![]() ![]() It has teen romance, malevolent artificial intelligence and such a vibe of fun, even during its most somber of scenes. It is a family comedy, drama and action film all rolled into one. Summer Wars was great because it is a family movie where the theme of the movie is about family coming together and overcoming a crisis on a global scale. Hell those are just the animation directors in Japan I’m not even counting directors like Kurosawa or Fukusaku. Summer Wars was Mamoru Hosoda’s notice to the Japanese film industry that his name should be spoken in the same reverence as Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii and the late Satoshi Kon. Summer Wars made me laugh, it made me almost shed a tear and it made me stand up and cheer the way good a movie should. It was simply my favorite movie of that year. Not favorite animated movie, not favorite genre movie. Hosoda’s Summer Wars was my favorite movie of 2009. It would be three years before the end result was seen in Japanese theaters and it is that film which I am here to praise. So after the acclaim of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in 2006, Hosoda began work on his next project. Hosoda not only made a good sequel but he made a sequel that is at least equal to its predecessor. Making a sequel is one thing but making a good sequel is always tricky. ![]() Doing a semi-sequel to something that is pretty well loved is always risky but Hosoda, along with his cohorts at Studio Madhouse, delivered a fun and bitter-sweet tale that deals with time travel without making the viewer’s head explode for worrying about time paradoxes. Hosoda used a well loved science fiction story from the 60s and its movie adaptation from the 80s to create a sequel to the original works. It was his work on One Piece that spring boarded him to a project that earned him widespread acclaim with scores of anime fans and critics in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. He alter directed the 2005 entry in the One Piece film franchise Baron Omatsuri & The Secret Island. Some would not use that as a positive example of good filmmaking but all directors have to start somewhere. Hosoda first came on most anime fans radar back in 1999 when he directed 2 films in the Digimon franchise. This brings us to Mamoru Hosoda, a director who is making his name by making family friendly movies yet has nothing to do with Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli. To say Miyazaki doesn’t make anime is ludicrous and I encourage everyone to laugh at those who say otherwise. I am quick to point out in these arguments that Miyazaki built his early reputation on Lupin The Third, a franchise that is still going strong in Japan with new animated TV movies every few years. That somehow, because he makes such remarkable family fare, his work shouldn’t be lumped with the likes of say Dragon Ball or Gundam. Miyazaki’s reputation is such that I have actually had people who don’t like anime try to argue that Miyazaki doesn’t make “anime”. The fact is more than 90% of anime is non-pornographic in nature and most of it is aimed at children and teenagers. They make exceptions for the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli because those films are meant to be family films. Though I may be over-generalizing how people view anime, the non-anime fans definitely tends to look at Japanese animation as something pornographic. Let’s face it, non-film fans and non-anime fans tend to lump all anime into 2 categories Miyazaki films and tentacle porn (aka Hentai). I wanted the fifth movie in 5 Modern Japanese Movies Everyone Should See to be something that didn’t fall into the trap of recommending an animated film from Japan. I’ve tried to present movies that avoid certain stereotypes such as Samurai movies, Yakuza movies and Tokusatsu movies. The point of these articles was to demonstrate that the Japanese have a very rich and colorful cinematic variety, rich enough that it can make people completely change their view of Japanese Popular Culture as a whole. So here we are, a little over a month later and the last selection of 5 Modern Japanese Movies Everyone Should See.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |