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The Dissertation Committee for Amanda Landa certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

Contemporary Japanese Seishun Eiga Cinema

Committee:

Lalitha Gopalan, Supervisor

Janet Staiger, Co-Supervisor

Kirsten Cather

Shanti Kumar

David Desser

Michael Kackman Contemporary Japanese Seishun Eiga Cinema

by Amanda Landa

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the GraduateSchool of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin

May 2017 Acknowledgements

The dissertation process is always present and foreboding in one’s graduate career. An always looming presence, the first chapter is always theoretically sketched, perhaps even drafted, but the rest are generally to be filed under “fiction.” The same, of course, happened for me, and throughout this endeavor I have learned to draft, to re-read and edit, and most especially to never be afraid to start over. My primary goal was to hone my writerly voice, to elevate from description into argument and most of all, to slow down. Time and financial pressures are plentiful, and early in the writing process I wanted to rush; to achieve quickly what was later revealed to me something that could not and should not be rushed. I chose to write chapter by chapter as the and categories presented themselves, allowing myself to enjoy each chapter’s research process in small achievable steps.

Integral to this process are my co-supervisors, Associate Professor Lalitha Gopalan and Professor Emeritus Janet Staiger. In particular, I want to give thanks for Lalitha’s rigorous mentorship, guidance, and enthusiasm for this project and its films and Janet, a constant mentor, whose patience and attendance to both my writerly and emotional well- being will never be forgotten. My dissertation committee: Professor Emeritus David Desser, Associate Professor Kirsten Cather, and Associate Professor Michael Kackman. David’s work and teaching on Japanese cinema inspired me and enabled this project to come to fruition; Kirsten, whose kindness, support and feedback are invaluable; and Michael, who not only supported and guided me by asking me the hard questions, but also carved the path for me to become Instructor of Record for History of Broadcasting at UT- Austin, I give humble thanks. In addition, I have been fortunate to cross paths with many iii like-minded colleagues and friends in my graduate career. Those who have suffered and succeeded alongside me and, though varied opportunities have scattered many of us, listened, commiserated and cheered me. In no particular order I heartily thank Faith Stein, Colleen Montgomery, Morgan Blue, Paul Monticone, and Katya Balter. Equally grateful am I to Adrienne McCallister, Justin Huse, Nikaela French, my Asti family, and Emmett and Lisa Fox, whose levity, love and laughter I owe an insurmountable debt. To my family, without whom, I would not be who I am nor have what I have achieved: Maria Chilton, Domingo Landa and Michelle Hibbard, I give unconditional thanks and love.

Finally, I want to thank my partner, best friend and husband, Luke Hursey, who has been by my side for every second of this journey. Without your constant support, humor and love, I would be lost.

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Contemporary Japanese Seishun Eiga Cinema

Amanda Landa, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016

Supervisors: Lalitha Gopalan, Janet Staiger

Abstract: Contemporary Japanese Seishun Eiga Cinema examines Japanese popular films of the last 30 years that focus on youth protagonists, analyzes new generic modes and how Japanese history and tradition informs and influences them. This project tracks thematic trends in the films themselves, particularly those trends that intersect with current youth movements in . Four chapters include: “New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga,” “Death Game films,” “Yankii films,” and “Near- films.” The scope of this project comprises “youth” representation not as a genre but as a set of limitations, such as films that cast and address social issues typical of young adulthood in Japan such as enjo kosai, ijime (bullying), class conflicts, social media technologies and global cinema cultures. I follow thematic patterns as cycles and thus also analyze how the previously stated new genre categories intersect and overlap. Each chapter analyzes three to six films as a sampling of the group. The chapters do not write a historical overview of the entire movement but instead investigate the relationships around youth, themes, and historical context and input them into generic modes. Cultural categories such as the socio- economic classifications freeter, NEET, , and yankii are discussed throughout each chapter. This project is a delineation of these sub- of Japanese youth films, their narrative tropes, and commercial impact. The sampling includes studio genre films,

v independent films as well as selections from film festivals in order to discuss aspects of genre film theory as intersectional with industry and to track a cultural moment in contemporary Japanese film.

vi Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Table of Contents ...... vii

List of Figures ......

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 Review of Relevant Literature ...... 3 Youth and Genre in Japanese Cinema Studies ...... 5 Japan And Analysis of Its Post-Economic Bubble ...... 8 Recent Work on Contemporary Japanese Films ...... 12 The Contemporary Japanese and Adaptations ...... 20 Theoretical Framework and Method ...... 24 Outline of the Project ...... 28 1: New Japanese Seishun Eiga: Youth Problem Films at the turn of the Millennium ...... 29 2. The Death Game ...... 30 3:Yankii Films: Wild Youth ...... 32 4. The Near-...... 35 Conclusion ...... 36

Chapter 2: New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga: Youth Problem Films at the Turn of the Millennium ...... 36 Nuberu Bagu and Seishun Eiga ...... 38 The International and New Japanese Cinema ...... 41 New Japanese Seishun Eiga ...... 45 The Films ...... 46 Mise-en-scène: Personal and Domestic Space in Trash Baby ..49 Soundtrack and Emotions in All About Lily Chou-Chou ...... 58 Image Manipulations, Fractured Subjectivities: All About Lily Chou-Chou ...... 68 Conclusion: Ambiguous Endings, Narrative and Form ...... 79 vii Chapter 3: The Death Game: Horror- Films and Japanese Youth ...... 86 as Precursor to the Death Game ...... 90 The Death Game Narrative ...... 91 The Films: Game Motifs and Structures ...... 95 ...... 95 and Death Note: The Last Name ...... 98 and Gantz: Perfect Answer ...... 100 Surveillance in Battle Royale: Technology and Government ...... 105 Surveillance in Death Note: Television and the Supernatural ...... 114 Gantz: Surveillance and the Alien ...... 124 Conclusion ...... 131

Chapter 4: Yankii Films: Wild Youth ...... 136 Formative and Classical Phases of Yankii Films in Japan ...... 143 Taiyōzoku, The and ’s Sukeban Series144 Series and Adaptations...... 148 British Rock and Punk and its Influence in Japan ...... 153 Yankii Narratives of the 2000s ...... 156 Blue Spring: Punk Narrative ...... 157 Girls: A Clash of Cultures...... 168 Trilogy: Through Sunglasses Darkly...... 178 Conclusion ...... 187

Chapter 5: The Near-Disaster Film: Discourses of Youth and Disaster in Millennial Japan ...... 191 The Japanese Context and the Disaster Film in Japan ...... 193 The Disaster Film and its Characteristics ...... 199 The Near-Disaster Films: The Texts ...... 202 Fish Story and Lay-Heroes ...... 208 and Youth Technical Specialists...... 214 and Reforming the Youth Villain ...... 221 Conclusion: Intertextuality and Technology ...... 231 viii Chapter 6: Conclusion: Youth and Film in Japan ...... 238

Appendix ...... 247 New Japanese Seishun Eiga ...... 247 Death Game Films ...... 247 Yankiis ...... 248 Near-Disaster/Disaster ...... 250

Bibliography ...... 252

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List of Figures

Fig 1.1 Opening credits for tv series listing production committees ...... 22

Fig. 2.1 Opening shot of Miyuki from the inside of Yoshinori’s garbage bag ...... 50

Fig. 2.2 Miyuki sorting the garbage has collected ...... 51

Fig. 2.3 Miyuki walking the streets of Tokyo with Yoshinori’s garbage ...... 57

Fig. 2.4 Kuno playing the piano...... 60

Fig 2.5 Hasumi alone in the field ...... 62

Fig. 2.6 Shiori watching kites flying ...... 65

Fig 2.7 Yuichi screams in the same field, now barren...... 66

Fig. 2.8 Hasumi also stands in a barren field, seemingly out of sync ...... 67

Fig 2.9 Hiromi narrates her dream as a model train travels through a warehouse 70

Fig. 2.10 Hiromi in voiceove as the camera overlays several images ...... 71

Fig 2.11 The iris lens mimics the Topaz ring’s perspective ...... 75

Fig. 2.12 Hiromi’s body cyclones above her bed ...... 78

Fig. 2.13 Miyuki on the garbage barge ...... 81

Fig 2.14 Hiromi and her friends walk towards an uncertain future ...... 82

Fig. 2.15 Hasumi in a jarring shot near the film’s finale ...... 82

Fig 3.1 Shuya feels the electronic collar around his neck...... 108

Fig 3.2 A helicopter lands outside the abandoned classroom ...... 109

Fig 3.3 Kitano makes an example of class B’s teacher ...... 109

Fig. 3.4 Oneesan explains the rules of Battle Royale ...... 111

Fig 3.5 hand gestures belie the serious situation ...... 111

Fig. 3.6 Light watching the media reporting his killings ...... 116 x Fig. 3.7 Onlookers watch L’s broadcast in a subway station...... 119

Fig 3.8 L’s logo appears on Light’s home computer ...... 120

Fig. 3.9 The Tokyo Police watching L’s broadcast ...... 120

Fig. 3.10 More onlookers watch L’s broadcast in Shinjuku ...... 121

Fig. 3.11 Light rages againsts L’s words as Ryuk’s shadow looms ...... 122

Fig. 3.12 Ryuk enjoying the conflict ...... 122

Fig. 3.13 Cameras catch Kei and Kato on the train tracks ...... 126

Fig. 3.14 Gantz’ message to the newly recruited players ...... 127

Fig. 3.15 Gantz’ human battery ...... 127

Fig. 3.16 The players in foreground of the black orb, “Gantz” ...... 129

Fig. 3.17 Job candidates in foreground of job interviewers ...... 129

Fig. 3.18 Kishimoto’s ranking ...... 130

Fig. 3.19 Kato’s ranking ...... 130

Fig. 3.20 Suzuki’s ranking ...... 130

Fig. 3.21 Kei’s ranking ...... 130

Fig. 4.1 Decko’s “punch ” ...... 141

Fig. 4.2 Long pleated skirts often seen on Sukeban ...... 141 Fig. 4.3 Rock band Carol epitomizes slick back on 1973 album cover,

“Funky Monkey Baby” ...... 141

Fig 4.4 How to dress like a yankiis from Be-Bop High School ...... 151

Fig. 4.5. Boys on the railing ...... 158

Fig. 4.6 The Game begins ...... 159

Fig. 4.7 Danger revealed ...... 159

Fig 4.8 Overhead shot of Kujo as he hangs off railing ...... 160

Fig 4.9 Aoki at end of film, in a mirror shot of Kujo seen in Fig 4.8 ...... 160 xi Fig. 4.10 Tracking shot of Aoki as he confronts Kujo...... 165

Fig 4.11 Kujo walks to meet him ...... 165

Fig 4.12 An equally intimate and intimidating gesture ...... 166

Fig 4.13 Momoko sits inside, listening to Ichigo...... 174

Fig 4.14 Ichigo describes her lifestyle with the ...... 175

Fig 4.15 Ichigo crosses the 180° boundary between the two girls ...... 176

Fig 4.16 Ichigo returns to her side of the shot ...... 176

Fig 4.17 Hideo with a crow statue over his shoulder ...... 184

Fig 4.18 Ken looks on with admiration ...... 185

Fig 4.19 A shot from the opening sequence ...... 186

Fig 5.1 Title screens tell the viewer the immediate future ...... 210

Fig. 5.2 Masami and Segawa get to know each other ...... 211

Fig. 5.3 The oncoming comet blows up ...... 213

Fig 5.4 Takizawa, atop the carousel, addresses the naked ...... 216

Fig 5.5 Yūki fires missiles ...... 218

Fig. 5.6 Takizawa, informed by the NEETs, launches a counterstrike ...... 218

Fig 5.7 The missiles are intercepted ...... 219

Fig 5.8 The NEETs look on as the plan succeeds ...... 219

Fig. 5.9 Wabisuke spatially separated in this 180° shot ...... 224

Fig. 5.10 Sakae shocks Wabisuke ...... 225

Fig. 5.11 Sakae’s determined look ...... 225

Fig. 5.12 The two in profile as the family looks on ...... 226

Fig. 5.13 Sakae walks away from Wabisuke ...... 227

Fig. 5.14 Sakae attacks Wabisuke with a a ceremonial spear ...... 227

Fig. 5.15 Their confrontation comes to a stand-still ...... 228 xii Fig. 5.16 The satellite crash lands in a lake ...... 230

Fig. 5.17 The disasater spectacle without casualties...... 230

Fig. 6.1 The new slithers out of the ocean into the city ...... 244

Fig. 6.2 A hotel room with a view of a Godzilla statue ...... 245

Fig. 6.3 A Godzilla statue peers over Cinema ...... 245

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Contemporary Japanese Seishun Eiga Cinema examines contemporary genres of

Japanese popular films with youth protagonists, their place within Japanese film history and tradition, their cultural impacts, and narrative parameters. I track thematic trends in the films themselves, particularly those trends that intersect with current youth movements in Japan. To supplement the scholarship on the old masters of Japanese cinema, great studies of such as , Yasujirō Ozu, , , and by

Donald Richie, David Bordwell, , Neil Burch, Stephen Prince, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto,

Peter Cower, Catherine Russell, Maureen Turim and many others, this dissertation examines the critical turn to genre films in popular Japanese cinema, focusing primarily on the last twenty years. Genre films from Japan—from samurai films like Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) and kaijū () films like the Godzilla franchise to the films of Akira (Katsuhiro

Ōtomo, 1988) and (, 1995) and more recent horror movies

Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) and Ju-on (, 2004)—are immensely popular in

Japan. Moreover, their vitality and ingenuity have prompted U.S. acquisition and remakes:

Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960; and Antoine Fuqua, 2016) and Godzilla (Ishirō Honda and Terry O. Morse, 1956; Roland Emmerich, 1998; and Gareth Edwards, 2014); the remake of Akira has long been in development at Warner Bros., and Ghost in the Shell (Rupert

Sanders) will be released March 31, 2017. Japanese genre films’ influence on international cinema is wide and a more comprehensive critical examination long overdue.

Catherine Driscoll, in her analysis of global teen films, states that the seishun eiga (youth film) appears “as early as pre-war Japan (and especially Taishō Japan, 1912–26)” and “links , governance and technology in ways we now associate with [later] and

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seishun eiga.”1 David Desser, in his book Eros Plus Massacre,2 tracks another cycle of seishun eiga appearing in 1950s Japan as inspired by U.S. teen films such as The Wild One (1953) and

Rebel without a Cause (1955). As a term, seishun eiga became popularized during the Japanese

New Wave, a movement that also saw the appearance of subcategory of taiyōzoku, or "Sun

Tribe," films, depicting political youth movements in the 1950s and 1960s and other aspects of youth . Desser’s analysis the Japanese New Wave therefore also focuses on select youth subgenres although that is not wholly his project. Desser lays critical foundation for this project in his study of the taiyōzoku subgenre.

This project identifies another cycle of seishun eiga, one filled with many subgenres, and builds an analysis of contemporary youth genre films beginning in the late nineties. In my close readings of current youth films, I integrate contemporary economic and sociological phenomena, such as changes in employment categories like Freeters, NEETs, and hikikomori,3 as well as the influence of other media forms, such as video games, popular music, pink film, manga, and anime. Desser’s project encompassed a historic period of the Japanese film industry, the New

Wave, while tracking the work of several new auteurs who created dynamic and deliberate political cinema. This project analyzes a group of films less unified in vision but which encompass contemporary genre iterations that nevertheless speak to each other.

Contemporary Japanese Seishun Eiga Cinema diverges from popular known genre groupings such as , horror and disaster in order to re-organize and identify new genre categories; it is divided into four chapters: “New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga,” “Death Game films,” “Yankii films,” and “Near-Disaster films.” The scope of this project focuses on youth representation not as a genre per se but as a set of limitations, meaning films that cast young adult actors and address social issues typical of young adulthood. The dramatic formulas mainly

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deal with characters from adolescence through young adulthood such those entering college, the workforce, and romantic relationships. From an extensive list of contemporary seishun eiga, I have identified the above four groupings due to their thematic patterns, and I have analyzed specific films due to their critical engagement with typical genre forms and contemporary situations for Japanese youth. I argue that these analyses produce valuable readings of these films that expand on current filmic context, both national and global. The films chosen for further analysis within each chapter exist within a larger context of seishun eiga and their varied sub-genres (see Appendix for a larger list of related films).

I will be following thematic patterns as cycles and thus also analyzing how the previous genre categories converge and diverge. More broadly, my research investigates and asks the following questions: In analyzing the expansive set of films that fall under the broad category of seishun eiga, what generic qualities and parameters emerge during the past twenty years?

Although these films appear in different industrial contexts, are there common themes about contemporary youth in Japan despite the different production sources? What kinds of social, cultural, and economic issues arise, and do these issues differ from those in foundational films of the fifties and sixties?4

REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

The scholarship on Japanese cinema is immense and varied, and this project is only a small sliver of what has been or can be done regarding Japanese film. As mentioned in the opening of this introduction, the earliest foundational English-language writing primarily focuses on classical Japanese cinema and auteurs. Also important is the work of those such as Desser,

Joanne Bernardi, Aaron Gerow and Russell who examine directors and films over a particular

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period of time, such as the New Wave or WWII, or through archival research; those like Richie and Joseph L. Anderson, with historiographical analyses of film studios and their branded generic output, such as chambara or samurai films from Toei, kaijū eiga from Toho, or

Nikkatsu’s films; and those who interrogate medium-specific theoretical approaches such as Susan Napier and Thomas Lamarre. The following review of relevant literature does not address the myriad approaches to Japanese films but is instead constructed to discuss the scholarly work immediately relevant to this research project.

I first discuss the primary influence and model for this project, Desser’s Eros Plus

Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema (1988) and the work of Donald

Richie, particularly A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (2001), in the focus on youth and genre in Japan. Desser’s work on the Japanese New Wave most closely represents how I structure my discussion of youth films: thematically and organized around subgenres, rather than around single directors, in order to pull narrative trends to the forefront while connecting contextual social, political, and cultural movements into the readings of film texts. Second, I detail Japanese cultural criticism after the economic bubble burst as they are most relevant to this project. Next, I discuss scholarship on Japanese film genres and then the specific discussion surrounding Battle

Royale. Last, I review the current state of the Japanese film industry. My work breaks new ground in the current field of Japanese cinema and film theory by contextualizing narrative analyses of a set period of film production within the post-bubble burst nineties and the subsequent recession.

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Youth and Genre in Japanese Cinema Studies

In Eros Plus Massacre, Desser situates the Japanese New Wave within its “historical, political and cultural context” in order to “show how certain Japanese filmmakers used cinema as a tool, a weapon in the cultural struggle.”5 Citing other academics’ tendencies to dehistoricize

Japanese cinema, Desser makes a point to emphasize context while also identifying narrative techniques that mark a break from formal aspects of previous film periods. He proposes paradigmatic modes, referring to both Audie Bock and David Bordwell. Bock breaks down the thirties, fifties, and sixties as decades coinciding with different “golden ages,” whereas Bordwell theorizes “a narrational mode [as] a historically distinct set of norms of narrational construction and comprehension.” Desser’s formulations do not correspond directly to Bordwell’s but “rather to the Japanese cinema as self-contained, as narrational modes compared to each other.6 Desser continues: "the idea of dominant paradigms, or modes, of Japanese film style predominantly revolv[e] around narrative technique. . . . I would like to term each paradigm according to its dominant ideological feature."7 These ideological features transform Bock’s “golden ages” into classical, modern, and modernist eras, respectively. Here we can see Harry Harootunian and

Marilyn Ivy’s discussion of co-evalness, especially as Desser argues that these modes can appear coterminiously, that they can coexist in the same time periods, and that the ending of one is not necessary in order to beget another.

Borrowing this structural concept, this project is invested in the continued relevance of the ideological features Desser discusses. However, since I have divided my chapters by various thematic groupings, I do not use the same approach indiscriminately. Instead, I draw out

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common ideological features present within a certain grouping which can and do manifest over the period from the mid-nineties into the first decade of the 2000s. I do, however, base my study, like his, in historical and cultural contexts, including current events and issues of concern and debate, in conjunction with identifying particular filmic manifestations cycles and trends.

Also important to this project is Richie’s work on genre movements in his historical overview, 100 Years of Japanese Film. He notes that those genres such as Shimpa, Social

Melodrama, Post-War Period, and chambara-eiga, as genres were imported from Japanese theatrical tradition and have themes which coincide with social movements and historical events.

As the two most prolific genres that appeared immediately after WWII in Japanese cinema, chambara-eiga and -eiga (swordplay and monster films, respectively), most closely resemble the system of genre identification. The genres are mostly categorized according to aspects of mise-en-scène (swords, period sets, costumes, non-human ) and paved the way for formulaic , especially in a growing repertoire that began to reference itself.

The most influential genre group for this project is the New Wave youth films, as established and discussed by both Richie and Desser. Both scholars discuss youth movements and the New Wave and focus on the taiyōzoku (Sun Tribe) movement. Richie writes, “it is from

Ishihara’s novel Season of the Sun. . . . that taiyōzoku was coined a genre. Taiyōzoku is a true creation of the media and due in large part to Ishihara’s novels. The phenomenon spawned a number of films, in particular Nakahira Kō’s Crazed Fruit (Kurutta Kajitsu, 1956).”8 The young men idle their and nights going to nightclubs, hunting girls, having sex, and committing other various deeds of mischief in a post-WWII context. The second chapter of Eros Plus

Massacre, titled “Cruel Stories of Youth,” inspired by the Ōshima film, begins by commenting

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on the simultaneous appearance of the Japanese New Wave and the French Wave. Desser connects youth and political activism in the two national contexts: "The Ampo demonstrations may have been the immediate catalyst for the sudden burst of the new wave, but the seeds of rebellion had been planted in the middle 1950s by a variety of factors revolving around the question of youth."9 He begins by also discussing the taiyōzoku films but then moves on to the political events of the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, the massive protests and student movements which erupted from this, and the professional and educational backgrounds of many of the young, emerging New Wave directors.

In addition to Desser’s and Richie’s overviews, much scholarly discussion of the

Japanese New Wave has focused on works of specific directors from this time period, especially

Ōshima, Imamura, and . Maureen Turim’s book on Ōshima, The Films of Oshima

Nagisa (1998), tracks particular moments in the director’s life as specific influences on his work.

One of these milestones was Oshima's involvement with the Leftist student movement in his college years, but, as Turim writes, "rather than work from the directly autobiographical, he applies his analysis to what is immediate and topical at the time of the film’s making. . . .

Political groups, protests, and student interaction figure in many of the films."10 The subject matter of some of Oshima’s films, like Cruel Story of Youth (1960), mirrors taiyōzoku themes, whereas others such as Town of Love and Hope (Ai to Kibō no Machi, 1959) and Death by

Hanging (Kōshikei, 1968) are less about rebellion and more about the political treatment and social repression of the younger generation. The disillusionment depicted in Town of Love and

Hope is not the middle-class boredom and rebellious leisure in films such as Crazed Fruit but rather a symbolic tug-of-war between education and industry over the future (read: youth) of postwar Japan. These major institutions maintain a strict moral code, but unfortunately, this

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inevitably causes the seemingly innocent young protagonist to internalize this social ascription and therefore become corrupted himself.

Japan And Analysis of Its Post-Economic Bubble

My starting point of the late nineties, the post-bubble burst and the subsequent economic recession, is a less prominent topic in film studies than in the fields of cultural history and area studies. Previous works by Harootunian and Ivy, Overcome by Modernity (2000) and Discourses of the Vanishing (1995), respectively, as well as Eric Cazdyn, in Flash of Capital, outline a conception of co-eval modernity that helps liberate Japan from a global progressionist timeline.

Harootunian writes, "co-eval modernity shared the same historical temporality of modernity. . found elsewhere. . . .[and] simply calls attention to the experience of sharing the same temporality . . . taking place at the same time as other modernities."11 In Discourses of the

Vanishing, Ivy "traces remainders of modernity within contemporary Japan . . . [and] examine[s] how Japan’s national successes have produced—along with Corollas and Walkmans—a certain crucial of unease about culture itself and its transmission and stability."12 Harootunian and

Ivy both circumvent the unidirectional power constructs of core/periphery by instead arguing for co-evalness of Japanese modernity with other global modernities and the false consciousness of fetishizing the temporal time-lags of so-called late developing modernism or capitalism. Their use of "co-evality" marks a fundamental break with the East/West polemic and the problem of the ideological construct of "Japan" in the West versus Japan as it is.

Japanese modernity, therefore, is freed from the necessary chronological progression of other (western) nation-states and can begin to be articulated within its own historical imagination. Cazdyn’s discussion of modern capitalist discourse focuses on Japanese history

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from the thirties to late nineties. Cazdyn acknowledges the origins of popular film as part of the

Japanese modernist paradigm but is interested instead in analyzing capitalist categories such as

“accumulation methods, social agency, nationalist discourse, money, political representation, and crisis”13 in relation to film history. Instead of the categories of premodern, modern, and postmodern, Cazdyn divides his periods into colonialism, the Cold War, and globalization: “The question then becomes how to account for differences in perception and representation at different historical moments and differences among different subjects.”14 His way to achieve this is to analyze the relationship between cinematic production and “dominant forms of capitalist accumulation.”15 Cazdyn’s periodization emphasizes “geo-politics,” and each category relates a power structure of dominance between Japan and other nation-states. As an entry into a discussion of Japanese modernity, Cazdyn draws a parallel between capitalist relations in other countries with the simultaneous co-development of a national cinema in Japan.

These three scholars all utilize an important theoretical construct for Japanese cultural criticism, the mode and/or co-evalness, to situate the question of Japanese national identity into issues of modernity, and, as with Cazdyn, film history. I will explore the issue of modernity at further length within later chapters, but I mention it here as a conceptual way of theorizing film movements. The structure of these three works may also align with Desser’s conception of paradigmatic modes of film movements.

Also of major importance is the collected anthology of Tomiko Yoda and Harootunian,

Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present.

Published in 2006, this volume includes essays from prominent area studies academics and

Japanologists such as Anne Allison, Andrea Arai, Cazdyn, Leo Ching, Harootunian, Ivy, Sabu

Kohso, Lamarre, Masao Miyoshi, Naoki Sakai, Yoda, and Yoshimoto. Of these many

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contributors, seven have also published established works on Japanese film and film theory. Ivy and Arai chronicle the controversial "Shonen (Youth) A" alongside the premier of Hayao

Miyazaki’s Princess (1999) and Battle Royale (2000), and they read the "Wild Child" of Japan in cultural and political contexts, citing different aspects of the fears of youth, the appearance of a "," and the effects of the economic recession and a turn to radical politics as it has affected Japanese cultural texts. The anthology is categorized as a work within the field of cultural history, but several authors focus on film and anime media texts alongside current events to contextualize the anxieties of contemporary Japan.

In their introduction, Harootunian and Yoda consistently cite the nineties as a decade of anxiety, and truly many of the entries are concerned with a consensus that manifestations of anxiety spread through Japan at this time. Ivy also discusses revenge culture, revisionist history, and the turn to far-right politics; Arai tracks the "Shonen A" panics alongside the eco-war of

Princess Mononoke; and Cazdyn writes on reality culture as a "symptom of this representational disorder"16 and the anxiety over "representation-ality" of reality in media. Anne Allison and

Thomas Lamarre both write on aspects of Japanese cultural exports, known as "Cool Japan."

Allison analyzes Pokémon where Lamarre tracks subcultures and the visual experience of watching anime. While many of these chapters utilize filmic and television texts to support their theorization of Japanese cultural history, none place these media at the center of their work, which is where my work will depart from theirs. However, this work of major anthropologists specializing in Japan more explicitly comments on the period that I am focusing on rather than some of the Japanese film experts who are trending backwards in history. I will discuss this further below, but recent works on Japanese film by Russell, Gerow, Joanne Bernardi, and others

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display a turn towards the archival which is what I mean by "the turn back" into history, primary materials, and re-orientation of past studies of cinematic "golden ages."

Additionally, much of the academic writings of the early 2000s established a trend concerned with topics of race and globalization which were popular in the and 1990s.

Though this project does not specifically address these topics, I find that they are important as contemporary cultural criticism appearing in recent scholarship on Japanese film. Mika Ko’s book, Japanese Cinema and Otherness: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem of

Japaneseness, criticizes the 1970s movement known as nihonjinron. She writes, “the dominant discourse and ideology of Japaneseness . . . [is] more specifically, the discourse which claims that Japan is a racially and culturally homogenous nation.”17 As a way of attempting to articulate

Japanese essentialism throughout history, in the postwar period a racial and cultural purity that expressed an exceptionalism resulted in the exclusion of non-Japanese citizens, namely

Okinawans, zainichi (resident Koreans, sometimes up to second or third generation Korean-

Japanese), and other Asian immigrants and residents. Similarly, Koichi Iwabuchi's edited anthology, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin, addresses the essential racism of nihonjinron. Both Ko and Iwabuchi dissect the recent emergence of “cosmetic multiculturalism” in Japanese popular media, primarily in film production. Cosmetic multiculturalism as articulated by Ko criticizes the recent multicultural casts in Japanese films as representing a false tolerance. As she analyzes films like Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) and various movies by Takashi

Miike, she shows that the sudden appearance of non-Japanese actors in films does not represent a progressive move towards understanding but instead underlies the exoticism and fetishizing of

“othered” racial bodies.

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Iwabuchi approaches this issue in a similar manner, but he focuses on resident Korean filmmakers and their films’ effect on Japanese society; “the commercial success of [Tsuki

Dotchi ni Deteiru () (1993)] was precisely because of its challenging and mocking of the Japanese media’s superficial practices of political correctness, which had stiffened the segregation between Japanese and resident Koreans.”18 Furthermore, he writes,

“Resident Koreans had to be forgotten or somehow completely separated from the ongoing process of constructing modern Japan in order to imagine Japan as a monoracial nation.”19 Also important in both Ko’s and Iwabuchi’s analyses is the discussion of these “cosmetic multicultural” films’ popularity amongst younger filmgoers. Director ’s work

(especially Swallowtail Butterfly) represents the convergence of youth film genres, “MTV” editing, and exoticized non-Japanese characters/actors.20

One question is to the theoretical weight of some of the analyses that I have read, specifically the expansive project of articulating a comprehensive history of Japanese modernity, postmodernity, or globalization. The most recently published books have instead taken a smaller discursive approach. Does this mean that the historical work of understanding “Japan” has been settled? Or, if we are in an era of globalization, what are the new articulations of nationality, nationhood, and community? Also, is it possible to combine the growing work of racially “other”

Japanese residents with this formula of globalization that is not, as Iwabuchi says, “culturally odorless”?

Recent Work on Contemporary Japanese Films

As far as is pertinent to my specific study, contemporary youth films, the most similarly structured and comprehensive set of resources I have encountered are two volumes in the

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Directory of World Cinema (2010, 2012) series on Japan, both edited by John Berra. Combined, the two volumes cover several films that I analyze in this project and address many other contemporary films which I wished to but could not include. The volumes are comprised of an introduction by Berra and then broken down into genre chapters, with alphabetized entries on select films chosen by Japanese film writers and scholars, accompanied by a short critical essay and review. Many articles discuss auteurs, current genres within anime and manga, and films.

The is one genre that appears frequently among the youth films which I am examining. Horror film in Japan, specifically ghost films, became very popular beginning in the mid-nineties and therefore has received recent scholarly attention. Of importance are Jay

McRoy’s edited anthology, Japanese Horror Cinema, and Colette Balmain’s Introduction to

Japanese Horror Film. Japanese Horror Cinema is an assemblage of some of the most prominent writers on Japanese horror film. McRoy organizes the book into four sections: history/traditions, gender, national anxieties, and industrial production/consumption. He cites the growing popularity of Japanese horror, or J-Horror in the U.S., the prominence and emergence of

U.S. remakes, the growth of inter-Asian co-productions, the place of the Japanese horror , and the many subgenres within the movement.

Balmain’s book, Introduction to Japanese Horror Film, covers Battle Royale, Sion

Sono’s Suicide Club (2002), Miike’s One Missed Call (2004), ’s Pulse (2001) and other significant films. The chapter that analyzes these films, “Techno-Horror and Urban

Alienation,” contains an important reading of keitai (cellphone) culture as the development of alienated subjectivities with increased virtual realities offered through technology. Balmain draws from sociological studies by Shuho Otani and Anthony Faiola on the effects of wireless

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technologies and the digital divide. Underlined in her discussion is the most visible percentage of the population becoming ever-absorbed by these technologies: youth. One Missed Call and

Suicide Club both use the cellphone as an indication of teenage alienation, represent the peril of material commercialism in Japan and is a representative object which brings brainwashing and suicidal behavior to the owners. Pulse uses computer technology as the gateway to the supernatural but ends instead in the final connection between two survivors instead of the ever- polarizing division of a world overcome with digital devices.

