onedotzero: j-star 11

onedotzero is a London-based moving image and digital arts organisation which commissions, showcases and promotes innovation across all aspects of moving image, digital and interactive arts.  Founded in 1996, onedotzero has gained a reputation for representing a diverse array of artistic endeavour via the annual onedotzero: adventures in motionfestival and its associated touring. Suppported by the BFI and the Arts Council England, it has a cross media and collaborative approach attuned to technological advances and fast paced change within digital arts and the contemporary culture landscape.

The Japanese portion of the festival selection j-star 11 screened at Nippon Connection 2012.  It’s an eclectic mixture of music videos, innovative commercials, and short films.  Thank You World from the Sapporo Short Fest 2011 and Blind by Yukihiro Shoda were made as a direct response to the 3/11 disaster.  I had not heard of Construction by Mirai Mizue, but it turned out to be a low res excerpt of Tatamp(2011) featuring twoth.  Some of the highlights for me were Toshiaki Hanzaki’s animated music video for Mr. Children – a popular band who have a long history of supporting alternative animation – tangefilms’ phenakistoscope inspired animated music video for Hitomi Azuma, the surreal geometric play of Shinya Sato’s video for Chateau Marmont, and Yasuda Takahiro’s two tone approach to the primal scream of Kaisoku Tokyo’s Copy.  For those of you who missed this event, a number of the films are featured on Vimeo.

cmmhotes 2012

Thank You World by Seiichi HISHIKAWA, J 2011, HDcam, 2’59 Min.

Christmas / Amazarashi by YKBX, J 2011, HDcam, 6’24 Min.

Blind by Yukihiro SHODA, J 2011, HDcam, 5’17 Min.

Construction by Mirai MIZUE, J 2011, HDcam, 3’15 Min.

Tsuchinoko / Gaka by Yuto NAKAMURA, Ayahiko SATO [rakudasan], J 2011, HDcam, 5’37 Min.

Nnet Station Op by Fantasista UTAMARO, J 2011, HDcam, 0’24 Min.

The Smell Of The Flowers / Mr. Children by Toshiaki HANZAKI, J 2009, HDcam, 5’23 Min.

Senkyou / Mergrim by Makoto YABUKI, J 2011, HDcam, 3’09 Min.

Xylophone by Seiichi HISHIKAWA, J 2011, HDcam, 3’05 Min.

Polygon Graffiti: An Uguisu Morph by QNQ/AUJIK, J 2011, HDcam, 4’32 Min.

Kira Kira / Azuma Hitomi by TANGEFILMS, J 2011, HDcam, 3’09 Min.

Assimilation by Takuya HOSOGANE, J 2011, HDcam, 1’29 Min.

Anomie / Amazarashi by YKBX, J 2011, HDcam, 4’37 Min.

Electropia / Joyz / Uk + by Noriko OKAKU, J 2011, HDcam, 4’39 Min.

One Hundred Realities / Chateau Marmont by Shinya SATO, J 2010, HDcam, 3’25 Min.

Kyu by Yyu FUJII, J 2011, HDcam, 1’29 Min.

Copy / Kaisoku Tokyo by Yasuda TAKAHIRO, J 2011, HDcam, 1’33 Min.

Damn What Ringtone / Hifana by Takashi OHASHI, J 2011, HDcam, 0’53 Min.

The TV Show / Takayuiki Manabe by Kousuke SUGIMOTO, J 2009, HDcam, 3’28 Min.

Henshin Gattai! by Shota SAKAMOTO, J 2011, HDcam, 1’33 Min.

The Black Cat (黒ニャゴ, 1929)

The Black Cat (黒ニャゴ/Kuro Nyago, 1929) is a record talkiefrom the silent film period.  A record talkie was a silent film played synchronously with a phonograph record.  Like today’s music videos, record talkies were designed as promotional devices for record companies and their songs.  People who enjoyed The Black Cat animation could have bought the record and played it on their own gramophone (record companies also manufactured gramophones) at home.

The children’s song The Black Cat was written by Kōka Sassa (佐々紅華, 1886-1961), husband of the popular Asakusa Opera singer Ruby Takai (高井 ルビー, 1904-unknown), with lyrics by Otowa Shigure (時雨 音羽, 1899-1980).  It was released by Victor Records and features the vocal talent of child star Hideko Hirai (平井 英子, b. 1918).  Hideko Hirai also features with Ruby Takai in the Kōka Sassa hit Chameko’s Day, which was made into an animation directed by Kiyoshi Nishikura (see review) in 1931.

