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Otaku Merry-Go-Round

Otaku. I think my first encounter with the word was in 1994 with the documentary Otaku, directed by Jackie Bastide and Jean-Jacques Beineix (of Betty Blue fame). It was an average documentary so I can't remember it that well, but it did offer a glimpse into the cramped Tokyo apartments where people spent almost every waking hour devoted to their obsessions.

Does anybody care what these people are up to anymore? Around the time the Densha Otoko franchise was getting a lot of press here and overseas, there was some kind of hollow synergy happening between Western nerd culture and the Real McCoy, but it seems to be dying out. Otaku are like farmers -- they go about their small plots of land growing and harvesting crops, always will, but they're rarely interesting to talk to or about (I do have one killer story though, pardon the pun).

But once in a while there's a little news item that makes you shake your head in amusement. Which leads us to:




What the hell is it, you ask? Well, according to this article I came across on ITmedia News, it's the new cycle of crime being committed in Akihabara's "Electric Town" by some of the backpack 'n' glasses-wearing otaku that you know and love.

It seems that certain A-boys (is that term still in use?) with transient lifestyles are shoplifting game software and DVDs (first box on the left), re-selling them to kaitoriten -- shops that deal in used goods (middle box) and in the last box they use the cash to go to maid cafés and manga kissa, which they use as makeshift domiciles -- the Net Café Nanmin (refugees), they're called. Rinse, repeat. There's a rule among shoplifters to not steal anything worth more than 10,000 yen. Some sort of moral code? No -- it's because anything over that requires ID to sell.

I was going to write about the doubling of such incidents, crime in the otakuverse and more, but it's an absolutely beautiful day in Tokyo. Time to get outside before I turn into...well, you know.

リコリス Allsorts

Yesterday was a busy one. I had a great interview in Shibuya with Sôda Kazuhiro, director of Campaign (see my April 18th entry). As a 14-year resident of NYC, he told me he feels like a foreigner in a strange land when he comes back to Japan. In the last couple years I've started feeling that when I go back home. The interview will run on Midnight Eye in the near future.

Pumped out three articles for Screen, including news of Doraemon's feature film debut in Chinese cinemas. Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 will be the first Japanese animated movie to be released theatrically there and perhaps the widest bow thus far for a Japanese film. With distribution through state-owned Huaxia Film this July, government permission came just before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Japan on April 10th.

Also writing about the Japanese films being brought to the Cannes market. J-Horror isn't dead yet (perhaps it's undead), with no less than four major titles, including Shochiku's Densen-Uta (『伝染歌』) about a killer song, from the mind of the writer who brought you One Missed Call. Cast includes Matsuda Ryûhei and Iseya Yûsuke. We've had killer videotapes, notebooks, phones, even water. Enough already!

Creating English subtitles for making-of footage of Bokkou『墨攻』, better known as A Battle of Wits. The film was a China/HK/Japan co-production (and based on a famous Japanese novel-cum-manga). I'm not sure about other countries, but here separate making-of DVDs are often released in video chains such as Tsutaya before a film's street date. Making-of DVD rentals are usually free.

Speaking of subtitles and video, Don Ryuganji mentioned yesterday on the KineJapan mailing list that Toei's ZOO (see Twitch articles here and there) has finally gotten a foreign video release through Media Blasters' Tokyo Shock label (Don also posted Amazon's listing). I'm not sure if the release keeps our subtitles intact (see my June 7, 2005 entry), but it's possible. The English title for one of the five omnibus stories, Mizusaki Junpei/Kamikaze Douga's When The Sun Shines (Hidamari no shi, 『陽だまりの詩』) was an alternate title I gave the segment despite it not being that close to the original Japanese (roughly "The Poetry of a Sunny Spot"). I think there was a subtitled Thai release back in 2005, but was that "official"?

Other sugar drops:

- Official export title for Ishihara Shintaro-penned kamikaze drama Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku is now For Those We Love. Toei is bringing it to Cannes.

