meisaku Gekijō) anime series, which ran from 1969 to 1997. It’s a beautifully animated little series. I don’t know if it has ever shown on TV in English – I would imagine that there might be copyright problems with Disney - but it’s widely available on DVD here in Germany and repeats were shown on the children’s broadcaster KiKa earlier this year.


The popular series InuYasha (戦国御伽草子 犬夜叉, 1996-2008) has an Alice in Wonderland theme. It follows the adventures of a young girl who is drawn into a fantasy world when she falls down an old well. Viz, the company who translated the series into English, gave nods to the influence of Lewis Carroll in their translations of some of the titles. For example, of the third episode in the first series as "Down the Rabbit Hole and Back Again." (骨喰いの井戸からただいまっ!) The second movie was called The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass (映画犬夜叉　鏡の中の夢幻城, 2002). The use of the archaic term ‘looking glass’ instead of ‘mirror’ as a translation for ‘kagami’ (鏡) makes the Lewis Carroll reference clear.


The Clamp manga Miyuki-chan in Wonderland (不思議の国の美幸ちゃん) puts an erotic, lesbian spin on the Lewis Carroll tale. It was adapted into a 30-minute OVA anime by Kiyoko Sayama in 1995. This anime was not really my cup of tea, but its fansub is pretty popular viewing on youtube. The screenshot above features a female embodiment of the Cheshire cat seducing Miyuki-chan.

Ouran High School Host Club (桜蘭高校ホスト部) takes on Alice in episode 13. Entitled "Haruhi in Wonderland"(不思議の国のハルヒ), the episode features Haruhi having a fantastical Alice in Wonderland dream about the day of her admission into Ouran High School.


Nagisa Miyazaki’s adaptation of the Kaishaku Kagihime Monogatari Eikyū Alice Rondo manga (鍵姫物語 永久アリス輪舞曲, 2006) was also inspired by the Alice in Wonderland story.


My favourite, however, is Atsuko Ishizuka’s contribution to the NHK’s Minna no Uta series: Tsuki no Waltz (Waltz of the Moon, 2004). After making a big splash with her independently produced animation shorts, Madhouse snapped Ishizuka up as an in-house animator. However, the studio was kind enough to let Ishizuka do one short animation for the NHK. Tsuki no Waltz is easily in my top ten Minna no Uta animations of all time because the dream-like animation is just stunning. It fits with the romantic Mio Isayama song perfectly, and each frame of the animation could be printed, framed, and hung on the wall as art. You can check out the video here.  (Update Sept. 2010: More on Tsuki no Waltz)

Can anyone think of one that I've missed?  Leave a message in the comments.

Related Posts:
Tsuki no Waltz
Gravitation

Tsuki no Waltz is available on:

Minna no Uta Best Hit Collection

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Naked Youth

Hosozao (aka Kojirō Shishido, b. 1983) has posted an HD version of Naked Youth on Youtube. Really innovative work. Check it out below & read my post on his work here:

Kojiro Shishido (宍戸小次郎)

One of the biggest challenges in CG animation is how to create a unique vision using a medium that encourages uniformity. The work of Kojirō Shishido (b. 1983) stands out for me because of the way he has used a wide variety of CG techniques in order create images that directly relate to the themes of his short films.

Browsing through the online examples of the work of Kojiro Shishido, aka Hosozao (his user name is a type of shamisen), it becomes apparent that he has experimented with the capacities of his software (Bauhaus Software Mirage 1.5, Corel PainterX, Adobe AfterEffects CS3, Photoshop CS3) in a variety of amusing shorts such as Deep Sea Tentacle, Drawing!!, Wakame Buildings, Collapse Zen, and Superfluid, in a manner reminiscent of Norman McLaren’s early experiments with animation on film at the NFB. Using these playful, engaging films to explore the possibilities of his tools, Shishido applies what he has learned in his more introspective films such as Doutei Kawaiya (Sweet, Sweet Virgin, 2003), Kagami no Genon (sound/phantasma/mirror aka Mirror’s Fundamental Tone, 2004) and his most recent film Naked Youth (2006).

In Doutei Kawaiya, Kagami no Genon and Naked Youth Shishido takes us on a journey through the uncertainty and excitement of young love and homoerotic love. These gentle films quiver with sexual tension, which is linked to the natural world: trees reflecting on the surface of a pond, butterflies fluttering in the breeze. Of the three films, Doutei Kawaiya is least concerned with the outside world, focusing instead on the claustrophobic world of young people discovering their sexuality. Although their faces and bodies take centre stage, nature is represented by images of flowers, a brief shot of the sky, and a striking painting of trees.