The literature on Battle Royale specifically is significant and, as such, requires its own attention. Battle Royale is a watershed moment in Japanese popular cinema and one of the key cornerstones to the development of this project. As a successful and critically acclaimed film,

Battle Royale has the largest amount of academic work devoted to it. The film is often analyzed alongside Japanese neonational/neoliberal reform, recessionary attitudes, and the plight of youth violence in the new millennium. Thus, attention to it here illustrates the potential value for analysis of many other contemporary youth films. I will first delineate Battle Royale’s fraught reception as a violent and contentious film and then elaborate on some of the finer details of the film’s story, tracking the frequent readings of if within Japan’s strict educational reform systems, in particular within the context of a Japan that is still suffering from an ongoing recessionary economy, cultural criticism of youth violence, and related fears in Japan at the time.

Battle Royale was both popular and controversial upon its release. The film was rated R-

15 by Eiren, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc., for “‘scenes of severe violence, making it unsuitable for those of junior high school age and under,’ so under 15s were not allowed to see it.”21 Director famously stated, “Kids, if you have the courage, you can sneak in. And I encourage you to do so.'"22 The irony was not lost that many of the stars

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of the film would not be able legally to attend the film’s screening in theaters. The popularity of the source novel, the ratings controversy, and the high profile director ensured box office success in Japan and cult status internationally.

Battle Royale's startling imagery and political commentary made it an oft-examined film in academia as well. Tony Williams writes at the beginning of his chapter, “Case Study: Battle

Royale’s Apocalyptic Millennial Warning,” “Despite being subjected to the usual charges of gratuitous violence and mindless entertainment, Battle Royale is actually a landmark film relevant to contemporary dilemmas in both western society and its post-capitalist eastern counterparts.”23 Williams picks up on original author Kōshun Takami’s initial inspiration and the film’s most evident allegory: the dominance of survival mentality in the Japanese education system as a larger symptom of the “social anxieties of the Japanese future in an era of globalisation and neoliberal reform.”24 Namely, Battle Royale makes apparent the contemporary youth anxiety to survive Japan’s rigid educational system, one that thrived during the post-war economic miracle but is now antiquated during the recession of the late ‘90s. Williams argues that the youth reaction to a broken system is rebellion and that Battle Royale details a magnified reaction of social panics. Additionally, Christopher Sharrett writes, “The reactionary political situation of the new millennium . . . attempts to inculcate in young people the cruellest ‘only the strong survive’ values, a practice . . . fully in play under neoliberal economics. Battle Royale

[examines] Japan’s grueling, earn-more-learn-more educational system.”25

In Japan, recent social panics often revolve around youth populations: demographic change (declining marriage and birth rates), lack of involvement in political and civil society, increased resistance to entering the corporate workforce, etc. Battle Royale is commonly interpreted as a millennial warning of a rapidly declining Japanese economy and a consumer

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youth culture which has been coddled by the economic miracle and desensitized by virtual reality and an ineffective education system: a system that is “operated like miniature military units”26 and an extension of the “corporate workforce.” Japan in a recession traps citizens between these two structural entities, loosely representing neonationalist and neoliberalist sentiments respectively.

Building on the perception of youth and Japanese neoliberal reform, Arai focuses her analysis on Japanese society’s perception of youth as inscrutable figures of violence.

Arai’s chapter, “The “Wild Child” of 1990s Japan” in Japan After Japan, and her article,

“Killing Kids: Recession and Survival in Twenty-First-Century Japan,” focus on the ages of characters and certain cultural figures in the context of late ‘90s Japan through the millennium.

Generally junior-high-aged, the “Wild Child,” Arai argues, is a discursive figure of fear and unpredictability and can be found in both real and fictional representations. For example, she discusses both San in and “Shonen A.” “Shonen A” is a fourteen-year-old boy who committed a series of crimes in Japan, including decapitating a younger child and leaving a series of taunting notes for the police. The parents of “Shonen A” released an autobiography to seek forgiveness from the victims’ families and to attempt to account for his normal upbringing, citing complete unpredictability of his later actions.

Battle Royale is an explicit commentary on the rise in youth violence with the installation of an ultra-conservative solution to curb youth crime. In the film Shuya’s best school friend,

Nobu, serves as the misguided student with potential for violence. Early in the film, Nobu attacks their teacher, Kitano, with a knife, slicing the back of his thigh and further humiliating him after the entire class has skipped school for the day. Once the class has been delivered to the island for the "battle royale," Kitano, now in charge of the event, retaliates. Nobu is made an immediate

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example and murdered in front of his classmates during their introduction to the Battle Royale.

While the film itself humanizes Nobu—through flashbacks the film shows him as a good friend, a soft-hearted would-be suitor, and a music and manga lover—the film never gives an explanation as to why he attacks his teacher. Nor is there an explanation as to why another student, Noriko, chooses not only to keep the knife but to conceal it. These middle-schoolers, as much as they seem non-violent or innocent, are depicted as also having violent or irrational tendencies. Arai attributes the fears around the “Wild Child” figure to “unknowability.” She writes: “This . . . anxiety . . . locat[es] itself at the site of the child, making the child an object either to be feared for or afraid of,”27 illustrating further the dichotomy of youth representation, between the desire to protect or punish.

Ivy’s chapter in Japan After Japan, “Revenge and Recapitation in Recessionary Japan,” discusses youth culture on the brink of a seemingly-unending recession and the subsequent generational pressure that they through repressive social systems and uncertain economic futures. The recession after the bursting of the bubble economy began “the Lost Decade” (1989-

2000), now termed “The Lost Years” (1989-2010). Ivy writes that “With the pop of the financial bubble in the early 1990 . . . a narrative of recession began to supersede that of success.”28 She reads socio-anthropological events such as an organization’s push for history textbook reform,

Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attacks, neonationalist publications,29 and the murder spree by “Youth

A,” as emerging from an “unassimilated logic of recession.”30 This “logic of recession” encourages a brutal sense of competition for survival on the domestic and international level.

Right-wing conservatism, which appears with some aspects of neonationalisms, can be argued as reflecting generational anxieties as well. The “unknowable” child becomes:

the apotheosis of societal fears . . . he [sic] embodies the terror surrounding the very figure of the ‘child’ in postwar Japan. In the narratives of proper Japanese

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nationhood, this monstrosity is the deadly result of peace pushed to its limits, without war: a peace purveyed to the young through unbridled consumption, virtualized worlds (TV, video, video games, anime) and an education system that presents a masochistic view of Japanese national history.31

Battle Royale begins with economic statistics, the state of employment, and youth delinquency, delineating that the only solution to this “logic of recession” is to punish Japan’s youth. The cause for Japan’s current failure is the lack of war, the lack of a need for survival.

Thus, these children, through violent tendencies or virtual training from violent programs or video games, will be put into a battle-simulation, a war that adults will wage on children, as a method of creating a new successful Japan of survival. Additionally, Arai continues, “In the post-bubble economy . . . the new reality of survival is that not all will reach the top, but those who do . . . will have to engage desperately (hisshini) to become worthy competitors for Japan in the amorphous battlefield of the global economy.”32 The economic circumstances of Japan at the turn of the millennium states that youth must survive not only Japan’s economy but be fit to fight on a global scale. Thus, surviving to be the strongest of the nation does not guarantee success and this never-ending struggle is a national inheritance for youth citizens.

While there are frightening figures of unknowability in Battle Royale, I would argue that the film’s appeal and commentary can be better seen in the contrasting “idealized figures” or those who refuse to fight so as to maintain their sense of dignity or humanity. The film’s dystopian method is the perversion of the typical social prerogative from protecting younger generations into sacrificing them. For every active player (read: Shonen A) are three idealistic and hopeful teens who are forsaken. These teens, who desire only to live and love, are forced into tragic circumstances, die brutally, and become nothing more than a sum of their short lives and small hopes. Therein survives the emotional core within an excessively violent and dark

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film. The generational and political criticism in the film is the cruelty to those who are less

“figures of unknowability” and more those who represent squandered potential.33

In analyzing youth representation in these series, the major differentiating factor between Battle Royale and the latter related films, Death Note (Shūsuke Kaneko, 2006) and

Gantz (, 2009), is the increased age of the main characters. The later protagonists are older, less a mid-teen figure of “unknowability” but more on the threshold of bringing forth

Japan’s bright future. Arai’s analysis of Battle Royale through Japan’s post economic bubble relies on neoliberal reforms, particularly in matters concerning education and family. The same issues raised in Battle Royale are at the forefront of moral panics around junior high schoolers in late ‘90s Japan, in particular juvenile delinquency and refusing to attend classes.34Death Note’s

Light and L as well as Gantz’s Kurono and Kato are all around the same age, late teens/early twenties, moving from high school to college, and have grown past the ages of these school-age youth panics. Arai notes that the fear around young teens is due to governmental need to police them as underage subjects of the state. Does the shift in age, from early teen to young adult, coincide with the shifting attitudes surrounding recessionary Japan from the “Lost Decade” to the “Lost Years”? I argue that the increased age of the protagonists in the latter films shifts responsibility from the state to the individuals. Instead of autonomy and self-actualized success, however, these protagonists are punished for not succeeding in a system in which others may succeed. The blame is shifted from a broken economic and political system to one of inadequate youth.

Violence is an important part of this film's reputation. Williams’s reading of Battle

Royale (2000), being a case study, focuses heavily on recounting the narrative of the film. He begins with the initial premise that the film should not be dismissed because of its overly graphic

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nature but instead is a valid subject of study. Eventually, his analysis points to the use of spectacular violence as "distracting the spectator from considering important issues in the text,

[these] devices may dilute a director’s socially oppositional intention"35 and ignoring its violent political warning can be detrimental.

Of greater use to me in this work is Arai’s article, "Killing Kids: Recession and Survival in Twenty-First Century Japan." Here, Arai asserts Battle Royale’s popularity is due to images of violence and battle that speak to Japanese audiences’ current anxieties of economic recession and the “fear of falling” rhetoric. Arai writes, "the terrors of decline and collapse [as] a discourse . . . has shifted the spotlight of concern from the flagrant oversights of political and financial institutions to the home, school, and the hapless youth—the failed sites of socio-cultural reproduction."36 Arai continues where Williams leaves off and dips into the kind of territory that

Ōshima’s Town of Love and Hope explores, one which pivots on a cultural and economic context and its strain and repression of youth in Japan. However, both Arai and Williams focus heavily on the effects of film violence on impressionable youths and surround their analysis of the film with issues of moral panics. I feel more useful are the symptomatic readings of the film about active rebellion of the protagonists within an openly hostile world.

The Contemporary Japanese Film Industry and Adaptations

The contemporary Japanese cinema industry works successfully in part as a system of adaptation from other media, particularly including manga and anime. Manga has become a very popular topic in academia, but most of the critical attention is at the level of reception studies.

When I first began grouping texts for this project, ten of the films I had chosen to examine had been adapted from manga series.37 The adaptation of manga and anime television series has

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become a prolific industry standard, a practice known as seisakuiinkai (production committees).

From January 2011 to June 2013, Rayna Denison, Woojeong Joo, Hiroko Furukawa and Nana

Sato-Rossberg’s Arts and Research Humanities Council funded “Manga Movies Project,” researched and defined contemporary transmedia practices in Japan, in particular by studying

Japanese media business practices, seisakuiinkai, changing trends in Japanese media and manga’s “prominence as an adaptation source.”38 Defining the process of seisakuiinkai, they write:

Production committees are groups of Japanese companies that come together in order to produce a particular franchise through ‘media mix’ strategies. They dominate the media production landscape in Japan, creating sometimes long- standing collectives that reduce competition as companies join together to create pre-planned media franchises.39

Therefore, when watching an anime series or an anime or live action films which has been adapted from a manga title, often the production company is credited as “[insert title] committee.” For example, at the end of the opening credits for the television anime series, Nana

(Morio Asaka, 2006-2007), the production company is listed as “Nana Committee,” and all of the logos for the cooperating companies are shown. Thus, here:

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Fig 1.1 Opening credits for Nana tv series listing production committees

Listed are Nippon Television Network, Japanese entertainment company, CD, DVD, and distributor VAP, Publishing Company Ltd, and studios.

This industry practice not only reduces risk in production but also creates a systemic structure for adaptation outside of the domestic context. The authors continue:

Seisakuiinkai have various advantages, but the most prominent characteristic is that they can reduce the risk accompanying investment by distributing it across multiple business partners and multiple stages of business development. Unlike horizontally integrated companies, which make big investments at the planning stage, the seisakuiinkai system allows flexible investment, and can start from a smaller project, observe market responses and then make decisions about further investment. A good example would be the (Hana Yori Dango) franchise, which has had numerous cycles of investment in Japan and abroad, and whose seisakuiinkai has allowed it to respond to franchise’s popularity over time and across Asia. In the case of the most recent Japanese adaptation cycle, a live action television series was spun out across two seasons (2005 and 2007) and a subsequent film version (2008, dir. Ishii Yasuharu), all building upon the seisakuiinkai structure of the television show. This allowed additional investment and partner companies to join as required at the various stages of production, while retaining core staff and cast members. Through such means, investment in seisakuiinkai is divided among the participating members, further reducing the amount of risk that each company shoulders.40

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In this project, two chapters feature films that have been adapted and utilize this production committee process. In the case of Battle Royale and (, 2004), both began as novels. Death Note, Gantz, and Blue Spring (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2001) are film adaptations of manga. A manga series inspired The Crows films (, 2007, 2009,

Toshiaki Toyoda, 2014). Oftentimes, the adaptations are visually shockingly close to the original, which I believe to be indicative of the dynamic drawing style of certain manga titles.41

I have included anime in this project. In the analysis of Japanese anime films, the two most important scholars are Susan J. Napier and Thomas Lamarre. I analyze anime films as well as live action because of their narrative relevance as will become apparent in their groupings.

However, just as filmic technique is important to live action, animated films have their own set of production practices. On the mechanical technologies and processes, Lamarre’s The Anime

Machine is the preeminent guide to theorize the set of practices that go into producing animation.

Napier’s seminal work, From Akira to Princess Mononoke (later, Akira to Howl’s Moving

Castle), establishes a foundational analysis of genre conventions and narrative patterns, while also formulating a historical overview of some of the most important anime films and television shows from the eighties through the early 2000s. There is some overlap in titles, especially the important works emerging in the U.S. market in the nineties, such as Ghost in the Shell and Neon

Genesis Evangelion, currently being re-edited, re-animated, re-formatted and re-released in the late 2000s as film texts (as in the case of the transformation of from a television show to a set of films). Lamarre divides his analysis into two kinds of animation, drawing movements and moving drawing, where the former is the conventional understanding of animation such as sequential drawings/flip-books; the latter is what he describes as induced movement: “[it] brings into play a complex set of mobile relations between foreground,

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background and spectator.”42 By extracting these two kinds of movement techniques, Lamarre reads anime in particular as an emerging new medium that makes us “re-think what cinema is.”43

My work will draw connections out over the significance of these adaptations and creations of franchises. While some of this project will trace the aesthetic changes in certain series over the period I am analyzing (late ‘90s-present), it will primarily utilize a method of looking at "social matters" and "economic environments" as influential on thematic repetitions and turns in

Japanese youth films. Overall, these specific issues have had little coverage in U.S. writing on

Japanese film, and I hope to provide an entry into a lesser-analyzed body of work.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHOD

I begin my study in the late nineties because the economic situation in Japan began to have social and cultural effects as I noted above. Additionally, access to many contemporary

Japanese films, including some with small production backgrounds, became available through a new distribution standard: private DVD companies which purchased rights to translate and distribute international films in the 2000s. In many ways, this dissertation project owes thanks to

U.S. Manga Entertainment and U.K. distributor Tartan Extreme Asia. Able to access a broad selection of contemporary Japanese film, animation, and television, I began to see dramatic formulas which include certain lifestyle anxieties such as the diminishing job market for graduating seniors, a growing temporary-work force, exam-anxiety, political restlessness, and other such socio-cultural frustrations emerging across different genres and formats. Of significance for this project are the themes that manifest themselves over multiple film genres, those which express political and economic frustration, social isolation, and cultural fears including Japan’s complicated militant past combined with the ennui of the post-economic

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bubble burst. My work seeks to focus on the connection of youth films and these sociological concerns by analyzing thematic trends that involve Japanese youth culture.

In the beginning stages of organizing this project, I started with roughly fifty films as my set of film texts. All films were interconnected in theme, narrative, and demographic (youth) focus, but their initial groupings were not necessarily clear due to their differences in both medium and the industrial contexts in which they were produced. While I sorted the films on industrial terms (e.g., studio, independent) and locations (e.g., school, urban versus rural), ultimately, I did not find these groupings to be as productive as thematic clusters in which characters exhibited or discussed explicitly youth issues and, of course, in which the narrative choices in the treatment of these issues had resemblances. The overwhelming similarities across all these films were those which acknowledged the trials and difficulties facing Japanese youth, but their fates greatly differed depending on the typical generic discourses such as the inclusion of a monstrous force, a romantic conflict, or the fear of impending adulthood.

All the films in this study can be oriented under the broad classification of the seishun eiga/youth film, primarily as a category that refers to the central protagonists and to aspects of reception (appealing to a young film-going market) rather than to a typical genre category such as “seishun eiga” as nostalgic and sentimental films about teen love, family, and life. Some of the films in this study will be clearly marked as "auteur" projects while some are works from new young directors who have since begun to achieve the status of auteur.

Steve Neale in Genre and Hollywood examines the academic field of genre criticism which is essentially about theories and methods of grouping films such as "youth films." He outlines two general approaches to studying film genres: aesthetic theories and social-cultural ones. Some concepts overlap between the two approaches, but here I will focus on the primary

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differences and generalities of each to understand the larger options of genre analysis. According to Neale, aesthetic theories of genre "take as their starting point the issues of repetition and variation, similarity and difference, and the extent to which the elements repeated and varied are simple or complex."44 More clearly, aesthetic theories are interested in looking at aesthetic movements over time, as a body of work, and, individually, how a film fits into the general category of what can be identified as a Western, Horror, Thriller, etc. (or possibly as an “Ozu,”

“Ōshima,” or “Kitano”). Although Neale is interested in examining film genres, this approach shares many similarities with literary criticism, specifically Russian Formalism, which argues that "artistic forms and conventions [possess] their own irreducible characteristics,"45 thus situating issues of continuity and/or discontinuity as integral to the formation of generic forms.

Neale divides social-cultural theories into two more categories: ritual and ideological.

Drawing from Rick Altman and quoting from Thomas Schatz,46 Neale explains the principles of the ritual approach is to recognize that "genres should be seen ‘as a form of collective cultural expression’ and hence as vehicles of and for the exploration of ideas, ideals, cultural values and ideological dilemmas central to American society,"47 as an expression of audience desires. The ideological approach asserts that these cultural values are instead offered to the spectator as a programmatic construction on the part of the filmmakers. Neale writes how the over- determination of the ideological approach is often overtly pessimistic, and he offers alternative theories.48 Citing Altman, he highlights the importance of the industrial context in both the ritual and ideological approaches, especially in regards to Hollywood major studios, mass distribution, and mass appeal.

I would like to take a step back and instead look at the general social-cultural premises of

"ritual" and "ideological" and, in addition, carry them from Neale’s analyses into other industrial

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and national contexts. While the ritual approach is one that is more readily recognized by its

"symptoms" as a look at the social context and how it manifests itself in a filmic text, the

"ideological" does the same but the theory emphasizes the film industry as capitalist mode in reinforcing a dominant ideology.49 Both approaches are useful in my study because although I am looking at specific themes, many of the films emerge from highly varied industrial and economic contexts. It will be possible to apply ritual and ideological explanations for many films since some are products of large studios, some are independent features, and some come from animation studios which themselves have a complex situation within the media industry in

Japan. As stated before, the "aesthetic" approach is also applicable, especially when reading a film alongside a sense of auteur groupings or across specific genre formulas.

Neale, himself has expanded questions of genre discourse beyond even the dual categories of ritual and ideological approaches. In "Questions of Genre," he begins with an extended discussion of verisimilitude, a concept which he connects more closely to expectations or "public opinion," rather than a "relation to truth." Neale starts here as a way to attribute both public expectations and recognitions of genre as important as the narrative characteristics of the films themselves as he argues that genre texts do not appear from themselves but as a process of audience and institutional discourses. Perhaps most important to this project, Neale points that other art forms, such as literature, theater, magazines, and comics, precede many categories, informing not only public opinion, but film studio production: what is particularly striking about this historical sketch, meanwhile, is the extent to which many genres either originated in forms and institutions of entertainment other than the cinema or were (and are) circulated additionally by them.50 Throughout this project, I often underline that I am the one creating these filmic sub-categories, and, while I have, at times, identified and grouped them, the

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films themselves exhibit these clear generic markers. The adaptation process in the Japanese film industry assists in creating the aesthetic and socio-cultural expectations from the films' sources: i.e., animation franchises, video games, manga, pink films, disaster films. Thus, each chapter in this dissertation is organized according to particular sets of traits: aesthetically, narratively, and thematically. The approach to each chapter varies with both ritual and ideological factors being considered.

The method I utilize for this project is primarily critical readings of narrative and thematic similarities among the films which are placed within their cultural context. I examine aesthetic patterns in the films that I gather through formal analysis. In particular, aspects such as mise-en-scène, diegetic spaces, and sound will be noted but also cinematic language such as shot lengths, editing, and non-diegetic narration. Also, when focusing on a film, I will provide some industrial and contextual history. to the formal elements of the films to a cultural reading of Japanese films and, to some extent, audiences.

OUTLINE OF THE PROJECT

Each chapter will analyze three to six films as a sampling of the group. The chapters will not presume to detail a historical overview of the entire movement but will instead investigate the relationships around youth, themes, and historical context. This is not an exercise to mark a historical progression of the films but instead a discursive analysis of films marketed to younger audiences amongst youth-themed subgenres. I will discuss several subgroups of youth films, their narrative tropes, and commercial appeal. The sampling will include “commercial” genre films and independent films as well as several selections from film festivals; therefore, the

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groupings will attempt to discuss both aspects of genre film theory and auteur film theory and their convergence in this particular set of films.

1: New Japanese Seishun Eiga: Youth Problem Films at the turn of the Millennium

The first chapter, “New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga,” analyzes youth problem films on two levels, first by concentrating on the contemporary dilemmas facing Japanese youth as depicted in the films and then by discussing how they fit aesthetically in the New Japanese

Cinema movement. Some of the social concerns raised are compensated-dating known as enjō kosai, bullying, and stalking. The “Youth Problem Film” is tightly grouped around the cautionary social issues facing its main characters. The category of melodrama encompassed both the filmic techniques with emotional resonance of the narrative stakes, however, the transference of that genre to this set of films proved too limiting if one takes in the generic expectations associated with melodrama. Therefore, by identifying the emergence of young auteurs, as well as low production budgets and original narratives, I term them seishun eiga, a new iteration of a previous cycle of subgenre, seen before in Japan in the 1930s and the 1950s. I identify the patterns set before in those previous seishun eiga films, particularly problems and social issues as pertaining to youth in a contemporary context. In the contemporary films,

Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop (1998) and Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou Chou (2001) both explicitly address enjo kōsai, and Tokyo Trash Baby (Ryūichi Hiroki, 2000) centers its narrative around a sexually active young woman who is obsessed with her upstairs neighbor. The films focused on in this chapter are all independently funded and distributed, therefore aligning them more closely under the banner of ritual, or “collective cultural expression,”51 rather than a cycle

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perpetuated on a larger industrial studio level, especially as they appear within few years of each other.

These films are stories of youth, from their teens to twenties, negotiating their personal dramas amongst difficult times, either in love, occupation, or education. These films tend towards much more serious/tragic subject matters and typically focus on a single protagonist’s struggle for independence or reflect a complex interiority. I choose to begin with this particular group because it represents the most incisive entry into genre/auteur or mass/festival reception within the context of the turn of the millennium. The films are often very serious, sometimes treacly sentimental, nostalgic, and emotional. Formally these films often utilize longer shot lengths, gentle soundtrack orchestration (often piano melodies), and seasonal markers for transition shots. They often depict young people struggling to establish clear identities against themes of consumerist materialism and the isolation of early adulthood. They are tinged with the sad, contemplative difficulty of confused youth and of negotiating a sense of identity in a larger adult world. There are often understated themes of romantic involvement but the most important social conflicts are those of young people who are uncertain of career/professional tracks and their future occupations/desires.

2. The Death Game

The second chapter, “The Death Game,” comes from a horror-genre origin and expands into . The Death Game film owes much influence to the boom of the home video game market in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, the video game genre known as

“survival horror” establishes narrative parameters that are seen in Battle Royale (2000) and

Death Note (2006, 2006) and, in the case of Gantz (2011, 2011), in aesthetics as well. As stated

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above, the horror genre has received the most attention recently. Considering remakes, international co-productions, and mass reception, horror films have emerged as a major filmic export. Keeping in line with the corresponding academic writings, I am interested in similar themes and narrative tropes as other scholars but also in how these films can be read as representing contemporary youth culture in Japan, politically and economically. Many of these films represent a contemporary world, apocalyptic themes, and young protagonists who struggle against an openly hostile world. The pressure of adulthood and search for personal identity often emerge amidst violent surroundings. Disillusioned youths express radical political views and resort to violent means as a way of changing the world and/or pushing towards revolution.

The films chosen for closer inspection for this chapter are: Battle Royale (Kinji Fukusaku

2000), Battle Royale II: Requiem (Kenta and Kinji Fukusaku, 2003), Death Note (Shūsuke

Kaneko, 2006), Death Note: The Last Name (Shūsuke Kaneko, 2008), Gantz (Shinsuke Sato,

2011) and Gantz: Perfect Answer (Shinsuke Sato, 2011). As discussed in the literature review,

Battle Royale is an incredibly important film in this study, both as a genre film and one that places Japanese youth at the forefront. The long-standing success of the manga series Death Note

(Tsugumi Ohba, 2003-2006) and Gantz (Hiroya Oku, 2000-2013) predates their live-action remakes, as well as with the anime television series adaptation of Gantz (Ichiro Itano, 2004).

Their adaptation into live-action films, especially larger budget studio productions, utilize several similar actors across the franchises, representing the kind of ideological genre theory that

Gregory Lukow and Steven Ricci term as cinematic intertextual relay. Neale cites them, writing:

This relay performs an additional, generic function: not only does it define and circulate narrative images for individual films, beginning the immediate narrative process of expectation and anticipation; it also helps to define and circulate, in combination with the films themselves, what one might call "generic images," providing sets of labels, terms, and expectations that will come to characterize the genre as a whole.52

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Though distributed by different companies, both Death Note and Gantz franchises are primarily funded and produced by Nippon Television Network, creating an even further industrial relationship between the films. Additionally, both the Death Note and Gantz live-action films specifically address the lives of Japanese youth in a university context, advancing the character ages from Battle Royale and therefore also introducing new social contexts such as searching for permanent employment, privilege, and class.

As a genre, horror has the most extensive background of symptomatic readings.

American horror film criticism and many Japanese film theorists have read Japanese horror in similar ways. However, I particularly want to focus on how these Death Game films articulate a generational anxiety, whereas young adults, high school, and college students rebel against a repressive political system that ignores and belittles them but who then turn around and become targets of an unfeeling authoritative government. Young adults are depicted as pushed towards violence or self-violent ends because of societal expectations that they adamantly rebuke.

3:Yankii Films: Wild Youth

Next is the “Yankiis: Wild Youth” chapter which looks at a pervasive character , the wild teen, through some different genre categories but ultimately tracks the consistent values and themes of these narratives. Yankii films are often adapted or inspired from manga, both independent and commercial like Blue Spring (Taiyō Matsumoto, 1993) and Crows:

Zero (Hiroshi Takahashi, 1990-1998) respectively, and also utilize a lot of popular rock and punk music soundtracks. Kamikaze Girls, adapted from a novel by (2002), also has animated sequences in the style of Japanese anime. The yankii film draws from many of the same youth types as the New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga with decidedly different

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conclusions. These films are specifically set in high schools, and the teens are often clad in school uniforms, shown during their daily commutes, their interpersonal relationships, and the challenges of teen life.

The Yankii films examined in this chapter are: Blue Spring (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2001),

Kamikaze Girls (Tetsuya Nakashima, 2004), Crows: Zero (Takashi Miike, 2007), Crows: Zero II

(Takashi Miike, 2009) and Crows Explode (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2014). Yankii films, as a group, are perhaps the hardest category to streamline into a single analytical model and can also be easily read symptomatically because the yankii is a character type and therefore appears across several different media forms and genre iterations. In the chapter, I refer to an important documentary,

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Mitsuo Yanagimachi, 1976) and an industrial titles as predecessors to the yankii film genre. Overall, from documentary to latest entries, the

“Yankii” chapter encompasses the longest period of time and therefore demonstrates the most thematic and narrative fluctuation. This chapter is best as an example of “process.” To return to

Neale: “These examples all, of course, do more than indicate the process-like nature of individual genres. They also indicate the extent to which individual genres not only form part of a generic regime, but also themselves change, develop, and vary by borrowing from, and overlapping with, one another."53 For example, some films exhibit similar aesthetic characteristics, especially as regards budget and film production, such as Blue Spring by

Toshiaki Toyoda and those of Shunji Iwai and who appear in the “Youth Problem

Film” and even share similar actors.

These films, which predominantly feature male protagonists, most often focus on stagnated youths between high school and professional careers, and exhibit in-between social spaces of temporary work or individual rebellion against larger social structures, be it

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underground organizations (Yakuza) or larger societies/infrastructures that are corrupted and dangerous. The Crows: Zero films show both large and small pockets of Yakuza organizations and high school gangs.

The major exception to the focus on males is Kamikaze Girls, a necessary entry that depicts young females on the fringe of society who find solace in their friendship with each other. A film like Kamikaze Girls, with its female-centered friendship, could easily also be grouped under an umbrella category of female-friendship films, but here, I place under the category of Yankii films, due to their treatment of particular class of youth whose non- conformity challenges social standards with both gravity and humor. In Blue Spring, childhood best friends, Kujo and Aoki, experience a life-altering rift, fraught with physical violence and gang hierarchies, whereas in Kamikaze Girls, self-identified yankii Ichigo breaks from her gang in order to forge a more meaningful friendship with Lolita-styled Momoko. Not only do these two films offer a helpful cross-section of gender, set against each other they illustrate the importance of teen friendships on different ends of the spectrum.

This project does not argue a progressionist theory of films. I do not isolate these groupings to speak necessarily of a clear-cut evolution. They are meant to represent a group of film texts that speak to each other in a productive way. Since so many films place a yankii at the center of their narrative and have become dominated by male characters and actors, a film like

Kamikaze Girls needs to be acknowledged not only for its popularity and critical acclaim but also because it is such an interesting and beautiful film. Frankly, its narrative parameters exceed the broader category of female friendship film and invest themselves in social categorizations of class and behavior. Therefore, Kamikaze Girls, in this study, is not either/or a yankii film or a female friendship film but a yankii film with a female friendship. In this way, it offers a

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development or variation of the larger yankii/female friendship group. These films represent a place between hybridity and hyphenated category combinations, but their strongest narrative anchor is that of their main characters' identity and goals.

4. The Near-Disaster Film

The fourth and final chapter is what I term the “Near-Disaster film.” These films take the well-known formula of the disaster film but conclude with the prevention of disaster, or at least a non-fatal spectacle. The near-disaster film departs from the disaster in several ways, namely by transferring the savior from a governmental entity to a single protagonist, by defining that protagonist as under or unemployed but still capable, and by focusing on the importance of collectivity by recruiting masses of the Japanese (and sometimes global) population into action.

The films studied are: the animated Summer Wars (Mamoru Hosoda, 2009), a television series turned two sequel films called Eden of the East (TV series, ,

2009), King of Eden (Film, Kenji Kamiyama, 2009), Paradise Lost (Film, Kenji Kamiyama,

2010) and the live , Fish Story (2009), by Yoshihiro Nakamura.

