Tokyo Night Sky is Always the Densest Shade of Blue

Is there a name for this genre of film? Lovelorn, confused and underpaid people struggle through their twenties in carefully framed shots of big city life accompanied by a well-chosen indie rock soundtrack. There must be. I've seen so many. This one, however, is one of the best. Even after just twenty minutes, I sat there and thought to myself "This film is brilliant."

The film is from Yuya Ishii, the same director as Sawako Decides, and it shares some of the same qualities. A slow dreamlike story progression and a deadpan, almost undetectable, sense of humour. The two films also concern themselves with characters who are psychologically off-centre. Embarrassed that they even exist, their attempts at reaching out are often clumsy and self-defeating.

The cast is brilliant. From the two lead roles right down to sniggering staff at a cheap late night restaurant, there isn't a bad performance among them. The main female character is a great performance from Shizuka Ishibashi and the male lead, Sosuke Ikematsu, is excellent. Likable enough that his air of defeatism doesn't become insufferable and he keeps you on his side.

The photography is very fine. Understated but classy. Like a fine white wine (I'm writing this in a pub. Can you tell?). Tokyo has been photographed to death, but it still looks vibrant and new here.

Finally, and I only discovered this after watching, the dialogue has an unusual source: the poetry of Tahi Saihate. This explains the sometimes florid use of language in the voice overs, but it definitely gives the film a distinct character. The poet in question hasn't been translated into English yet, so hats off to the translator for dealing with it so well (although someone needs to tell them that "... Not." hasn't been used as a way of being sarcastic since about 2002).

I was delighted to find this film and I had that feeling afterwards as if you'd just done something good for yourself, like exercise or reading a newspaper.

A fragile and slightly awkward gem.

Ishi no Mayu and Yami no Bansosha

These two crime series prove (if any more proof were needed by now) that WOWOW is the closest thing that Japan has to its own HBO. The quality of performances, directing, photography and writing are streets ahead of the average terrestrial channels.

Not to say that WOWOW is completely free from the usual cliches of Japanese TV, though. In both of these series the lead female characters (a cop and an ex-cop) both went onto the police force because their father’s were detectives and died with one unsolved case.

After this, the two dramas have little in common. Ishi no Mayu is the more conventional cop drama. The lead role is Kisaragi, a rookie cop, who is a junior officer on a serial killer case. In most J-dramas, rookie cops are there to make stupid mistakes so that people shout at them until the end when they make a passionate speech and everyone realises what a great detective they are.

Not this time. Most officers are either supportive or indifferent to Kisaragi. Some people are a bit annoyed when she becomes pivotal to the case, but that’s a side story.

The case itself involves a killer who appears to be taking revenge on some people he accuses of being murderers. So this leaves two cases to be solved: the current one, and a case from twenty years ago. This means that there’s never a dull moment in the five episodes, and the use of the killer phoning the police to tease them with clues may be old hat, but it does make for some great-cliffhangers.

Yami no Bansosha is less of a typical cop show, even though the police are involved. Mostly it revolves around two people: an ex-cop turned detective and a grumpy old out-of-work manga editor. The detective was brought in to investigate a manuscript, apparently written by a famous manga author, that describes an old unsolved murder with uncanny accuracy.

She is put in touch with an editor who can use his expertise and contacts to investigate. There are some nice Biblia Koshoudou type parts, where the editor can spot stylistic aspects to get more clues from the manuscript.

Both of these are similar in structure: male-female pair investigates an old unsolved case, but the approach is quite different. Yami no Bansosha is more comedic, with Furuta Arata stealing a lot of scenes, especially when he tries to run in a duffle coat and rucksack.

And both are excellent. If you watch them back-to-back like I did, you’re bound to feel some deja vu, but to ignore one in favour of the other would be a mistake.

Currently listening to: MFBTY and Humbert Humbert

It’s Spring! Which means it’s time for a bunch of big name K-Pop stars to make their comeback. Or, as everyone else in the world calls it: release new material.

Despite my somewhat sarcastic opening, I am a little excited about this. For the past couple of months, I’ve been quite frustrated that I’ve haven’t found any new act that made me think “Hey, I want to know more about this!” so I’m kind of hoping that this new round of releases might change that.

Miss A have already released a good (but not great) mini-album, and BigBang and Girls’ Generation have new releases coming up soon. I have no idea what to expect from BigBang (and that’s a good thing) but the teaser for the new GG single sounds pretty awful. I didn’t like Mister Mister either, but at least it had a couple of good b-sides.

I’ll be honest (and I’m not proud of this) I didn’t like Girls’ Generation at first and the only reason I gave them a second chance was because they put the apostrophe in their name in the right place. I’m such a grammar geek that I thought, “Well, if they can do that, they can’t be all bad.” And so I gave “Gee” a few more listens, and the rest is history. But despite all that good feeling toward them, I have grave doubts about their new stuff.

But what I really want to talk about is MFBTY. Their new album, Wondaland, is out and in my mp3 player and it’s a bit special. Better that their debut The Cure, this is a great (frequently brilliant) collection of rap/dance tunes, with Angel coming out a clear favourite.

It made me wonder about the name, though. MFBTY is generally explained as My Fans Better Than Yours, but on the new album one song has the refrain “MF Bizzy TY.” This got me thinking: if B stands for Bizzy, then T must stand for Tiger JK and Y must mean Yoon Mi Rae: the three memebrs of the group. So what does MF stand for? Are there two more people in the band? Or does it actually stand for “Mother Fucking Bizzy, Tiger, Yoon Mi Rae”? Since I’m never going to meet them, I’ll never know, but I kind of hope so.

So, if that wasn’t enough to restore my faith in music, one day after I bought Wondaland I discovered a new band through the unlikely source of a YouTube recommendation. Humbert Humbert are a Japanese folk duo with an incredible ear for a chorus and some heart-breaking harmonies. Never more so than on their song “大宴会” (Daienkai) which is exactly the kind of song you’d expect to hear when you’re out hiking in a mountain forest in Japan, floating across a valley on a slight breeze. Somehow it feels like it comes from long ago but also could have been written yesterday: that’s how beautiful and universal it is.

But I don’t want to praise this song in favour of others. Most of their songs have that timeless quality. Unfortunately, they’re not the easiest band to search for. They’re on iTunes (along with two other bands also called Humbert Humbert) but I’ve found a fair amount of stuff on YouTube. Definitely worth the effort, though. They are one of those bands that sing songs that are so simple that you can hardly believe that no one has written them before.

Recommended: Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

A long time ago, before torrenting, the internet was mostly useful for buying cheap VCDs from the Triple D House website from Hong Kong. Back in those days, Stephen Chow was a favourite in our flat, with titles like Royal Tramp, God of Cookery, Shaolin Soccer and, eventually, Kung Fu Hustle. This film from 2013 is his most recent directing work, and marks a return to a more familiar martial arts/comedy genre after the family-friendly CJ7.

It is a prequel to the famous folk story, Journey to the West. In the story we follow a demon hunter who would rather try to rehabilitate the demons he captures rather than actually kill them. He meets another demon-hunter, a woman, who falls in love with him and together they go off on adventures.

Stephen Chow himself isn’t in this film, but the main character is one who would have certainly been played by a younger Chow. The demon-hunter, scruffy but well-meaning, is played well by Wen Zhang mixing a determination to do the right thing with a confusion over what exactly that should be. He is paired with Shu Qi, who plays the other demon-hunter who falls for him.

Just like Kung Fu Hustle, this game mixes CGI enemies and situations with physical comedy and impressive fight scenes. It's beautifully filmed and the costumes, locations and demons are always great to look at. It’s constantly inventive and funny, never letting up from the opening Jaws-referencing scene to the final epic fight.

The very last scene points towards a sequel, but I seem to recall rumours of a sequel to Shaolin Soccer, and also a sequel for Kung Fu Hustle, but nothing came of either of them. I’m not holding my breath now, either, but another film in this series would be very welcome.

Recommended: Suteki-na Sen Taxi

This series is about a taxi that has the ability to go back in time (for a fee) to a moment just before a pivotal choice, so you can try it again. It’s a simple idea, and but is played perfectly. The absurd notion of a time-travelling taxi soon becomes accepted.