Shishido clearly enjoys the possibilities of light and shade in his films. Not only does he experiment with intensity of light, but he also plays with the patterns made by light when it encounters different objects. Moments like the graphic play of the light passing through window blinds as they flutter around in Kagami no Genon or the mesmerizing quality of the light of the summer sun pushing through dense trees demonstrate Shishido’s sensitivity to small details that create ambience.

One major theme in Shishido’s work is reflections. He shows us beautiful reflections not only in surfaces like water, mirrors, but also polished floors. Shishido renders his realistic backdrops images slightly blurry, endowing them with the hazy quality of memories or dreams. The characters are set apart from the backgrounds with their sketch-like quality that makes them seem more like cel animation than the more obviously CG settings. You can see for yourself how Shishido creates his images in stages in his ‘Making of Naked Youth’ clips: clip 1, clip 2, clip 3.

It is a delight to watch these three films in the order in which they were made because you can see Shishido’s growth as a visual storyteller with Naked Youth bringing together the best elements of his earlier films. I particularly like how he layers his images using real architecture and interiors as his inspiration. He also composes his own music for his films. Shishido uses music in a minimalist way to add to the emotional impact of the images. For a young filmmaker, he has already learned that sound effects (cicadas, hiyodori, running water, etc.) and silence are equally as important for creating ambience. I do hope that Shishido continues to make independent films so that we can see the full blossoming of his potential as an artist.

Filmography

• Undercurrent (2001)

• Doutei Kawaiya (Sweet, Sweet Virgin, 2003)

• Kagami no Genon (sound/phantasma/mirror, 2004)

• Deep Sea Tentacle

• Drawing!!

• Wakame Buildings

• Collapse

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2008

Nodame Cantabile (のだめカンタービレ)

Nodame Cantabile (のだめカンタービレ) is a popular, award-winning shōjo manga by Tomoko Ninomiya (二ノ宮知子). The series debuted in Kiss magazine in 2001 and the story is on-going with 19 volumes currently in print.

The manga’s popularity has only increased in recent years with Fuji TV producing both a live action drama series and an anime based on the story. The drama ran from October 16 to December 25, 2006 and was revived for a two-episode special set in Europe in January 2008. The animation ran from January 11-June 28, 2007. Nodame Cantabile gets its name through a combination of the nickname of the main character and the musical theme of the story. Nodame, whose full name is Megumi Noda, is an eccentric young student at a music college in Tokyo. She majors in piano and dreams of one day becoming a kindergarten teacher. At every turn, she defies society’s expectations for young women: she gets so caught up in her music and her love of a quirky tv animation that she neglects her apartment and her physical appearance. Her room is filled with clutter and decaying remains of meals, and she has been known to go for days without washing her hair. In Japan, where bathing is an important social ritual both at home and in pubic baths, Nodame’s behaviour seems extraordinary.

The second half of the title, cantabile, is a musical term meaning singable or song-like. This refers not only to the musical theme of the story, but also to Nodame’s unconventional style of piano playing. She finds it difficult to sight-read, and picks up most pieces just by listening to them once. Playing the piano is an emotional experience for Nodame, and she has a tendency to get so wrapped up in the experience that she forgets the composer’s intentions and plays purely for her own enjoyment.


As with most manga, Nodame Cantabile, balances a number different plots and sub-plots, but the central storyline that brings readers back for each new episode is the unlikely romance between Nodame and her fellow student and next door neighbour Shinichi Chiaki. Whereas Nodame comes from a modest working class background in southern Japan, Chiaki was raised in a wealthy family with a professional musician for a father. As a child, he was introduced to the musical capitals of Europe and aspires to become a conductor like his idol, Sebastino Viera.

Nodame and Chiaki’s relationship begins as an unusual friendship. Although Chiaki thinks that Nodame is a nuisance, he somehow can’t help but want to look after her. He nurtures Nodame’s unique talent for piano and, discovering how inept Nodame is at looking after herself, Chiaki finds himself cleaning up her apartment and cooking meals for her. Nodame falls head over heels for Chiaki from the outset, and does nothing to hide her affection. She comes to depend on his friendship and guidance, and dreams both of his future success as a conductor and of one day becoming his wife.