- Certain cinemas showing Kitano Takeshi's Kantoku - Banzai! will have "Kitano" temporarily added to the beginning of their theater name. Film opens June 2nd.

- Hoga Central has closed up shop, at least for the forseeable future. Hope it returns one day. I've heard whispers of Kaiju Shakedown being resurrected. And while I'm at it, here's a shout-out to relative newcomer The Golden Rock, which is like the Drudge Report of Asian movies.

- Japan's oldest living film director, Shindô Kaneto (新藤兼人監督), just turned 95 a few days ago and has signed on for his next film, about the life of a school teacher. It'll be his 48th film and goes before cameras this fall. Congratulations!

Japan Foundation Film Series 8

Tokyo FILMeX and The Japan Foundation have announced the eighth selection of titles in the Japan Foundation Film Series.

The series, which runs May 25th-27th in the Akasaka area, is titled "Rediscovery Of Japanese Cinema" (「日本クラシック、海外発信中」) and includes works from Kinoshita Keisuke (pictured), Mizoguchi Kenji and female star-turned director Tanaka Kinuyo. All the relevant details are right here.

I've extolled the virtues of these screenings many times (see my Jan. 21st entry on the seventh series and previous). In short: Brilliant films, English Subtitles, 600 yen.

無題

Tanaka Noboru - Final

Saturday was the last day of the Tanaka retrospective (see here and there). My last screening was Hitozuma shûdan bôkô chishi jiken『人妻集団暴行致死事件』(roughly Case of a Fatally Gang Raped Wife, produced by Nikkatsu Studios in 1978.

The film follows three boys on the cusp of adulthood who work shitty part time jobs just to scrape together enough money to get drunk and get laid. When they hook up with a middle-aged fisherman (Murota Hideo) and his incredibly timid wife, who become their defacto benefactors, the good times continue to roll until one debauched night...

The film's style was a strangely effective combination of documentary-like techniques and Tanaka's distinctive, often poetic widescreen colour visuals. As each character in the film is introduced (and later sentenced), police station typewriter-type titles appear displaying their name, address and job history. As he had done in other films, Tanaka integrates the natural and manmade surroundings into the narrative, always creating something larger than the sum of its shots.

Veteran actor Murota Hideo (室田日出男) gives the standout performance as a loving if gruff husband who gives some troubled youth the benefit of the doubt and pays the ultimate price for it. The film also contains one of the most bizarre yet tender scenes of necrophilia ever shot.

After having seen perhaps 8 or 9 of Tanaka's films (all after I shot the interview with him a couple years ago), I've come to the conclusion that he's an overlooked genius of the Nikkatsu Roman Porno era.

Wrote this entry from a place called Planet 3rd in Kôenji. It's part of the Cafe Company group, which includes the Wired Cafe chain and Cafe 246 in Aoyama, a place I like to go sometimes.

Planet 3rd is a big old rice granary converted into a cafe/restaurant with wooden floors, lots of couches, free Wi-Fi and decent food. Check it out.

Festa!

Following up on my previous post about the now in-progress Nippon Connection, I noticed Strawberry Shortcakes (see my Feb. 25 entry) played on the opening and second day. If anybody has any opinions or links to reviews of the screening, post a comment por favor.

The same goes for the Far East Film Festival, which opens today in the small northern Italian town of Udine.

My Screen Int'l brother-in-arms Stephen Cremin is the programme co-ordinator there and Mark Schilling of wickedly evil Variety (hah) programs the Japanese titles. Friend Colin Geddes also gets a thanks. It's a fairly impressive lineup, with films from all over Asia including a retrospective on director Patrick Tam, whose films I watched during my HK meltdown phase in the late 80s-mid 90s.

At the world's most famous film festival, Cannes, there's only one Japanese title in any of the major categories. And that is...Mogari no mori (『殯の森』, aka La Forêt de Mogari) directed by Kawase Naomi (河瀬直美).

The story is set at an old age home in the mountains, where a slightly senile senior citizen immersed in the memories of the wife he lost a year ago bonds with a young social worker with her own tragic emotional baggage.