In choosing which films to include for closer inspection, I selected the three entries which also comment on the specific relationship between Japan and the U.S., not only nationally, but filmically: Summer Wars, Eden of the East, and Fish Story. Jokes about (Michael

Bay, 1998), derisive commentary about the U.S. army and comparisons to 9/11 events unify these films even further in a socially conscious global context. In many ways, this last chapter mirrors the first chapter on the “Millennial Youth ,” first in that the three near-disaster films examined are released within the same year, producing an even tighter chronological grouping than the first. Secondly, they are also original texts, not adapted from

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novels or manga, departing from the patterns set by the “Death Game” and “Yankii film” chapters. An even further distinction is that this chapter introduces the first animated texts.

However, their industrial contexts vary considerably, as Summer Wars is an animated film released by Japanese animation studio Madhouse and was a high-grossing family film Eden of the East is from Production I.G., a different animation studio, and first began as a television series with two film spin-offs. Fish Story is an independently released live-action film. It is hard to connect these films aesthetically so I focus on how each text emphasizes the positive attributes of collectivity and the importance of a unifying effort of many as led by one. Also, as a group, the disaster or, here, near-disaster has a very clearly defined set of narrative circumstances that dictate the unfolding of events and emotional stakes.

Another key idea that I expand in this chapter is on the self-identification of certain youth groups as Freeters, NEETs, and hikikomori in the films.54 These are emergent cultural categories which have affected contemporary Japanese youth in negative ways. Freeters are “free timers,” or people who engage in part-time work instead of entering the competitive salaried workforce.

NEETs are “Not in education, employment or training” and are effectively unemployed but often educated youth. Hikikomori, though not discussed at length, are also mentioned. They are defined as a particular population that refuses to leave the home, often living on an allowance by parents or family.55 Films such as Eden of the East and Summer Wars make specific commentary on NEETs, Public service industry workers, and Freeters. Most importantly, they suggest that these groups of youth may be the salvation for a nation in trouble.

CONCLUSION The intention of this study is to analyze large social and cultural structures in popular films. I have chosen this project on contemporary Japanese youth films because of its well-

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chronicled post-war lineage, its similar movements of resistance towards larger social structures and themes of rebellion, repression, and resistance, combined with the fact that this body of work has been under-examined in recent years. The films which most appeal to younger audiences also tend towards those which will be imported into other national contexts and can speak to larger transnational audiences. In this set of films I found significant discourses about cultural contexts such as the post-economic bubble burst, the social anxieties of contemporary youth populations (declining job market and birthrates, increased “social” dilemmas such as drugs, more HIV-infected singles), and other contemporary issues appear obliquely and explicitly in these texts in meaningful ways.

1Catherine Driscoll, Teen Film: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Berg, 2011), 144. 2David Desser, Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 40. 3Freeter is a shortened term meaning “free timer,” or part time worker. “NEET” stands for “not in employment, education, or training” and is a term for those who are unemployed, Hikkikomori is Japanese for a person who is a shut-in living with their parents or funded by them. 4 Furthermore, how have the recent tragedies of the 2011 and affected youth populations economically and socially? Will disaster films made in the wake of these events depict them, or variations thereof, and if so, how? These are some issues I address in the conclusion. 5 Desser, 3. 6 Ibid., 16. 7 Ibid., 15. Italics in the original. 8 , A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to and Videos (Tokyo: International, 2001), 153. 9 Desser, 39 10 Maureen Turim, The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 9-10. 11 H. D. Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History Culture Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), xvi. 12 Marilyn Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan (: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 9. 13 Eric Cazdyn, The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 5. 14 Cazdyn, 43 15 Ibid, 43. 16 Harry Harootunian and Tomiko Yoda, Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 11. 17 Mika Ko, Japanese Cinema and Otherness: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem of Japaneseness (New York: Routledge, 2010) 6. 18 Koichi Iwabuchi, “Political Correctness, Post-Coloniality, and the Self-Representation of “Koreanness” in Japan,” ed. Koichi Iwabuchi, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (London: Roultedge Curzon, 2000): 55-73. p. 58. 19 Iwabuchi, 55.

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20 Some of the criticism of Iwai for Swallowtail Butterfly is that Chinese-Japanese character roles went to Japanese actresses. This will also be discussed further in the literature review. 21Battle Royale DVD, 2012. Viewer discretion warning. 22Neda Ulaby, “‘Battle,’ ‘Games’: Cold Brutality a Common Theme,” NPR.org. accessed12/28/2012. 23 Tony Williams, “Case Study: Battle Royale’s Apocalyptic Millennial Warning,” ed. McRoy, Japanese Horror Cinema (Honolulu: Univeristy of Hawai’I Press, 2005), p. 130. 24 Andrea Arai,"Killing Kids: Recession and Survival in Twenty-First-Century Japan," Postcolonial Studies 6.3 (2003): 367-379. p. 367. 25Christopher Sharrett,” Preface: Japanese Horror Cinema,” edited by McRoy, Japanese Horror Cinema, p. xiii. 26Williams, 131. 27 Andrea Arai, “The Wild Child of 1990s Japan,” eds. Tomiko Yoda and Harry Harootunian, Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), pp. 216-238. P. 222 28Marilyn Ivy, “Revenge and Recapitation in Recessionary Japan,” eds. Tomiko Yoda and Harry Harootunian, Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), pp. 195-215. P. 195. 29 Such as right-wing manga writer Yoshinori Kobayashi’s Sensoron (On War, 1998), a manga in its twenty-second printing which calls out Japan’s youth as a post-war generation which has no knowledge of wartime and therefore have no integrity or nationalist fight. 30Ivy, 196. 31Ivy, 206. 32Arai, 2003, 374 33In Gantz there is one instance of a junior-high schooler as a “figure of uknowability”—another “Shonen A”—in Joichiro Nishi. Nishi is a veteran of the game who chooses not to reveal any information to the new players; in fact, he even lies to them, telling them it is a television show and that they can win one million yen if they find the target. Nishi’s tactics are to hide and watch his fellow players get massacred because he believes the aliens are most off- guard while they are killing. Nishi sees Kurono as a potential ally and goes so far as to point out that they think alike. Nishi as a reiteration of Kazuo, is a depraved youth who relishes gore and violence. Kurono, as an aged youth, is not “unknowable” like Kazuo or Nishi. Even though he can relate to their self-centeredness and violence, he has an emotional maturity to work through these demons. 34Arai, 2006. 35 Williams, 141 36 Arai, 368. 37Nana (2005), Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip. Girl (1998), Surely Someday (2010), Summer Wars (2009), Honey and (2006), Hana Yori Dango (2008), Death Note (2006), Death Note: The Last Name (2008),Blue Spring (2001), and Crows: Zero I and II. 38 Rayna Denison, Woojeong Joo, Hiroko Furukawa and Nana Sato-Rossberg, “Report 1: Transmedia Franchising,” Manga Movies Project.com, accessed 6/15/2012. p. 2. 39 Ibid. 40 “Report 1,” 12. 41 Clothes, props, sets, and even camera angles and shots are replicated almost exactly in some instances. 42Thomas Lamarre, “From Animation to Anime: Drawing Movements and Moving Drawings,” Japan Forum (14:2) 2002, 329-367. p. 330. 43Lamarre, 2002, 332. Lamarre’s essay, and to a larger extent his book The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation, carves out a specificity thesis of animation, first regarding technological aspects which then directly relates to a discussion of historical formations, modernity/postmodernity. He examines Japanese animation in particular, and analyzes the current field of academia on anime studies: “The bulk of anime commentary ignores that its ‘object’ consists of moving images, as if were just another text. Such a treatment of anime as a textual object has tended in two directions. One the one hand . . . some commentators will call on the novelty and popularity of anime to bypass the questions…Analysis is relegated to re-presenting anime narratives, almost in the manner of book reports or movie reviews…On the other hand, some commentators treat anime as text in order to pose ‘high textual’ speculative questions . . . again ignoring the moving image altogether but for different reasons. Lamarre also details many instances of flotation and weightlessness in works by , Clamp, and 38

Hideaki Anno. Most of the anime titles that Lamarre focuses on are /, which does not specifically on any of the same texts as in my study, but his theoretical approach to animation enables me to compare anime and film in terms of space and movement because I am not able to do so in film-centric language such as camera movement, actors, depth of field, etc. 44 Neale, Genre and Hollywood (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 207 45 Neale, Genre and Hollywood, p. 213 46 Thomas Schatz, Hollywood Genres: Forumlas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System (New York: McGraw Hill Companies, 1981), 47 Neale, Genre, p. 220. 48Neale, Genre, p. 228-229 49 Steve Neale, “Questions of Genre,” in Robert Stam and Toby Miller Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell Publishers: 2000), 157-178. p. 173 50 Neale, “Questions of Genre,” p. 170 51 Neale, “Questions of Genre,” p. 172. 52 Neale, “Questions of Genre,” p. 160. Referencing Gregory Lukow and Steve Ricci, “The 'Audience' Goes ‘public': Intertextuality, Genre, and the Responsibilities of Film Literacy," On Film (Spring:12) 1984, 29-36. p. 29. 53 Neale, “Questions of Genre,” p. 166. 54 Reiko Kosugi, “Youth Employment in Japan’s Economic Recovery: ‘Freeters’ and ‘NEETs,’” Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus, . May 11, 2006. Accessed May 15, 2011. 55 William Kremer and Claudia Holland, “Hikikomori: Why are so Many Japanese Men Refusing to Leave Their Rooms?” BBCNews.com, < http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23182523> 3/5/2013. Accessed 9/24/2016.

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Chapter 2: New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga: Youth Problem Films at the Turn of the Millennium

The first set of films I isolate in this project are independent films which address youth problems at the turn of the millennium. These films, which I term New Japanese Cinema Seishun

Eiga, appear at the earliest time period I examine, late 1990s to mid-2000s, and therefore represent a significant industry shift in Japan. While addressing the larger issue of “youth” film that this project works through, I also argue New Japanese Seishun Eiga build on classical

Japanese New Wave tradition, but move the primary struggle from exterior to interior. The primary method of grouping these films, outside of generic narrative parameters, is the films’ distinctive use of filmic techniques to express character interiority in a complex and difficult world. Filmic techniques such as the use of soundtrack, digital video, and unconventional editing fractures the subjectivities of youth protagonists who are negotiating their impending adulthood against a backdrop of alienating surroundings. Ultimately these experimental techniques and structures, often relating to the movement of New Japanese Cinema at the time, heighten personal struggles with emotional resonance.

The term for “youth film” in Japan is seishun eiga, (small “s”), an ambiguous term which this chapter will untangle amongst its many subcategories. Seishun eiga can refer to films that are marketed for a specific youth consumer market, anything from kaijū eiga (monster films), tokusetsu eiga [special effects films, i.e., Kamen Rider (1971)] or anime, but can also refer to the subjects of the films themselves, films dealing with youth life, and can vary further from comedy to drama. However, the first set of entries into seishun eiga in the 1950s and the broader category of seishun eiga were predominantly social problem dramas concerning youth. Out of this larger seishun eiga category came a very specific subcategory, the Taiyōzoku—or “Sun Tribe”—films,

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which have been discussed in the introduction and elsewhere in this dissertation. Due to the specific vision of the films, spurred by the publication of Shintaro Ishihara’s novel, Season of the

Sun, in 1955, its film adaptation, and the subsequent stardom of his younger brother, Yujiro

Ishihara, the “Sun Tribe” films gained quick success due to their semi-exploitive and controversial themes as well as that auteurs such as Nagisa Ōshima, Shōhei Imamura, and Seijin

Suzuki helmed many of the most famous entries.

Closer in method and mood to the larger set of New Wave seishun eiga is a period of millennial youth films that feature narratives of youth protagonists also struggling with alienation and survival. Terming them as “youth problem” films has two sides: one pertains to the problems that youth, as a social demographic, face on a daily basis, and two are those problems which are perceived as being caused by or because of youth, thus, more pertaining to the general social panic. At the turn of the millennium, three such issues surrounding contemporary youth are lack of participation in community, or reclusiveness; garbage stalking, ijime or bullying culture; and the practice of school girls’ self-prostitution known as enjo kōsai.56

The three films I explore in this chapter—Ryūichi Hiroki’s Tokyo Trash Baby (2000),

Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001), and Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop (1998)— illustrate a new seishun eiga, similar in narrative theme to those of the New Wave in that they are comprised of contemporary social panics but different in that they also utilize new methods of filmmaking and storytelling to explore their themes through the lens of the late 1990s film movement, “New Japanese Cinema.” Firstly, the dramatic weight of the narratives is an easy fit into the generic narrative parameters of seishun eiga: they are all contemporary narratives that explore the personal traumas of youth characters who struggle within their respective social limits. Each protagonist has a clear obstacle set before him or her, and through introspection, he

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or she finds the drive to attempt to overcome it. In Tokyo Trash Baby, Miyuki is no longer content in simply stalking her next-door neighbor but seeks a relationship; Yuichi, in All About

Lily Chou-Chou, wants desperately simply to survive high school and pines for the pretty pianist

Kuno; and finally, Hiromi, in Love & Pop, wants a beautiful ring as a way to hold on to her fleeting youth. These three films follow youth protagonists in Japan at the turn of the millennium and therefore chronicle specific moral panics surrounding Japanese youth at this time.

Another commonality which marks this genre group as unique are the editing, camerawork, and lighting that drive the momentum of the narrative's “contents under pressure” towards the eventual outpouring of the films’ climactic actions. The contemporaneity of the social issues at play is as important as the films’ use of art-house aesthetics, something which is indicative of New Japanese cinema and the influence of international festival circuit cinemas. A plethora of extremely popular and blockbuster seishun eiga have since emerged, but these three films in this time period indicate specific moralizing messages, and they each exhibit unconventional formal methods to convey the emotional gravity of the characters.

NUBERU BAGU AND SEISHUN EIGA

The case could be made that this entire dissertation project can be grouped under the category of seishun eiga, and, in fact, many films within each chapter are listed under either

“Alternative Cinema,” or “Seishun Eiga” in The Directory of World Cinema: Japan 1 and 2.57

However, following the work ofCatherine Driscoll, Adam Bingham, Michael Raine, Mark

Downing Roberts, and John Berra, the genre can and must be tracked back to its height of popularity in the 1950s to understand the basis of the generic category. First, since the U.S. teen film and the Japanese youth film have interconnected histories, I will address the appearance of

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youth films over a transnational context. As Driscoll succinctly puts it in her book, Teen Film: a

Critical Introduction: “Seishun eiga (youth film) has its own history. The conditions for film as youth culture were established wherever industrial modernity met new theories of adolescence.”58 She notes the generic trends across Japan and the U.S., continuing: “It might seem that these similarities arise from experience of U.S. occupation but pre-war Japan…had already linked adolescence, governance and technology in ways we now associate with teen film and seishun eiga is an extension of these ideas, and of a dramatic generalization produced by the colonial situation rather than being simply an imported genre.”59 Here, her use of the analogy of

“extension” reveals the connection between national contexts while also describing their simultaneous yet separate growth. Seishun eiga, while loosely related to U.S. output, is a domestic Japanese genre.

Furthermore, seishun eiga is less a result of the New Wave and more a product of the socio-economic demographic of a growing youth culture. Driscoll remarks that seishun eiga appears as early as the Taisho Era (1912-26),60 which clearly predates the Japanese New Wave

(late 1950s-1960s, roughly).61 However, the rise in popularity of youth films does coincide with the prolific output of New Wave/Nuberu Bagu films in the late 1950s. Adam Bingham’s introduction to the section, “Nuberu Bagu/The Japanese New Wave,” points to postwar Japan’s social and economic climate, citing the “prevalence of [seishun eiga] during this period, at a time when Japan as a nation was undergoing its own figurative era of new youth in its post-war re- birth, is especially telling.”62 Furthermore, Michael Raine in his dissertation, “Youth, Body, and

Subjectivity in the Japanese Cinema, 1955-1960,”63 compares the French and Japanese New

Waves. Particularly, he cites the writings of Michel Marie and Antoine de Baecque who “place

[the ] film ‘movement’ within larger changes in the complex semiotics of

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youth, bodies, and consumer capitalism.”64 Raine continues, “In Japan too the films that established the boundaries of the new form of seishun eiga (youth film) were both symptoms and agents of a larger process of refiguring youth in postwar Japan. De Baecque provides a model for understanding a process that depended on a refiguration of young voices and bodies.65 Raine, arguing that films are both “symptom” and “agent” of this emerging social and economic demographic of postwar Japanese youth, cuts to the delicate balance that the category of seishun eiga relies on, the amorphous influence of industry vs. audience. Ultimately, these scholars point to the marked influence of a new audience in creating the seishun eiga: however, the precise nature of the social mores and sexual and violent actions of the youth on screen is a product of their period and cultural context.

As far as narrative theme and content, Bingham and Roberts point to many of the same qualities as those exhibited by the Taiyōzoku films, namely Japanese youth involved in difficult situations, reflective of their social environment, struggling to overcome social pressures and sometimes worse. Bingham describes Ōshima’s early films as seishun eiga, describing them as significant due to their “social immediacy…and direct commentary on Modern Japan”66 through the lens of youth characters and circumstances. Roberts’ dissertation, “Masamura Yasuzo and the

Cinema of Social Consciousness,” argues for the existence of the “social problem” film in Japan, particularly of “Showa 30s” (1955) seishun eiga. He writes, “For to look at the problem of youth involves exposing to view relations between a number of related themes: social alienation, intergenerational strife, sexuality, violence, political conflict and an overarching sense of disillusionment with the postwar social order.”67 Therefore, according to these scholarly works, seishun eiga’s origins appeared as a result of a growing youth demographic and a concern about the social problems that arise alongside it.

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The New Japanese Cinema seishun eiga exhibit the same thematic parameters as these formative seishun eiga of the New Wave, socially conscious narratives tracking youth in contemporary settings who seek to define their identity and overcome social and moral problems.

This chapter’s focus is on a distinct intersection of seishun eiga and New Japanese Cinema, and how three films, Tokyo Trash Baby, All About Lily Chou-Chou, and Love & Pop explore similar youth problems as the previous period but through the new cinematic style of 1990s and early millennial Japan, namely the New Japanese Cinema movement, the growth of festivals and use of digital video. To do this, I will first need to discuss the particular mode of the

“art film” and then place it within an industrial and cinematic context within Japan in the late

1990s.

THE INTERNATIONAL ART FILM AND NEW JAPANESE CINEMA

The Japanese film industry suffered greatly in the late '70s and '80s; then an important critical turn appeared in the early-to-mid '90s, generally termed New Japanese Cinema. These largely independent directors reached international acclaim and can be said to have begun the revival of Japanese film within the country as well. Directors such as , Kiyoshi

Kurosawa, Takashi Miike, and (among many others) were pushing the boundaries of low-budget, independently produced, art-house filmmaking with obvious gestures to a long list of generic and stylish conventions. Miike and Kitano played with Yakuza and police genres, Kurosawa with horror, and Tsukamoto with kaijū eiga (monster films). These critically acclaimed works were not coming out of studio systems but appeared on a global stage through international film festivals and exhibited the characteristics of art cinema. In an

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introduction in the Directory of World Cinema Japan, Jelena Stojkovic discusses the New

Japanese Cinema movement:

The term ‘New Wave’ usually refers to a ‘movement’ of filmmakers who emerged in the Heisei era [1989-present], braking [sic] away from the traditional studio system and responding to the issues of social concern, unclear identity and blurred future resulting from the crash of the Japanese economy. With Takeshi Kitano and Takashi Miike at the forefront, it was to include a new generation of independent Japanese post-bubble directors.68

She continues on to describe many works of New Japanese Cinema as “contemplative, socially- engaging and visually-gripping,” citing All About Lily Chou-Chou in particular.69 It is important to note the convergence here of “social” themes with “art film” aesthetics which, when adding youth protagonists, are the characteristics of the youth problem seishun eiga.

David Bordwell, Steve Neale, Rick Altman and Janet Staiger, who have delineated the aesthetic and stylistic features of of the '60s and '70s and situate the characteristics of art cinema as outside of Classical Hollywood Cinema's cause-and-effect narrative formulas, verisimilitude within the constraints of the needs of the narrative, and goal- oriented protagonists.70 Bordwell argues that two principles drive art cinema: realism and authorial expressivity. On the one hand, art cinema defines itself as a realistic cinema. It will show real locations and real problems.71 However, while the art film anchors itself in realism, space and time in the narrative can encompasses a spectrum of possibilities,72 any of which could be linked to character subjectivity, psychology, or mental altered states or to the blending of fiction and documentary filmmaking.73 Here Bordwell describes features of art cinema that are still prevalent today and, I would argue, are major components of many of the films from the

New Japanese Cinema Movement. Staiger concisely describes the general characteristics of art cinema as divided into two major aesthetic structures. First at the level of style are tactics such as hand-held cameras, zoom shots, long takes, mixing of fictional and documentary footage and

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lack of sound-image sync. Second are at the level of form and include underdeveloped narrative moments, ambiguity between realism and fantasy, elliptical narration, to-camera address

(breaking the norm of the "fourth wall"), extended scenes of the everyday, episodic rather than tight linear narrative, and characters who seem aimless.74 Finally, presumption of the director as the "auteur" is another key component to the art film, and Bordwell as well as others have cited the authorial figure as a key component to reading an oeuvre; in other words, one film's meaning may only gain momentum through the reading of multiple works by the same director, as directorial personal style adds layers of meaning on the singular film's message.

In tracing these parameters, the three films that I analyze in detail can clearly be placed within the category of art cinema through stylistics, form, and the presumption of the director as auteur. However, an important mitigating factor of the art cinema is the main character's lack of goal, thus, the art film's thematic of la condition humaine, its attempt to pronounce judgments on modern life as a whole, proceeds from its formal needs; had the characters a goal, life would no longer seem so meaningless.75 All the films on which I focus within the New Japanese Cinema movement have protagonists with clearly demarcated goals, though what they desire may ultimately indicate significant emotional lacks or an overall emptiness to their goals. Their attempt to gain what they wish still drives the films' narratives.

The repression and/or the failure to attain desires is where the modal form of melodrama appears in these art films. Citing Alistair Fowler, Staiger explains the distinction between a kind

(or genre) and a mode (an approach):

For one thing, Fowler notes that "modes have always an incomplete repertoire, a selection only of the corresponding kind's features, and one from which overall external structure is absent" (Fowler, 107). He further notes, "normally, a modal term will imply that some of the nonstructural features of a kind are extended to modify another kind" (Fowler, 107). In other words, the adjective form of comedy--comic--modifies the genre to which it is attached. Although he does not

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express it this way, it seems to me that modes are creators of, or indicators of, affects.76

The narratives I will analyze, highlighted by the art films' stylistics and form, can also be described as utilizing a modally highlighted system of film form and narrative, likened to the established literature on the “melodramatic mode,” as the films emphasize emotional growth within the characters as the protagonists struggle with societal repression of their personal desires. If the characters' goals were to rid the world of monsters or survive a catastrophe, then the emotional affects would be fright or exhilaration and would indicate the modal forms of horror and disaster-thriller, respectively. Instead the youth protagonists of these New Japanese

Cinema texts are exploring their contemporary urban worlds for external solutions for internal dissatisfactions. Therefore, this chapter will highlight how the art cinema aesthetic foundation combined with the themes of seishun eiga represents the dramatic highlighting of the films’ narratives, the interplay of which is modeled on the “melodramatic mode.”

I argue that the seishun eiga of New Japanese Cinema often utilizes a combination of the aesthetic cycles of East Asian art/festival cinemas of the ‘90s such as those argued by Darrell

William Davis in his article “Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-bi”77 with the articulation of youth culture themes from the Japanese New Wave. Within New Japanese Cinema are films that indicate a convergence of “art cinema” with popular genre film and represent a genre cycle that emerges at the turn of the millennium. This surge of festival and art cinema in the 1990s in

Japan occurred as well across multiple East Asian cinemas, including , ,

China, and , and it came at a time of great transnational interchange, especially in terms of aesthetic influences and a renewed focus on youth. Those films designated as entries in the category of New Japanese cinema are not uniform but do share certain filmic techniques which are also often conflated with “art-house” or festival aesthetics, particularly long takes, still

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camera setups, slow pacing, sparse dialogue, sporadic violence, emotive performances, ambient music, and experimental shooting styles.78

Though important auteurs of Japanese cinema, such as Imamaura, Ōshima, and Suzuki, are working at this time, this chapter will focus on works of new auteurs. Tokyo Trash Baby, All

About Lily Chou-Chou, and Love & Pop all enter the subcategory of independent and/or art film, are relatively small releases in Japan and explore the typical seishun eiga narrative conflict of youth protagonists. They also use excessive (melodramatic) music and mise-en-scène to express emotional repression, generational conflicts, ambiguous endings, and social criticism.

NEW JAPANESE SEISHUN EIGA

All three films explore contemporary problems of millennial youth in Japan, issues which cause youth to feel isolation and despair. The films each highlight certain filmic techniques in order to heighten the narrative and emotional weight. In analyzing Tokyo Trash Baby, I focus on the mise-en-scène to track Miyuki’s personal growth and her negotiation of personal and domestic space. All About Lily Chou-Chou’s is centered on a fictional rock star and thus employs the soundtrack to express Yuichi’s emotions. Tokyo Trash Baby, like Love & Pop and parts of All About Lily Chou-Chou, is shot entirely on digital video. Additionally, Love & Pop utilizes mini digital video cameras and therefore features creative camera placements and manipulated images to imply subjectivities. All three films end ambiguously as their focus is primarily on the difficult journey into adulthood and do not attempt to offer solutions or to be conclusive.

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THE FILMS

The first film detailed in this chapter is Tokyo Trash Baby as it has the most conventional formal structure. The restricted mise-en-scène, Miyuki’s domestic personal space, as well as the focus on a single female protagonist’s obsession with her upstairs neighbor demonstrate low budget independent aesthetics as well as characteristics of New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga.

Tokyo Trash Baby tells the story of a temporary worker who struggles to form an individuated identity within a larger alienated urban environment. The story follows Miyuki as she stalks her neighbor, Yoshinori, by stealing his trash every night and meticulously sorting it, categorizing every in her small Tokyo apartment. Director Ryūichi Hiroki focuses on her personal space, creating a rich environment in which Miyuki surrounds herself with garbage fetish objects imbued with empty projections of Yoshinori; the static camera focuses on sets dense with objects that overtake Miyuki’s apartment. Miyuki is a young adult twenty-something who works part time at a café. As she continues to stalk Yoshinori through his garbage, she progressively learns more about his personal life, covertly inserting herself between him and his ex-girlfriend and eventually sleeping with him. However, after her long-awaited sexual encounter, he reveals that he has known for some time about her trash collecting, causing her to shut down emotionally from him. The final third of the film follows Miyuki as she explores her emotional fragility and ends with her determination to take Yoshimoto’s trash to a repurposed landfill called “Yume no

Shima” (Dream Island). The film ends with a focus on her solitary existence, working alongside her also alienated co-workers but perhaps coming closer to a sense of self-knowledge.

Tokyo Trash Baby primarily uses physical objects to demonstrate Miyuki’s emotional interiority and excess whereas All About Lily Chou-Chou and Love & Pop develop the narrative stakes with film music and unconventional filming styles, respectively. For All About Lily Chou-

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Chou, Shunji Iwai’s history in music production and directing music videos may explain his propensity to utilize musical overtures for character development and emotions. Hideaki Anno’s beginnings in animation may account for his proclivity for quick cuts, unusual camera framings, and the use of specialty lenses in Love & Pop. In these films, the uses of diegetic and non- diegetic music, specifically piano and ambient experimental rock, punctuate the inability of young teens to connect with others, express emotional turmoil, and set the bleak mood for their personal journeys into adulthood.

Similarities between All About Lily Chou-Chou and Love & Pop include the use of

Claude Debussy music and digital video cameras. Yet, where Love & Pop is clear about its criticism of shallow materialism and consumption in teenage female youth, All About Lily Chou-

Chou focuses on junior high-aged teens and ijime, or “bullying” culture. Set in a rural town, All

About Lily Chou-Chou follows Yuichi Hasumi, the administrator of an online bulletin board for rock star Lily Chou Chou and one of the many victims of the sadistic school bully Shūsuke

Hoshino. The narrative is episodic, jumping back and forth in time. It begins with Yuichi’s miserable present existence with his mother and stepfather as classmates bully and beat him.

Then the story moves to the previous year when Yuichi and Shūsuke first meet and become friends. Along with two other boys, they steal money to fund a trip to Okinawa where Shūsuke has two near-death experiences. In the return to present day, Shūsuke has transformed into the head bully; he brutally victimizes classmates such as forcing the previous school bully to roll around in mud, organizing a gang rape of a girl, and blackmailing a female classmate, Shiori, into prostitution. The narrative implies that the reason for Shūsuke’s transformation is a combination of his near-death experiences in Okinawa, his family’s factory going bankrupt, and the subsequent divorce of his parents. We witness Shūsuke’s transformation through Yuichi as

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he attempts to escape his constant victimization by Shūsuke by retreating into Lily’s music and the online fan community.

All About Lily Chou-Chou focuses on the seishun social panic issues of bullying and enjo kōsai, whereas Anno’s first live action film, Love & Pop focuses primarily on the latter issue.

Adapted from the novel Topaz II by Ryu Murakami, Love & Pop, chronicles the day’s events of

Hiromi Hayashi and her friends as they shop and play around Shibuya. The girls participate in

“telephone clubs,” a form of enjo kōsai in which high school-aged girls call a phone service that connects them with adult men for money. The dates can vary from simply eating a meal and singing karaoke to sexual favors. Hiromi and her friends, in preparation for a summer trip to the beach, want to buy pretty accessories to go along with their swimsuits. Hiromi becomes fascinated by a beautiful topaz ring and decides for the first time to go alone on some compensated dates to earn the money to purchase it. The second half of the film chronicles her experiences as she agrees to meet up with several men with varied success. As the sexual stakes escalate through her dates, Hiromi’s dream of attaining the topaz ring diminishes, and her naiveté leads her into a life-threatening situation. However, throughout the film the focus is solidly within Hiromi’s personal desires and her experiences, as her frequent voice-overs describe her innermost fears and desires. Ultimately, the film is about Hiromi’s personal growth through the personal traumas she suffers over the course of the day.

Though I focus on Japanese youth, the issue of sex and gender is critical in these films, especially in reading the relationships of power between the characters. Desire, repression, and emotional excess often manifest in these films through the use of aesthetic techniques and characteristics rather than through explicit character action. Desire drives the youth protagonists of All About Lily Chou-Chou, Love & Pop, and Tokyo Trash Baby, and each film differentiates

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the power structures which repress the victim-protagonists: group alienation, consumerism, and codes of normativity, as well as whether each person is complicit with or resistant to patriarchal ideology.

The next part of this chapter will focus on mise-en-scène, how the utilization of filmic domestic space deepens the narratives. The following two sections will consider other formal elements, the soundtrack and techniques, and how they contribute to expressing the emotional stress for characters on screen. At the center of each of these films is a youth character’s struggle against contemporary social problems, conveyed through various film styles. Though the characters attempt to resist their negative surroundings, the level at which they succeed is hard to determine.

Mise-en-scène: Personal and Domestic Space in Tokyo Trash Baby

All of the films utilize aspects of mise-en-scène differently. Love & Pop sets Hiromi and her schoolmates against the background of urban Tokyo, Shibuya, a cluttered and oversaturated space of sounds and people. All About Lily Chou-Chou is set in a rural area, and the sweeping fields are often used to single out main characters in moments of solitude and reflection. However,

Tokyo Trash Baby holds a special significance when it comes to mise-en-scène in how Miyuki, as slightly older than the other main characters, chooses to fill her personal space. At the beginning of the film, her sexual obsession for her neighbor is her primary driving motivation as it drives her to stalk him through his garbage. However, over the course of the film, Miyuki navigates her own emotional growth mainly by imbuing and then emptying significance from the trash she collects.