On the other side of the Pacific, Walt Disney had made splash a year earlier with the release of Steamboat Willie (1928) which he co-directed with Ub Iwerks.  While not the first animated film to have a synchronous soundtrack, Steamboat Willie was certainly the most successful and marked the debut of the iconic Mickey Mouse.  Sound on film technology was much slower to come to Japan – not only because of a lack of technology but because of the tenacity of the benshi tradition.  The first animated film with a synchronous soundtrack would not be made in Japan until 1933: Kenzō Masaoka’s lost film The World of Power and Women (Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka).  The first step towards sound films in Japan were the record talkies, and The Black Cat is believed to be the first of its kind.

The film is directed and animated by the legendary Noburo Ōfuji (大藤 信郎, 1900-61) in his signature chiyogami cutout animation style (cutouts using traditional Japanese paper).  Due to the expense and relative scarcity of celluloid in Japan in this period, cutouts were a common method for making animated films.  It was shot on 9.5mm film on a Pathé Baby.   I watched the film on the Kinokuniya DVD Ōfuji Noburō: Kūkō no Tensai (2010). The film was digitized by the National Film Center and synchronized with the original Victor record.  Both the soundtrack and the film show their age with much popping and scratching, but as so many films from this era have been lost we are lucky that the film survives in a relatively complete condition.

The opening shot is of chiyogami cherry blossom trees shedding a few petals.  Some boys walk along and sing of their desire to have a black cat with a red collar who dances.  A black cat appears and sings and dances for them.  The cat then introduces her brother, a tabby cat, who also sings and dances for them.  The boys also join in with the dancing and singing.  As with any successful children’s song, The Black Cat has a catchy tune and is repetitive.  It alternates between song and dialogue.  One can imagine children of the era mimicking the cat’s dance, not to mention the cry of the cat as she sings.  The bouncy rhythm of the song would also encourage clapping.  The second refrain might have inspired the children to leap like the cat’s tiger ancestors, while the third refrain might have gotten a bit wild with children pretending to throw a mouse just like the cat.

Examples of mattes being used in The Black Cat

The character movement is less complex than later Ōfuji films, but it is still very charming.  Ōfuji uses two main set-ups for the piece: a cherry tree orchard and a bamboo forest.  Some of the more complicated sequences involve spinning chiyogami paper and the “tracking” shots of characters walking.  I put “tracking” in brackets because it is not actually the camera that is moving, but the paper under the camera between shots – but this animation technique creates the illusion that the camera is moving over the scene.  As is typical for films of this era, mattes are used in lieu of close-ups.  There was no such thing as a zoom lens in the 1920s and it would have been more cost effective / time efficient to matte the image than to change the camera set-up for a close-up. All in all, it is a delightful piece of early animation history.

In addition to the DVD Ōfuji Noburō: Kūkō no Tensai, The Black Cat appears on the Digital Meme Box Set Japanese Anime Classic Collection.  A sample of the film with English subs can be screened on Crunchyroll.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Japan Media Arts Festival Short Film Special

The Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund 2011 put together a selection of award-winning and jury recommended animated shorts, music videos and commercials (CM) from the past decade. The thirteen works will be screening in the main cinema on September 24th at 19:00 and on October 2nd at 18:00. They also screen on a continuous loop on one of three TV screens in the exhibition itself where up to two people can watch at one time.

The animated shorts include two videos which have had much success online: Hiroyasu Ishida’s humorous Fumiko's Confession (2010), which is a great showcase of the young animator’s talent, and Riichiro Mashiro’s hilarious Ski Jumping Pairs (2003). Koji Yamamura’s A Child’s Metaphysics (2007) is a brilliant lesser known film by the master and Ryo Okawara’s Animal Dance, which made my list of Best Japanese Animated Shorts 2010 is also on the program. A low res version of Nobuo Takahashi’s Musashino Plateau has been online for some time, but it was much more impressive in high res at the festival.