A lot of this is thanks to the actor playing the taxi driver - Takenouchi Yutaka. His smooth and laid-back attitude hides a mass of neuroses, which reflects the basis premise of the show: how life is series of choices.

Each episode has a different story, in which someone has a need to go back in time. Perhaps they need to react differently or run faster or change something that they regret. Usually this takes several attempts since making a different choice can change things in unexpected ways.

It's an excellent show, funny and entertaining. Beautifully put together, it's full of nice little touches, such as the customers' disappointment that going back in time is so unremarkable. The driver also frequents a local cafe, and their interactions prompt dilemmas that are reflected in the main story.

The moral of this series seems to be “Be careful what you wish for.” Not everything ends as desired, although it's usually for the best.

Recommended: Remember Me

You know, given how much I’ve been writing about Korean stuff lately, and now this blog post about a British drama series, you’d be forgiven for wondering why this blog is called IfbyJapan. I don’t usually write about British stuff, but I thought I’d make an exception for this supernatural horror mini-series, due to its J-horror influences.

The story is about a man, Tom, who is admitted to an old persons’ home. Before long, his social worker is dead, apparently flung from a window, with the window too. And so begins a journey through Tom’s mysterious past to identify who is behind all this.

It looks beautiful. Shot in Yorkshire, the landscape adds a malevolent touch. Remember Me also contains some strong performances, including Monty Python’s Michael Palin in his first dramatic role since 1991.

But, as I mentioned, it reminded me a lot of those J-horror films that swept into Western consciousness back in the late 90s, such as Ring and The Grudge. There are shots of oily black seas, and disjointed ghosts. The use of water as a signifier that something bad was about to happen obviously reminded me of Dark Water.

And all of this made this UK-horror very watchable indeed. Lots of shocks and suspense along the way, and an intriguing story to keep you interested.

Recommended: Nakuna, Hara-chan

Honestly, I think I’m going soft in my old age, crying at two things on TV in the last two days.

The first one was the film Miss Potter, and then I watched the final two episodes of this series in one sitting so I could make a real effort and finish subbing this series over the weekend. I suppose that, after serveral moths of chipping away at these subtitles a little bit each day, I formed a bit of a bond with these characters. So it was that during the last two episodes I found myself reduced to a blubbering wreck. Even when I was doing the subs later, I found myself tearing up again.

So, I’m recommending this, but with some reservations. First, if you’re the type who is not impressed with the type of doomed romance which is impossible not just because of society (the usual love across the barriers type stuff) but because of some physical impossibility (such as robots, ghosts or, in this case, cartoon characters), then steer well clear.

On the other hand, if you’re learning Japanese and are looking for a drama to watch without subs, then this is for you. Especially episodes 7 and 9, which I think someone with intermediate skills (or a bit higher) could watch it and understand most of what is going on.

If you’re in the mood for a weepy yet funny romance which doesn’t require you to think at all, then this is for you. It’s funny and stupid and often very touching. But as I write this, I still wonder how much of this reaction was due to me subbing it. If I hadn’t spent so much time in their company, would I have empathised with th characters so much? I was even sad when I was putting the subs into a zipped file and posting it on d-addicts. I was depressed that there was no more work to be done on this. A clear sign that these characters, absurd though they are, had got under my skin.

So... it is what it is. A tear-jerker that’s all heart and no brain.

Recommended: Petero no Souretsu

When the subs for this series finally came out, I wanted to sit down and write about the series so far. The trouble was, whenever I did that, new subtitles for the next episode had come out so what I wanted to say was already obsolete.

In the end, I decided to stop trying to keep up with Subie06’s prodigious output. I waited until all of the subtitles were done, and then I sat down on the next work-free day I had and watched the last six episodes in one sitting.

The story begins with a bus being hijacked in episode one, and then the rest of the series concerns these hostages attempts at making sense of this situation: who was the hijacker and what did he want?

It's an intelligent and intriguing mystery. Well acted and well written, the whole thing is put together with a great deal of care and thought. The only downside being that, because it was a sequel to a previous series, there were occasional references and flashbacks to things that occurred in the past that I didn't fully understand.

But that's the only fault in an otherwise flawless production. Like Mitani Kouki at his best, this series took one idea, one crime, and fully explored the consequence, as well as expertly including aspects of office life into the story. Unmissable.

Recommended: The Snow White Murder Case

This film has been on my radar for a while, since it stars Inoue Mao, but I was unaware of any subs or a decent rip online until I saw it mentioned on Hamsapsubeke.

It’s a murder mystery which is described through the eyes of a tabloid TV journalist, who’s keen for a big exclusive story. As such, all of the clues and eye-witness accounts point to one suspect: one who just so happens to have disappeared on the same evening as the murder.

The film reminded me a lot of Rashomon, with its multiple telling of the same story, and it was fascinating to see the events shift from one perspective to the next. Inoue Mao was superb in her role, probably the best I’ve seen her in any film. There’s a real difference in her performance when she’s in a flashback (as described by someone else) and when she’s being the actual character herself. I loved that kind of subtlety to her role. Ayano Gou, too, was great as the manipulative reporter.

By telling the story through news reports and twitter feeds, it really shows how a story can grow and how the opinions of people who have nothing to do with the case are able to be spread and repeated.

It also reminded me of the Joanna Yates murder case in 2010, where the media latched onto the idea that the landlord was the murderer and strongly put forward their theories until the real killer (a neighbour) was arrested.

A lot to think about, and a clever story in its own right. With half an hour to go, I still wasn’t sure how the film was going to end. The overlap of social media and the need for news reporters to get the facts first (whether the facts are true or not) is a timely subject, given the recent hoax of the “countdown” to release photos of Emily Watson.

A great film, in a surprising number of interesting ways.

Recommended: The Chaser

Ah, once upon a time I was cutting edge! I followed J-dramas with more attention than a cat following a wounded bird! I saw all the dramas and plenty of films, and I even wrote about future seasons and what I was looking forward to. Now, lack of time has put an end to all that, and I’m just as reliant on review sites as anyone else. So tonight I’m going to dash off two reviews of films that I found out from other sites.

I found this film on a Top 25 of Korean Movies, and for some reason the description appealed to me, so I hunted it down and had a look.

The Chaser is a thriller, but is best described as a Tragedy of Errors. Most thrillers and mysteries rely on the characters misunderstanding something vital that increases the danger and heightens the tension, but this has people making mistakes all the time. And not just one big mistake, like asking for help at an old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Little things. Like a missed call, a wrong turning or a set of dropped keys.

The storyline revolves around an ex-cop who is now a pimp who is convinced that his best prostitutes are being kidnapped and sold on. When a familiar phone number asks for a particular woman, he suspects this is him, and he puts in place a plan to catch him.

Except nothing goes right, not for the pimp, nor the killer (since the women aren’t being kidnapped at all) nor the police who don’t know how to deal with an ex-cop-turned-pimp yelling about abductions, while another man is calmly telling them he’s murdered nine people.

If I’ve made it sound funny, then it’s not. Not really. In fact, it’s more painful to watch everyone come to reasonable but agonisingly wrong conclusions. But at the same time, I can’t fault how nicely everything fits together. It’s a tense time-bomb of a film, and definitely worth anyone’s time.

Recommended: River's Edge Okawabata Tanteisha

In terms of production, this is difficult to fault. The director, Hitoshi One (Moteki, Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi, Akihabara@Deep), has made a series that is great to look at. And now, with that filmography, I think he’s become one of my favourite directors. On top of this, the music is excellent and the acting, too, is top quality. The casting director did a great job of filling every role, no matter how minor, with memorable faces and performances.

Only the storylines in the later half of the series disappoint. It settles into a formula of “Can you find this person I knew twenty years ago,” with little variety in the cases. The writer tries to make each conclusion as unpredictable as possible, but there’s no denying the dip in originality towards the end. Especially episode ten, which seems to be two half-finished ideas pushed into one episode.

But, despite that, I think this is worth recommending. If the quality dipped, it never stopped being worth watching. The whole feel of the drama is just so nice, and the three lead roles are perfect: Odagiri Joe’s laid-back charm, Ishibashi Renji’s sense of a dark history, and Koizumi Maya’s flirty energy. Everything went together so perfectly that, even when the stories weren't so great, I still wanted to spend time in this world with these people.

Recommended: Border

In amongst all my recent distractions (work, filming, Fargo and the World Cup as well as others) one Japanese TV series has kept my attention while the others have fallen by the wayside, even though I plan on finishing them one day.

Borders managed to keep me interested. I had my doubts about the premise: a cop who can see the dead, but it was handled in such a way that you forgot how silly it all is very quickly. The detective’s inability to admit where his information comes from causes some concern with his colleagues, and he relies more and more on dubious policing tactics, especially in the final episode where he knows who the killer is, but can’t do anything without any evidence.

Oguri Shun’s acting was spot on as his character declined mentally and physically. The rest of the cast were good, too, but as the series progressed, it became less of an ensemble piece as the events focused more on Oguri Shun.

As for the ending... well, there wasn’t one. This is clearly leading to a second series or a film to continue the story. Which is fine. I’m totally okay with more of this.

Recommended: The Genius

“If crack cocaine was made out of numbers.” That’s the kind of effect this show had on me. Since I discovered it two months ago, I’ve watched both series in an overdose of tense gaming fun. A horror movie can use blood and gore to make me nervous and force me to peep between my fingers, but this show had exactly the same effect using only the turn of a card.

While watching the final episode, I sat away from my computer, afraid that if I jogged the table I might move the mouse which would bring up the video player’s controls, showing how long was left before the end. This would give me a big clue as to who the final winner would be. This would have been unforgivable. And I put my phone on silent, went to the toilet beforehand and made sure I had enough to drink. Nothing was going to interrupt this.

It was the climax of several months of alliances and treachery, as people with different skills went into battle every week. Those who were skilled at mathematics and probabilities had to outwit those who were more socially gifted, able to build a team that would see them safely through to the next round.

Huge thanks to subber Bumdidlyumptious who kept releasing the subs so promptly. Now I have to face the world without my weekly fix. I can cheer myself up with the fact that they ended with “See you next time” and also that there was only four months’ gap between series one and two.

Watching again: Time of Eve

I first wrote about this short anime series over four years ago. Four years! That’s a bit scary.

Anyway, this time I decided to watch the film version. This is, essentially, the six TV episodes put together with a little extra material about some kind of government investigation into places where androids and people can interact socially. Because that is what the story is about: a world in which androids, created to serve people, are indistinguishable from humans.

In this world, this causes social tensions as people are suspicious of these android and equally mistrustful of people who prefer the company of robots to real people. When I wrote about it before, I compared the androids in this series to an underclass. This time, I considered the philosophical points that the film was making.

The debate about whether humans are beings whose consciousness alone demonstrates that part of them is spiritual or if we are simply the sum of our parts: purely physical beings, is a debate that touches a nerve with a lot of people. Time of Eve talks about a world in which, to all intents and purposes, the Turing Test has been passed. What would that say about ourselves? It’s one thing to state that a robot is incapable of feeling, but it’s quite another to say the same thing while a robot is looking you directly in the eye and telling you that you’re wrong.

Additionally, of course, there is the habit of people to given characteristics to certain objects. Two of the most affecting stories in Time of Eve concern robots who do not resemble people at all. I’m reminded of a blog post I wrote a while back about a machine devised in the late 1700s that could simulate human speech. One of the people who heard it ascribed certain emotions to it, even though it was little more than a box, a bellows and a rubber mouthpiece: ‘When its answer is not perfectly understood, it repeats it slower, and if required to speak a third time, it repeats it again, but with a tone of impatience and vexation’.

The film is a good way to see the series. Its directed by Yoshiura Yasuhiro, who also made Sakasama no Patema (which I still haven’t seen yet) and the animation is crisp and clear, and the episodic nature of the stories isn’t too obvious. It’s an intelligent and good-looking anime series that’s well worth a look.

