Library Reviews
The Premonition
Banana Yoshimoto fans will be pleased. This is an early, hitherto untranslated work. Published back in 1988, the year of her acclaimed breakout “Kitchen”. As ever since, her penchant is for youth sibling and family dynamics. Some deftly underplayed reveals and crises help to kick the plot along.
“…a princess asleep in an old castle where time’s stopped, clinging to dreams of a lost dynasty…”
The basic setup is that Yayoi is a high school teen who begins to intuit that there is more to her happy family household than lets on. She seeks refuge with her eccentric aunt who herself has plenty of main character gravity. Unsurprisingly, much introspection and melodrama about relationships happen. Several surprises are in store and the pacing of these drip-fed reveals are quite well timed in the sense that there’s no overcooking. The first ones begin dropping about midway through. There is also a bit of genre awareness in that some common plot deviations are anticipated and quickly smothered.
Due to the publication lag, this has the anachrony of being a new release that was both written in and is set in the 1980s. Shared landline home telephones, television and video rental are effective callbacks for older readers. The familiarity will be less so for readers who have never say, physically held a cassette tape. When Yoshimoto burst onto the scene aged 22, she was lauded for her literary freshness. Nowadays, the mantle of literary wunderkind has been inherited by writers such as Rin Usami. The same translator, Asa Yoneda was also responsible for the English version of Usami’s Idol Burning (推し、燃ゆ) and the contrast of the works is stark. As for Yoshimoto Banana, she is still winning prizes such as the 2022 Tanizaki Prize for a short story anthology.
Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters
Master of Monsters covers the career of Eiji Tsuburaya and the early days of special effects that yielded Godzilla and Ultraman. While the effects themselves can’t compare against 70 years of progress and cgi, this is still a fascinating trek behind the scenes of a defining period in film history.
In Japan, Eiji Tsuburaya is known as the god of special visual effects. In the Western world he is mostly preceded by his iconic creations. Drawing inspiration from King Kong (1933) Tsuburaya embarked on genre defining efforts that would eventuate in the kaijū eiga (giant monster movie) becoming enduringly associated with Japan. This book provides a detailed look at several of the films Tsuburaya worked on and the innovations and contextual events during production.
Tracing Tsuburaya’s film industry career is akin to a walkthrough of early special effects technology in Japan. He started as an assistant cameraman and would become recognised for bringing a dynamic quality to his camerawork. Many stock techniques of today such as slow motion, double exposure and matte backgrounds were pioneering concepts during Tsuburaya’s time and required him to learn from trial and error. He experimented with alternative lighting and the use of smoke pots on the set. A cultivated predilection for tinkering served in good stead when he developed a mechanical camera crane. A descendant of his design is still in use around the world today.
Tsuburaya’s career was not predestined by any definition. Although exhibiting artistic and academic ability at an early age, he was also born into an affluent and somewhat aristocratic lineage. He was precociously inquisitive and particularly captivated by planes and flight. At varying times in his pre‑cinema life he would attend a flight school, study engineering, be drafted into national service and almost inherit the onerous task of running the family business.
(Previously reviewed 2011 April. Edited.)
Weathering with you
A lusciously animated urban fairytale with a solid storyline. Director Makoto Shinkai’s follow-up to the 2016 hit film, Your Name. Watch if you haven’t yet done so. The rain and water effects are breathtaking.
This romantic fantasy is set in a contemporary, alternate Tokyo that would be identical to reality except for some strange weather. It tends to rain. A lot. Weather science and meteorology are definitely things that exist but, as it happens, a certain folk superstition about sunny people and rainy people also proves true. A little magic from a rooftop shrine is leveraged, not for pan galactic combat but instead, to earn money baito style while making people happy.
Haters have accused Makoto Shinkai of making the same movie three times: Your Name (2016), Weathering with You (2019) and Suzume (2022). There definitely are similarities but that is like disparaging Miyazaki films because they involve flying and/or a plucky heroine. Miyazaki’s shadow does loom large. In the special features interview, Shinkai relates the challenge to create films appreciated by audiences while doing them differently from Miyazaki. Instead of Hisashi’s melodic epics, Shinkai collaborates with rock outfit RADWIMPS and the soundtrack contains main sequence vocals. It’s not all different. It can get laughably cold in the film. This (inverted) invocation of climate change parallels Miyazaki working in themes around current affairs.
Fussing over similarities should take a backseat to just enjoying some new masterpieces.