Shot entirely in digital video in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Tokyo Trash Baby’s DVD transfer is 16:9, making the image seem elongated and squashed. In addition, due to the abundance of static camera shots, long takes, and a sparse soundtrack, this film has the sense of

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cinéma vérité that Love & Pop and All About Lily Chou-Chou lack. Tokyo Trash Baby opens with an image taken from a digital camera inside a garbage bag. As the bag opens, the viewer sees Miyuki’s face (fig. 2.1). She meticulously sorts everything; every crevice and corner of her apartment holds items of a similar type: cereal boxes neatly collapsed and folded, empty water bottles, condom wrappers, and beer cans. All the objects are accumulated in organized piles, implying the length of time that Miyuki has been collecting. Tokyo Trash Baby often utilizes a still camera set-up, both within her apartment and in the outside world. Miyuki will enter and exit the frame, as the static camera only captures one angle of her apartment.

Fig. 2.1 Opening shot of Miyuki from the inside of Yoshinori’s garbage bag

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Fig. 2.2 Miyuki sorting the garbage she has collected

The emotional center of Tokyo Trash Baby is the mise-en-scène within Miyuki’s apartment and, specifically, how she surrounds herself with Yoshinori’s discarded objects (fig.

2.2). In his famous essay, “Tales of Sound and Fury,” Thomas Elsaesser discusses the importance of objects and space to the genre of melodrama. He writes “‘mise-en-scène translates character into action…and action into gesture and dynamic space.”79 The same can be said for

Miyuki as her chosen surroundings are an external manifestation of her current character motivation. As with the other films’ protagonists (Yuichi’s obsession with Lily Chou Chou and

Hiromi’s desire for the topaz ring), Miyuki’s obsession is seen via objects and her relation to them: her careful collecting and sorting and the increasing amount of garbage coinciding with heightening of that obsession with Yoshinori. The items are pregnant with meaning, and her emotional development increasingly changes with each new bag of trash. At first her actions

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seem innocent, and then she becomes more engrossed. She will eventually insert herself into

Yoshinori’s life which will not end how she would like.

Yoshinori’s discarded objects take on emotional weight for Miyuki, especially in that the accumulation of objects represents her increasing desire to make contact with him. It is an attempt to maintain a hold over another person, a social bond, through discarded objects which are past their time. However, they do signify the narrative’s emotional stakes in that Miyuki’s act of collecting emotionally charges the refuse; she stitches together his clothing, his routine, and his personal history.

Miyuki is noticeably older than the protagonists of the other films, and her interior journey is explored with more subtlety. Miyuki could be seen as an extension of any of the teen or pre-teen youths in arrested development, but her isolation affords her a kind of protection that is denied to Yuichi, Shiori, and Hiromi. Instead of experiencing collective peer pressure,

Miyuki’s isolation is both her freedom and source of unhappiness. She moves throughout the city, at her workplace, and at home but with little connection to others. Her obsessive garbage collecting reveals her isolation, as her happiest moments are when she is alone in her apartment sorting Yoshinori’s garbage. Writing about the first entry in the Angel Guts series (1978), Jay

McRoy notes, “The importance of garbage—the abject detritus through which so much may be inferred regarding an individual’s daily habits and personal preferences—raises several compelling ideas regarding…the profound alienation that, ironically, accompanies life within crowded urban cityscapes like Tokyo.”80 Miyuki may create a fantasy relationship with

Yoshinori, but as she learns more and more about him, her ability to stay away from him becomes more difficult.

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After an unknown amount of time following Yoshinori’s everyday routine, Miyuki opens a bag of garbage that offers new items, items that upset her. In the film, it is the third garbage bag. Its contents include a container of take-out food that drips with sauce/juices, a brand of lady’s cigarette butts with lipstick, and a nail polish bottle. Yoshinori has spent the night with a woman. As she carefully unwraps a ball of tissues she finds a used condom. She throws the condom against her door in anger. After she rises up to clean it, a cut goes to the apartment hallway. Though the objects are quite different, Elsaesser discusses a similar kind of sequence in the classical Hollywood film, Since You Went Away (1944): “Everything she looks at or touches…reminds her of her husband…The banality of the objects combined with the repressed anxieties and emotions force a contrast that makes the scene almost epitomize the relation of décor to characters.”81 Indeed, mise-en-scène—here garbage props—have that same emotional significance but manifest in a distinctly unromantic way that can constitute a socially problematic practice in the 1990s: garbage collection/stalking. The film does not celebrate

Miyuki’s practices, as Hiroki supplies her with several co-workers and a, unlikely, love interest, all trying to gain her attention, while she instead moves in and out of these social spheres, never nearly as engaged as she is with bags of Yoshinori’s garbage.

Miyuki’s fear of approaching Yoshinori is one of self-repression. She thoroughly enjoys the hunt, but as she continues to uncover more information as to who he really is, her desire to know him will eventually overpower her private pleasure of collecting. In his analysis of the second installment in the All Night Long Trilogy (1992, 1994, 1996), McRoy discusses a similar trash collector, a male “dusthunter” (dumpster diver or stalker garbage collector): “Perhaps the most compelling of all, though, is the ‘dusthunter’s’ evocation of a vague ‘dissatisfaction,’ a response to a transforming Japanese cultural edifice and the inevitable societal backlash that

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reveals tensions surrounding shifts in conventional gender roles."82 In that series, McRoy is describing a male dusthunter’s dissatisfaction with female strength in the face of male emasculation, but in this film the collecting is empowering for Miyuki as a female. Her desire for

Yoshinori is so strong that she risks the anonymity of her fascination with him. She is dissatisfied that he engages in sexual activity, and the shifts in conventional gender roles—she is stalking him—enable her to impose on his private sexual life. The reason she restrains herself is, ironically, due to her intimate knowledge of his habits: he will not develop a long relationship with this latest woman. Yet, Miyuki is becoming dissatisfied with her passive, voyeuristic role.

Tokyo Trash Baby is unflinching in depicting women in the process of claiming their desires and sexuality. Co-worker Kyoko’s increasingly frank discussion of sexual escapades serves as a catalyst for Miyuki to close the gap between herself and Yoshinori. Tired of being chased by regular customer Kawashima, Miyuki reluctantly agrees to spend an evening with him, but then she is completely unwilling to acknowledge his existence. Despite that their interaction in the closed café is the first real dialogue scene to give background to Miyuki’s idiosyncrasies, she is not “speaking” to Kawashima but to herself. Unexpectedly, she allows him to grope and fondle her. She is clearly uninterested as she refuses to either emote or move during their sexual encounter. They have sex, but soon after she refuses any further interaction with him. She cannot become sexually aroused when she is the one being pursued, or perhaps, she wishes to "de-mystify" herself to him to eliminate further approaches. Despite the ambiguity of

Miyuki’s motivation allowing this sexual encounter, Jasper Sharp believes that the film “presents its garbage collecting stalker protagonist in a sympathetic light…but as Miyuki soon finds out, it takes more than using the same , eating the same breakfast cereal, and smoking the same strength Marlboros as Yoshinori to find anything more than the most transient emotional

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fulfillment with him.”83 After attempting the “typical” route with Kawashima, Miyuki decides to push for more intimacy with Yoshinori. After reading his ex’s love letters, Miyuki has enough information to inject herself fully into his life.

After Miyuki finally makes contact and consequently sleeps with Yoshinori, he reveals that he has known all along that she takes his garbage. He states that he likes “weird girls like her,” but the revelation is too much for her to bear. His acceptance of her covert behavior is so flippant that it betrays the sacred contract between her private enjoyment of garbage stalking and her idealized image of him via garbage. He does not mock her as much as he is dismissive. She intrigued him as a garbage stalker, but he notes that she is “plain in bed.” Thus, Miyuki realizes her sexual conquest was really a failed attempt at intimacy. Using mise-en-scène to express a narrative point, she opens the curtains and reveals her scantily clad body, a dramatized admission of her hidden habits exposed. She also realizes that his interest in her is completely self-centered; he enjoyed being the object of her voyeurism.

Miyuki’s self-exploration is one of simultaneous realization and repression. She surrounds herself with Yoshinori’s discarded things because she believes that they enable her to know him and perhaps to have a remote and symbolic control over him. However, the objects in

Tokyo Trash Baby experience a doubling of significance, first of collecting then of discarding.

Over the course of the film, Miyuki has carefully categorized Yoshinori’s trash, and she used every new bag as a way of diving deeper into his personal life and history. As the items in her apartment began to overrun her, so did her frustration and unwillingness to remain passive in her pursuit of Yoshinori. To return one last time to Elsaesser’s discussion of the use of objects and mise-en-scène, “Pressure is generated by things crowding in on [the characters], life becomes increasingly complicated because cluttered with obstacles and objects that invade their

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personalities, take them over, stand for them, become more real than the human relations or emotions they were intended to symbolize.”84 Therefore, the subsequent act of “cleaning out” changes the meaning of Miyuki's collecting as an exercise of delightful scavenging to a realization of the objects’ and the practice’s false meanings and satisfactions. Once she recognizes this, she re-evaluates the objects and her actions. She does not mourn the loss of an actual relationship with Yoshinori but the loss of the relationship with her idea of him through his ephemera. In the light of Yoshinori’s insight about her collecting, she realizes that real contact with him was going too far. That act resulted in the emptying out of all the meaning that she had imbued in the garbage she had collected. In a subsequent scene, Yoshinori rings the doorbell to her apartment. He holds his trash bag in his hand, and the film cuts to the interior of her apartment. It is still cluttered and “lived-in,” but shots of each wall show that Yoshinori’s trash has been removed.

In the last third of the film, Miyuki will wander public spaces with the remainders of

Yoshinori’s trash, effectively carrying the objects of the mise-en-scène with her as she makes her decision about what to do with what remains (fig 2.3). One of the café regulars is an elderly man who constantly brags about working construction on major Tokyo landmarks, including the

Shinkansen (bullet train) railroad, Tokyo Tower, and the Tokyo Bay landfill. He remarks that

Japan would be filled with garbage without his contributions to these projects and also takes ownership for naming the landfill-island, “Yume no Shima” “Dream Island.” Yume no Shima is a man-made island built in 1965 as a way of solving Tokyo’s garbage problem. Using waste landfill as foundation, the island now boasts parks, domes, and an arena. However, in this context, this conversation compares the “Economic Miracle” Japan in the sixties and Miyuki’s generation of recession, in particular the issues of mass-urbanization and pollution. During the

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elderly man’s boasting, Miyuki is seen quietly ruffling through the pages of a magazine, but the film privileges his dialogue over her image. After Miyuki has walked away from Yoshinori as a real possibility for personal connection, she carries the last of his trash around, aimlessly. She stays out overnight at a playground and eventually takes the trash to work with her. After her shift is over she sits on a bench and realizes the solution is to take the bag to Yume no Shima personally to re-instate meaning onto her excess (thwarted) desire: by escorting the remainders of her collection to a landfill named “Dream Island,” Miyuki finally accepts the inability to hold onto objects as a substitute for human connection.

Fig. 2.3 Miyuki walking the streets of Tokyo with Yoshinori’s garbage

The use of garbage within the mise-en-scène of Tokyo Trash Baby addresses a particular social problem of the early 2000s, such as environmental concerns and empty consumerism. Her collection of garbage is an excess of literal waste while also representing the stagnation of her emotional growth. Miyuki is unwilling to cultivate positive, living relationships with those around her, choosing instead to focus on garbage; objects discarded after their use has been

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fulfilled. At the film’s end, she takes those items which she previously imbued with desire and returns them to their properly accepted societal role: garbage must go to the refuse. It is the symbolic name “Dream Island,” built by the only contributing member of society she knows which redeems her reclusive ways.

Soundtrack and Emotions in All About Lily Chou-Chou

In contrast to Miyuki, who is active in her method of attaining what she wants, Yuichi is characterized as passive and impotent in a world in which trauma or violence is enacted upon him. As part of this passivity, he is often mute. Thus, other aspects than dialogue convey narrative information, especially about interiority. One of the most powerful filmic tools to imbue the image with emotional resonance is soundtrack music. In addition, music has a

“syntactic function” which serves as a form of connective tissue between the emotions of the characters and the emotions of the audience. Many of All About Lily Chou-Chou’s most powerful sequences utilize soundtrack music to connote Yuichi’s suffering and express emotional weight with sweeping classical melodies or Lily’s atmospheric synth-rock permeating the most significant moments of violence and alienation in Yuichi’s life.

Although Love & Pop also uses similar piano orchestrations, namely those by Debussey,

All About Lily Chou-Chou embeds music into the narrative through Yuichi’s avid fandom of Lily

Chou Chou and his attempts to escape his painful life.All About Lily Chou-Chou’s director Iwai comes from a background in production and not only wrote and directed all his early films but also takes a large hand in composing the original score music. As an auteur director, the use of music in his films is prevalent. In fact, Iwai has come under some critical scrutiny in the eyes of academics, predominantly for his thin storylines and emphasis on music video-esque

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aesthetics.85 In particular, Mika Ko criticizes the earlier Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) for the exoticization of the Chinese characters and two-dimensional depictions of multicultural Asian- ness in urban Japan.86 However, the strongest feature of Swallowtail Butterfly is the creation of the fictional Yen Town Band, whose soundtrack CD became a number one bestseller.

In All About Lily Chou-Chou, Iwai creates another fictional rock star Lily Chou Chou, but her mythology goes far further than the Yen Town Band. Voiced by Japanese singer Salyu, Lily

Chou Chou’s music is not only written by Iwai for the soundtrack, but the film’s narrative is filled with trivia and history about Lily's previous bands, multiple album concepts, and personal biography, Lily’s life is far more fleshed out than any character in Swallowtail Butterfly. The fourteen-year-olds of All About Lily Chou-Chou are obsessed with the consumption and regurgitation of these facts surrounding Lily’s life and work so the detail has a narrative and character function as well as supplying verisimilitude, and the film often privileges the fans' personal emotions and moments with her ethereal music, as both soundtrack to the film and also in the personal lives of the characters.

A natural entry into soundtrack music is public domain classical solo piano compositions, and selections by Claude Debussy, specifically “Clair de Lune” and “La fille aux cheveux de lin” (The Girl with the Flaxen ), appear in both Love & Pop and All About Lily Chou-

Chou.87 All About Lily Chou-Chou, however, intermixes these segments, along with Debussy’s

“Arabesque,” with Lily’s original music. Both “Arabesque” and “Claire du Lune” figure heavily in the film, often symptomatically appearing when Yuichi is experiencing extreme emotional distress. Yuichi’s alienation from his re-constituted family of stepfather, stepbrother, and newly pregnant mother is established early. At first, his mother seems sympathetic towards him and attempts to make them a family; however, after Yuichi is caught shoplifting a new Lily CD, she

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is brought into the teacher’s lounge and told what has happened. She reacts extremely violently, standing over and beating him with her purse and screaming while the teachers attempt to intervene. The image of Yuichi taking the punishment is intercut with a shot of Yuichi’s crush,

Kuno, playing Debussy’s “Arabesque” on the piano (fig 2.4). The contrast is palpable. Again, the focus is on the song as it bridges the two scenes. As the mother’s beating continues, the piano melody becomes louder, nearly drowning her out. After the teachers calm her down, the song plays out softly. The following scene of Yuichi and his mother returning home is shot with only diegetic sound of the bus and birds; a long take pans left as Yuichi’s mother exits the bus and walks along the road. As Yuichi rides up to her on his bike, “Clair De Lune” plays.

Fig. 2.4 Kuno playing the piano

The use of these two songs is linked to Yuichi’s distant relationship with his mother. In an earlier scene, Yuichi’s mother, a hair stylist, discusses the “unknowability” of youth while remarking on the proclivity of pre-teens towards violence and delinquency. When asked what she would do if Yuichi wanted to dye his hair, a sign of rebellion, Yuichi’s mother replies that

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she would probably do it for him. However, when faced with the actuality of Yuichi’s bad behavior after he is caught shoplifting, she erupts into excessive emotional and physical violence. Soon after, as he gives her a ride home, the peaceful melody of “Clair de Lune” overwrites the previous argument. She does not know what has been happening to her son and does not attempt find out. Here, after her violent outburst, they return to a state of non- communication, never working though the problems beneath the surface. The powerful crescendo of “Arabesque” during the mother's reaction to Yuichi's shoplifting is contrasted with the soft falling notes of “Claire de Lune,” and the audience has witnessed the fissures in this mother-son relationship, fully knowing that they have had no meaningful exchange, and Yuichi is alone.

Though the bully, Shūsuke, is the obvious source for the trickle-down violence in the film, he is not completely villainized. The film will repeat the opening shot of Yuichi in the field of waist-high grass through different seasons, and eventually both Shūsuke and Shiori will also be seen in the same field, listening to Lily. Shiori is a fellow victim as Shūsuke uses sex videos to blackmail her into enjo kōsai. However, choosing to place Shūsuke, Yuichi, and Shiori in the field illustrates a juxtaposition of these three characters that collapses and complicates Shūsuke’s identity as simple victimizer (fig. 2.5). McRoy says of this scene:

As the elegant crane and tracking shots of individual characters standing alone in the expansive green fields and listening to Lily Chou-Chou’s music on portable CD players suggest . . . Each character in these memorable sequences is overwhelmingly alone, their isolation rendered even more acute by the breadth of negative space their solitary physiques engender within the mise-en-scène.88

Here, McRoy eloquently breaks down the use of crane shots and mise-en-scène, but I would add that the primary focus in this scene is to form a musical equation among the three characters. The similarities of the shots, overexposed lighting tinged with yellows, blues, and greens, deepen the

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color of the grass and sky. In addition, Lily’s music plays ethereally over these separately and yet same-suffering characters.

Fig 2.5 Hasumi alone in the field

All About Lily Chou-Chou predominantly follows Yuichi, but it can be argued that the film is actually about Shūsuke’s transformation into the violent unknowable youth. Although characters speculate as to reasons for the changes in Shūsuke, the film’s closest explanation are his two near-death experiences on their vacation in Okinawa, one whereShūsuke is almost impaled by a flying spear fish and another where he almost drowns, and later speculations of his parent’s bankruptcy and divorce. After the boys have returned to school, Shūsuke becomes embarrassed about his friends telling of those near-death experiences and violently takes out his anger on the current school bully, Inuhiko. As his classmates look silently on, Shūsuke stands over the unconscious Inuhiko. The camera is placed above and behind Shūsuke’s head as he pulls out a knife. His classmates begin to scream and the Okinawan folk song, “Arugusuku,” plays. In Okinawa, Shūsuke likened the song to both Debussy's "Arabesque" and to Lily’s song,

“Arabesque,” which she attributes to being inspired by both Debussey and Okinawan culture.

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This song fleshes out Shūsuke’s dark turn and seems to encapsulate the combination of his fear, rage, and embarrassment due to his experiences in Okinawa. It is played non-diegetically one other time, at the beginning of the film’s climax: a montage of the teens in the field as they listen to Lily. The reappearance of "Arugusuku" at the end of the sequence conveys Shūsuke’s painful realization that he has gone too far and that he has no way back.

This conclusion deserves detailing. First to set up the context leading into the sequence: after Shūsuke has orchestrated and recorded the gang-rape of Kuno, Yuichi’s (and Shūsuke’s) crush, she reappears at school having shaved her own head. This is understood as an act of defiance against Shūsuke. She has ruined her “schoolgirl” image so that he cannot use the videos to force her into prostitution as he did with Shiori. The gang-rape of Kuno is devastating to both

Yuichi and Kuno and marks the disintegration of Shūsuke’s gang. Furthermore, this event causes

Yuichi to seek out a friend online for encouragement and support. It is revealed that Yuichi and

Shūsuke have been using the aliases of Philia and Blue Cat on the Lily Chou Chou fan site and are unaware of each other's real identity. The two online friends decide to meet up at a Lily Chou

Chou concert, and Shūsuke is revealed to be Blue cat. Yuichi realizes that his one friend is his greatest enemy. Shūsuke steals Yuichi’s ticket to the live performance, the final straw for Yuichi, who then decides to wait for Shūsuke after the concert to kill him.

However, immediately before this revelation, Philia and Blue Cat are seen engaging in a passionate exchange on the discussion board, cheerfully citing Lily’s greatest hits. Their written exchanges are intercut with shots of Shiori on the school roof; her shadowed silhouette shows her grabbing her throat with her hands. “Clair de Lune” cuts off abruptly and Lily’s “ that

Can’t Fly (Tobenai Tsubasa)” plays, combining the bright tune of the piano with electric guitar.

Shiori, Yuichi, and Hoshino’s images and words are overlaid in this sequence, again collapsing

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the differences among them. Hoshino and Yuichi become increasingly passionate and excited, typing ever and ever faster.

The song cuts off and Shiori is shown in the grass field, wearing headphones (fig 2.6).

The audience cannot hear but knows that she is hearing Lily sing as she watches kites fly.

“Wings that Can’t Fly” begins again. Fast editing shows Shiori with headphones, Hoshino with headphones, and Yuichi at his computer, typing furiously. The scene also intercuts to later that evening, as the bully gang, who organized Kuno’s rape, gather sans Hoshino and discuss Kuno’s shaved head and who is to blame. One by one, the teens turn on Hoshino, an, one girl notes that the boys need to kill him. Hoshino’s exclusion from this meeting emphasizes that his place as head bully is a tenuous one, both because it is an ever-progressing cycle and perhaps a testament that these youths do have a proclivity to vicious behavior. The horror of ijime culture, as especially articulated in this film, is not placed on individuals but in the collective; as Sugimoto

Yoshino notes, “Ijime is distressingly expansive, with a ‘strong group’ gaining ‘satisfaction from the anguish of a pupil in weak and disadvantaged position,’ often out of a ‘fear of being chosen as targets themselves.’”89 Hoshino had protection as head bully, but now, as he stands alone in the grass field, he is completely alone, as alone as Yuichi and Shiori.

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Fig. 2.6 Shiori watching kites flying

The next scene shows Shiori playing with kites; the kites bob and dart across the sky.

Shiori crashes her kite and laughs, noting how she wishes she could fly. Next is another shot of

Yuichi sitting in the field but the grass is dead. Then Shiori’s dead body is on the ground at the base of a great tower, the place near where the teens stand in their solitary moments in the field.

The characters do not speak; the narrative does not explain; the music is the connection among the three people, and the only evidence of the manifestation of Shiori’s oppression, her despair, has driven her to want to die.

After a brief school scene is the final field shot. It is of Hoshino, but the field has long been plowed; now it is just dark, seemingly infertile lines in the earth that trail into the background to one point perspective, and smoke wafts around him. The Okinawan folk song,

"Arugusuku," plays again as a reprise. Hoshino has decimated everything around him. As the folk song fades out, Lily’s song, “Experiment of Love (Ai no Jikken)” plays. Hoshino screams desperately, his voice completely drowned by Lily’s electronic beats and droning instrumentation. As the chorus ends, Hoshino’s scream is heard along with “Arugusuke” again

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(fig 2.7). As he finishes his scream, he looks off to the right. The film cuts to a shot of Yuichi, also standing in the barren field. However, this shot of Yuichi is not in the same time and place as Hoshino. Where Yuichi stands, the furrows in the field lead left to right, the sun has set, and he looks into the distance, not focusing on anything and certainly not looking at Hoshino (fig.

2.8). I argue this insertion of Yuichi as a spatial anomaly is supposed to be Hoshino’s interior mirror. Hoshino’s despair matches Yuichi’s, and the boys, although on different points of this cycle of violence, have now symbolically switched places. They face each other in the barren field as at this moment they could collapse into one person.

Fig 2.7 Yuichi screams in the same field, now barren.

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Fig. 2.8 Hasumi also stands in a barren field, seemingly out of sync

All About Lily Chou-Chou’s focus on two characters, the mute and passive Yuichi and the descending Hoshino, has many comparisons to New Wave seishun eiga, such as the competing brother characters in Nakahira Ko’s Crazed Fruit (1956). However, here, Iwai’s auteurial choice uses the soundtrack to explicate their emotional traumas where the former offered less interiority to its main characters. The narrative focus on the character of Lily Chou Chou, the piano compositions of Debussey, and the Okinawan folk song “Arugusuku” blend the diegetic and non-diegetic worlds, as the characters and viewers listen to each piece simultaneously. Each musical composition carries the emotional work of the narrative by playing during the height of the characters’ suffering. Beyond being a general soundtrack, music in All About Lily Chou-

Chou conveys the emotional weight of the characters, emphasizing their tragic circumstances while communicating their emotional traumas.

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Image Manipulations, Fractured Subjectivities: All About Lily Chou-Chou

In addition to the use of objects in the mise-en-scène and the soundtrack, many films in New Japanese Cinema experiment with camera lenses and . Sometimes these methods are overwrought in order to draw attention to form over content. In the three films which I choose to focus on here, unconventional editing and the use of digital video are often overlaid in order to strengthen the unseen emotional despair and depth of the characters. I will first continue my discussion of All About Lily Chou-Chou and consider Iwai’s use of digital video during the scene in Okinawa and then discuss Anno’s experimentally shot Love & Pop. All About Lily Chou-Chou utilizes deeply saturated color schemes and lots of overexposed lighting, especially through windows. Two instances of the experimental use of digital video and other camera and editing choices—the scenes of Shiori after her first enjo kōsai “job” and the boys’ experience in Okinawa—distance the viewer from the subject in ways which create emphasis on the intangible pains of the film’s characters. In the first case, the narrative events have been building pressure, and Shiori allows herself her first violent release. As Yuichi follows Shiori home after her first sexual exchange in enjo kōsai, she confronts him for his complicity with Hoshino. She kicks and shoves him. This scene is reminiscent of his encounter with his mother. She does not attack him with great physical strength but shames him as his mother did for his participation in delinquency. She then rubs her cut of the money into the ground, tearing and soiling the bills in the dirt. After a series of reaction close-ups, from Shiori walking away to Yuichi watching her, is a medium long shot of the two of them on the road. She throws her bag then runs into the water, and the camera follows her. At this moment is a fissure in narrative: as she enters the water, the shot is played in slow motion, then there is quick cut, and the shot is replayed in real time. A shaky handheld camera pans left to find Yuichi, standing on the riverbank, then the camera pans right to close in on Shiori wading through the water, then zooms out to a long shot, with Shiori in the water and Yuichi on the road. The replay of Shiori's wading into the water works to fracture her as a unitary subject, emphasizing her interior feelings.

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Another scene, when the boys go to Okinawa, allows Iwai to employ handheld digital video cameras. Scholars have criticized many aspects of Iwai’s directorial style as over- aestheticized and superficial, mainly in regards to his earlier film, Swallowtail Butterfly. In All

About Lily Chou-Chou these same stylistic devices are employed; while at times over- aestheticized, they are more successful because of the sobriety of the subject matter of ijime culture. Portrayals of “exotic others” re-emerge in Okinawa, but this scene re-situates the source of the exoticism from the director to the boys through their use of handheld digital devices to record their tourist moments. The actors shot the entirety of the time in Okinawa, and Iwai edited the footage90 so he can try to situate the “othering” gaze onto the boys.91 The handheld digital cameras are shaky and jarring which serves also to give the suggestion of a personalized experience of their trip to Okinawa as it breaks with the film style of almost all of the rest of the film. As a specific example of how the digital video disorients the viewer, both of Hoshino’s near-death experiences are unclearly shot. The first instance is on a dark beach, and the handheld camera captures the jerky motion as the boys run along the beach. An underwater POV shot masks the second experience as the water splashes on the lens and distorts the image. The obscurity of these video sequences hides what apparently happened and thus reinforces the incomprehensibility of Hoshino’s transformation and to the dark feelings that occur after such experiences. Later, the boys also shoot Kuno’s rape on digital video to use as blackmail, but in an act of self-defense, Kuno steals a camera and uses it as a weapon: the viewer sees a pixilated and damaged image, but the diegetic sound clarifies the narrative action.

Where All About Lily Chou-Chou has moments of digital video and video manipulation to mark the intensity of actions and feelings, Love & Pop is constantly manipulating the image, stretching beyond a verisimilar image with fish-eye lenses, varying aspect ratios,92 and

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employing multiple voiceovers, extensive overlapping images, and unconventional camera mounts which may be anywhere: from inside microwaves and on a moving model train to between teenage girls’ legs (fig. 2.9). Iwai’s auteurial style focuses on the use of film music whereas Anno’s history with animation manifests here through these unconventional camera angles and editing. Anno also experiments with voice-overs often in the form of serious confessionals, most notably in his anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) and Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō (1998-1999).

Fig 2.9 Hiromi narrates her dream as a model train travels through a warehouse

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Fig. 2.10 Hiromi in voiceove as the camera overlays several images

Love & Pop’s beginning is jarring with its unusual camera placements, but a moment of early reprieve is after Hiromi’s first voice-over where she is seen walking and the music of

Debussey plays. The lilting melody along with the alienating and confusing description of her dream in the previous sequence immediately reinforces the ambiguous nature of the film’s overall construction of her identity. As she speaks, the image is overlaid with other images and her figure becomes obscured (fig. 2.10). Ultimately the film is about Hiromi’s fears of her group of friends growing apart, seeing them all go forward with personal passions while she has none.

To fill this void, Hiromi becomes attached to a beautiful topaz ring, the consumption of which she believes will complete her. The film’s unconventional camerawork and editing will continually illustrate Hiromi’s ever-growing distance from her friends in her single-minded pursuit of this luxury item.

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After the opening scene and the introduction to the protagonist as well as Anno’s unconventional film style, a sequence titled “Hiromi’s Dream” begins. It is nearly impossible to keep up with its frenetic energy and the influx of information in this scene. In a quick-paced voice-over, Hiromi describes her dream over a long take from a digital camera mounted on top of a model train, effectively becoming a fast-tracking shot. The camera faces backwards, the sound of the model train clacking on the soundtrack so that the viewer sees the images in the distance as the train passes. The train travels under desks and bulk-warehouse doors,93 then through the legs of teenage girls, their bodies appearing smaller as the train carries the camera further away. Finally, Hiromi is seen to the right of the track. She finishes describing her dream as she grows smaller and smaller, the camera tracking away from her. The emphasis on the excess of style illustrates how Hiromi is a passive object enacted upon; even her dream speaks to a kind of Kafka-esque helplessness. Then the film cuts to the main title image, black background with white script, as Eric Satie’s “Gymnopedie 1” plays.

Anno’s distinct style of manipulating the filmic image references the editing style of his animation work while simultaneously dialoguing with experimental and independent art cinemas of the 1990s through the use of affordable digital technology. Described as a “primer in vanguard digital filmmaking technique,”94 Love & Pop plays with cinéma vérité, utilizing a documentary, or a “fly on the wall,” style of filmmaking (primarily because of the use of digital video) along with its use of confessional dialogue. However, it is the constructed-ness of the camera angles and the overactive editing that deliberately breaks with cinéma vérité-style, loading scene after scene with commentary about the girls’ choices and condemning them for their superficiality.

For example, before the title screen, when the girls stand stoically in the warehouse, the combination of the tracking camera, the sad circumstances of the dream,95 and the transition to

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the slow, atmospheric, piano melody explore an interiority not conveyed in the action. Such camera and editing techniques are frequently employed in animation, especially in “full limited animation” where anime utilizes sound, voice, and perspective to express emotion not available to low-budget animation projects. Love & Pop relentlessly barrages the viewer with extreme angles and swift editing, sometimes staging the actors in unbelievable or inconvenient environments.96 These techniques criticize their behavior, as they enact their petty lives in absurd and unreal circumstances. In addition, the film moves into heavy-handed moralizing device through the character of “Captain Eo,” Hiromi’s last client of the night. His tirade exemplifies a patriarchal condemnation of the irresponsibility of girls who engage in enjo kōsai. Director Anno discusses his film, stating: “Many girls don’t see what’s wrong with selling their bodies and making some money. They can’t see why it is the wrong thing to do. They can’t imagine what would happen if they were to do it and then get into trouble.”97 However, while an underlying social moralizing is easily understood here, I argue that the excess in experimental style creates moments of tension and release, for Hiromi, her friends, and the audience, which move beyond the theme of the “social panic” of enjo kōsai in contemporary Japan and considers youth alienation in urban Tokyo.

Much like Miyuki’s obsession with Yoshinori’s garbage, the imperial topaz ring also acts as the catalyst for Hiromi’s complex displacement of her fears of abandonment by transferring those fears into empty consumptive desires. When she first sees , Hiromi describes her immediate attachment to it in a voiceover. “Clair de Lune” plays as she likens glimpsing the ring to a first kiss or the first time seeing her boyfriend naked (the feeling is described as “dokidoki,” onomatopoeia of heart beating fast); she grasps onto the adrenaline, the feeling of alive-ness that the ring gives her. Her unbridled desire for a material object, as opposed to a boyfriend, or first

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sexual experience, crystallizes her yearning onto something completely symbolic to her.