When I was at Cannes in '97 (the 50th anniversary), Kawase won the Camera D'or for her debut film, Moe no suzaku. The amount of hype there was quite amazing. This is the second film of hers to screen in the main competiton since Shara in 2003.

The French obviously have a great interest in her work -- Mogari is even exec produced by Celluloid Dreams head Hengameh Panahi, who has just merged the famous French company with Jeremy Thomas' Hanway Films to form what looks to be a very powerful new entity named dreamachine, which will launch its activities at Cannes.

Off to catch a Tanaka Noboru film...

My Vote for Campaign

It's voting season in Japan, with the major gubernatorial elections held a couple of Sundays ago (we went to the nearby elementary school, but as a foreigner I can't get anywhere near that ballot box). Further elections for Tokyo's 23 ward mayors plus many town and village heads across Japan are set for April 22nd. Both are a prelude to the Upper House elections in July.

As you may have heard, controversial 74 year-old Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarô won another term. The kamikaze film which he wrote and produced, I Will Go To Die For You (Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku『俺は、君のためにこそ死ににいく』, also see Ryuganji's article), is set to be released on May 12 by Toei. Ishihara must be in egomaniac heaven right now.

While I was working on this post earlier this evening, news came in of the gunning down of incumbent Nagasaki mayor Itô Itchô, who was running for a fourth term. Not to movie-ize everything, but reports of the brutal street attack sounded like something out of Fukasaku's Jingi Naki Tatakai (Battles Without Honor and Humanity) series.

Amidst all this, I thought it was a good opportunity to write a little about an independent documentary called Campaign (Senkyo, 『選挙』), produced, directed and edited by New York-based Japanese filmmaker Sôda Kazuhiro (想田和弘監督).

I did a short profile on the film's word preem at the Berlin International Film Festival for Screen. Campaign was also an official selection at last month's Hong Kong International Film Festival, followed by the SXSW Film Festival, among other fest dates. Additionally, it has secured a 17-city domestic release slated for this June, beginning at Tokyo's Image Forum.

So, Campaign follows mild-mannered coin and stamp seller Yamauchi Kazuhiko as he embarks on (and pays out of his own pocket for) an exhausting bid for a seat in the Kawasaki city council. The single seat becomes all important in the balance of power. The LDP bigshots come out to show their support for a candidate with no experience, no mandate and a seriously hoarse voice.

Documentary filmmaking is as much about editing as anything else, and Sôda expertly offsets the bombastic, repetitve nature of campaigning in Japan with quiet, personal moments (and the obvious trust of his main subject). Yamauchi is a such a likable guy, one can't help but empathize as he tries to learn the ropes of talking the talk, walking the walk, doing calisthenics with senior citizens and helping hoist an omikoshi on his thin shoulders. Never afraid to laugh at his own predicament, he even shakes the hand of the fiberglass Colonel Saunders outside of KFC.

My favourite scene is at the end, when they're waiting for Yamauchi to show up at his own campaign HQ after the final election results are in. This scene epitomizes the don't be late ethic Japan is famous for.

A lot of what's in the film are things that can be seen during any typical election period here, but Sôda's skill is in capturing humanity amidst the ever-spinning cogs and gears of the machine. For those who've never lived here, much of what Yamauchi's expected to do may seem outrageous, and fascinating. The film is accurately billed as "An Inside Look at J-Democracy."

One man band Sôda shot the film on a Sony HVR-Z1 with a mounted shotgun mic and wireless lavalier. The results are pleasing to the eye and professional. It's exciting to see what's hopefully part of a new wave of documentary filmmakers that can make smart yet accessible films about life in Japan that get the all important vote of movie ticket and DVD buyers.

Links:
Sôda Kazuhiro's blog (bilingual)
Campaign Official English site
Senkyo /『選挙』公式サイト

Censorship Syndrome

Today I received an email from Tokyo FILMeX director of programming, Ichiyama Shôzô regarding the censoring of Apithatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century in Thailand. You can read more here about how this tranquil film has fallen victim to a censorship system with no real system in place. I saw and enjoyed Syndromes at TOKYO FILMeX last year and am surprised at the cuts demanded.