Other animated shorts included Noriaki Okamoto’s unusual textured piece Algol (2008) about a world in which only machines and the scientist who created them exist. Yusuke Sakamoto, whose stop motion film Dandelion’s Sister (2007) totally blew me away at Nippon Connection 2008, was back with another atmospheric work, this time done in paint, about the end of a relationship.  Takeuchi Taijin is another great young animator, whose film A Wolf Loves Pork (2008) made my list of Top Animated Shorts of the Decade,  won recognition from the JMAF Jury in 2010 for his film a song like a fish, which I would describe as Tomoyasu Murata’s stop motion animation meets Takashi Ishida’s stop motion painting of interior spaces.

If I had been the programmer, I would have rounded the animated shorts out with Atsushi Wada’s In a Pig’s Eye (2010), Kunio Kato’s La maison en petits cubes (2008), Tochka’s PiKA PiKA (2006), Amica Kubo/Seita Inoue’s Bloomed Words (2006), Akino Kondoh’s The Evening Traveling (2002), Tomoyasu Murata’s Nostalgia (2001), or other worthy winners of the JMAF Animation Excellence Prize.

Although the music videos and the Nike commercial are all entertaining and very creative, it was odd having them mixed with the less commercial fare. I would have put them into a separate programme of their own.  There have certainly been enough creative music videos and CM winning awards at JMAF in the past decade and a half that it has been running to do so.  My hands down favourite of these is the music video Hibi no Neiro (Tone of the Everyday) which has used webcam technology in a most original way. The videos embedded below are all belonging to commercial works or those shared online by the artists themselves. Where possible, I encourage supporting independent artists with your wallet – which you can do by purchasing Koji Yamamura’s work – see my review of A Child's Metaphysics for purchasing options.

Fumiko's Confession 

(フミコの告白, Hiroyasu Ishida, 2010)

natsu wo matteimashita

music video for amazarashi (夏を待っていました, YKBX, 2010)

Animal Dance 

(アニマルダンス, Ryo Ōkawara, 2009)

read my review

A Child's Metaphysics 

(こどもの形而上学, Kōji Yamamura, 2007)

read my review

the river 

(川旅行, Yusuke Sakamoto, 2009)

Algol 

(Noriaki Okamoto, 2008)

Musashino Plateau

(ムサシノ プラトー, Nobuo Takahashi, 2006)

a song like a fish 

(魚に似た唄, Taijin Takeuchi, 2010)

make.believe / Genki Rockets 

(Tetsuya Mizuguchi/Kenji Tamai, 2010)

arukuaround / sakanaction 

watch video at JMAF website
(Kazuaki Seki, 2010)

Hibi No Neiro (日々の音色/Tone of everyday)

(Magico Nakamura/Masayoshi Nakamura/Masashi Kawamura/Hal Kirkland, 2009)

Nike Music Shoe 

See how they made the commercial here.
(Naoki Ito/Frank Hahn, 2010)

Ski Jumping Pairs

(スキージャンプ・ペア, Riichiro Mashima, 2003)

Pictures at an Exhibition (展覧会の絵, 1966)

In 1967 Osamu Tezuka picked up his second Noburo Ofuji Award for his animation Pictures at an Exhibition (展覧会の絵, 1966). Among other domestic honours, this 39-minute film (33 minutes in its current cut) also picked up the award for Best Animated Film at the Asia Pacific Film Festival that year.

The film is a modern interpretation of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (1874), a suite in ten movements composed for the piano. The music was inspired by an exhibition of the works of Mussorgsky’s late friend Viktor Hartmann. The first movement is the famous Promenade, which represents the visitor walking around the exhibition. This is followed by various movements that are meant to either create the picture in the mind’s eye or at the very least capture the mood of the picture. Each movement is interspersed with a reprise of the Promenade theme in order to depict the visitor moving on to the next picture.

Tezuka commissioned the composer Isao Tomita to arrange Mussorgsky’s composition for the orchestral accompaniment to the animation. The arrangement was performed by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. The Geneon DVD of the animation adds the original 1966 ending of the film as a 3 minute extra. It shows the orchestra performing the piece before segueing into the credits.