Hiromi’s disgust with her hands, wishing they were more beautiful, as well as her fears of being left behind by her friends culminates onto the topaz ring. This desire is the only thing she can latch onto as “real,” and she chooses to pursue it, knowing full well this desire is fleeting. The rest of the film’s events, her experiments in enjo kōsai, are all predicated on the layered meanings that the imperial topaz ring holds for her. When she is unable to grasp what she desires, Anno’s video techniques illustrate a fantastic explosion of Hiromi’s despair and excess emotion.

Back at the department store, Hiromi’s friends also admire the ring, looking through the picture viewer on Hiromi’s camera as an additional lens to observe it (fig. 2.11). This scene is shot through the ring’s perspective; an iris lens places the girls in a circular frame, the image tinted yellow-violet, with the perimeter sparkling with lighting effects like the edges of a jewel.

Through Anno’s experimental techniques the ring is not only a fetish object (an empty presence), but a living eye and a lens through which the audience should recognize that they are consuming the girls as the girls desire to consume the ring. In fact, the entirety of the film has cut the girls into body parts: lips, eyes, school uniforms, bare legs, and hands. The handheld camera dissects their more menial and mundane activities and movements as empty objects of consumption who are consuming objects emptily. This scene draws attention to this through the doubling uses of lenses: the camera and the ring.

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Fig 2.11 The iris lens mimics the Topaz ring’s perspective

The film’s use of Hiromi’s voice-over activates her agency in the film, even though she herself often states that she does not know what she wants to be or do. The central crisis for her is that the girls are drifting apart and that her friends have all grasped onto new emerging adulthood identities. However, in an interesting twist, they all acknowledge that desires are fleeting and argue that that is precisely why they should act on them promptly. Hiromi’s friend

Sachi chooses to quit school to become a professional dancer, explaining that she knows she may one day grow tired of it and that is therefore why she needs to do it now. The girls’ attitudes exude a fin de siècle desperation, an outlook that impending adulthood is the end of times and most certainly the end of their friendship. As such, their adolescent ennui finds outlets in consuming designer goods.

At the end of the film, Hiromi experiences a terrifying almost-rape and burglary encounter with Captain Eo. After renting a room in a love hotel and eating a meal, Hiromi goes 75

to shower before having sex with Captain Eo. He charges into the bathroom, and the camera takes on her point of view. She cowers in the corner of the shower, the camera placed above her head as she looks up at Captain Eo. He grabs her ankles while lecturing her:

You’re naked. I’m dressed. You’re not supposed to be here. Some guy you don’t even know . . . How can you be naked like this? Everyone’s got someone who needs them. Don’t they? Maybe that someone’s heart is breaking. Maybe that someone is half dead with suffering, ready to cry. How do you think they’d feel . . . to know the girl so important to them was naked before some strange man? Huh?! How do you think they’d feel?! You don’t know a thing. [At this point the images of Captain Eo and Hiromi are overlaid.] Do you think no one would care to see you like this? Huh? You’re here, naked . . . and you’re killing someone half dead with grief over it. Well? Do you understand at all? My God. [Image of just Captain Eo as he stands and takes a taser out of his pocket and lights it up.] You. Yeah, you. I was gonna use this. Zap you, fuck you like a corpse, run off with your money. I was. But I’ll let you off. I liked talking to you, plus you fixed F- Ball. [Eo puts the taser away and reaches into his pocket, pulling out money.] So I’ll pay you for your time. Overtime, even. [He places some coins on her chest and leaves.]

The beginning of Captain Eo’s lecture is a moralizing rant, a lecture to those young girls who engage in the illegal and sometimes dangerous practice of enjo kōsai. However, it must be stressed that Captain Eo’s message is one of judgmental punishment, not care, for Hiromi. He spares her because she sewed his favorite stuffed toy’s tail back on for him but emphasizes his condemnation for her by paying her for her time and placing coins on her chest. Hiromi has been chastised, not for her own worth but her worth to someone else.

After Captain Eo leaves the bathroom, Hiromi’s voiceover bridges the crosscutting of her sitting in the love hotel bathroom and the image of her body floating in water. Her voice splits into two dialogue tracks, laying over each other as she asks and answers questions to herself.

This is the important realization after her encounter with Captain Eo. Her dialogue with herself is an attempt for her to know herself, her real motivations in a way that has not been foregrounded until now. This self-dialogue dominates the rest of the film and appears again in the penultimate

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scene after Hiromi has returned home. She empties out her backpack, knowing there is no ring but looking for it anyway:

Voice over (in italics): Of course, I had no ring.Out loud (regular text) Why would I? [Hiromi grabs her camera, opens it and sees that there’s no film. She grabs a new roll to load it but stops. Instead she closes the camera and listens to it wind without film.] You resent how kind your family can be. [Shot of her new roll of film on the floor. Shot reverse shot of ceiling, then her looking at ceiling.]Yes. But I don’t hold it against them. I’m the one who went astray. [Cut to ceiling camera looking down at Hiromi. Hiromi rolls over onto her side.] And what of the ring? I don’t want to give it up. But I haven’t the nerve. [Cut to camera on bed looking at Hiromi’s back. The items from her backpack lift off the bed and float in the air.] You haven’t the nerve to pick up after a failure.98

The items on the bed begin spinning in a whirlwind, and Hiromi lifts off as well (fig 2.12). She is caught in the wind as she and the items begin to spin rapidly. A lengthy voiceover continues as the film cuts back and forth from Hiromi’s floating body in her bedroom to the warehouse of her earlier dream sequence. The other girls are shown briefly crosscut with Hiromi’s spinning body as she mentions each of them, talking to herself:

When Chisa started dance lessons, weren’t you planning to join her? But she’s so ahead of me now. When Nao saved money to buy her computer it made you feel guilty. I felt I’d been stung by needles. When Chii-chan started to really grow up, you felt you’d been abandoned. There was nothing to do except be lonely. It’s hard when friends move on. Missing out does make you feel alone. But as time goes on, your need for that ring will move on too. Clinging onto the need, forcing yourself back and be lonely…being an adult is difficult. I’m not sure I’m up to it.99

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Fig. 2.12 Hiromi’s body cyclones above her bed

Back in Hiromi’s bedroom, the camera takes Hiromi’s perspective. She looks at her things and reaches over to lift up a plastic photo film case. After examining it, she opens it and pulls out a message from Captain Eo: “P.S. You’re the only one I’ll tell Fuzzball’s real name to: Mr. Love

& Pop.”100

Here, the strong action and dynamic movement in the film’s penultimate scene, the fantastic image of Hiromi’s body, in fetal position, lifting off of her bed and spinning in the air, surrounded by her camera and film cartridges, represents her sense of alienation and the vacuous consumption of luxury goods. This final scene is full disclosure of Hiromi’s greatest fears, combined with shots of the girls in the warehouse again, but these images do not manifest into the “reality” of Hiromi’s life but instead exist within her interiority. The earlier dissecting shots

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illustrated Hiromi’s fragmented emotional identity, and her terrifying encounter with Captain Eo has made her whole again but alone, either floating alone in water or in the air of her bedroom.

In All About Lily Chou-Chou, the use of the digital video distances the viewer from the emotional reality of those sequences because of the insertion of the filmic point of view of the boys as they explored Okinawa and carried out Hoshino’s orders. In Love & Pop, the digital video as well as the multitude of video editing techniques, including overlaying multiple images and sound/voice, split screen effects, and specialty “lenses,” work to distance Hiromi from her own environment. The overall effect of these image manipulations, combined with the confessional tone of the voice-overs, posits a knowing, desiring autonomous protagonist against a world which seems unknowable and pre-determined. The effects of the hyper-editing and the constant jumping around in perspectives emphasizes the oppression that the outside world has on

Hiromi, even as much as to spin her body into a whirlwind of empty objects. As Hiromi attempts to pull herself into a unified whole, the film itself displays a world of fractured subjectivity and by doing so articulates Hiromi’s difficulties in growing up.

CONCLUSION: AMBIGUOUS ENDINGS, NARRATIVE AND FORM

The ambiguous ending is a characteristic of the art cinema genre, with also a nod to seishun eiga, especially those films that leave their main characters in compromising situations that have descended too far for recovery. These three films do not give the audience a cathartic release. The final scene of Tokyo Trash Baby crosscuts between Miyuki on the garbage barge and the café where she works with Kyoko. The crosscutting of her on the barge and back at work dislocates her both spatially and chronologically but works to place her emotionally. The film never shows her reach Yume no Shima, but by displaying her back at work with a voiceover from

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the near future, the film implies that Miyuki has survived her emotional crisis. Throughout Tokyo

Trash Baby, Miyuki has willingly shared her Marlboros, proud that she smokes Yoshinori’s brand of cigarettes. Before she goes to Yume no Shima, Miyuki had none to give as she had thrown away all things that connect her to him. Now in the café, Kyoko again asks for a cigarette. Miyuki obliges but offers a new brand, one she has, assumedly, chosen for herself.

Miyuki’s voiceover acts as a sound over the two locations. It begins by overlaying the scene of her working, and then ends with her on the boat. “I’ve thrown away Yoshinori’s trash in the Yume no Shima and I still live in the same apartment. Yoshinori moved to a woman’s house about one month later. Actually, there is only one thing I couldn’t throw away from the trash.

Probably I cannot throw it away forever.”101 As Miyuki stands at the front of the barge, the camera runs in a long shot from behind her (fig 2.13). In the distant background, a plane descends from screen right to left, the sound audible over the image. The frame freezes and the theme song plays. Compared to the sparse use of music in the rest of the film, the theme song is a cheerful pop song, though the implication of the voiceover is slightly ominous. The disjointed timing of the film images with the voiceover marks that her identity is in-process, verbally becoming as she speaks of both the future and her past through the negative-future-progressive

(“one month later,” “Probably cannot throw it away forever”). There is a sense of closure in the tone of her words though it is never revealed what exactly she is referring to or what she her future will be.

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Fig. 2.13 Miyuki on the garbage barge

The end of Love & Pop is a steadi-cam six-minute-long take of the four girls, in school uniform, sloshing through a water canal in urban Tokyo. Similarl to when Shiori jumps into the rural canal, the girls’ baggy socks, a fetishized feature of the Japanese schoolgirl, become dirty, wet and saggy as they walk. At the beginning, they walk with purpose and confidence, but as the water deepens, their strides become strained (fig 2.14). Symbolically, the girls boldly venture into a process that will dirty them, enjo kōsai, but again, the ending is ambivalent because it is open. They continue striding towards the camera until a digital effect mimics the end of a film reel and the scene turns to black, then “The End.” All About Lily Chou-Chou ends with a short sequence of Yuichi, post-murder of Hoshino. Alone in his home he stands on a chair, his face obscured by a ceiling beam (fig. 2.15); his headless form is disturbing and for a moment it appears that he may attempt suicide. However, he soon kneels on the stool and looks outside pensively. Later, Kuno plays “Arabesque” in the music room adjoining where Yuichi meets with his teacher, Osanai. Osanai attempts to lecture Yuichi about his grades, then, without ever really engaging him, tells him to “Try harder” (“Ganbaro”). Silent and sullen, as usual, the film ends

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with Yuichi standing behind Kuno at the piano; cut to black with the song playing out. His future is unknown.

Fig 2.14 Hiromi and her friends walk towards an uncertain future

Fig. 2.15 Hasumi in a jarring shot near the film’s finale

These conclusions are pensive, emotionally tragic in part, but not delivered in a manner to incite a single, clear emotion. Ambivalent endings appear across many of the contemporary youth films in this study, but in this specific chapter, the endings of these three films align with

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the category of “art” or “festival” cinema that uses episodic narratives to provide a more realistic story. As stated previously, these films occasionally utilize distancing techniques to survey specifically youth-oriented contemporary social panics like ijime, enjo kōsai, urban alienation, and garbage stalking and vary in levels of sympathy for their subjects. Long takes, long shots, a musical soundtrack, and experimental film techniques heighten the personal tragedies at stake and their emotional appeal. Seishun eiga’s origins touched on an emergent demographic and the modern obstacles that befall them and, here, youth in crisis also articulated in a specific set of social context and the filmic aesthetics of the New Japanese Cinema movement. Are these youths pushing towards self-actualization or will they falter after the camera stops recording? It is not clear which direction these youths will go after their personal trials, but each stands at the threshold of adulthood, contemplating the next steps.

56 BBC’s “Sex in Japan,” found here accessed 3.22.2016 and Vice News “Schoolgirls for sale in Japan,” found here accessed 3.22.16, newspaper articles such as The New York Times, “World New Brief,” “Tokyo Bill to Outlaw Sex with Youths for Money,” New York Times; 4 April 1997, Vol. 146. Some journal articles also describe the phenomenon, such as Laura Miller, "Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese , Slang, and Media Assessments," Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14 (2): 2004, 225–247, Fukutomi Mamoru, "An Analytical Study on the Causes of and Attitudes Toward 'Enjo Kōsai' among Female High School Students in Japan," Asian Women's Fund, March 2007, 75–76, and scholarly publication David Leheny, Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan (New York: Cornell University Press, 2006). 57Editor John Berra lists All About Lily Chou-Chou and Love and Pop under “Alternative Japan” in his first edition, and Blue Spring, Kamikaze Girls, and Crows: Zero all under the subhead of seishun eiga in the second. Directory of World Cinema: Japan, ed. John Berra, (Bristol: Intellect, 2010) and Directory of World Cinema. Directory of World Cinema: Japan2, ed. John Berra, (Bristol: Intellect, 2012). 58Catherine Driscoll, Teen Film: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Berg, 2011), p. 144. 59Driscoll, 145. 60Driscoll, 145. 61Desser’s book, Eros Plus Massacre, on the New Wave, covers a period from 1959-1969.David Desser, Eros Plus Massacre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 40. 62Adam Bingham, “Introduction to Nuberu Bagu/The Japanese New Wave,” Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2, ed. John Berra, p. 255. 63Michael J. Raine, Youth, Body, and Subjectivity in the Japanese Cinema, 1955—1960 (2002), dissertation, (Order No. 3052454). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (305511168). 64Ibid., p.210, Raine cites Antoine de Baecque. La nouvelle Vague: Portrait d' une Jeunesse. (Paris: Flammarion, 1998) and Michel Marie. La Nouvelle Vague: une Ecole Artistique, (Paris: Nathan, 1997). No page number . 65Ibid, 210 66Bingham, 255. 67Mark Downing Roberts, Masumura Yasuzo and the Cinema of Social Consciousness (University of California, Berkeley, 2007).

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68Jelena Stojkovic, “Alternative Japan,” Directory of World Cinema: Japan, ed. Berra, p. 35. 68Ibid., 36 69Ibid., 36 70David Bordwell, “The Art Cinema as A Mode of Film Practice,” rpt in Film Theory and Criticism, eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 774-782, Steve Neale Genre and Hollywood (London: Routlege, 2000), 23, Rick Altman, Film/Genre (London: BFI Publishing, 1999), pp. 50-51, and Janet Staiger, “The Romantic Horror Film: Zombieland as Disguised Genre,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. New Orleans, LA. 12 March 2011. 71Bordwell, 776. 72Ibid., 777. 73For example, the inclusion of dreams or altered realities within the narrative. Bordwell cites Ingmar Bergman’s film work. 74Janet Staiger, personal correspondence, 12/8/13. 75Bordwell, 776. 76Staiger, 6. 77Darrell William Davis, “Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-bi,”Cinema Journal, 40, No.4(Summer 2001). Pps. 55-80. 78Ibid. 79Thomas Elsaesser, “Tales of Sound and Fury,” In Imitations of Life: A Reader on Film and Television Melodrama, ed. Marcia Landy, 68– 91 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), p. 176. 80Jay McRoy. Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), p. 123. 81Elsaesser, 183. 82McRoy, 123. 83Jasper Sharp, “Reviews: Tokyo Trash Baby,” (2001), Midnight Eye, http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/tokyo- trash-baby/. Accessed 11/5/12. 84Elsaesser,182-3. 85Mika Ko, Japanese Cinema and Otherness: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem of Japaneseness, (New York: Routledge, 2010); Yomota Inuhiko, “Stranger Than Tokyo: Space and Race in Postnational Japanese Cinema,” in Multiple Modernities: Cinema and Popular Media in Transcultural East Asia, ed. Jenny Kwok Wah Lau, trans. Aaron Gerow, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003), pps. 76-89. 86Ko, chapter 2. 87Tokyo Trash Baby is almost totally without soundtrack, but after Miyuki finds discarded song pages she buys a little toy piano that she uses to recreate Yoshinori’s half-written melody. Initially, it was these musical features that first struck me as a stylistic decision of the melodramatic mode, along with the emotional struggles of the youth protagonists. 88McRoy,109 89 Yoshio Sugimoto, Introduction to Japanese Society, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 127. Cited in McRoy, p. 106. 90Love & Pop, dir Hideaki Anno, perf Asumi Miwa, , 1998, Kino International.DVD making-of special, on DVD extras 91 Whether this maneuver is successful is another matter. 92 Since these are digital video cameras, the effects of the fish-eye lenses and aspect ratios are most likely “simulated” by in-camera programming. 93 The end credits of Kareshi Kanojo no Jijōhas an almost exact sequence of a camera mounted on a toy railroad track; it tracks underneath school desks and through a long warehouse-like environment. Here, Anno utilizes young female’s legs as geographic landscapes as tunnels as passageways. 94Love & Pop, dir Hideaki Anno, perf Asumi Miwa, Tadanobu Asano, 1998, Kino International.Kino Video DVD back cover. 95 Hiromi describes her dream as “A fat man is forced by a guard to pick mushrooms, when he sees a scorpion he pleads with the guard to let him go, as if he gets stung, he will die. The guard pretends to not hear.” 96 In one scene, three girls are on a bridge and a fourth is on another, having a conversation. It would be incredibly unlikely that the girls, who are traveling together, would split for this awkward staging. 97Japanorama, “Youth.” 16 June 2002 < http://www.ovguide.com/tv_episode/japanorama-season-1-episode-2- youth-336129> accessed 3/6/13 98Love & Pop, dir Hideaki Anno, perf Asumi Miwa, Tadanobu Asano, 1998, Kino International. 99Love & Pop, translation by Kino International. 84

100The film’s title is Love & Pop in hiragana and English but here, written in katakana, it is “Mister Love & Pop” (misutah rabu ando poppu). The client known as Captain Eo fetishizes a stuffed animal from Disney World. The character’s name is Fuzzball, but he tells her that his doll has its own private name. However, only he and his father know its true name. His childhood trip to Disney World was the last time he was with both his parents before their divorce. The true name, tied with the importance of the memory and with loss, can only retain meaning in its privacy. However, here meaningfulness of withheld information is burst, and the absurdity of the name itself, “Mister Love & Pop,” deflates the object from its emotional capital. By exposing Fuzzball’s real name it could be read that, Captain Eo has also burst Hiromi’s dream of the imperial topaz ring. She understands how important the doll is to Eo; in fact, her care of it saved her life. Hiromi is faced with her own blind fetishization of an object. Captain Eo, a rapist and thief, admits that he carries around a stuffed toy because it represents a time when he was happy as a child. Hiromi is not a callous girl who is unaware of her consumption habits, but the terrible encounter with Captain Eo drains the pleasure of consumption from her. Her voiceover establishes her authority over herself, as unknowable to herself as she is. Here she admits the desire for the ring is an indication of her sense of alienation from her friends and herself. She realizes the false power of consumption is a stand in for the unattainable, which here is an acceptance of herself and impending adulthood. 101Tokyo Trash Baby, dir Ruichi Hiroki, perf Mami Nakamura, Kazuma Suzuki, Kou Shibasaki, 2000, Love Cinema Vol. 1. DVD subtitles, here it is relayed as yume-no-shima with hyphens

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Chapter 3: The Death Game: Horror-Thriller Films and Japanese Youth

Horror film from Japan, in particular, the ghost-horror film genre such as Hideo Nakata’s

Ringu series (1998, 1999), Takashi Shimizu’s Grudge series (1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009,

2014, 2015), and even the One Missed Call films (2003, 2005) appealed to international audiences while still maintaining a distinct Japanese cultural significance. Characters such as

Sadako from The Ring and Kayako from , with their pale-white skin and long stringy black hair, reinvented the image of the ghost to many international audiences. Horror films became a boon for not only Japan but also other East Asian countries, including transnational co- productions. Since the late nineties, Japan’s seemingly un-ending production of horror and

“extreme” cinema has continued to garner international attention, most notably as many

Hollywood, East Asian, and South Asian horror films have adapted, quoted, and added to these cycles.

Notably, a very specific subcategory of horror-thriller, I trend I isolate and call The Death

Game film, developed. It is generally set against apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic landscapes and societies with a game narrative at the center. The emotional crux of the film is the emphasis on the psychological states of the main characters, several of whom do not survive. The narrative progress generally seeks to immerse the protagonists in a horrific situation, and after they witness others die, they gather means of survival, whether it be allies, weapons, or information, and attempt to win the game. The death game film is a subcategory that begins as a horror film and ends as thriller because of the stakes of a horrific game and focuses on the sacrifice and survival of its players. Often these films feature a single protagonist navigating his or her way through a dangerous environment while also battling other human beings who have

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compromised morals and behaviors. The use of the “death game” in these films is a narrative trope that expands on the personalities of the victim-players and helps to develop certain archetypes: the main protagonist is often a reluctant player, the avid player is the villain, and victim-players die.

As a storytelling device, the death game is a compelling frame narrative. There are clear- cut rules, often clearly established villains and easily identifiable protagonists. The horrific circumstances of the game easily lend narrative weight and, after a pattern is established, the death game film is ripe for sequels. However, the overall readings of these death game films are pessimistic, both in the ways that they approach social critiques and the fates of their most charismatic characters. Horror films typically end with a clear resolution, even within the ghost- horror genre, which typically embeds itself in domestic matters, there is generally a way to appease the vengeful ghosts. Here, the death game within these films, is a larger metaphor for a corrupt society. There are those with power to inflict pain on Japan’s youth, and they not only enjoy it, but are given free rein to do it. Therefore, while some fierce and courageous youth fight back, these narratives often end with their sacrifice in order for others to survive. As a generic pattern, the death game, with its clear rules and stakes, often produces some of the most ambiguous conclusions, a distinction I find productive in analyzing these texts.

For this subgenre, I use Battle Royale (Kenji Fukusaku, 2000) as the first entry into this genre progression, most notably as a break from the strand of ghost films that had achieved major success in Japan in the 1990s. Adapted from a novel by Kōshun Takami, Battle Royale is based on a near-future governmental policy that imposes a national lottery to force middle- schoolers into a Battle Royale. This policy is officially enacted to curb juvenile delinquency as well as provide reality entertainment, as the death game is televised live across Japan. Due to its

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incredible popularity and controversy as well as its thematic depth, Battle Royale’s established academic discussion lays important critical groundwork in cultural anthropology and social and cultural criticism on neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, and juvenile delinquency as outlined in the introduction.

I will also analyze two other film series, the Death Note films (Shūsuke Kaneko, 2006,

2006), and the Gantz films (Gantz and Gantz: Perfect Answer, Shinsuke Sato, 2011, 2011).

Death Note is based on a cat-and-mouse game between a brilliant college student who can kill by writing names in a notebook and the young adult detective who tries to catch him; the third series has young protagonists Kei and Kato, newly dead, reappear in a Tokyo apartment along with several strangers, who are then forced to hunt and kill powerful aliens.

Starting with Battle Royale, a trend in these Death Game films is also to articulate the generational anxieties of youth protagonists who struggle in an adult world. These narratives tend to dive into fantastic premises, which require violent behavior for survival, hence the dystopian themes. Many of these films depict a world that threatens young adults’ lives, driving them to fight against repressive political systems, and pushing them towards violence or self- violent ends. Other examples that employ the death game trope include Higunchinsky’s102 Tokyo

10+1 (known as Tokyo Eleven, 2002), in which a group of eleven criminals are part of a life-and- death game whose prize is three million yen and a clean record but who are forced to dodge malicious forces and fight each other.103 Continuing the game-cycle are manga-turned-TV drama turned live-action films: Liar Game (Kaitani Shinobu, manga: 2005-ongoing; TV Drama I and II:

2007, 2009-2010); Liar Game: Final Stage (2010); and Liar Game: Reborn (2012) which focus on an honest college student who is given one hundred million yen and forced to compete to steal the money of other players. Another manga-turned film is Ikigami (Mase Motoro, manga:

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2005-2012; film 2008) in which the Japanese government imposes a “Prosperity Law” which dictates that one-in-every-one-thousand young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty- four will die for the state in a mandatory lottery. Kokumin Quiz (1994), a manga by Reiichi

Sugimoto, establishes a televised “National Quiz” in which the winner can ask for anything he or she wants, but the loser becomes an enemy of the state and is severely punished.104 Other titles include Death Game Park (2010), a mobile-TV series, in which condemned teens are forced to fight to the death, and Incite Mill (Hideo Nakata, 2010) in which young people sign up for a well-paying part-time job in a mysterious mansion only to find out they must survive traps and each other for seven days.

I choose to focus on the Battle Royale, Death Note, and Gantz series because each places youth protagonists at the center, forces them to participate in life-or-death situations, and focuses on the psychological development of the main protagonists as they adapt and seek to understand their newly lethal environment and the strict rules they must abide by in order to survive. Even though generically these films are thrillers and therefore temper their pathos with action, the narratives explore the internal emotions of the characters to a higher degree than some of the other entries into the general survival/death game genre. Young adult characters frustrated with the static structures of the Japanese “adult” world dominate these films. The narratives track specific characters’ emotional development, from their troubled backgrounds to their current struggles, be it within a murder game, a supernatural world, or simply the harsh realities of adulthood. The following section will trace the origins of the “survival horror” genre as a

Japanese video game narrative which became popular in the early eighties as an influence on the later narrative structure of the Death Game film.

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SURVIVAL HORROR AS PRECURSOR TO THE DEATH GAME

Literature and films across many national contexts often highlight “survival games” or

“death lotteries,” from Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” (1924),

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948), Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (1987), and novels (2008, 2009, 2010) and films (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015). Often, themes and motifs of the “survival game” can be easily read onto national contexts and political commentary, for example Daniel Minahan’s film Series 7: The Contenders (2001), in which six

U.S. citizens are chosen by lottery, given a gun, and forced to kill on a perverse reality show called “The Contenders,” can be read as a scathing indictment of reality programming and sensationalized television violence in the U.S. In Japan, too, this narrative formula has a particularly nationalistic history, spawned from science-fiction disaster narratives, dystopian thrillers, but also from video game development beginning in the mid-80s and achieving great success in the mid-90s.

The international release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 made home video gaming possible and became the “most influential videogame platform of all time.”105

After evolving from simple hero play and puzzle solving, a popular genre wereshooters and the subgenre “shoot-em-ups,” digital games where the avatar, such as spaceship or person, must shoot enemies that enter the viewpoint of the screen. It often emphasizes speed and reaction time of the gamer. After that came the genre known as “survival horror,” which is very influential on the Death Game film.The survival horror video game is structured so that the player/user controls the main character who must outwit or hide from monstrous foes, and, if the protagonist does have a weapon, he/she has limited access to ammunition.106 The focus of these video games is survival, not shooting everything on the screen. The key to survival horror is the gameplay

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experience of fear and tension. Some threats from horror literature and film that these games typically employ are ghosts, haunted houses, , and slasher killers. On this trend in video games, Richard J. Hand writes, “Survival horror is generally understood to be a game in which the player leads an individual character through an uncanny narrative and hostile environment . .

. Some avatars have psychological depth and their wits are pitted against elaborate puzzles.”107

Hand breaks down the many international influences on survival horror games including literature by H.P. Lovecraft and U.S. television series The Addams Family but argues that seminal survival horror video games originate within Japan. He also cites Japanese cultural influences from Japanese folktales, Edogawa Rampo, and Japanese Noh Theater.

THE DEATH GAME NARRATIVE

Generally, game structures have three major components: rules, strategy, and outcome.

Players must overcome obstacles in order to win the game. The Death Game structure has many similarities to survival horror specifically, and video game culture generally, because first and foremost the “game” element provides characters in both video games and films with rules and the possibility of survival. The protagonist of the Death Game film, although he/she knows the rules of the game from the beginning, does not believe the circumstances to be true and often does not take action until halfway through the film. As a gamer, identifying with the character heightens the investment and tension, which constitutes the emotional element because a player's character/avatar can die and often does. In films, audience identification with the primary protagonists creates a similar emotional tension.

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The Death Game film straddles the generic conventions of horror and thriller to offer an empowering experience for some players and audiences alike. Though horror films also notably end with a few key survivors, it is generally the final act before a victim finds a way to fight back, equipping her-or-himself with weapons and resolve to live. The Death Game film offers challenges throughout and focuses on the extension of psychological trauma, from initial onset, through grim resignation, and to formulation of a survival plan. Additionally, the death game trope has become a solidly popular generic extension of horror films, even producing new iterations in the U.S. with films such as The Maze Runner series (Wes Ball, 2014, 2015, 2018) and Andron (Francesco Cinquemani, 2015). This chapter highlights a generic movement that focuses on the cruelty of oppressive organizations or circumstances on contemporary youth.

Through deliberate pacing and thoughtful character development, the death game as a narrative device offers the protagonist/player an opportunity to right unstable and unfair systems.

The youth protagonists in the Death Game films are often on par with the genres of horror as they represent a “typicality” of nation, age, and economic context. They are usually young adults who excel within the games and are relatable due to their humanity; they have a desire not only to survive, but also to save others.108 The Death Game begins with an authoritarian imposed game structure which forces participants to either fight other players or survive a deadly environment. The death game is often at the center of public attention, as exploitive entertainment or governmental punishment or both, which reinforces an image of a callous world that endorses death games. Always strict rules of conduct dictate the game, as the game is usually a method of control, not empowerment. The viewer is always positioned to sympathize with a reluctant-player who struggles and dreads the avid-player who kills unremorsefully.

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Gantz, Death Note, and Battle Royale all use a similar structure to the survival horror genre and death game sub-genre by emphasizing not only the rules of the game but also the psychological elements of the game; in particular the films often heighten anxiety and fear by revealing enemies’ whereabouts and strategies that the protagonist does not know. This is where the gamer and the film viewer’s relationship of fear to the texts overlap. Battle Royale and Gantz both force their protagonists into a death game as an extension of Japanese institutions (such as school, government, and career), the battle grounds, and the rules laid out before them like a video game set. Death Note takes place through two primary protagonists, Light and L, who utilize those same institutions as tools for manipulation in their game. The fear and anticipation prominent in this narrative is concentrated on the threat of the other player’s next move.

Additionally, all three films utilize classic video game rules, structure, and effects as reference points. Battle Royale gives clear survival rules and a three-day deadline. Every player is equipped with a weapon and a map, the same beginning as for any classical adventure digital or board game. Every twelve hours, the gamemaster blocks off certain areas, causing the remaining players to confront each other. At the end of each day is a “tally,” in which all the losers/deceased are announced. Death Note has the longest set of rules and guidelines for its players to follow and are listed inside the front cover of death notebook to help the player keep track. The viewers are consistently reminded of the rules which appear as text on the screen.

Tension is built as both Light and L “squeak” by on technicalities or manipulations but still adhere to the rules. However, the films with the most obvious set of references to survival horror are the Gantz series. In Gantz the spherical black object, "Gantz," is powered by a human battery and is presented as a more abstract authoritative oppressor than the explicitly governmental- sanctioned Battle Royale Program. In one way Gantz is the protector of Earth, finding fighters to

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battle aliens, but its mocking tone suggests that it is also a sick pleasure. Gantz enjoys the process of taking recently deceased (“Your lives are mine now”) as a never-ending expendable anti-alien taskforce. Gantz uses an 8-bit digital game format to make crude, pixilated drawings of the gamers and their alien targets, such as “The Onion Alien.” Additionally, the players are awarded points if they survive. If the players are able to accumulate 100 points, they can choose to exit the game safely. Yet, the film also infantilizes the black sphere, likening the other-worldly machine to a sadistic child.109 The 8-bit renderings and the mocking tone make sinister a previously harmless digital game trope.