Recommended: The Last Chance: Diary of Comedians

Well, they do say that the secret to comedy is timing, and I’d say watching this film about a failed comedy duo on the same day that I found out that a production company weren’t going to follow up a pilot episode made by myself and a friend was probably the reason I found it impossible to watch this film without tears rolling down my face.

I am a big softie for films about the entertainment industry, such as some of the early Mitani Kouki films, or The Woodsman and the Rain. I find myself totally empathising with the naive, hopeful amateur who thinks they only need one chance to prove themselves.

This film follows the career of a lowly comedy duo, Boso Swimmers, as they struggle through their twelfth year in showbusiness while trying not to get jealous as other, younger comedy teams become more successful. They decide to put everything into one comedy competition: their final roll of the dice.

The two main roles, played by Ito Atsushi and Koide Keisuke, are excellent. Especially Koide Keisuke who is one of my favourite actors, and really impresses as the less talented but more motivated of the two. They are supported by a great cast, including Nagasawa Masami and a wide range of Japanese comedians in various roles. Plus, a quick nod of appreciation to 8thSin for the excellent subtitles.

It’s funny and touching, especially if you’ve ever thought you might have stood a chance in the slightly absurd world of entertainment. It’s all about whether it’s better to prefer a comforting dream over grim reality. A cruel choice that most of us have to face in some way.

Recommended: Petal Dance

This film from 2013 starred Miyazaki Aoi, Katsuna Shiori and Ando Sakura and was directed by Ishikawa Hiroshi, who I’ve written about once before and then promptly forgot about. That’s a shame, because this film is a quiet, thoughtful and, above all, hypnotic study about friendship and life. After I downloaded it, I decided to have a quick look, fully expecting to watch the first three minutes just to see what it was like. I ended up watching the whole thing.

The story involves two friends who hear about a friend of theirs who apparently jumped into the sea and had to be rescued. They decided to go and see her in hospital and, by chance, they meet someone who can drive them there.

The style is slow and ponderous. Shots are held without anything in particular happening except perhaps a shift in posture. This gives the viewer a chance to enjoy the photography, which is lovely, with excellent use of natural light and composition.

For such a slow film, it touches on a lot of issues: new love, lost friends, unemployment, suicide. None of these are examined at any length but somehow they’re both pivotal to the storyline and inconsequential. It’s up to the viewer to decide how important each event is.

It is, at its heart, a road movie. It’s a very quiet one, but it definitely is a road movie: people go on a journey which changes things. How things change? Well, that’s never made clear. But that’s fine. If this film did start explaining everything, it would probably ruin it.

Update, 18th Jan: I've decided to make this "recommended" because in the two weeks since I first saw it, I've watched twice more.

Recommended: The Great Passage

Sometimes watching a TV show prompts certain needs in me. For example, I have to be drinking white wine when watching Saikou no Rikon, or drinking beer when watching Match of the Day. While watching this film, I had a sudden urge to get the largest dictionary I own (the Kenkyusha New Japanese English Character Dictionary) and watch the rest of the film with it on my lap, like some kind of weird substitute cat.

The film that inspired this burst of bibliophilia is set in an office where they are making a new dictionary. An odd topic for a film, but one that works surprisingly well. People leave and join the team, they fall in love and get old. It’s a gentle character-lead comedy, full of people discussing things that normally never get discussed, such as how do you define the direction “right”?

Despite being miles away from a Hollywood blockbuster, the film still seems to think it needs some kind of climactic event: some last minute danger to overcome. In this case, it is the discovery that a word is missing, meaning some last-minute list-checking is needed! It’s not exactly defusing a bomb on a speeding bus.

The acting is great. Matsuda Ryuhei is miles from his more usual slacker-type roles, and Miyazaki Aoi is perfect as the love interest. But it’s Odagiri Joe who really makes an impression. His character is someone not suited to dictionary work, and he provides a lot of the comedy, but in a sensitive way: never so overt that it seems out of place.

It’s a great little film, made all the more remarkable by the peculiar subject matter. The subs, by 8th Sin are excellent, and so are the translation notes. I’m a sucker for this kind of story, and I think that these people are heroes, too. Fitting an entire language into a book, however imperfectly, is still an amazing achievement.