In the accompanying information, written by Masahiro Katayama, he describes Pictures at an Exhibition as the “antithesis of Mushi Pro’s TV animation.” Katayama feels that the film demonstrates the “journalistic eye of Tezuka throughout.” The film was, like Tezuka’s later film Legend of the Forest (1987), made as a kind of homage to Disney’s Fantasia (1940)

The film opens with the camera gracefully tracking up to the doors of a Western-style museum (post a comment if you recognize the building). Once inside, the film switches to animation as the camera pans along a wall of portraits in a nod to Mussorgsky’s original theme. However, the pictures are not those of Viktor Hartmann (which would be actually impossible as not all of them survived), but modern illustrations of people and character types that would have been easily recognizable to audiences in the late 1960s. Many of them: Shakespeare, William Tell, Sigmund Freud, the Beatles are still recognizable to us today. Some, like the Beatnik, are now a bit dated. Following the musical cues of the Promenade, the camera pans along at an irregular pace and pauses at various portraits. All 10 portraits are given an animated interpretation, followed by an extended “Allegorical Conclusion”.

In the English opening credits – which are replete with errors including the odd spelling of Tezuka’s name as Osam Tezka (unless this is an inside joke which explains his son’s unusual choice of Romanization of the family name) – explain that “This picture is constituted of the conventionalities of various heroes today.” My own interpretation of each “portrait” is that they are meant to be tongue-in-cheek satires of important figures in society. Here is a summary of each “portrait.”

Journalist

I actually think that the English title of this section is inaccurate. The old, spider-like, pipe-smoking negative stereotype that is depicted is really more of a media magnate / newspaper publisher along the lines of figures like Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hurst. There really are no positive attributions given to this dictatorial figure. He is shown as being corrupt, publicity seeking, self-serving, and power-hungry. All in all the portrait leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Gardener of the artificial landscape

An insect is flying through a world of skyscrapers. He is exhausted from his long journey and searches out water and flowers in order to find some nourishment. Each flower he encounters turns out to be fake. The garden of fake flowers is tended to by a large man with an entourage of fans who dusts and perfumes the flower and cuts out any real ones and disposes of them. When the gardener finds the bug, he throws him away as well, but his fate is left ambiguous. Although the title card on the Geneon DVD suggested that this film was a kind of homage to Fantasia, the second portrait reminded me much more of the Fleischer Brothers’ Mr. Bug Goes to Town (Dave Fleischer, 1941). Not only does Tezuka’s bug resemble Hoppity the Grasshopper, the theme is also similar: nature (in the form of insects) being threatened by modernity (the city).

Order Mr. Bug Goes to Town (EN/JP) from Studio Ghibli

Cosmetic Surgeon

This is one of the more amusing portraits in Pictures at an Exhibition – and one which uses a more pared down sketch style animation on a watercolour background. In this scenario, Tezuka mocks the profession of cosmestic surgeon by showing a number of over-the-top techniques being performed on various people. One person is being expanded with air, another is put through a giant pencil sharpener, yet another is treated with a hammer in the backside. The most amusing moment comes in the form of a close up on the surgeon’s face when it is distorted by a sneeze.

Big Factory Proprietor

This portrait seemed heavily influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). Tezuka wrote a manga called Metropolis loosely inspired by the film in 1949 – which was of course adapted into an anime by Rintaro in 2001. Like the portrait of the “Journalist” the factory boss is depicted as a dictatorial, greedy, soulless creature. Eventually the whole factory, including the big boss himself, are taken over by machines.

Beatnik

Although the portrait on the wall looks like a beatnik, the animation is of dancing chicks who seem to be recreating one of the Sharks vs. Jets dance numbers from West Side Story (Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise, 1961). This is easily my favourite sequence in the animation because it is so delightful. The use of chicks is a direct reference to the Mussorgsky score because this suite is known as “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” The original watercolour by Harmann was amusingly surreal and can be seen here. 

Boxer

The boxer in this portrait is an elephant with a boxing glove on his trunk. The suggestion is that boxers, like circus animals, are being exploited by their managers for financial gain. It is a pessimistic portrayal in a similar vein to  the first and second portraits.

TV Talent

Like the “Cosmetic Surgeon” portrait, this portrait uses a sketching animation style. This time black on a coloured background. The TV Talent is an attractive woman cruising about in an expensive car while people at the TV studio panic because she is late for the shoot. The TV Talent carelessly runs over staff on her way into the building and the world of television is literally shown to be world in which people tear each other apart.