The final important aspect to the theoretical framework of these death games is that of the

“gamemaster” or “overseer.” Especially in regards to these films, someone, a person or institution, is presiding over and forcing others to participate in the game. In Battle Royale it is a governmental practice used to punish teens, aired on television as a reality television series, and run by Kitano-, the students’ former homeroom teacher. The military presence is constant through Battle Royale, from uniformed and armed soldiers and helicopters to the tracking necklaces each player wears. Eventually, Shuya and Noriko realize that in order for them to both survive they will have to overcome the entire governmental system. Death Note’s overseers are neutral death gods who watch Light and L’s battle with little interest. The intervention of a new death god drastically changes the stakes of the game. In Gantz, the overseer is a giant black sphere, powered by a human body. Gantz maintains fastidious records as to each player’s performance during the game. In the conclusion of Gantz II: Perfect Answer, it is revealed that

Gantz’s goal has been to find a new human body to replace the dying one within itself. The competition between the players is what initiates the hero-player’s fear, but the actual conclusion of the game requires overthrowing the systems that support it.

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The following section will go through each film, beginning with Battle Royale, then

Death Note, and finally Gantz, by describing the conditions of the game, the psychological weight of the film’s narrative, and the marking of where the audience’s investment in the tension surrounding the protagonist should be. Scene analyses will focus on the manifestations of surveillance and monitoring, in particular as the gamemaster observes the players or in how media plays a role in exposing the player’s vulnerabilities. In particular, I am discussing what the games look like and how they are translated filmicly in each case.

THE FILMS: GAME MOTIFS AND STRUCTURES

Battle Royale

Battle Royale begins with the premise that the government-mandated battles royales have a history of uncontested success. A reporter states, “This year’s game was even more blistering than the last.” Yet, Guisseppe Verdi’s “Requiem: Dies Iraes” plays as television cameras and reporters surround a bloodstained girl and her teddy bear. The same reporter shouts, “Look, she’s smiling! She’s smiling!” in a manner that emphasizes that this is not typical behavior from the final survivor. The media frenzy surrounding the young girl sensationalizes her sadistic reaction as well as the battle royale tradition. The use of “Dies Iraes” is a musical signifier for this scene as well. Typically used during Roman Catholic mass, “Dies Iraes,” is a sequence that connotes

Judgment Day, when souls of the unsaved are sent to hell.110 After the reporter’s exclamation, a close-up of the girl’s face then cuts to the title credits. The orchestral music drops off and a class photograph is seen. The camera focuses on the face of the instructor (and later gamemaster)

Kitano, then on Shuya Nanahara. The now quiet score gives way to a still shot of Shuya’s face as

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his voiceover narrates his story. The film begins in this way in order to establish the psychological conditions for two very different players, the little girl and Shuya, and their motivations in the death game. This film will follow Shuya, a quiet and lonely protagonist who is full of compassion. He is a character who will not enjoy the game; he will only see the horror. In less than two minutes, Kinji Fukusaku has established the stakes of the game and the cultural climate in a fictional Japan.

Set in the period of its production, similar to contemporary Japan, the Japan of Battle

Royale is suffering a massive recession, all-time highs in unemployment and student rebellion.

However, Battle Royale’s solution is for the Japanese government to pass the “Millennium

Educational Reform Act,” aka the “BR Act” to punish teens who boycott school (tokokyohi- school refusal) and to curb juvenile delinquency. The “BR Act” chooses a third-year middle- school class at random and forces students to fight their classmates to the death. This is an alternative-reality Japan, a dystopian economic state that celebrates murder games amongst children. The primary protagonist, Shuya, introduces his circumstances in voiceover as he witnesses the abduction of his class, gassed on the bus on their school trip. They have been chosen as the next participants of the national battle royale. The students awake in an unfamiliar classroom, wearing electronic collars. Kitano, their previous instructor, is a representative for the military/government. He explains the rules as he mocks and terrorizes them: “Today’s lesson is kill each off until there is only one of you left.” Soldiers wheel in a television set and an

“educational video” is played. A young pretty girl explains the rules with cheerful gestures and winks. She explains that the military can track the students’ whereabouts through the electronic collars on their necks. If students break the rules, the collars also have the capacity to detonate.

The students have a total of three days to fight; if more than one student remains at the deadline,

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all survivors die and there is no winner. To complicate the game further, two outsiders have joined the group: one, a psychopathic volunteer; the other, a winner from a previous battle royale. Shuya’s friend, Nobu, protesting the cruel game, is killed in front of them. As a gesture for his dead friend, Shuya chooses to protect the girl Nobu loved, Noriko Nakagawa.

Similar to a traditional role-playing game (RPG), each student is equipped with a weapon, a map, and some rations and then is let loose on an evacuated island. This is where the traditional RPG blends with the survival horror genre discussed earlier. The first half of Battle

Royale can be argued as an example of the survival horror due to the BR Act’s brutal premises alongside limited rations and resources. Students’ decisions at the beginning of the game reveal their moral character. Some immediately demonstrate their refusal to participate; one student throws the weapons bag back at the armed soldiers. Some students vow to remain friends while others ask what they win. Shuya’s choice to pair with Noriko illustrates that he will not participate in order to win but to protect someone else and that he chooses to make alliances. As the film continues, the deaths are tracked with onscreen statistics, with student ID numbers and deaths shown, sometimes in death tableaus. Again, the narrative crux of the film is the students’ varied responses to the game, resulting in some tragic missed opportunities for group survival.

Shuya and Noriko spend most of the film practically inert with fear and shock as they witness friends and classmates kill each other. Their gaze and emotional torment serve as the vehicle for the audience to align themselves with the despair of the film’s protagonists.

Eventually, Shuya and Noriko come under the protection of Shogo, the previous BR winner. This narrative development causes the shift in genre: first, Shogo, as a previous winner, has strategies for survival. Second, he, like Shuya and Noriko, was forced into the game again.

Third, he has already lived through the trauma of a battle royale so he is able to comprehend his

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surrounding and actively participate in the game. Now the protagonists have entered into the psychological thriller component of the survival game. Shuya and Noriko, under Shogo’s tutelage, now have a fighting chance at survival so they begin to participate actively in the game.

They decide to find their allies and overthrow the game master.

Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name

In Death Note, Light is a genius college student who finds a “death note” (desunoto), a notebook that belongs to a Death god (). Light is referred to as a genius with a strict sense of moral justice. In addition, his father is the Chief of Police in Tokyo. After reading that a violent criminal has been released due to lack of evidence, he tracks that criminal to a bar. The criminal confronts and intimidates him, leaving a terrified Light spurning the justice system in contemporary Japan. At this moment, the death note falls from the sky. With it comes a bored death god named Ryuk and strict rules regarding its use:

1. The human whose name is written in this note shall die. 2. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected. 3. If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen. 4. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack. 5. After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.111

Light tests the notebook when he sees a hostage situation on television. Television news outlets report the criminal’s name and photograph on the screen, making them easy targets for Light and the death note. When he establishes its credibility, Light goes on a killing spree, writing names

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from televised news programs and hacking into the police database in order to kill convicted criminals in jail cells. These deaths become widely covered in the media and causes split public reactions from fear to adulation. Light enjoys this newfound power and relishes the attention he as Kira (killer in Japanese) receives for the killings. The first film, Death Note, largely acts as an establishing narrative, explaining the rules of the world of death gods and introducing the key players. Often, Light is seen debating the morally gray areas of Kira, first with his girlfriend

Shiori, then with Ryuk, and finally with his father, Chief Yagami.

In order to catch Kira the Japanese government brings in a genius young adult detective named L. His valet, Watari, first introduces him through a computer screen as the letter “L” with an encrypted voice. Also introduced as a genius, his background is unknown except that he is a famous detective. Before we ever see L in person, he publicly reveals several correct deductions as to Kira’s location and methodology. L organizes a media stunt in which he places a death row inmate on television, listing the criminal’s name as “L,” to bait the Kira to murder the man. The surreal nature of the live murder leaves most the police force spooked. With a small group, Chief

Yagami finally meets L and discovers that he is a young adult male with a penchant for sweets.

Though Chief Yagami respects L’s intelligence, he is often left far behind the youth in the investigation.

Midway through the first film a U.S. FBI agent named Raye Iwamatsu suspects Light may be Kira. Through death note manipulation, Light uses Raye to kill an entire FBI squad, and later kills Raye, Raye’s U.S. CIA fiancée, and Light’s own girlfriend Shiori, all to evade detection. Light’s sacrifice of good people for his own survival solidifies him as an antagonist that must be stopped. Before this, he was a semi-righteous vigilante who “exacts justice” on convicted criminals and stops ongoing crimes as he witnesses them. Light’s character descends

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into villainy as he struggles to retain his supernatural privilege. Though a moral code drives L, that he is willing to sacrifice others (and eventually himself) to achieve his own ends is also an equally selfish pleasure. Moral ambivalence within both parties requires that neither survive.

After several successful evasions, L finally discovers the death notebook. In the climax of the second film, Light reveals himself to L because, upon discovering L’s true name, Light arranges for L to die in the next 40 seconds. However, L has already written in the notebook his own name for a peaceful death in twenty-three days.112 Light is exposed to his father and, in his fury of being caught, asks Ryuk to kill his father, L, and the other detectives. Ryuk instead kills Light.

Twenty-three days later, Chief Yagami says goodbye to L after which L peacefully dies.

Gantz and Gantz: Perfect Answer

Gantz’s primary protagonist is Kei Kurono. In contrast to Light and L, Kei is an ordinary college student who is quickly killed while helping his junior high school mate, Kato, save a drunken man off Tokyo subway tracks. Both Kei and Kato die in their rescue attempt. After their deaths, the two boys reappear in an empty apartment facing a giant black sphere. They soon realize they have been reborn into a hellish-type limbo where the sphere, “Gantz,” orders them to pursue and kill aliens.113All of the players, save a silent Nishi, are bewildered by their surroundings. New player appear in the room as if being digitally downloaded, sometimes top down, sometimes from extremities inward. A young girl appears naked and wet, an apparent suicide. The new players begin to recall their deaths right before appearing in the Gantz room.

Gantz gathers all kinds of recently deceased citizens to fight deadly alien forces and, if they survive their battle, are released back to their regular lives. The first appearance in the bare

Tokyo apartment shows the deceased as the “gamers” in the foreground, backs to the camera,

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seated or standing in a semi-circle around the imposing black orb. When it is time for the alien confrontation to begin, a cheerful morning exercise song emanates from the orb. Despite the high-tech quality of the sphere and its weapons, the musical broadcast is choppy and filled with static. This clearly references real-life Japanese government broadcast public services,114 but adds the additional factor of the juxtaposition of cheerful mundaneity against the surreal and exceptional circumstances of the first scene of gamers. The instructions are given on a green screen reminiscent of early 8-bit video games. The script addresses them informally and in an increasingly mocking tone to illustrate that there is no respect for these lowest-level entry gamers.

In Gantz, the narrative provides science fiction tropes: enhanced leather bodysuits, guns that shoot invisible lasers and cause devastation and, of course, aliens while the dramatic action is more clearly aligned with the horror genre as the aliens destroy the players’ bodies. The gamers are bewildered and afraid and on the brink of utter despair as they are thrust into action.

Although they are not fighting each other, they quickly understand that survival is difficult and that strategizing is required. The central drama involves the altruistic Kato striving to save all the gamers after seeing many of them brutally murdered. Similar to slasher films, no time is spent introducing the majority of minor characters as most of them die within each round. Characters are given a prominent defining trait that grounds them into a broad to which the audience can relate. Much like Battle Royale, the broadness of the is used as a shortcut instead of prolonged and complicated personal portraits. Interior drama is clearly expressed through dialogue, often in a simplified state, but is used to cut that much more quickly to the dramatic crux of the situation.

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The gamers come from all generations but the survivors of each round tend to be the teens and young adults. In fact, in direct opposition to the genre, where teens are the primary victims, Gantz quickly dispenses gamers who are not young adults. For example, a grandmother and her grandchild are helpless in the second round and are quickly slaughtered.As stated previously, Kei is depicted as average, unexceptional. Only when he chooses to don the the battle uniform does he become exceptional. As a typical college student in plain clothes on a subway platform, Kei is one of the faceless masses traveling to school or job by subway. It is clear how desperately he wants to remain invisible when he tries to ignore Kato’s plea for help.

After he survives his “first round,” he numbly carries on with his usual routine. Returning to the same subway platform, he reads from the same manual and commutes with thousands of others.

Kei experiences the frustration and despair of this new forced system as a parallel to his previous oppression of attending college lectures and job interviews. After returning to his regular life, classmates evaluate Kei’s ability to land a job. One states that Kei has “no presence”

(sonzaikan), implying that he is not hire-able. This phrase echoes Gantz’s rating of one of the gamers after the first alien-killing scene, as if “presence” or “charisma” would be a useful attribute for dead people hunting aliens in urban Tokyo. Kei’s job manual lists his “mantra,” a generic personal philosophy that he has memorized. In a job interview, he intends to recite this line but falters, and it is clear that he has no conviction in his words: “I believe there is a place where each of us can realize our fullest potential.”115 Throughout the film, he will recite his mantra two more times, with each inflection differing according to his realization of the stakes of the survival game.

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After Kei experiments with his gaming suit and tests his physical abilities, he begins to embrace the alternate world where he thinks he can take control and, in effect, finally succeed.

He stands in front of a mirror, reciting the mantra, and it is clear he is overconfident and drunk with his newfound power. Instead of the corporate system in which he has no “presence,” he has opted for the survival game. He is finally exceptional. However, by the second film, the other players also don the uniform and become exceptional fighters. Eventually they become a deadly force; even the cowering Suzuki becomes heroic through the use of the battle uniform. In the

Gantz system, the suit—with its implications of potential uniformity—provides the fallacy of a level-playing field; it represents a choice that individuals may make, to go from average everyday-ness to unified fighting force, to win by achieving 100 points.

Similar to Death Note, moral ambiguity in Gantz is also punished. As Kei masters the battle suit he becomes arrogant and reckless. He is reminded of his younger days in elementary school where he used to protect students who were bullied, including Kato. He embraces the chance to feel strong and confident again, but as the final battle scene of the first film illustrates, he refuses to be a team player and his greed for attention causes others to die. At first he is indignant, but, after Kato is killed, he comes to his senses. Kei does not have the humanist simplicity of Battle Royale’s Shuya or Noriko; he must first grapple with his own ego before realizing how the survival game does not only kill but can also corrupt. At the end of the first film he recites his mantra one last time, this time reservedly. He has chosen to take responsibility for Kato’s death and now appears ready to fight for a purpose other than self-glory.

In Gantz: Perfect Answer, Kei is an exceptional leader and accepts responsibility to protect those around him not only in Gantz battles but in his parallel real life as well.116 There is also the secondary plot of aliens taking on the appearance of deceased gamers, in particular,

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Kato. Gantz: Perfect Answer also introduces several new players who exhibit incredible skill, soon revealing that they are all previous players who had each achieved 100 points and were freed from participating but have now been brought back into the game. This speaks to the futility of success in the death game. The first film compared the “real world” against the Gantz world; the former was one in which Kei could not succeed compared to one in which he could.

Now both worlds are parallel systems preset to beat all players. The players surmise that Gantz is building an army of it is best players for a final confrontation because it is dying. Their final mission requires them to hunt down a human girl instead of an alien, Kei’s girlfriend Tae

Kojima. Kei recognizes that this is no coincidence. Gantz will never release him and will destroy any semblance of his attempt to achieve a “successful” life. With 100 points in one target, the players are morally split into two factions: those who want to be free and those who want to resist Gantz’s manipulation and protect Tae. Eventually, the Kato-alien kills Tae and the players are again united against the alien forces. The battle is moved back to the original Gantz room.

Kei agrees to give his life to Gantz, the aliens are defeated, and everyone else returns to their normal lives. This end can be read in two ways. One method cautions against excellence: being the best at the game leads to a life captured inside the black sphere and Kei has won that spot.

The other way can be that Kei has finally achieved his successful life in sacrificing it, in battle and martyrdom, for his friends, not for the success of the system.

In the following three sections I focus on specific instances in the three major film franchises that emphasize the psychological thriller aspects of the films through surveillance. In each film, instances of gamemasters and/or systemic oppressors rejoice in the gamers’ newfound deathly situation. The “sick” pleasure installs the distinct feeling of dread: it communicates to the participants that their lives do not matter, that the system is larger than them, and that many have

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suffered in a similar fashion in the past. Yet surveillance works distinctly for each film. In Battle

Royale, it is a technological combination of gamemaster Kitano and the introductory video spokes-model’s description of the battle royale collars. I will break down how this introduction of the rules in the world of Battle Royale is crucial in setting the tone of the film. Then, in Death

Note, I will discuss the role of the supernatural shinigami, in particular Ryuk, and his detached observation of and enjoyment of Light’s executions. Finally, the paranormal characterization of the black sphere known as Gantz and how players such as Kei and Kato negotiate their identities around it will be studied.

SURVEILLANCE IN BATTLE ROYALE: TECHNOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT

While I argue for the role of the gamemaster as enforcer of the death game through surveillance, I am referring to the narrative trajectory of the death game genre as one of suspense and supervision. The use of surveillance in these films does brush alongside some larger theoretical approaches about modern culture, especially Michel Foucault’s book, Discipline and

Punish, and his references to the panopticon as well as one of the most foundational cinema theories of voyeurism and scopophilia in Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative

Cinema.” Building on the extensively researched article, “Surveillance Cinema: Narrative

Between Technology and Politics,” by Catherine Zimmer, my focus in this section on surveillance and technology lands somewhere among all of these approaches. Zimmer establishes a generic category of “surveillance cinema,” writing, “I want to demonstrate that even when films are focused on insistently visual deployments of surveillance technologies, the narrative construction around those technologies suggests highly complex dynamics—dynamics that neither psychoanalytic conceptions of voyeurism nor Foucault’s discourse on Bentham’s

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panopticon can entirely account for,”117 developing a rich literature review with a final analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) as “demonstrating that the multipletheoretical reworkings of such a film almost always introduce scopophilic desire and political context asan and/or formulation, I want to argue for an analysis that explores the contiguous relations between thosestructures as a way to understand the historical production of surveillance culture.”118

Zimmer’s approach on surveillance cinema is situated within a classical Hollywood historical context, with undertones of gender and psychoanalytic theory, a more classical approach that focuses on the filmic apparatus. Garrett Stewart’s article, “Surveillance Cinema,” goes a step further by focusing on the use of surveillance technologies in the narrative of spy and action films. Stewart analyzes U.S. male-protagonist action films, in particular The Bourne Legacy

(Tony Gilroy, 2012) and Total Recall (Len Wiseman, 2012) with an added sub-category of governmental surveillance and identity.119 While these contexts are not the same set of historical or industrial contexts as the death game films that I discuss, they point to the same use of technological tracking and surveillance that is a dominant psychological and narrative device in

Battle Royale. The collars are key to the narrative: to monitor and enforce. It is only by disabling the collars at the end of the film, that the students have an opportunity to overthrow the gamemaster.

In order to discuss the use of surveillance technologies and what they impart narratively,

John Turner, utilizing Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, argues for the explicit relationship between surveillance and spectacle:

In those films that incorporate surveillance functions into their narrative, we are treated to an image of distance, speed, ubiquity, and simultaneity--all qualities of the spectacle as well…Through this logic spectacle and surveillance are collapsed onto one another as an effective disciplinary apparatus--a set of techniques for the management of bodies, the management of attention, and for assuring the ordering of human multiplicities.120

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Turner is establishing the premise that those spectatorial consumers Debord argues for are the same as those who consume cinematic images and the fascination with the technologies and practices that goes alongside it. The connection here is sight and the necessary relationship between spectacle and observer. However, what I find most useful here is the idea of a

“disciplinary apparatus” since the method of control of the players in the death game is through a set of rules that, if broken, result in death. Through these film series characters will unsuccessfully test the rigidity of the rules and the spectacle of their subsequent deaths motivates the survival of the main characters.

In Battle Royale, the institutional oppressor is the Japanese government. The battle royale is a solution to the problem of rebellious Japanese youth and an opportunity for reality entertainment. The Japanese army, including soldiers, tanks, and helicopters, are the on-screen manifestation of the Japanese government, aligning governing with the military. On the bus for their class trip, Shuya is the only student who wakes after being gassed. He first notices that all the other students and their homeroom teacher from Class B are asleep. Their postures are slumped over in unnatural positions, and he struggles down the aisle toward his friend Noriko.

At this moment, a female bus attendant turns to face the camera her face covered in a gas mask.

Similarly, the bus driver wears the same mask and a military dress cap. The female attendant strikes Shuya over the head. Next is an establishing shot of the island where the game will be held then the students are shown lying on the floor of a dark classroom, stirring awake. Again,

Shuya wakes first, rubbing his head. He immediately realizes he is now wearing a metal collar

(fig 3.1).

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Fig 3.1 Shuya feels the electronic collar around his neck

The technology of the electronic collar plays a pivotal role in controlling the middle-schoolers as the introduction of the game and its rules needs to be brutal. It needs to intimidate the students in order for them to truly fear for their lives and fight to win. It not only tracks the players’ movements, they have imbedded microphones and explosions which can be set-off by the gamemaster.

The students look around the room, bewildered. Two new students, seen in different school uniforms, lurk in the corners. The sound of helicopters above causes the students to go to the window. They open the curtain and the searchlights blind them. This is the beginning of the students’ realization of the severity of their situation. The military presence signals the stakes; what follows is a controlled environment in a “realistically-set” world (fig 3.2). To set up the death, game legislature has been passed (BR Act), the military enforces it, the island has been evacuated, parents have been notified, and the one teacher who protested is killed immediately, his dead body wheeled out to intimidate the students further (fig. 3.3).

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Fig 3.2 A helicopter lands outside the abandoned classroom

Fig 3.3 Kitano makes an example of class B’s teacher

Kitano was Class B’s former instructor, and his rhetoric plays heavily into metaphors of the Japanese educational system: “So today’s lesson is, you kill each other off till there’s only one of you left,” and “Life is a game. So fight for survival and find out if you’re worth it.”121 I have previously discussed the extensive writing on the socio-cultural criticisms of contemporary

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Japan in the introduction, namely the works of Andrea Arai, Marilyn Ivy and Tony Williams.

These analyses of the Japanese educational system, economy, and politics are important but represent anthropological approaches and cultural criticism, whereas I am analyzing narrative and generic parameters of the death game. Kitano’s instructions could easily be the introduction to any death game film. What is significant to note is that the narrative reveals along the way that

Kitano himself is a failed adult. His class protested school attendance so often that he quit to become a part of the Battle Royale program. He is often seen as a pathetic figure. Through several phone conversations with his daughter, it is learned that he is not cared for nor wanted in his family. His introduction here shows his pleasure in punishing Class B and establishes his long-desired authority over others, which he could not do in his own personal life.

Consistent amongst these films us the gamemaster’s pleasure over his subjects. The black orb, Gantz, cheerfully tells his players that their lives “are now mine” while Ryuk cackles with delight every time Light evades capture through unnecessary killings. These three death game films juxtapose a callous figure who enjoys violence and death against the victimized characters in order to exaggerate the psychological trauma on the players. In Battle Royale, Kitano is the gamemaster and also a metaphorical stand-in for an entire nation of adults who do not value the lives of the young. This appears most obviously with Oneesan (big sister), the Battle Royale

Committee-sponsored video model who explains the rules of the game via a television monitor

(fig. 3.4). Her costume and mannerisms are a direct replication of Japanese popular culture, in particular idoru or pop idols, in a satirical twist. Her speech is kawaii, or cute; she is conspicuously cheerful and signs in well-known gestures including tracing tears down her cheeks

(fig. 3.5).

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Fig. 3.4 Oneesan explains the rules of Battle Royale

Fig 3.5 Kawaii hand gestures belie the serious situation

She explains the role of the collar (kubiwa):

That’s where these necklaces we have you wearing come into it! They are completely water and shock proof and there’s no way to get them off. This sensor monitors your pulse, telling us exactly where you are and what you’re doing. If you’re still in a danger area when the time runs out or are doing something

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naughty, we will send our own signal to you. The necklace will sound an alarm and then…boom! It will explode! Trying to force it off will also make it explode. Don’t even try it, OK?122

Oneesan’s video has cut-aways to several reaction shots from the students. They grasp the collars around their necks and exchange looks. When she mimics an explosion, “boom!,” they recoil visibly from the television screen. From their facial expressions, most of the students understand the gravity of the situation. The one who rebels is problem-child Nobu, the student who previously attacked Kitano with a knife and is Shuya’s best friend. Nobu screams and physically attacks Kitano, only for Kitano to activate Nobu’s collar. It is a tragic sight for Shuya, but it serves to cement the students forced participation as well as establish Kitano and the BR

Program’s overseeing authority by remote control. The detonated collar kills Nobu and sprays

Shuya with his blood.

After the rules are established, the players work within the strict confines of the game, most attempting simply to stay alive; a few try to win. In the beginning, the gamemaster (and the spectator) is privy to more information than the players. The game is set so that the overseer has an unfair advantage over those who must try to survive. In this death game, the goal is to navigate past the participating players to ultimately challenge the gamemaster. Another of

Shuya’s friends, Shinji Mimura, realizes that the collars also have microphones so he types out instructions for his friends on his laptop. Shogo Kawada, one of the outside students, also knows how to dismantle the collar, a trick he uses, off-screen, to save Shuya and Noriko at the zero hour. The film shows Kitano in his headquarters listening to Shogo fire his gun twice, apparently, a bullet each for Shuya and Noriko. When the BR winner is summoned to the headquarters, all three appear. The military presence has already left, and the final confrontation

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takes place. Kitano, with a toy gun, intended to die all along, which is an oddly non-cathartic way to end the death game.

The battle royale collars are the main system of surveillance. Most of the students do not attempt to hack or remove, simply accepting the collar’s function, which is to enforce the players’ participation. Shuya and Noriko are amongst those students having no plan until aligning with Shogo. Shuya and Noriko witness the deaths of many other students and they are often paralyzed with fear and/or attempt to prevent it. Shogo, a previous BR winner, represents a survivor, an active player, but in the end, he sacrifices himself so that Shuya and Noriko can live, protecting them from Kazuo Kiriyama’s gunfire as well as implementing the collar ruse. Shuya and Noriko emerge alive but clearly traumatized, and they are soon targeted as enemies of the state.

Though dystopian, Battle Royale is firmly entrenched in realistically designed legislative parameters. There is a political and social reason and a method that operates on a legislative and governmental level. It is perhaps this factor that makes it so much more horrific than the other films in this chapter. The Battle Royale program can track and overhear the players through the collars but only actually detonate them the one time: on Nobu at the beginning of the game.

Though they never have to flex their power over the students, the collars are constantly present on every player as a constant reminder that death is imminent. The motivations for the players’ actions all manifest from their forced participation, either from total fear and stasis to active participation or total defense, the presence of the collars expose each player’s inner nature.

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SURVEILLANCE IN DEATH NOTE: TELEVISION AND THE SUPERNATURAL

The narrative world of Death Note is one that accepts the existence of shinigami, or death gods, and the powers of the eponymous “death notebook.” Though the circumstances of the world are different, they still draw similar rules and patterns which connect it to a death game category, especially in the callous nature of the shinigami, the use of surveillance and suspense as well as the constant testing of rules and boundaries between death gods and players alike.

Light’s initial motivation is to rid the world of crime, but his megalomania causes him to transgress against traditional moral codes. The first film begins with a ten-minute sequence introducing Kira’s killings of criminals as mass media events in Shibuya and Shinjuku. The first criminal shown is killed during pursuit but several of the following killings are shown on live television surrounded by reporters with microphones and cameras. From the deaths as live event, the film then focuses on how its younger population processes these media events. Shots inside an Internet café and a montage of a television news reporter interviewing multiple youths illustrate the split opinion on Kira’s killings as justified or not. The film depicts televised media and journalists in a politically satirical manner, reminiscent of the celebration of the battle royale winner at the beginning of Battle Royale. The eager consumption of sensational footage and a desensitized public is a criticism of contemporary Japan and traces an intersectional survey of public opinion. Many young Japanese citizens are depicted as weighing in on a difficult subject fairly lackadaisically; one girl even asks Kira to kill her parents before laughing and saying she does not mean it. However, the film assuredly establishes its protagonists as those people who find Kira’s acts reprehensible. L is as fueled by the hunt itself as by social justice but others who

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disagree with Kira’s killings are innocent bystanders, including U.S. FBI agent Raye Iwamatsu, his fiancé Misora, and Light’s own girlfriend, Shiori. The subsequent cat-and-mouse game causes both men to sacrifice many others, including themselves in the relentless pursuit and evasion.

Death Note, like Battle Royale, utilizes contemporary realistic technological devices; a plethora of screens are within the film as students play with their cell phones to the giant television screen in Shinjuku where a crowd gathers to witness Kira’s powers live. Light has access to all the necessary information he needs to kill through televised news reports, in particular a criminal’s name (with correct spelling) and face. He has a unique power to kill with the notebook, one that cannot be realistically fathomed in this world. He also has access to the news and has hacked into the police database, always staying one step ahead of them.

Additionally, surveillance appears in Light’s everyday life. In a rare moment of levity, Light and

Shiori go on a date to a museum. They stumble on a couple kissing in the corner. Light asks

Shiori if she wants to kiss, too, but then they both notice a camera mounted in the corner. Shiori responds that she does not want to be caught on camera. Later, after Light believes he has made a significant victory over the police, he and Ryuk are on a walk. Light tosses Ryuk an apple, but

Ryuk allows it to fall to the ground. Light asks Ryuk what is wrong and quickly realizes that he is being followed. At another point in the film, Light realizes that his room has been bugged, so he pretends to study when he is actually writing in the notebook.

The film keeps the audience in touch with the many tedious rules of conduct in the game.

Intertitles appear on-screen to reiterate certain rules as Light tests them. L and Light, speaking to the police task force and Ryuk, respectively, meticulously explain their actions and the opposite’s reactions. However, throughout the first film, Light is ahead. The end of the

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introductory sequence symbolically illustrates this. As a crowd gathers in front of the giant television monitor, Light is seen amongst them. A criminal has taken a group of people hostage.

The news shows his name and face. Light pulls out his notebook. As the live news continues, it is revealed that the criminal has died inside the building, and the hostages are being led out. The crowd is mixed with gasps of horror and victorious cries. The camera zooms in on Light (fig.

236).

Fig. 3.6 Light watching the media reporting his killings

In the background, the building behind Light displays the store name, “My City,” a famous

Shinjuku shopping center. According to a Tokyo tourism guide, “My City” is “a building with a mass of small shop units. Directly opposite My City is Studio Alta…This is an 8-story building with a shopping center, best known for its giant TV screen broadcasting popular TV shows from the TV studio on the 7th floor.”123 However, the significance of the store sign above Light is not lost. The low-positioned camera and Light’s confident stance also speak to Light’s enjoyment of his new power.

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After Light’s first confrontation with L and his later realization that he is being followed, his desperation not to be caught causes him to use his notebook on non-criminals. The initialization of the death game in Death Note is this process or pursuit and evasion. L “reveals” himself to Light in a news broadcast on Kira. However, it is not L but a death-row inmate acting as him. Light, thinking L has made a critical mistake, is goaded into killing the criminal live on air. The moment that Light does this, the real L, hidden behind an “L” image, reveals that “Kira” has fallen for his ruse. Light’s subsequent horror leads to Turner’s second point about surveillance and suspenseful narrative form, Turner notes, “This last point is at the soul of suspense theory--that is the idea of anticipation, which is calculating, expecting, and evaluative of a coming event. When a surveillance technology is shown on screen to expose or place under gaze some character or event, it can generally be assumed that the surveillance sequence prepares the viewer for some subsequent violence or potential for violence.124 Turner’s point works for both Light and L in this scene. Light uses the live broadcast for his killing purposes, and L pinpoints new information by setting a trap for Kira. Either way, this scene exemplifies the moment when the film goes from the horror of the death game to a thriller. Previously, Light has enjoyed the supernatural privilege the death note allowed him but now that another genius attempting to stop him, the two will challenge and chase each other, making a cat-and-mouse game between the two. L knows how lethal Kira is, but he does not understand the supernatural powers of the death notebook. Light has now turned his murderous gaze from criminals to L, the

Japanese police, I.C.P.O (Interpol), and the U.S. FBI all ostensibly the “good guys” trying to capture Kira. Before, Kira had a slightly moral code, one in which doing evil should be punished even without due process. Now, Light/Kira can and will kill anyone in order to save himself.