I'm sure Ichiyama-san won't mind me reprinting the email here, as it contains details of an online petition you can sign to help gain the uncut exhibition the film deserves.

-----

Dear Friends,

As you may know, a Thai film, "Syndromes and a Century" by Apithatpong Weerasethakul, was censored and prohibited to be shown in Thai cinemas.

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"Free Thai Cinema Movement"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/nocut/petition.html

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Shozo Ichiyama

Nice in Nagano

I'm on a mini-vacation in Nagano Prefecture, hours away from the masses of automatons in Tokyo. The weather yesterday was absolutely perfect, and as you can see the cherry blossoms are mankai (in full bloom) here. Today is a bit grey and rainy so I decided to pop in at the local mangakissa to use the internet before heading to a hot spring. Back to my normal Tokyo fugitive timetable tomorrow.

Nippon Connection Lucky 7

I'm ashamed to say that I've never attended Nippon Connection (April 18-22), the most excellent Japanese film festival outside of Japan. Friends Alex, Marion and Holger have nurtured NC from its infancy in 2000 into the important event it is today.

It is not only the place to see Japanese films large and small (over 170 titles this year!), but incredibly popular with the filmmakers themselves. They're given the hanamichi treatment all the way. Director Tsukamoto Shinya and famous actor (and now director) Momoi Kaori are among the confirmed guests this year.

There are also some interesting concurrent activites, with this year's annual Kinema Club conference being held during the fest. A portion of the films will go on tour throughout Europe, in addition to Michigan (home of KineJapan) and my old stomping grounds of Toronto.

Viel Glüeck!

Watcher in the Attic

As I said I would, I made time today to catch another title in the Tanaka retrospective -- Watcher in the Attic (Edogawa Rampo ryôkikan: Yaneura no samposha, 『江戸川乱歩猟奇館 屋根裏の散歩者』).

I didn't read Jasper Sharp's fine review over at Midnight Eye before seeing the film, so I was surprised to see elements from Rampo's other stories incorporated, most notably "The Human Chair" (the fate of the man inside is much different though). It was a very good print that showed off Tanaka and Nikkatsu's gorgeous production design and colour work. Beautiful, apocalyptic final shot after the Great Kantô Earthquake hits (effectively protrayed through b&w news reels and well crafted aftermath sets). Being strangled between Miyashita Junko's thighs wouldn't be a bad way to go...

In the spirit of the film I entered voyeur mode, complete with heavy breathing (due to a bike ride just prior) and shot a short video walking tour from Asagaya station to the cinema. Click the image to watch Asagaya no samposha (QuickTime, 2m55s, 9.9Mb).*

*Thanks to a great little site called Media Convert that took my cell phone's .asf file and converted it to QuickTime.

...For Make Benefit Glorious Tower of Tokyo Midtown

Today I attended a press screening of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan on the 34th floor of recently opened Tokyo Midtown's Midtown Tower. GAGA Usen have moved their offices there, with brand new screening facilities.

There's really nothing I can say about Borat that hasn't already been said -- the nude fight is one of the funniest things I've seen in years, with the dining etiquette lesson coming a close second. The film opens in Japan on May 26 (this is one case in a disappearing tradition of Japan getting major films much later than the rest of the world).


As for Tokyo Midtown, I found it much more accessible, spacious and pleasant than Roppongi Hills, which I never liked (attending the Tokyo Film Fest there was like an Olympic event, and not a fun one). It's extremely easy to enter the TM complex directly from the subway via a wide, airport-like passageway. Once inside, the layout is quite simple, with four main buildings plus a residential tower. Moving from one area to another is a breeze, in contrast to Roppongi Hills' malformed conch shell design. Best of all, there's a nicely landscaped, surprisingly large park area behind the towers with lots of places to sit and paths to wander.