Zen Priest

This portrait suggests that Osamu Tezuka questioned the sincerity of practitioners of Zen Buddhism. A grumpy looking Zen priest sits immobile in this portrait. Neither earthquake, nor rain and storm, rocks falling from the sky, nor fire can move him. The screen fades to black, but then returns to the Zen priest, catching him yawning and stretching and he immediately goes back to his meditative pose as if he had never left it.

Soldiers

The use of cutouts and abstract shapes in this “picture” are quite cleverly done. It depicts a negative stereotype of soldiers and the brutality of war. The soldiers appeared to be American – in fact one looked African American – and in a combat situation. The film suggests that the soldiers have a lack of empathy for civilians and are only interested in their baser instincts. I know from having attended an exhibition in Tokyo in 2007 at the Showakan called Osamu Tezuka War Memories and Drawings that the war that Tezuka’s wartime experiences had a significant impact on both his outlook on life and his art. This vignette offers a very pessimistic view of the role of the soldier in times of war.  I have a feeling that the theme of this "picture" was strongly influenced by American military involvement in the Vietnam War, which was such a bone of contention at the time this animation was made.

Allegorical Conclusion

Order Now: Osamu Tezuka Jikken animation sakuhin shu (JP)

The conclusion of the film adapts the final movement “Great Gate of Kiev” quite literally. A procession of people, including many characters from the previous “pictures”, walk through a giant archway – which appeared more Greco-Roman than Russian to my eye but then I am no expert in architecture. I found the ending strangely unsatisfying, mainly because I didn't fully understand what Tezuka was trying to say with it. It seemed to suggest that the people were walking up to the “Pearly Gates” of heaven, but for what purpose I cannot say with any certainty.  There seemed to be a message about supporting others and togetherness, but it was a bit convoluted.

There are many who find Pictures at an Exhibition pessimistic and “weird” (see Hayao Miyazaki’s comments in Starting Point, p. 195), but I think it was Tezuka’s honest attempt to use animation in an original way. Most of the “pictures” are clearly meant to be read as satire – which is a rhetorical form renowned for rubbing people the wrong way. Although I found the “Allegorical Conclusion” a bit over the top in its use of allegory, it does however match the pomposity of Mussorgsky’s score. What Tezuka was trying to “say” with Pictures at an Exhibition is a matter of debate, but the quality of the animation is irrefutably high. It is an intriguing example of animation inspired by music.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

This review is part of Nishikata Film Review’s  2011 Noburo Ofuji Award Challenge.

Sweet Silly Love Song (あまっちょろいラブソング, 2010)

Music is Naomi’s life. She stays up late at night composing “sweet silly love songs” on her guitar. Her music distracts her from her day job as a waitress in an Italian restaurant and even from enjoying sex with her boyfriend. However, her passion has yet to transform itself into success in the music industry and during the course of Sohkichi Miyata’s Sweet Silly Love Song (あまっちょろいラブソング, 2010) we will follow Naomi on her journey to decide whether or not to continue pursuing her music or to give it up entirely to follow a more predictable working class life.

Sweet Silly Love Song is a kind of a coming of age story. . . but for thirtysomethings rather than teenagers. Naomi – or Nao-chan as her friends call her – has reached that stage in life where her peers are starting to get married and settle down. For many of her friends, that has meant giving up their passion in life for a steady, salaried income. Her boyfriend, Kobayashi-kun, has sold his camera in order to afford business suits. Her school friend Ryoko has decided to turn a blind eye to her old boyfriend Takeda’s failings in order to marry and have children. Even her most loyal musical collaborator Hisao, the bass player in her band, is quitting music in a last ditch effort to try to regain the affections of his girlfriend Miyo.

Naomi’s story unfolds at an unhurried pace, with Miyata’s camera preferring to observe from a distance in a series of long takes with very few close-ups. The soundtrack is also quiet apart from Naomi’s haunting music. Each scene reveals another layer of depth to Naomi’s character: her generous spirit, her quiet determination, her acceptance of life’s trials. Is life really just “one disappointment after another” as Naomi fears, or can one break out of this downward spiral and find happiness?

Miyata’s script has a few minor weaknesses in it – like the lack of female confidantes and family in Naomi’s life – but on the whole the film is able to stay believable thanks to the unwavering performance of musician Naomi Oroji (follow her on Twitter) in the role of “Naomi”. The supporting cast are also strong including Takashi Yamanaka (Fish Story, Air Doll) as Kobayashi-kun and Katsuya Kobayashi (Running on Empty, Linda Linda Linda) as Naomi’s high school surfer boyfriend Arai.