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However, I want to return to the scene to break down some of the relationships at work in order to analyze the workings of media and the chase between Light and L. Light and Ryuk are alone in Light’s bedroom. A special news report starts on the television. A man, speaking

English, introduces himself as Lind L. Tailor and explains that he is in charge of a task force that will capture and punish Kira. Tailor goads and insults Kira, stating that Kira “has an extraordinary ego, and is a vile and immature criminal,” and is “far lower than the criminals you’ve eliminated.” After this, Light has had enough, opens the notebook, and writes Lind L.

Tailor. Forty seconds later, Tailor dies on air. Unlike Battle Royale, the competition is not fully tracked and televised, but television media plays a large part in the death game between Light and L. The film quickly jumps around several locations, from a group of Japanese citizens watching television displays in the subway (fig 3.7), Light seeing the “L” logo on his home television (fig. 3.8), the Japanese police watching from their headquarters (fig. 3.9) and then to another public viewing in Shinjuku (fig. 3.10). Several groups watch the spectacle, reacting as the action develops. Everyone is witness to how this confrontation is going to go. It is surveillance played out as spectacle on a national level. Several citizens gasp with horror when

Tailor dies and with good reason. As stated previously, citizens had witnessed deaths of criminals, but this is a consultant from I.C.P.O., an International police agency which has deemed Kira to be a public threat. Because Tailor revealed himself and his desire to track and capture Kira, it opens the possibility of violence as Turner states. It is the turning point of the film.

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Fig. 3.7 Onlookers watch L’s broadcast in a subway station

However, as soon as Light smiles at his victory, the screen image “L” appears with a digitally masked voice. “Impressive,” L says. He explains that he has gathered information on how Kira kills and where Kira is, just by limiting the broadcast and provoking him. The “L” screen first appears on Light’s television monitor, appearing to be an intimate confrontation.

Immediately after, it is shown that the Japanese police are witnessing the meeting of the minds in real time as well. It is then expanded further to illustrate that the Japanese public is also witnessing the events as they unfurl.

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Fig 3.8 L’s logo appears on Light’s home computer

Fig. 3.9 The Tokyo Police watching L’s broadcast

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Fig. 3.10 More onlookers watch L’s broadcast in Shinjuku

It is a completely different method of surveillance than the collars of Battle Royale or the alien power of Gantz to track his players. The players themselves, primarily L and Light, track each other, primarily through criminal’s deaths and police sacrifices, while everyone else has to watch from the sidelines. However, the initiator of all of these events is Ryuk, who plays the gamemaster role in his detached pleasure in watching Light. To Ryuk, it is simply an experiment as to how humans behave once they have access to supernatural power. When Light rages against L’s statements, stating that Kira is “Savior of the weak and God of the new world,”

Ryuk’s shadow looms over Light (fig. 3.11). Ryuk laughs at Light’s righteous reason for killing:

“You kill in the name of justice? Humans are fun!” As the camera zooms into Ryuk, he appears to address the audience directly (fig. 3.12).

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Fig. 3.11 Light rages againsts L’s words as Ryuk’s shadow looms

Fig. 3.12 Ryuk enjoying the conflict

As can be seen in fig 3.12, Ryuk’s appearance is slightly horrific, his skin is dark grey, and his limbs are extended further than normal human bodies. His mouth and sharp teeth are abnormally large, and he is often seen flying in place rather than standing.125 As the film

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progresses, Ryuk twists and turns his body in ways that are not meant to mimic human movement, emphasizing his other-world origin. Ryuk has the power to end Light’s reign as Kira at any point. Though he tells Light that he is on neither his nor L’s side, his enjoyment of Light’s intellect is why Ryuk allows Light to play this death game in the first place. Though employing a different set of institutional parameters than Battle Royale, the center narrative here is likewise a death game. At the film’s conclusion Light has killed several U.S. FBI agents, including Raye, because they were close to exposing him. To frame U.S. CIA agent and Raye’s fiancée, Misora,

Light also kills his girlfriend Shiori.

Light’s journey into villainy is complete at the end of the first film. Though Light is the initial main character, L becomes the center of the second film’s narrative. L’s eccentricities are his defining characteristics, and though he personally shows little emotion, the other policemen keenly feel his triumphs. Light and L both pay the ultimate price and die at the end of their stories. The young twenty-something’s fate in Death Note is one in which they strive for greatness but ultimately cannot successfully achieve freedom or happiness, nor survive. While, it may not be easy to say that Shuya and Noriko are happy, they are together, free, and morally justified in their fight against the system. The same cannot be said for Light or L.

These young protagonists struggle to succeed in the real world, which is depicted as a closed system, but are then in turn placed in an alternative system –“survival game”—as a metaphor of the near inability to escape oppressive societal expectations. Oftentimes, the only escape is self-sacrifice but, as I will discuss, from the turn of the millennium to the end of the first decade, what is at stake for these sacrifices shifts drastically. The Death Note films increase in complexity as the second film introduces a second death note and a second Kira. The presence of the shinigami moves from detached observer to active player. When Light realizes that he can

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manipulate the second Kira to his advantage, L’s search for the real Kira becomes increasingly difficult. As L gets closer to catching Light/Kira, Light evades him yet again by erasing his own memories of being Kira. L nearing Light’s capture is a potentially cathartic moment that the viewer is, yet again, denied. However, as the second film comes to its conclusion, even though L has finally exposed Light, it is Ryuk who takes his life, relishing it as if he had planned it all along.

GANTZ: SURVEILLANCE AND THE ALIEN

I have always believed that each one of us definitely has a duty. Each and every one has his own strength and talent. And there is a place for him to display those to the fullest. --Job Manual in Gantz126

The progression from Battle Royale to the other film series, Death Note and Gantz is a transition of teen idealism to a reserved cynicism in young adults. Kei, and Light, as the central figures of their respective films, exhibit many similarities. They enter university, come from middle-to-upper-class families, and continue ties with their families into their college years. Kato and L represent a slightly more alienated upbringing: Kato has killed his abusive father and cares for his younger brother while Watari raises L in an orphanage for gifted youngsters. However, these four young men have survived their mid-teens, have continued from unknowable middle- schooler in Battle Royale to come to new crossroads in their young adulthood. Instead of the black-and-white demonization or idealization, these characters debate the complexities of a violent world and dig deeply into competing psyches. The worlds in Gantz and Death Note continue the theme of oppressive institutions begun in Battle Royale but have dislocated them from direct national or governmental criticism to something more ominous and ambiguous. The

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black sphere and the death notebook are paranormal and supernatural systems, and both can be manipulated for good or evil.

In the first scene of Gantz, Kei has a voice-over, reciting the above words from an employment manual. He is standing on a subway platform as he reads from a job interview manual. Kei repeats these sentences several times throughout the film, each with different inflections due to the circumstances in which he is involved. In this first scene, however, before he is able to finish the phrases, he is distracted by a large advertisement with a nude supermodel opposite him. At the beginning of the film, Kei is depicted as unfocused, immature and a bit sex- crazed, which are all qualities of a normal college student. Kei has two worlds in which he struggles to realize his talent; the process of navigating job interviews and surviving the death game. These two themes will consistently intersect in Gantz, namely by utilizing the same terms in the death game and on the job market, such as “downsized,” “unhireable,” and lacking

“presence,” to Kei reciting his mantra in both job interviews and in the death game alike.

Despite Kato’s violent childhood, his idealism and altruism pushes him to wanting everyone to survive even when the harsh reality means that is not possible. This introductory scene immediately posits Kato against Kei. Kei not only recognizes Kato on the platform but also pretends not to see him. When a drunken man falls onto the tracks, Kato is the only one on a crowded platform who attempts to help him. Kei represents the majority here as he, nor anyone else, offers no help to Kato despite his desperate cries. Even when Kato recognizes Kei and continuously screams for his help, Kei tries to ignore him. Bystanders help pull the man onto the platform but Kato is still stuck on the tracks and Kei finally runs to his aid. Instead of helping

Kato onto the platform, Kei is pulled onto the tracks and the oncoming subway train kills both boys.

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The boys’ death is not shown explicitly but instead vaguely shown in a cut to a subway security camera (fig. 3.13) illustrating the ubiquity of surveillance technology. It is a striking first five minutes to the film. In this brief amount of time, the relationship and personalities of each character are made clear. Both Kei and Kato’s faces are shown in extreme close-up, their faces illuminated by the subway car’s headlights and intercut with the security footage of their violent deaths. Their dark figures appear ghost-like as bystanders watch them die.

Fig. 3.13 Cameras catch Kei and Kato on the train tracks

In the next shot, Kei and Kato are in the same posture as on the train track but unharmed.

They are in an unfurnished Tokyo apartment, surrounded by several men seated on the floor with

Gantz in the background. All except Nishi are brand new players. Suddenly Gantz begins to play a song; it is a radio calisthenics song from before WWII. The sound quality mimics a fuzzy radio broadcast, and children sing a patriotic and cheerful song. The radio callisthenic song is an odd comment on nationalistic pride, as the broadcasts have controversial racial and imperialistic overtones.127 As Gantz tells them if they want to return home, then they have to hunt down and

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kill the Onion Alien (fig. 3.14). Gantz’s mocking tone and informal speech mimics Kitano’s from Battle Royale.

Fig. 3.14 Gantz’ message to the newly recruited players

Fig. 3.15 Gantz’ human battery

The text appears on Gantz’s surface in glitchy digitized text, the hiragana and furigana sometimes flipping backwards and forwards again and varying in brightness. It has the aesthetic

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similarity to a ransom note cut from magazine font, but in motion. It implies Gantz is a living, speaking thing, which is only further complicated as the orb opens up to reveal a human battery

(fig. 3.15). Neither Gantz nor Gantz: Perfect Answer explains Gantz’s origins or motivation. It is a gamemaster with total overseeing abilities, but, in this instance, it also has the ability to change the rules and the game as it pleases.

Although Death Note was more of a departure of the death game aspects due to the limited players and less institutional oppressor, Gantz also departs in structure in that it is a group of players with a single target. The new players experience terror when they witness others’ extremely violent deaths. In the first hunt of the film, Kei and Kato are the main witnesses as several men murder the child Onion Alien and then are subsequently murdered by its father. The first three men who joyously pursue the child alien do so because Nishi has convinced them that they will win 100 million yen and their greed goes unchecked. Suzuki, who also needs the money, enters the game reluctantly. The moral codes of the game are clear that those who are willing to play a death game for their own advantage are expendable, just as in

Battle Royale. These three players meet horrific bloody deaths, Nishi kills the father alien, and

Kato and Kei survive to fight another day.

The film follows Kei’s arc closely as he goes back to his everyday life. He goes to a job interview, repeating the same words from the beginning of the story. The room for the job interview is similar to Gantz’s Tokyo apartment (fig. 3.16, fig. 3.17). He is dazed and unconvincing. When asked a follow-up question, he cannot respond. However, as Kei begins embracing the Gantz world and experimenting with the powers of the X-gun and battle suit, the film briefly resembles a classic superhero genre film, as Kei experiments with his new powers in the streets of Tokyo. After each surviving player returns to Gantz, they are mockingly scored in a

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style similar to video games (figs. 2.18-2.21).Kei realizes that the point system means that once a player reaches one hundred points, they can be released. Kei resolves to win, thus reciting his mantra a third time, this time in battle suit, with the purpose of realizing his full potential in the game, not regular life.

Fig. 3.16 The players in foreground of the black orb, “Gantz”

Fig. 3.17 Job candidates in foreground of job interviewers

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Fig. 3.18 Kishimoto’s ranking

Fig. 3.19 Kato’s ranking

Fig. 3.20 Suzuki’s ranking

Fig. 3.21 Kei’s ranking

By the end of Gantz: Perfect Answer, Kei finally accepts that Gantz will never let him be free. Everyone has died, and Gantz offers to grant his wish for everyone to come back to life in exchange for his body. Therefore, his only recourse is to resign himself as a human battery for

Gantz to feed on, submitting at the end with only the wish for everyone in his life to be happy without him. The epilogue shows the gamers going on with their lives, same as always. An important punctuation shows Suzuki not returned to his office job but instead working in a convenience store, taking out the trash. As everyone goes about their lives, there is a clear sense that Kato and Tae, in particular, realize that something is missing but are unclear what, or who, it is.

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Gantz’s constant surveillance of its players converges as both measures of accomplishment and disrespectful criticism (figs 3.18 through 3.21). It does not only expose the players’ actions in the game but also seems to know their emotional states. Kei is correctly criticized because he “looked too much at Kishimoto,” and Kato is reduced to being “scared shitless.” Even though their reactions are obvious when faced with the reality of fighting aliens and watching their co-players be ripped apart, Gantz has no empathy: it is a machine that needs to supply an army against aliens. It is interesting commentary how the film graphically matches these scenes in front of Gantz with Kei’s experience in the job interview process. The film continually returns to his recitation of his mantra as by the first film’s end, Kei has decided to master the world of Gantz and bring Kato back to life. Soon, Kei will be shown as he desperately waits for his score at the end of his kills, his eyes glued to Gantz’ screen. Gantz’s scoring process is completely subjective, and therefore sometimes unfair, but Kei has no choice other than to play by its rules if he wishes to save his friends.

CONCLUSION

Shogo and Kei both sacrifice their lives for youths who will go on to continue to resist the static system of the war generation, who opt out of the corporate structure, or even the contemporary Japanese social order. So, while these films glamorize the state of war with mantras such as Battle Royale’s “Today’s lesson is kill each off,” Death Note’s Light and L both asserting that “I am justice,” and Gantz’s, “Go kill this guy,” their conclusions invert the message of a war citizen being the optimal contemporary Japanese citizen. Battle Royale’s revolutionary turn is optimistic; Death Note ends in a checkmate. The lesson to be learned from the ending of Gantz: Perfect Answer, which differs from that of Battle Royale, is perhaps the

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bleakest. In Battle Royale, the survivors have options to survive and revolutionize; whereas in

Gantz, the surviving players have returned to their menial jobs and lives, their memories of the violent game completely . They do not remember Kei Kurono as ever existing, even though his sacrifice was accompanied by a last wish for everyone to “Be happy.”

In each film, the “game” has a clear set of rules to abide, and each state that someone can survive. Battle Royale and Death Note are zero-sum games where only one can survive, and

Gantz offers the promise of multiple winners. However, this is an empty promise and the feelings of empowerment in the game prove to be false as well. Despite sound tactics and battle armor, Gantz players die or must sacrifice themselves. In Death Note, each time someone closes in on catching Light, they are also killed for their attempts. Even Light and L themselves cannot emerge alive. Although Battle Royale portrayed the most bleak and dystopic society of all these films, a distinct message of hope occurs at the end.

To be sure, Shogo and Kei resign themselves to die for “something larger than the self,” especially as faced with an unsympathetic and malevolent oppressor such as a punishing government or a mysterious black sphere. However, their sacrifice in the end, for Shuya/Noriko,

Kato/Tae, is not the service to the state as the Battle Royale Act aims to be. As previously stated,

Shuya and Noriko flee from Japan and reappear as terrorists against the Japanese state who have formed alliances with Middle Eastern terrorist cells in Afghanistan.

Written and eventually directed by Kinji Fukasaku’s son, Kenta, Battle Royale: Requiem

(2003) moves from generational conflicts within Japan to an international stage. Survivors Shuya and Noriko have formed a terrorist group and, at the beginning of the film, have caused a 9/11 like attack on two buildings. The “war on adults” has moved to a metaphorical “America” and implies that the U.S. forces Middle Eastern countries to conform to their structures. The film is

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heavy-handed, deeply problematic, and widely panned. In their introduction to Japan After

Japan, Harry Harootunian and Tomiko Yoda write, “America’s new imperial turn after 9/11

(return is a better description), war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, simply confirmed the of Japanese fears and anxieties that their status as America’s partner had always been an empty fiction . . . [and] emptied of all meaning but deception and bad faith on both sides.”128 It is easy to read Battle Royale: Requiem alongside this national sentiment but in particular as a transition from Battle Royale to Gantz and Death Note. Yoda discusses the complicity between

Japanese neo-liberals and neonationalists,129 both as reactionary political leanings towards the economic recession beginning in 1989. Shuya’s terrorist group, “Wild Seven,” attacks Tokyo by bombing several Tokyo buildings in their “war on adults.” The radical politics of the film aim to destroy the Japanese government, in particular the corrupt tactics of the BR Program and subsequent Battle Royale: Requiem. Making Shuya and the other members of the “Wild Seven” the protagonists situates the sympathy with them and their extremist measures. The end of the film shows them traveling through Afghanistan, a destination of significance in 2003 due to the

U.S. military presence and the “War on Terror.”

The dystopian state, excess of blood and violence, and youth despair are key generic quotations of the death game in contemporary Japanese film, mostly markedly distinguished by the hugely successful and controversial film, Battle Royale. Gantz’s exploration of these themes is a quotation and progression from those popularly established in Battle Royale. All the gamers are given the same equipment, but Kei takes up the mantle of fighter-hero and utilizes his ability to the fullest. In Battle Royale, the fighter-hero, the one who is not rendered paralyzed by fear, is

Shogo. Kei and Shogo both are savvy, capable, and heroic; however, their only escape is self- sacrifice for the freedom of the other players. Unlike the Hollywood hero, they do not survive.

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Both are sacrificial pawns in a systemic machine. Their respective choices to submit to the institutions in place are the only way to save others; however, the politics of the survivors vary considerably between the series. In post-millennial Gantz, this world is depicted as simultaneously more fantastic and banal; fantastic in the sense that the latter films utilize supernatural and paranormal elements, but banal in the sense that the conclusions do not lead to revolution, as in Battle Royale, but simply a return to mundane and un-extraordinary lives.

102The director goes by the single name, Higunchinsky. 103Although the plot is reminiscent of Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (1987), Tokyo Eleven is often criticized as a cheap imitator of Battle Royale, even sharing some of its stars: Masahiro Ando (Kuriyama in Battle Royale) and Natsuki Kato (Saki Sakurai in Battle Royale II) though Battle Royale II came out eleven months later. 104 Special thanks to Julien Bouvard who introduced me to the manga titles, Liar Game, Ikigami, and Kokumin Quiz. 105Chris Kohler, “Oct. 18, 1985: Nintendo Entertainment System Launches,” Wired.com, 10/18/2010, accessed 9/24/2016. 106Famous examples include such games as Sweet Home (1989), Alone in the Dark (1992) Clocktower 1 and 2 (1995, 1996), with the most famous series originator debuting 1996. 107Richard J. Hand, "Proliferating Horrors: Survival Horror and the Resident Evil Franchise," Ed Steffen Hantke, Horror Film: Creating and Marketing Fear (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), pps. 117–134. P. 117, pps. 123–5. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 108Death Note does not quite fit this profile but that will be addressed later. 109 After time begins, Gantz tells them, “Now go!” which is also reminiscent of the beginning of classic fighting digital games like Kung Fu and Mortal Kombat which began with the phrase, “Fight!” 110Charles Herbermann ed., "Dies Iræ," Catholic Encyclopedia(New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913). 111Though these are the key five rules, the actual list of rules of use reaches over one hundred. 112This is the longest a death can be prolonged according to the death note book rules. 113Perhaps due to Ninomiya’s idol image, Kei’s character is vastly different than in the original text. Instead of a sullen, selfish and angry young man, he is depicted as slightly lost but soon willing to take up the mantle of hero. Additionally, of the three stories, Gantz is the only manga that was still ongoing at the time of the film’s production; therefore, an original ending had to be written for the films. 114Yoshikuni Igarashi, Bodies of Memory: Memories of War in Postwar Japanese Culture 1945-1970 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 245. 115 Gantz, 2010. 116In particular, he has begun a relationship with Tae, and has taken on a part time job to help care for Kato’s younger brother, Ayumu. 117Catherine Zimmer, “Surveillance Cinema: Narrative between Technology and Politics," Surveillance & Society 8, 4, (2011), pps. 427-440. Pps. 427-428. 118 Ibid, 235. 119Garrett Stewart, "Surveillance Cinema," Film Quarterly 66, 2,(2012), pps. 5-15. 120John S. Turner, "Collapsing the Interior/Exterior Distinction: Surveillance, Spectacle, and Suspense in Popular Cinema," Wide Angle 20.4 (1998): 96. 121Film subtitles 122 Film subtitles 123 “Shinjuku,” Tokyo-tokyo.com, . Accessed 6/21/16. 124Turner, 97. 125The added feature of the director’s choice to make him a fully digital character adds to the unworldliness of his appearance. In fact, on his first introduction, the juxtaposition of Light and Ryuk is disjointed, as its digital enhancement is obvious and has been an oft-noted criticism by fans.

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126Kei Kurono is seen reading this “mantra,” from a manual. Subtitles call it Experience in Job Interviews. The title as far as is shown is “就職試験の面接スーパー” and does not come up in an Japan search, so is most likely fictional while also copying real life manuals of the same kind. 127Yoshikuni Igarashi’s chapter, “The Age of the Body,” focuses on the relationship between fitness and the body with nationalist ideology, in particular during wartime regulatory propaganda. He cites Kakei Katsuhiko, a University of Tokyo professor who “devised some calisthenics that fixed the body at the site of ideological struggle,” and suggests that “Kakei’s publication strongly suggests that the inauguration of a radio calisthenics program (rajio taiso) on NHK…in 1928 inspired Kakei’s ideological efforts,” Igarashi, pps. 49, 220. 128Harry Harootunian and Tomiko Yoda, “Introduction,” in Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), p.3. 129Yoda, “Roadmap to Millennial Japan,” inJapan After Japan, p. 16.

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Chapter 4: Yankii Films: Wild Youth

This project is to examine sub-categories of youth genre films that grapple with the economic decline at the start of the millennium and show Japanese youth in crisis. The first two chapters examine New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga and Death Game films, two sub-genres which figure heavily into the resurgence of the Japanese film industry and new auteurs. This chapter on yankii films and the last chapter, on the Near-Disaster, track the latter half of the first decade of the millennium as entries into larger budget, popular spectacle films, and animation.

This chapter serves as a transition from the earlier films, as the particular sub-cultural category known as yankiis,130 often characterized as street punks or troublemakers, are present in films as early as the nineties but become more of a starring role in the latter 2000s. Yankii films are often defined by a strict hierarchy of brotherhood and loyalty to their in-group, many values similar to those demonstrated in God Speed You! Black Emperor (Mitsuo Yanagimachi, 1976). Though the category of “social problem youth” films became most prominent in the 1950s with the Sun

Tribe (taiyōzoku) genre, as detailed in my New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga chapter, this specific cultural term, “yankii,” became popular for certain youths in the 1980s and carried over into different media representations. Often depicted as members of bike gangs, several manga series and other film texts depicted the subculture and brought it into the popular imagination.

Amongst many are the aforementioned documentary God Speed You, Black Emperor, manga

Sukeban Deka (1976-1982), the comical manga series Be-Bop High School (serialized from

1983-2003 in Young Magazine with several live action adaptations), the manga Hot Road (1983-

1987; live action film 2014), and even the popularity of Yutaka Ozaki, a young pop-rock musician in the ‘80s who sang about the difficulties of impending adulthood. Though these

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examples depict various degrees of actual “delinquency” and inform the contemporary yankii genre, these films often choose to focus on young heroic rebels who fight, make friendships, and hang out while enjoying their lower-class youth. As stated earlier, yankii is a social and cultural category and does not point to a specific genre. There are yankii characters throughout drama, romance and comedy films. However, like how the death game trope brings a certain set of psychological investment, films that focus on the emotional growth and lives of yankiis bring with them a certain set of narrative parameters, namely a bildungsroman of a main character establishing honest friendships, suffering through dramatic hardships typical of young adults, and having some fistfights along the way.

In his chapter, “The Birth of the Yankee,” Ikuya Sato discusses the ambiguous origin of the word yankii: general opinion assumes that it refers to American “Yankees” due to the gaudy and vulgar forms of dress and speech. Another theory is that it is a shortened moniker for yakuza.

Sato writes, “In spite of the uncertain origins of the term itself, the referent is quite clear. It usually refers to a distinctive style adopted by youths as individuals or as a group. It also means a youthful social type who is often associated with juvenile delinquency, including participation in boso driving…most bōsōzoku members are ‘Yankees’…although the converse is not always the case.”131 Here he begins the important separation of the two social groups, which tends to hinge on self-identification. Therefore, before elaborating further on the yankii category, I first discuss the significance of the documentary Godspeed You! Black Emperor, as its appearance in 1976 tends to predate the use of the term yankii, which appears in the 1980s.132 In Japan, bōsōzoku

(literally “speedtribe”) are called this due to their association with scooters, motorcycles, and cars and are considered a kind of delinquent. As a social movement, bōsōzoku groups appeared after WWII but became nationally recognized after the release of the documentary, Godspeed

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You! Black Emperor. However, to begin untangling the various terms for youth groups such as bōsōzoku, yankii and sukeban, I first refer to the crucial work by Sato, a cultural anthropologist, and his definitive work on bōsōzoku, titled Kamikaze Biker: Parody and Anomy in Affluent

Japan where he interviews and analyzes the behaviors of real life bōsōzoku and yankiis.133

According to Sato, youth categories such as bōsōzoku or yankii are often associated with varying degrees of criminal activities: in particular, public disturbances, drug abuse, and gang rape. He explains that, beginning in the 1980s, bōsōzoku activities were commonly chronicled in the White Paper on the Police, the yearly report explaining contemporary affairs to the Japanese public.134 Sato writes, “In the ten-year period between 1973 and 1983 the number of youngsters associated with motorcycle gangs rose from about 12,500 to about 13,900, involving about

24,000 vehicles. During the same period, the number of arrests for bōsōzoku activity increased from some 28,000 to 54,819 cases, including 48,278 traffic and 6,541 criminal citations.”135 This was the time of the most interactions between the various subgroups of delinquency. Joachim

Kersten’s sociological study on bōsōzoku identifies the connections between various levels of criminal activity as well:

A description of current gang phenomena in Japan has to include three categories: (1) youth gangs, (2) bōsōzoku, and (3) yakuza. These constitute different gang phenomena and deviant life-worlds: Youth gangs are similar to street corner groups or local gangs in Western countries. Although they may include females, prowess and masculinity are at the forefront of focal concerns of such groupings. Members are aged from 14 to 20. Bōsōzoku are 17- to 20-year-old males (also some females) on motorcycles or in customized cars. They take part in nightly high-speed, high-noise, and high-risk rides, chased by police. Some bōsōzoku activity is carried out by tightly organized groups [sic]; some boso drives are crowd phenomena rather than exclusive gang pursuits. Yakuza gangs are networks of male adult criminal organizations with hierarchies, bosses, and a corporate structure of involvement in illegal, semilegal, and legal enterprises including links to ruling politicians. There is some overlaps between youth gangs, bōsōzoku, and yakuza, but it is controversial whether this is of a consistent nature. [sic]136

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The association of delinquency and these group terms, specifically yankii and bōsōzoku, then, is tenuous. Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s 16mm documentary, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, kept this issue at the center of the film, often focusing on interactions between the bikers and police while also illustrating the legal repercussions of going on boso rides. Yanagimachi follows a biker gang, the Black Emperors, and chronicles the ins and outs of their daily lives. Overall, their activities are considered common teenaged fare such as meeting in their clubhouse (hanaya), bragging about their uselessness and idle lives, and meeting for large boso rides through the streets of . One boy, Decko, even claims not to have a home but Yanagimachi films

Decko’s home life extensively. Decko has received a citation from the police, and he begs his mother to accompany him to court. His parents are exasperated and they mention how many times they had previously appeared in front of a judge on his behalf. Decko’s parents explain how they, as parents, are expected to apologize profusely for the actions of their child. At this point, they choose to no longer defend him. Decko’s punishment is the loss of his driver’s license. The Black Emperors demonstrate their traditions, their loyalty, punishments, and strict enforcement of dues, but otherwise they consider themselves a “touring” club. They prefer gathering as many members as possible for organized rides rather than committing crimes.

The boys’ appearances seem tame, even in the seventies context; however, the majority have either shaved heads or “punch” perms137 (see fig 4.1) and smoke excessively. For a film about “speed tribes,” much of the film takes place in stasis. The film begins with the riders gathered but unable to begin their rally due to police interference. The exchange between the

Black Emperors and the police is calm as leaders of the groups discuss options. The riders are permitted to ride, but as they go through the city, the vast number of them actually prohibits high speed, and they are seen stuck in traffic or going very slowly. The end of the film highlights two

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lower members’ bad behavior. One in particular, Gomu, has lied twice, and as punishment he must shave off his and make a public apology. Many of these scenes take place in

Yanagimachi’s apartment, including a near eleven-minute segment in which their leader chastises them for skipping meetings when they clearly make time to visit the director although the leader himself is in Yanagimachi’s apartment and not at the hanaya. As delinquents, the

Black Emperors appear mild in comparison to U.S. standards of motorcycle clubs. According to

Godspeed You!, joining a bōsōzoku is a rigidly conformist way to rebel against conformity.

However, Yanagamichi’s film is the first and most prominent documentary on Japanese youth culture and has gained cult status. It is important to begin with Godspeed You! as the introduction to rebellious youth and their practices of naming themselves into certain new social categories. The self-identification as a bōsōzoku, yankii, or sukeban and subsequent behavioral adaptations to be recognized as such is a key narrative theme of self-actualized identity in the films I discuss in this chapter.

A yankii’s form of acting out may vary and each subcategory has specific titles attached: yankii (street youth, general), bōsōzoku (bikers), bancho (the male leader of a male gang), and sukeban (a female gang leader). However, the general fashion sense, behavior, and sentiment remain the same. The members of these, often working-class, youth are grouped under the umbrella of oya o nakaseru (to make parents cry/weep).138 In media texts, these characters are frequently identified by altered school uniforms, making them over-sized or non-traditional such as untucked shirts and no tie for boys and long, pleated skirts for girls (fig 4.2). Both sexes often slick their hair (fig 4.3) or dye their hair various colors and sport piercings, wallet chains, and rough speech. They are also often depicted as hanging out on the school roof, eating ramen, or squatting outside convenience stores or on street corners in “unko/Yankii suwari” stances (poop

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sitting: a manner of squatting, traditionally used for Japanese-style toilets).139 Yankiis often borrow honor systems from samurai and kamikaze culture, especially in reverence to chains of command or adornment of their biker jackets with patches of the rising sun, patriotic or militaristic slogans, and Chinese hanzi.140

Fig. 4.1 Decko’s “punch perm”

Fig. 4.2 Long pleated skirts often seen on Sukeban

Fig. 4.3 Rock band Carol epitomizes slick back hairstyles on 1973 album cover, “Funky Monkey Baby”

Of the four genre movements discussed in this project, the yankii film is the social category most distinctly native to Japan. Though every national cinema has explored themes of youth rebellion, the stereotype of the, often male, Japanese street youth is so pervasive as to represent a cultural archetype that appears in a variety of generic expressions. In Japanese, yankii refers to 1980s youth from the industrial areas of Osaka who would purchase non-Japanese name brand knock-offs.141 This fashion trend soon became tied to blue-collar youths, often members of biker gangs. As stated previously, in the 1980s, yankiis and their biker counterparts, bōsōzoku, became popular cultural icons and the subjects of multiple on-going and successful manga series.

In addition to being represented in a pervasive contemporary generic mode, the yankii icon also demonstrates the synergy of current media industries, as the majority of the popular texts

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begin at the level of manga, graduate to anime or live-action television series productions, often as part of the television branch of major publishing houses, and peak to blockbuster motion pictures funded by television companies.

The generic flexibility and popularity of the yankii can be assumed to garner a degree of guaranteed commercial success. Doug Williams writes that four phases characterize “the evolution of a genre" in his essay on the history of U.S. Vietnam War films: "the four distinctive phases: a formative or experimental period, a classical stage, a period of refinement or revisionism and a baroque or ironic phase.”142 However, where he writes, “distinct,” I find more ambiguity. While the formative category may be easy to pinpoint, the other phases often appear coterminous with each other, informing the cycles continuously. Instead I want to further the idea of generic flexibility by analyzing the history of the yankii character in film. Through these cycles, the yankii is at the center of narratives that vary generically from slapstick comedies, romantic dramas, comedy dramas, and serious drama to action. In this chapter, I focus on specific treatment of violence and its significance to interpersonal relationships in several yankii films and how the manner and themes dictate the inflection of genre mood.