Yubari - The Real Return / Tanaka Noboru Retro #2

As I reported in Screen earlier today, the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival will relaunch under its original name and mandate next February. The details are yet to be confirmed, but it looks to return to its former, wintry glory.

There was a lot of excitement about its "resurrection" as the "Yubari Support Film Festival" held a couple of months ago (see my Jan. 20 entry), but that event was much smaller (20 films) and was predominantly a showcase for Japan premieres of mainstream titles such as Babel, Rocky Balboa, Happy Feet and Ghost Rider (said films' attached distributors being the main sponsor).

Nonetheless, it helped non-profit organization Yubari Fanta (Japanese only), which is also the original fest's nickname, gain their footing before making a Balboa-like comeback.


After last Sunday's heavy topic on here I needed some entertainment, so I rolled down to Laputa for a screening in a retrospective on director Tanaka Noboru (田中登監督), which runs from March 25 to April 21 under the title 「性と愛のフーガ 田中登の世界」("Fugue of Sex and Love: The World of Tanaka Noboru"). I attended several shows at last year's retrospective (see here) so I'm happy they're showing more of his films, some of which were in the last collection. Tanaka unfortunately passed away in the interim, which makes the end of my June 2006 post sadly ironic.

The film I saw was a Toei production starring Scarface himself, Andô Noboru. Andô Noboru no waga tôbô to sex no kiroku (『安藤昇のわが逃亡とSEXの記録』) is basically Andô on the run, stopping in to service all the women in his life, with a bit of the old ultraviolence. The final arrest scene was as surreal as it was hilarious. A young Ishibashi Renji was enjoyable as Andô's fedora-wearing right hand man. There were some nice montages utilizing news footage, including Andô's own high profile arrest, a la Fukasaku Kinji. Fun movie.

Another great thing about Laputa is that it's completely staffed by good looking women.

佐川一政 (Sagawa Issei): Too Much Blood

A friend of mine was this Japanese.
He had a girlfriend in Paris.
He tried to date her in six months and eventually she said yes.
You know he took her to his apartment, cut off her head.
Put the rest of her body in the refrigerator, ate her piece by piece.
Put her in the refrigerator, put her in the freezer.
And when he ate her and took her bones to the Bois de Boulogne,
By chance a taxi driver noticed him burying the bones.
You don't believe me?
Truth is stranger than fiction.
We drive through there every day.

Lyrical excerpt from the track Too Much Blood (M. Jagger/K. Richards) on the Rolling Stones album Undercover (1983).

I was sitting in a coffee shop in Shinjuku on Friday and they were playing a Stones compilation over the PA when the above track came on. It immediately brought to mind the man who inspired the above-quoted verse, cannibal killer Sagawa Issei (佐川一政).

As Mick's vocals slurred out of the speakers (he was apparently drunk when he recorded it) I thought to myself, "Which of Tokyo's 23 wards is Sagawa in right now? Perhaps he's in Shinjuku, only walking distance away. What is he doing?" I hadn't thought about him for a while, perhaps not since I shot an interview with director Satô Hisayasu over a year ago (see my Feb. 17, 2006 entry).

In light of the recent, tragic murder of 22 year-old English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker by still-at-large murder suspect Ichihashi Tatsuya (see Mainichi Daily News article here), I felt it was time to return to the topic. I've told the story over the years but had never put it down in writing.

2001. I was in Tokyo trying to find a Japanese publisher for AntiCristo, a book which I designed and co-edited. I met with a well-known movie aficionado with ties to the publishing world. As well as being an author, translator and regular contributor to a famous Japanese cult movie magazine (which he still is, I believe) he was an expert on serial killers. His apartment in central Tokyo was the ultimate shrine to subculture, while still having the trappings of a normal married couple's home. This was probably thanks to his classical pianist wife.

We chatted for a while about movies, books and the like when he started grabbing items off of his expansive floor-to-ceiling shelving units. In the pile in front of me were some rare lobby cards, film tomes, and manga with contents I daren't repeat here. One volume caught my eye. On the cover was a goofy looking illustration of a man's head in the vortex of dayglo concentric circles. "What's this?" I asked. He explained it was a self-authored manga by famed cannibal killer Sagawa Issei.