Perhaps the strongest element of Miyata’s script is his use of trains as metaphors for the choices we have to make in life. Visually, this motif is in the film from the very beginning. It is foregrounded by a conversation that Naomi has with Hirano – the MC from Ryoko and Takeda’s wedding. Hirano has also had to put aside his dream of becoming a successful musician in order to get by in life, but he still clings onto the hope that one day he can make a success of his music. Our journey in life is like being on a “strange train” (変な電車/hen na densha), he explains. Naomi has the choice of staying on the more predictable journey through life, or she can choose to change trains and face the strange and wonderful challenges presented by following her heart.

This film was released in Japan in 2010 and had its international premiere at the Japan FilmFest Hamburg in May.  It is director Sohkichi's Miyata's third feature film after his award-winning Baka Vacance (バカバカンス, 2008) and Sebastian (セバスチャン, 2009). 

Mirai Mizue's Timbre A to Z, A Short-Short Animation Series (2011)

１日１アニメーション計画 『Timbre A to Z』
[Timbre A-Z] A Short-short animation series

Last year, it seemed that the abstract animator Mirai Mizue was moving in the direction of more and more complexity in his animation. His film Jam (2009), in his distinctive cell animation style literally jam-packed the screen with his little cell creatures. The number of cells and the complexity of movement increased along with the increased as the music crescendoed and increased in tempo.

Likewise, Mizue’s geometric animations Modern (2010) and Metropolis (2010) are highly complex pieces of work. Modern was made using isometric drawings, with Mizue limiting himself to only using transformations of rectangular parallelepipeds. 

This month sees Mizue moving in the opposite direction towards minimalism. In his new Timbre A-Z short animation series, he is focussing on matching his animation to the timbre and rhythms of a variety of sounds. Timbre is sometimes referred to as “the colour of music.” In fact, like the German Klangfarbe, the Japanese for timbre is oniro (aka onshoku or neiro 音色) which literally means “the colour of music”.

Mizue’s experiments with music and animation recall, of course, the experiments of Norman McLaren and Oskar Fischinger in this direction. It also reminds me of a recording I once heard of Norman McLaren being interviewed by the pianist Glenn Gould on CBC Radio in which they discussed the way in which they both “see” music. Unfortunately, it does not yet seem to have made it up onto the CBC Digital Archives. One can; however, find Norman McLaren and René Jodoin’s Spheres (1969), which is an animated interpretation of Glenn Gould playing Bach.

Mizue has challenged himself to post one 30 second animation a day for 26 days – one animation for each letter of the Roman alphabet. The splashes of colour against a white background are beautiful in their simplicity. You can follow his progress on Vimeo or Youtube.

To learn more about Mirai Mizue, read my review of his Collected Works DVD.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

OOIOO's UMO (Shoji Goto, 2006)

When I find myself in a funk of late, I find the best remedy is watching OOIOO’s music video for their song UMO (2006). The song has a tribal beat and chant, and the enthusiasm of the performance is infectious. 

The pairing of Shoji Goto as director with OOIOO is a stroke of genius. His stop motion animation movement and dynamic editing complement the rhythms and musicality of the song. The quirkiness of the puppets matches the avant-garde nature of the band itself. The lyrics are fairly incomprehensible but the intercut natural imagery suggests that the song is a kind of eco-warrior cry to action. The key visual metaphor for interpreting the environmental theme is a deer standing in the sand of an hour glass and the sand runs out:

There are so many things to love about this video. Puppet animators often claim that certain stories cannot be told by human actors and can only be told by puppets. I think that the use of puppets in this video is a great example of that because it puts a focus on the message of the song rather than on the members of the band themselves. So many music videos are about selling the performer rather than the performance, so it is such a pleasure to watch a film that is all about the music and the message. The mix of different animation styles and documentary footage is brilliant and I like the way the animation increases in visual complexity to match the increased fervor of the performance.

About the band – OOIOO

OOIOO is an all-female avant-garde music group from Japan. Their style is difficult to define because it varies from song to song. This song has a very tribal feel to it, while others have a more relaxed, soothing feel. I have heard that their live performances are amazing. UMO appears on their 2006 album TAIGA.