Both the anime and the drama are engaging. What I like best about the story, is that it turns the conventional gender roles on their head. All the characters, no matter what their sex, have set high career goals for themselves, and the romance is incidental to those goals. Nodame’s complete ineptitude as a cook and as a housekeeper makes for some great comedic moments, and allows the male lead to demonstrate his domestic talents. If I have any critique of the two main characters, it would be that I would wish Nodame to be a little less needy, and Chiaki to be more compassionate with others.

I have a high tolerance for cheery melodrama and slapstick comedy (I am a huge fan of Buster Keaton), but no matter how much I loved the unconventional romance and character development of Chiaki and Nodame, my enjoyment of both the anime and the drama was marred by the extreme slapstick and the terrible stereotyping of gays and foreigners.

By extreme slapstick, I mean violence. Having characters engage in moments of extreme rage or violence for comic effect is a trope of manga and anime. In most cases, such as in Nodame Cantabile, it is meant as a visual representation of inner turmoil, not as an actual display of real violence. When Nodame gets upset, her violent outbursts are usually accompanied by a comical shout of ‘gyabo!’ In the anime, these outbursts are tolerable, but in the drama I don’t find the slapstick fights between Nodame and Chiaki very amusing. There is a big problem with unreported domestic violence in Japan, and I don’t think that it is something to joke about.


Slapstick violence does has a long tradition in Japanese drama. The harisen (paper fan) that Nodame’s piano instructor, Etou-sensei uses as a form of discipline comes out of this physical comedy tradition. However, the thin border between comedy and tragedy is ruptured in Nodame Cantabile when it is revealed that Nodame’s fear of the harisen stems from a brutal punishment she received from a piano teacher when she was a child. For me, this just emphasized the inappropriateness of the physical comedy. It is possible to have slapstick comedy without it involving real physical violence.


I also did not enjoy the gay stereotyping of percussionist Okuyama Masumi. While I do like the idea of both men and women having crushes on Chiaki, the rivalry between Masumi-chan and Nodame could have been handled in a more adept way. Masumi-chan’s stereotyping as an over-the-top, afro-headed, hysterical gay character does nothing to aid the cause of gay men in Japan. While a certain kind of feminized man is considered attractive in Japan, openly gay men and women are decades behind North American and European gays and lesbians in terms of acceptance in society.

The third thing that made me uncomfortable about Nodame Cantabile was the portrayal of conductor Franz von Stresemann. Stresemann falls into the disturbing trend of having hentai (perverted) characters for comical effect in manga and anime. Perhaps the most popular such character is Jiraiya in Naruto, whom Naruto refers to has ero-sennin (the perverted hermit). In the Nodame Cantabile anime, it is bad enough that the pervert is not only the only foreign character, but also tolerated because of his status as sensei. In terms of the story, this is done, I suppose, to contrast with Chiaki’s more pure character, but it is truly disturbing to have a male character in a position of power whose perversions are excused rather than punished.


In the live-action drama, the absurdity of the Stresemann character is increased by having a Japanese comedian play the role. Naoto Takenake dons a ridiculous prosthetic nose and long-haired white wig and plays the role with an over-the-top accent that sounds more Yankee than German. If it weren’t for the great chemistry between Juri Ueno as Nodame and Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki, the whole series would have been in danger of slipping entirely into the realm of farce. I don’t understand the casting of Takenake as Streseman, as they certainly were able to find foreigners who could speak Japanese for the European special that showed in January of this year. Perhaps they could not find a European actor willing to play a pervert who lusts after Japanese girls half his age. I’m not saying that Western perverts in Japan don’t exist, on the contrary they’re a real problem and it’s not comedy material.

I felt that it was important to highlight some of the reservations that I had about Nodame Cantabile to counterbalance the glowing fan sites out there on the web. The anime and the live-action drama are certainly important to watch. While I may object to the violence and stereotypes, it is important to recognize these trends in Japanese manga and anime and what they say about contemporary Japanese culture and society. To end on a positive note, Nodame Cantabile has done much to make classical musical cool for a young generation of women, and the romantic conclusion of the live-action drama is perhaps the best love scene of 2006.

Nodame Cantabile Vol.1 [Limited Edition]

Animation

Nodame Cantabile DVD Box

Japanese TV Series

Anime Nodame Cantabile Original Soundtrack

Music by Suguru Matsutani

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2008