If you're not familiar with Sagawa's crime, you can read a brief overview on Wikipedia and a more in-depth account in Court TV's extensive Crime Library here. In Japan it's known as the「パリ人肉事件」(Pari jinniku jiken), roughly "The Paris Human Flesh Incident." There have been at least several books written about the case.

I knew of Sagawa, but wasn't aware of the details of his heinous act. I flipped through the childlike drawings. It was an account of his life, with the centerpiece being the two day-long orgy of mutilation, cannibalism and sexual deviance following the execution-murder of Dutch Sorbonne student Renée Hartevelt. The images depicted Sagawa cooking and eating body parts, using them for masturbation and sleeping with her corpse. A top seller, it's available at Amazon Japan and all of the country's major bookshops. I asked the author if the deeds in the pictures actually happened. He said they did. Then, the bombshell.

"I know him. He's a friend of mine." In shock I listened as he went on to describe Sagawa's activities as a restaurant reviewer, actor, author and his annually held barbecue. The two men even wrote a book together about other cannibal killers. "How can you associate with someone who did the things he did?" I had to ask. "What he did was terrible, but he's a nice guy. He has lots of friends," was the simple response.

I had been in Japan a little over a year at that point, but it was probably the first true instance of culture shock I had experienced. It wasn't just the acts Sagawa committed, but a society that allowed him to walk the streets (thanks to his rich and powerful father). Scenarios of "If this was North America..." or "If she was my sister..." reeled through my mind. The author's wife scrunched up her face and said "Eww. I don't like when he comes over here," as if he were nothing more than a strange uncle with bad body odour.

The otherwise-pleasant visit ended and I left, somewhat dazed. I was going to write a paragraph analysing the point where fanaticism for subculture supercedes morality. Suffice to say, in the ensuing years it's been a gradual retreat, or rather recoil, from hardcore otakudom for me.

I'm of two minds about showing or linking to photos of victims of horrible crimes. On journalist-author Larry Harnisch's exhaustive Black Dahlia site, for instance, he absolutely refuses to show any body shots. I can understand his point of view as in that infamous case, it's the victim herself who is the "star".

In the case of Sagawa, it's the killer who's gained notoriety and a devoted, if small, legion of followers and friends (one artist created a Warholeseque portrait of Sagawa, pictured below). I'm quite sure at least some, if not most of the people who've taken pictures with him, interviewed him, cast him or written songs about him have actually seen the evidence of the beautiful young woman he destroyed. I doubt Mick himself pored over the police pictures before he penned Too Much Blood. An American hardcore punk band has even named themselves after Sagawa (see their Myspace profile).

I have no problem with people writing books or making films based on serial killers -- I obviously have a fair amount of fascination with them myself (I can't wait to see David Fincher's Zodiac). I don't think there's a high horse in the stable, but if one is into this topic, then one should take in all aspects. Put yourself in the victim's shoes. Put yourself in the victim's family's shoes. Rather than superficially riffing on the gory details for thrills, concentrate on the destruction of life from all sides until you are thoroughly chilled to the bone.

View the grisly results of Sagawa Issei's crime at your own risk. They are extremely disturbing photographs.

The aforementioned Hawker murder case has some startling similarities (aside from a Japanese man killing a young, caucasian woman). Ichihashi and Hawker were acquainted in an educational setting. Ichihashi apparently pursued Hawker with vigour, as did Sagawa with Hartevelt. The final act of murder took place in the perpetrators' apartments after both victims agreed to come over under the pretense of educational pursuit. Both victims were disposed of in brutal fashion, though Sagawa's mania obviously plumbed much lower depths. Seeing Hawker's tearful parents and fiancé on TV was hard to watch.

Pictured clockwise from left: Victim Renée Hartevelt, Sagawa Issei, Ichihashi Tatsuya, victim Lindsay Ann Hawker