Buy the album:

Taiga

OOIOO

About the animator – Shoji GOTO (後藤 章治, b. 1973)

In addition to being a graphic designer, film director, and animator, Goto is also a musician himself. His strong connections with the music scene mean that most of his work is music related. He is particularly known for designing s a wide range of items for Japanese bands including album covers, T-shirts, flyers, and music videos. 

Bonus fact: GOTO also used this concept in a TV ad for Glico:

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Tsuki no Waltz (月のワルツ, 2004)

The NHK’s long-running program Minna no Uta has been a great showcase for musical talent and talented animators and directors since the early 1960s. Some of the most prolific contributors to Minna no Uta include some of the brightest stars of the animation world including Koji Nanke, Tadahiko Horiguchi, Keizo Kira, Sadao Tsukioka, Keiko Tanaka, Taku Furukawa, Yoji Kuri, Fumio Ooi, and Seiichi Hayashi .

My favourite Minna no Uta music video of the past decade is Atsuko Ishizuka’s Tsuki no Waltz (月のワルツ/Waltz of the Moon). Ishizuka (いしづか あつこ, b. 1981) was still a student when her animated shorts CREMONA (2003) and Gravitation (引力/ Inryoku, 2003) caught the attention of the NHK. Gravitation was featured as part of the Digista Best Selection for 2003. By 2004, Ishizuka had already been snatched up by Madhouse as an assistant director, but the NHK was able to negotiate for Ishizuka to direct Tsuki no Waltz.

The haunting song was composed and sung by the talented young artist Mio Isayama (諌山実生, b. 1980) with lyrics by Reiko Yukawa (湯川れいこ, b. 1939). The song is about the strange things that can happen on a moonlit night. A young girl encounters an elderly man sitting in a moonlit alleyway and becomes transfixed by an Alice in Wonderland themed mechanical clock. Looking into the blue eyes of the man she is transported into the surreal realm of the imagination.

Ishizuka picks up on the song’s Alice in Wonderland theme and depicts a young girl being transported down a rabbit hole where she encounters a giant version of the White Rabbit sipping red wine. The girl runs through a labyrinth of surreal imagery until she comes to a sliver of a moon – which resembles the one Ishizuka used in the title of her film Gravitation (see the first image of my review of Gravitation). The old man appears and reaches out his hand to the girl and she gets transported away on the crescent moon up to the clouds. In the clouds, the old man and the girl ride the crescent moon like a ship as the White Rabbit  grows bigger and metamorphosizes into a cathedral-like structure. The moon ship sails the pair into the White Rabbit and through to the galaxy on the other side where the girl stands on the centre of  a now giant clock and faces the elderly man who stands on the hand of the clock as it spins backwards. The old man transforms into a young prince and the girl runs to him to embrace. She slips, but the young man catches her by the hand in a romantic gesture.

The romanticism of the moment is emphasized by the grey clouds transforming into a wonderland of mystical flowers. The film ends by returning to the clock, then showing the couple floating off together. The final images are of the empty alleyway (the old man and girl are no longer there) and the city, suggesting that there is no end to this dream and the girl is really flying away from the metropolis into the heavens with her young prince.

 The crescent moon, which was also referenced in Gravitation

'Alice' gets whisked into wonderland through 

the old man's blue eyes in this wonderful transition sequence.

While there are some similarities to her earlier film Gravitation, this is a much more elaborate and visually sumptuous film. Perhaps most impressive are the beautiful, seamless transitions such as the girl being transported into Wonderland through the blue eyes of the elderly man (see image above) and the red wine transforming into a labyrinth entrapping the girl (see top image). The logic of the film is entirely ruled by dreams and metamorphosis. The matching of animation movement to the rhythms of the song makes the film particularly engaging. The opening and closing music sound like a wind-up music box and is matched to sequences with the mechanical clock. The sections of the song where the music swells are also paired with dramatic movements onscreen, such as the White Rabbit growing and metamorphosizing and the climax of the dramatic action of the film occuring during the musical bridge.

 The mechanical clock

Tsuki no Waltz and Ishizuka’s early shorts give us a taste of the unique, surreal vision of Ishizuka as an artist. At Madhouse, she has worked on a number of successful commercial anime TV series including a guilty pleasure of mine – the Nana anime series (2006-2007). Her work on episodes 11 and 12 of the Aoi Bungaku Series (青い文学シリーズ , 2009) is brilliant – especially in the use of colour. I am quite excited about seeing Madhouse’s co-production with Warner Bros. Supernatural: the Animation (see trailer) in the New Year which Ishizuka is co-directing with Shigeyuki Miya. While I enjoy the projects she has been involved with at Madhouse so far, I have a feeling that the best is yet to come. Once she has put in her time and is finally given the chance to helm a feature film of her own inception, I wouldn’t be surprised if she is capable of producing works on par with the creative genius of Kon Satoshi’s Paprika (2006).

Related Posts:

Gravitation

Anime Alice in Wonderland

Furukawa's Minna no Uta animation

Tsuki no Waltz can be found  on:

Minna no Uta Best Hit Collection

Other DVDs related to Atsuko Ishizuka:

Aoi Bungaku Series Kumo no Ito / Jigoku Hen

Animation

Piano no Mori Standard Edition

Animation

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Nagi Noda (野田 凪, 1973-2008)

Today marks the second anniversary of the death of Nagi Noda (野田 凪, 1973-2008), the brilliant pop artist and fashion icon. Not only did she make weird and wonderful videos (short films, music videos, and commercials), but she also had her own line of stuffed animals called HanPanda, designed unusual hair art called Hair Hats, and designed her own fashion line called Broken Label in collaboration with Mark Ryden. She won many awards for her work including the prestigious Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2006 for her Coca-Cola commercial “What Goes Around Comes Around”. Although her life was tragically cut short by injuries she sustained after a traffic accident, her vibrant creative vision lives on to inspire younger artists.

In her memory, I have assembled as complete a videography as I could find. For more information, videos, and slideshows, visit her official homepage. For an extra special treat, check out the making of Nagi Noda's video for Scissor Sisters:



Videography

2000 Short Film  “46 Wrinkles”

2002 Short Film  “Small Square Stories”

2002 Commercial  Laforet “Butterfly Ribbons”

2002 Commercial  Laforet “Autumn of appetite” / “Preparation is troublesome”

2002 Commercial  Laforet “It is Christmas Soon” / “Make-up is troublesome”

2003 Short Film  “Wedding Dress, Mourning Dress, Party Dress”

2003 Short Film  “Small Love Stories”

2003 Music Video  Yuki “Sentimental Journey”



2003 Short Film  "A Small Love Story About Alex and Juliet"



2003 Commercial  Laforet “I get married smooooothly”

2003 Commercial  Laforet “Imaginary pregnancy”

2003 Commercial  Laforet “They become large in a hurry for Christmas (grow up)”

2003 Commercial  Laforet “They become large in a hurry for Christmas (kiss)”

2003 Commercial  GEKKEIKAN “GEKKEIKAN”



2003 Commercial  Suntory “Latte Latte”

2003 Commercial  Suntory “Hot Latte Latte”

2003 Commercial  Suntory “Oolong Cha”



2004 Short Film  “Mariko Takahashi’s Fitness Video for Being Appraised as an ‘Ex-Fat Girl’”

• A surreal parody of Susan Powter’s first work out video.

2004 Commericial  Laforet “Cat Walk with Shadows”



2004 Commercial  Laforet “Animal Girl”



2005 Animation – Opening Credits  "Honey and Clover"



2005 Music Video  OGIYAHAGI “Must Be”



2005 Music Video  OGIYAHAGI “I love your face”



2006 Commercial  Coca Cola “What Goes Around Comes Around”

• Music by Jack White

2006 Commercial  MONOPRIX “Vegetables”


Monoprix Vegetables (Nagi Noda) from Cosmo Sapiens on Vimeo.

2006 Commercial  MONOPRIX “Mascara”


Monoprix Mascara (by Nagi Noda) from Cosmo Sapiens on Vimeo.

2006 Commercial  MONOPRIX “Jungle”


Monoprix Jungle (Nagi Noda) from Cosmo Sapiens on Vimeo.

2006 TV Ecocolo

2006 Music Video  TIGA “Far From Home”



2007 Commercial  “b+ab spring summer 2008”



2007 Music Video  Scissor Sisters “She’s My Man”


Scissor Sisters - She's My Man
Hochgeladen von G4briHell. - Entdecke weitere Musik Videos. 

2008  Commercial LG Stream Power