This chapter will first briefly discuss some of the key generic characteristics of the yankii film. The yankii film, similar to genre strategies analyzing classical Hollywood Westerns, relies on mise-en-scène analysis. However, the primary definitive factor is, in fact, the character of the yankii and the appearance of narrative events such as physical fighting, friendship making, nostalgic treatments of youth, and adolescent concerns about impending adulthood. I argue for a formative or experimental period in the treatment of "problem youth" from the sixties into the late seventies, most notably with the taiyōzoku films. The late seventies and eighties can be argued as a classical phase, if primarily because of sheer breadth of popular delinquent

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treatments from Toei’s “Pinky Violence” series to documentary, manga, and magazines about bōsōzoku culture. This boom of, what I term, “manual” manga, films, and television programs about yankii tends towards a comedic turn into the late eighties. Throughout these formative and classical periods, from the sixties to the eighties, is also a significant influence from Japanese , punk and , that reflects the same sentiments seen through the yankiis of the media texts, especially in regards to fashion, hair styling, and the themes in the song lyrics.

However, most this chapter explores examples of refinement or revisionism and the ironic or baroque, predominantly in early 2000s texts, namely independent works which feature similar themes but experiment with genre flexibility and film form. Namely, I argue, that while the films clearly exist within the larger categories of yankii films, they exhibit outlying narrative treatments and, most importantly, innovative filmic techniques and visual styles. I begin with

Toshiaki Toyoda’s adaptation of Blue Spring (2001) and then focus on Tetsuya Nakashima’s

Kamikaze Girls (2004). The ending of this chapter will discuss the Crows trilogy (2007 and

2009, Takashi Miike; 2014 Toshiaki Toyoda) as the most contemporaneous example, representing the re-invigoration of the Japanese film industry and the example of the yankii film as box-office big-budget spectacle.

FORMATIVE AND CLASSICAL PHASES OF YANKII FILMS IN JAPAN

To discuss the history of the yankii as a media text, I will first dialogue with several cultural phenomena that predate and inform the contemporary yankii character such as the

Japanese New Wave and the taiyōzoku movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, the popularity of

Pink films and the subcategory of sukeban (girl boss) films, the independent documentary

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and the growing social panic around bōsōzoku, manga series,

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and transmedia narratives, and then rock and punk music stylized and adapted from England.

Though the variety of categories seems wide, they are all effectively aspects of youth culture, street style, and wild abandon that comprise contemporary popular culture and its influence by and on Japanese youth.

Taiyōzoku, The Japanese New Wave and Pink Film’s Sukeban Series

David Desser, in Eros plus Massacre, describes the tendency to combine discussions of the Japanese New Wave with youth movements of the 1960s. Prominent Japanese film scholar

Donald Richie explains: “It is from Ishihara’s novel Season of the Sun…that taiyozoku was coined a genre. The taiyozoku phenomenon, a true creation of the media and due in large part to

Ishihara’s novels, drew the public’s attention to the dangerous antics of the sun tribe—that is, the young. The topic spawned several films, the one best remembered being Nakahira Kō’s Crazed

Fruit (Kurutta Kajitsu, 1956).”143 The storyline of Crazed Fruit is classically of the “sun tribe” generation. The young toughs idle away their days and nights going to nightclubs, hunting girls, having sex, and committing general deeds of mischief. Desser’s second chapter of Eros Plus

Massacre, titled “Cruel Stories of Youth,” taken from the Ōshima film, begins by commenting on the simultaneous appearance of the Japanese New Wave and other New Wave movements, mainly the French. “The Ampo demonstrations may have been the immediate catalyst for the sudden burst of the new wave, but the seeds of rebellion had been planted in the middle 1950s by a variety of factors revolving around the question of youth.”144 He begins his chapter by discussing the taiyōzoku films but then moves onto the political movements of the renewal of the

U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, the massive protests and student movements that erupted

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from this, and the profession and educational backgrounds of many of the young emerging New

Wave directors.

One of the aspects of these youth films, as discussed by Desser and Richie, is that one of the prominent “problems” of youth depicted was the boom of the sexual revolution. Idle teens and young twenty-somethings explored their sexuality on-screen. Many New Wave directors pushed the limits of censors, such as Koji Wakamatsu’s 1967 Violated Angels. Sexual and violent conduct seem to be necessary aspects of the youth genre as initiated by taiyōzoku films as well as the centrality of a youth protagonist. Many New Wave directors, such as Shōhei Imamura and Nagisa Ōshima, whose careers began with films with young adults at the center of the narrative [ (1961) and Town of Love and Hope/Cruel Story of Youth (1959,

1960) respectively] would eventually move towards depictions of older people in the mid to late

1960s.

Indeed, it is easy to see how the taiyōzoku films fit Williams’s notions of the formative phase of the genre development as they set the stage for movies about delinquent and distressed youth who struggle in modern life, both physically and emotionally, as well as being masterful films by auteur directors. To be clear, these delinquents are not yet those who are considered yankiis but instead are young criminals who commit prostitution, robbery, and murder. Yankiis are more defined by their working-class status, perform non-conformist behavior through dress and speech, and rarely engage in illegal activities (on screen). The taiyōzoku films, and later youth-centered films such as those by Ōshima, are political, sometimes nihilistic, with increasing violence and bleak endings. Desser notes a commonality in the downfall of the central protagonists in this period as due to gang betrayal, a concept that is completely antithetical to later yankii narratives.

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Popular and prolific directors began pushing the limits of film censorship in the late sixties and seventies. This, along with the massive popularity of Satoru Kobayashi’s Flesh

Market (Nikutai no Ichiba,1962), began a trend towards pink films and/or “cranking out” film series, such as the Gojira, , or Lone Wolf and Cub series. Though many of these series, such as Gojira and Zatoichi began earlier, they dominated the kinds of films that stayed in production through the seventies. Famous early pink films explored similar themes as the delinquent films of Ōshima and Imamura, particularly rape, torture, and murder/suicide. Seijun

Suzuki’s Gate of Flesh (1964) follows a band of female prostitutes who have strict rules of conduct, never have sex without pay, and dissolve their group unity after they allow an injured man into their hideout. Taiyōzoku films primarily focus on male protagonists, making Gate of

Flesh one of the earliest predecessors for female-gang/group focused narratives. Films such as

Gate and Koji Wakamatsu’s early political pink films, namely Violated Angels (1967) and Go,

Go, Second Time Virgin (1969), firmly established the popularity and success of pink films in the late sixties.145

When a significant audience decline for general movie-going occurred in the seventies, some studios, such as and Toei, also began producing their own brand of pink films. Of interest to this chapter are some of the later iterations of Pink Film productions from Toei, in particular their Pinky Violence series, featuring female protagonists who have been wronged and seek revenge. A key subgenre of this series features tight knit groups of all-female gangs and are termed sukeban films. Sukeban, like the male equivalent bancho, is the respectful term for a female gang’s leader. The sukeban films often follow girl gangs, who sometimes are in or just- released from reform school or who are roaming the streets on motorcycles (as bōsōzoku). The girls often engage in some minor illegal activities, including blackmail, prostitution, and

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muggings, and the gangs always feature a strong female leader who stands up to rival gang bosses and Yakuza alike. In her entry on Pink Films in The Directory of World Cinema: Japan,

Colette Balmain notes “while some pink films played out misogynistic of male dominance, such as the torture, S&M, and ero-guro [erotic-grotesque] genres, Toei’s ‘pinky violence’ series offered powerful woman [sic] in central roles who, rather than being repeatedly tortured and subject to sexual violence, were positioned as the perpetrators of violence whose very presence and activity subverted traditional Japanese patriarchal concepts of appropriate femininity.”146

Although Balmain references the Lady Scorpion prison series, the sukeban series embodies her sentiments even more poignantly. Just as the taiyōzoku films represent more violent and sexualized fare, the sukeban films also represent a harder side to girl gangs, as softcore films, they often involve consensual sex, violence and sometimes rape as well. Films such as the Delinquent Girl Boss series (four films from 1970-1971), and ’s Girl

Boss Guerilla (1972) and Terrifying Girls High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973) chronicle wronged girls seeking revenge and often murdering exploitive men. The end of Delinquent Girl

Boss: Worthless to Confess (1971, Kazuhiko Yamaguchi), for example, has protagonist Reiko round up her old gang in order to avenge a fellow member’s murdered father. After storming the

Yakuza-owned disco, they murder everyone on site. Even though, throughout, this film is one of the most light-hearted in the series, the stakes are often high and resolved through absolutist ends.

The key thematic component in sukeban pink films, outside of offering tittilating scenarios, is group dedication, respect for their leader, of course, and the pursuit of their sexual desires. The sukeban protagonist also often, interestingly, has a sukeban antagonist, a rival gang

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leader who contests her supremacy. In the case of Girl Boss Guerilla, the two sukeban battle it out to a standstill, both exhausted and eventually breaking into laughter. The two eventually team up against far worse male antagonists. Pink genre aside, these sukeban titles in particular, allow for a level of female friendship and solidarity often lacking in any normal contemporary film. It is those friendships, akin to the male friendship that one so often sees in any national cinema that makes them an exciting set of generic standards. These sentiments will echo in Kamikaze Girls, although completely devoid of sex and though only one character is representative of a girl biker gang, it is that character’s values of friendship and solidarity that the film praises.

Manga Series and Adaptations

After the formative documentary Godspeed You!, other texts emerged in the eighties that exemplify some of the broader characteristics on the fictional side of delinquent texts. The eighties were a significant low point in the Japanese film industry, and many studios were going out of business, save Toei and Nikkatsu, which continued to churn out kaijū-eiga and Pink films.

At this point, the manga industry is important to discuss. Many manga artists were featuring yankii characters, and their continued popularity and long-term success enabled certain studios to develop television series and feature films based on these already established series. The prevalence of popular manga series, especially during the eighties and nineties—a time when the film industry suffered the most—enabled the now-dominant practice of seisakuiinkai, which is the investment of several industrial branches in co-producing media texts.147 One of the most successful example of the sesakuiinkai process will be Be-Bop High School, whose manga series

I profile here, and then the Crows: Zero films, which comprise the last set of 2000s films I analyze later. The seisaukuiinkai process typically begins with an independent mangaka (author)

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who a publishing house contracts to run their series in collected manga volume magazines. If the series is successful and has had a decent run (enough narrative to adapt to another medium), it is then re-made as a televised anime or live production series. After which, if the series still continues to be successful, it can be released as a live-action film and sometimes a series of films. Therefore, it is important to begin with the appearances of these manga authors and series in the eighties. The following is a sample of popular manga series which begat other media texts:

Sukeban Deka (au: Shinji Wada, 1976-1982, TV drama series 1985, 1985-1986, 1986-1987, OVA 1991, and live action films 1987, 1988, and 2006 as Yo- yo Girl Cop dir. Kenta Fukusaku. Be-Bop High School (au: Kazuhiro Kiuchi, 1983-2003, live action films: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1987, 1988, 1988, dir. Hiroyuki , 1999 dir. Kazuhiro Kiuchi, TV Movie, 2004, dir. Fuminori Kaneko Hana no Asuka Gumi! (au: SatsosumiTakaguchi 1985-1995, 2003-2009, 2007- 2008, OVA 1987, 1990, TV drama series 1988, live action film 1988, 2009) Rokudenashi Blues (au: Masanori Morita, 1988-1997, anime films 1992, 1993, live action films 1996, 1998, dir. , TV drama series, 2011.) Shonen Junai Gumi (au: Tōru Fujisawa, 90-96, five live action TV movies, 1995) Crows (au: Hiroshi Takahashi, 1990-1998, OVA, 3 Live Action Films) (Keisuke Itadaki, 1991-1999, 1999-2005, 2005-2012, 2014- ongoing, OVA 1994, anime series 2001, 2001) Tokyo Tribe and Tokyo Tribes (Santa Inoue, 1990-2007, anime series 2006-2007, live action film, 2014 dir. ) Blue Spring (Taiyo Matsumoto, 1993, film adaptation 2001 dir. Toshiaki Toyoda) (Tooru Fujisawa, 97-2002, 2009-2011, 2014-ongoing, anime series 1999-2000, TVdrama series 1998, 2008, 2014, 2014, live action film 1999)

Be-Bop High School was a formative series that dominated the dry times of the 1980s.

This series follows Hiroshi Kato and Toru Nakama, two delinquent youths who have left their motorcycle gangs but retain their friendship with each other. They spend their school days acting tough and chasing girls. The first chapter establishes the primary themes of the series, namely excessive cursing, fighting, and various failed attempts at losing their virginity. Be-Bop High

School is one of the originators of “manual” manga, the generation of manga which will continue

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on to inspire readers to yankii lifestyle as well as guide them into the actual behaviors and fashion in order to be one.148 For example, one early chapter has a skinny nerdy male student asking a girl on a date. She responds that she only likes delinquent-style boys, motivating him to seek Hiroshi and Toru for help. They explain the first step in the process to becoming a yankiis

(fig. 4.4):149

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Fig 4.4150 How to dress like a yankiis from Be-Bop High School

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Here, Toru and Hiroshi blatantly describe the act of becoming a yankii first begins with dressing like one. The chapter titles also describe lifestyle choices of being a yankii, such as “The Great

Hairstyle War,” “Ad-Lib Delinquent Training,” and “Delinquentization Countermeasures.”151

Chapters are short, about twenty to thirty pages of comedic stories following the daily lives of delinquents. Here, Toru and Hiroshi are explaining the key aspect of being yankii, a term that

Sato also uses regularly: medatsu. Unconjugated it means “to attract attention,” or as Sato interprets it, “being conspicuous.”152 He writes, “The Yankee style seems quite obtrusive and conspicuous—medatsu—when set against this overall homogeneity of appearance, and this effect is quite intentional.”153 He also states that Yankees have “a sort of pride in their distinctive style of attire and way of life. Many [Yankees] lamented that the explicit message of defiance was somehow diluted recently, because many ‘ordinary’ youths had adopted Yankee styles, and these were becoming a ‘mere fashion.’ They also ridiculed their friends who did not have permanent .”154 Conducting an ethnographic study from 1983-1984, Sato’s book discusses the real-life activities and characterizations of yankii youths, paralleling many of the themes and issues illustrated in this seminal manga series. Shortly, I will also discuss the adaptaion of rock, rockabilly, and punk subcultural style from England.

The live-action adaptations of Be-Bop High School from the eighties follow the manga closely and are primarily comprised of comedic vignettes, much like the chapters in the original.

The key difference is the inclusion of good-girl student Kyoko who influences Toru and Hiroshi to act more chivalrously than their manga counterparts. Otherwise, the emphasis on comedy and action remains. Be-Bop High School establishes the key tropes in the delinquent film: the delinquent mise-en-scène, including costume, posture, and language, scenes of fighting and bonding, the appearance of enemies with less-integrity, also known as enemies who bring

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weapons or ambush a single delinquent, and foiled romantic overtures. Ultimately, what are most important in these films are exaggerated masculine performance and male bonding.155 The Be-

Bop series is a fine instance of the classical phase, particularly in the way in which such consistent tropes and narrative requirements are established.

British Rock and Punk and its Influence in Japan

Several Japanese music critics and scholars have discussed the influence of Western musical culture on Japan, beginning in the 1950s. In particular, Tadasu Tagawa, writing as early as 1979, noted the influence of foreign acts on Japan’s music industry and its treatment of musicianship and songwriting. Citing rock influences such as Blood Sweat and Tears, Bob

Dylan, and , he writes, “This article, intended to be a survey of Japanese pop music, starts out with the role of foreign artists on the Japanese scene. It is a true indication of just how dependent Japanese pop music is on its American and British counterparts. Although it would be stretching the argument to say that the dependence is total or voluntary, the fact is that foreign music does account for a large share of the Japanese market.”156 Though his article is titled,

“Artistically Impoverished Popular Music,” it is not in reference to those who moved towards independent songwriting and performing but to the music industry’s push back against that popularity by incorporating a less “produced” sound in their production. Primarily, Tagawa writes on the containment of rock, rockabilly, and eventually punk acts that threatened the musical status quo in Japan. Focusing on one British band in his article “Za Kinkusu: Ray Davies and the Rise and Fall and Rise of and Roll,” music scholar Michael K. Bourdaghs tracks the band’s influence in Japan over three decades (the sixties, seventies, and nineties), also citing the tension between major label production versus independent writing and distribution.

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However, what is additionally helpful is the way Bourdaghs describes the influence of a specifically British subculture into Japan across three different decades.

On the intersection of music and fashion trends, Hiroshi Narumi, in his article “Street

Style and Its Meaning in Postwar Japan,” tracks youth movements from the sixties through the late nineties and makes the critical turn of associating sartorial street style of Japanese youth as influenced by music culture. Narumi also writes on the specific influence of British music culture on Japan’s youth subcultures, or as he delineates, particular (tribes). As discussed in my chapter on seishun eiga, the suffix zoku connotes a particular group identity: boso (speed) combined with zoku is the term for biker gangs. However, it is not solely the importation of musical styles from England, but also the Japanese iteration of these styles, hence the transliteration of genre categories such as “ロック” (rokku) and “パンク・ロック” (panku rokku), for instance, rock band Carol (fig. 3.3), is one of those break-out rock groups, and, though short lived, its immense popularity influenced several Japanese rock groups that appear in the late 1970s and 1980s.157 I mention Carol here because the group’s members represent some of the sartorial trends that coincide with 1960s British punk and rock style.158 Narumi draws heavily on Dick Hebdige’s seminal work, Subculture, especially in regards to the relationship of fashion and dress to youth street styles, politics, and identity. Though the leather-jacketed band look is more akin to bōsōzoku than yankii, the music/fashion styling becomes an important part of understanding the generic sentiment of these youth who are “living life to the fullest.” In the section on Blue Spring, I will discuss the “New Music” rock and “punk blues” band, Thee

Michelle Gun Elephant, and how they are part of this legacy of punk culture adaptation in Japan.

The typology of yankii culture is a combination of manga, music, and fashion, culminating on a general aesthetic of both the subculture and the films.

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In the formative and classical phases of yankii texts, the fashion and hair choices are comparatively tame. Hiroshi and Toru in Be-Bop High School have punch perms and over-sized uniforms which aligns more closely to the boys in Blue Spring. To mark a drastic transformation towards his new violent tendencies, Aoki shaves the sides of his head. In contrast, Ichigo in

Kamikaze Girls, not only modifies her school uniforms, but sports bleached hair and black lipstick. Ichigo’s yankii looks is more towards the contemporary ironic phases that are also seen in the Crows films. Consistent throughout, across all three films, are the use of rock and punk soundtracks as well as interpersonal relationships with connections to fighting. There is a slight contrast in the latter films in that they eschew a more positive attitude towards the yankii lifestyle but even the most somber of the three films, Blue Spring, emphasizes moments of levity in the friendships of the main characters.

In the following section, I focus on significant variations on the yankii genre appearing in the 2000s, especially three texts/series that I find have interesting outlying traits. My first example, Toshiaki Toyoda’s Blue Spring, is adapted from the experimental manga by Taiyo

Matsumoto (1993). Next I discuss Kamikaze Girls, also based on a literary work by Novala

Takemoto (2002). The contrast between the first two are apparent in both cinematography and mood, perhaps because Kamikaze Girls focuses on female characters and the conscious use of the term yankii as a social construct. These two are refinements of the genre. Crows: Zero films can be said to represent the “baroque” or “ironic” phase mainly due in part to the big-budget spectacle as well as having internationally famous Takashi Miike at the helm and starring several top Japanese film actors. and Crows Zero II with Crows: Explode are all also inspired by a manga by Hiroshi Takahashi.

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Though varied, all three sets of films emphasize friendship loyalties over romance and group values as a remedy to loneliness. Blue Spring’s primary relationship is between childhood best friends, Kujo and Aoki, who in their final year of high school have lost their connection to each other. This loss will have devastating effects on Aoki as he continues to look to Kujo just to find him slipping away. Kamikaze Girls features a female yankii, Ichigo, whose experience with female yankii code and its positive influence, forces “lolita” Momoko into friendship. The

Crows films also suggest that life’s answers lie within community and loyalty by focusing on

Genji’s journey as he learns how to become a good leader through friendship and respect. In discussing each film, I also reference the industrial and cultural contexts, with the aim of explaining how each film represents generic transformations of earlier yankii youth narratives.

YANKII NARRATIVES OF THE 2000S

Although the categorization of these films relies heavily on narrative formula, I focus on the use of specific narrative motifs throughout the films, particularly the use of violence as narrative resolution, the importance of friendship and community, and the contrast between wild and free lives of youth and the disenchanted lives of adults. In analyzing these narratives, I also choose specific sequences involving two main characters where their personal tensions arrive at a dramatic moment of conflict. In Blue Spring, this conflict is between Aoki and Kujo, who are unable to communicate without violence. In Kamikaze Girls, Ichigo and Momoko, who are also at an impasse of communication, often use light forms of physical violence and bullying as a way to break through differences to find a commonality. Finally, in Crows: Zero, two adult men discuss the future of bancho hopeful, Genji. As yakuza, lethal violence is an aspect of their everyday life, and the gravity of the situation enables them to be able finally to communicate

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clearly and understand each other without physical conflict. Additionally, the films chosen here utilize film styles and mise-en-scène to emphasize further these motifs, namely physical confrontations and soundtrack choices in Blue Spring; references to sukeban films, direct address, and a playful editing style in Kamikaze Girls; and serialization and yakuza culture in the

Crows series.

Clearly, to focus on narratives whose commonality is character types and not, say, narrative events (such as in my chapter on near-disaster films) allows for a flexibility of categorizing in genre, just how Japan has, by the mid-eighties, already seen a variety of genre cycles in samurai and gangster films. However, what delineates the yankii film is the pervasive emphasis on Japanese youth as represented in the narratives for youth audiences. To be called a yankii, and to appear as one to “normal” society, is portrayed in the majority of these films as a romanticized embrace of one’s youth, a harmless picaresque adventure. Blue Spring straddles the previous, more serious, delinquent youth narratives of the taiyōzoku and the later ones of youthful mischief. The sensibility of Blue Spring is significantly darker than Kamikaze Girls and the Crows: Zero series, but it also touches on all the humor, mise-en-scène, and focus on friendships that are key narrative elements.

Blue Spring: Punk Narrative

Blue Spring is originally an anthology manga with seven short stories so in adaptation the film often features vignette-style side narratives to portray the boys’ lives. The main storyline focuses on the Kujo and Aoki relationship, with a clapping game as the catalyst in dissolving their friendship. Though all the boys are portrayed as friends in the beginning of the film, as their various stories progress, many of the character motivations and relationships to each other are

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unexplained. Blue Spring uses moments of violence in the narrative to portray the boys’ angst and frustration with each other. When they cannot connect emotionally, they seek connection through physical violence. Ultimately, Blue Spring is about the desire for friendship in a hostile world that otherwise has no place for these youths. This film is typical of yankii representations of young men but with a focus on the discomfort and pain of losing one’s yankii community. Its violent and darkly comedic tone sets it apart from the other films of this chapter.

Blue Spring opens with two boys, charismatic and quiet Kujo and his devoted follower

Aoki, picking the lock to the school roof. On the roof, along with five other classmates, Kujo plays “The Clapping Game.” Placing themselves precariously on the outer side of the rooftop railing, whoever has the courage to let go of the railing and claps the most times is the new boss

(bancho) of the school. The narrative opens with the dare, to hang off the school roof and clap as often as possible. Kujo wins with an unprecedented eight claps (figs. 4.5, 4.6, and 4.7). Kujo is the furthest left in the image with Aoki to his immediate right:

Fig. 4.5. Boys on the railing

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Fig. 4.6 The Game begins

Fig. 4.7 Danger revealed

These kinds of “dare” activities are common in film texts about delinquent or rebellious youth through all national cinemas. Death-defying stunts such as drag racing, hanging from bridges, or jumping from cliffs into deep water occur.159 However, the clapping game in Blue

Spring, alongside the other violent and nihilistic activities, takes on a darker theme. In the finale,

Aoki in despair repeats the game, alone, as a suicide, humming the tune of “If you’re happy and

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you know it.” The beginning and the end of the film are also bookended with similar shots of

Kujo and Aoki with their heads tilted back, staring up at the sky, the distant ground beneath them emphasizing the danger of the clapping game.

Fig 4.8 Overhead shot of Kujo as he hangs off railing

Fig 4.9 Aoki at end of film, in a mirror shot of Kujo seen in Fig 4.8

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Kujo’s demeanor (fig. 4.8) is relatively calm, and a sense of peacefulness pervades in the opening scene. He is not inherently frightened by the activity, and this, allegedly, gives him the confidence to achieve eight claps. Aoki (fig 4.9) has a black-stained face from spray-painting his hands and then touching his face. Since he is alone, he is the one counting out the clap order by himself. He is in mid-shout in this image, his fervor noticeable.

Despite Kujo’s seemingly calm demeanor, he is often depicted as thoughtful and sensitive. He cuts a fellow delinquent’s hair, asks friends of their plans for the future, and plants flowers. His relationship with Aoki only becomes tense when Aoki demands more bancho-like behavior from Kujo, a role that Kujo does not want to fill. Kujo alienates himself from Aoki when he sees Aoki’s escalating violent behavior. However, as their estrangement begins to become overwhelming to them both, a tense confrontation precedes Aoki’s final decision.

An important factor in this opening sequence is the musical soundtrack. After the conclusion of the clapping game, a Thee Michelle Gun Elephant song plays while the boys walk in slow-motion towards the camera. Slim and neatly cut in their black school uniforms, with

(relatively) and cigarettes, the boys are framed by a graffiti-ed school roof. The song,

“Akage no Kelly,” is a perfect introduction to the band who performs it as well as the overall themes of the film. Charles Spano writes that Thee Michelle Gun Elephant (hereafter TMGE) formed in 1991 and “began playing raucous garage rock & roll inspired by the Stooges, Thee

Headcoats, , and MC5” and that their sound originally “derived from British punk and blues.”160 Spano also describes their sound as “garage rock,” which typically refers to the use of distorted guitar and driving rhythms.161 TMGE’s distorted sound and screaming vocals in mixed

Japanese and English appear at every pivotal moment of Blue Spring, emphasizing a dark and sometimes messy narrative of young men whose anger and frustration define their characters.162

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To add to this atmosphere, the mise-en-scène is often bleak: the school they attend is covered in graffiti and the boys’ restroom is a common setting for their altercations. Early in the film, Aoki is humiliated after slipping and falling into an unflushed toilet bowl. Later, he becomes obsessed with spray-painting everything black. Though the setting itself is intentionally dystopian, from the abandoned environment, frank depictions of effects of violence and filth, the cinematography is beautiful, as even these scenes are shot in stillness and low-light. Toyoda sets up several picturesque shots of blooming cherry trees that alternate and contrast with the dark depictions of the downward spiraling lives of these boys. For example, a kind teacher, Hanada, attempts to teach the boys to care about nature through planting flowers. Three seemingly disinterested boys are shown planting seeds side by side, their names written on cigarettes and set as markers for each unsprouted seed. In the film’s final moments, when Aoki decides to fall from the roof, his blackened face will be shot in alternating cuts with a blooming flower. The season is spring, and cherry trees, in full bloom, are a constant in the background. A common metaphor for cherry blossoms is to signify youth and wistful nostalgia,163 but here the potential symbolism is contradicted with the grim lives of the boys. It is, pointedly, a “blue” spring of squandered youth potential and of an unknown and possibly unavailable future.

The film’s story, told in vignettes, focuses on each boys’ (mostly) unfortunate fate. As the group’s numbers dwindle and younger classmates consistently disrespect Aoki, he begins to dole out violent punishments, all with increasingly distant Kujo, who appears not to have played the clapping game for the leadership but simply for something to do. Yoshimura, who began as a mild-mannered gofer, picks up where Ota left off, exhibiting increasing aggression to Aoki.

However, even in this world of fistfights with baseball bats, Aoki’s subsequent vicious behavior escalates noticeably. Soon after a humiliating fight with some underclassmen, Aoki arrives at

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school with the sides of his hair shaved and two junior classmates in tow, ready to begin his reign of terror. The other films in this chapter, Kamikaze Girls and the Crows franchise, rely on the archetypes of honorable vs. dishonorable yankii. In Blue Spring these types are more nuanced. Kujo is the charismatic leader, but he does not properly lead his gang, failing to fulfill his duty as bancho. Aoki resorts to dishonorable violence, violence that is not about earning respect but about bullying and intimidation. However, the film presents him as slightly sympathetic in that he becomes this way after being bullied and abandoned by Kujo. Aoki desires Kujo’s respect and seeks to regain his friendship.

Blue Spring appeared alongside several other independent films focusing on youth despair and dystopia. Toyoda’s debut film, Pornostar (Tokyo Rampage, 1998), set entirely in

Shibuya, focuses on Arano, a nihilistic and emotionally numb killer who yakuza manipulate.

Other films such as Dokomademo Ikō (Don’t Look Back, 1999) and Gaichū (Harmful Insect,

2001), both by Akihiko Shiota, follow younger students, ten-year-olds and a thirteen-year-old girl respectively, through social disconnect from lost friendship to sexual harassment and exploitation. Tomoyuki Furuma’s Mabudachi (, 2001) tracks a delinquent’s behavior as a way of questioning societal expectations and conformity, as he is continually impressed upon to bend to authorities. However, while these other films touch on issues of delinquency, they expand on several topics of youth moral panics, such as drug abuse, prostitution, bullying, and murder. These types of themes are centered on groups of young characters exploiting each other. However, the yankii film, even at its most nihilistic such as in

Blue Spring, is also about creating bonds amongst peers who do not otherwise exist in their familial or social circles. As previously stated, the most important relationship in Blue Spring is

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between Kujo and Aoki, and during the final climactic scene, a voiceover of the first time the two met as children emphasizes Aoki’s current feelings of alienation and Kujo’s impending loss.

The use of the punk rock soundtrack injects motifs of frustration and rage and is often played over cross-cutting scenes where two characters, while not interacting with each other, are acting in opposition to each other. Before Aoki and Kujo confront each other, a sequence shows

Aoki’s escalating aggressive behavior intercut with Kujo playing soccer alone, running at top speed down the field. After Aoki brutalizes a student in the stairway, the soccer ball breaks through the window.

Another key sequence also visualizes the growing tension between the boys and marks a dramatic moment of conflict. However, there is no musical soundtrack playing, an auditory marker of emptiness compared to the often raucous use of music to signify these young men’s anger. Aoki wants to impress Kujo, but Kujo is too frustrated with Aoki’s behavior to pay attention. The sequence begins with a shot of an empty school hallway. Aoki enters frame left and walks towards the camera (fig 3.10). The camera tracks backwards from a low angle, depicting Aoki in an imposing posture. From the opposite end of the hallway, Kujo appears (fig

4.11), and a similar tracking mechanism precedes him down the hall as well. Again, there is no music, only the sound of the boys’ footsteps. The boys are mirrored, as they have been throughout the film. Kujo, as usual, is alone, and unnamed minions flank Aoki. In true delinquent fashion, Kujo and Aoki will attempt to have a physical altercation in order to determine the righteousness behind their frustrations with each other.

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Fig. 4.10 Tracking shot of Aoki as he confronts Kujo

Fig 4.11 Kujo walks to meet him

Take note of the mise-en-scène here as well. The entirety of the film’s action takes place at the school: the graffiti-ed halls add to the bleak atmosphere. Kujo pulls out a cigarette, and as he reaches Aoki, he leans in to light it with Aoki’s already lit cigarette (fig. 4.12).

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Fig 4.12 An equally intimate and intimidating gesture

The boys remain in this stance for a moment, continuing to exhale smoke in each other’s faces, and, then, the film cuts to a shot of the floor where they both drop their cigarettes. They each grab each other’s hair with their left hands, punching each other in turn with their right fists.

Aoki is still rebelling against Kujo, stating that he intends to do what the other could not. Kujo tells him that if he does not like it in school to just leave. Aoki claims, “I love it here. I’ll make it hell on Earth. I can do what you can’t!”As a character, Kujo is already thinking about the future, and he is frustrated with Aoki’s refusal to do so as well. Kujo sees Aoki’s behavior as self- destructive, and he is confused as to why Aoki refuses to change the situations for himself if he is unhappy. Aoki, realizing that his loss of Kujo’s friendship has sent him into a severe identity crisis, does not know what else to do except self-destruct. The following final sequence illustrates that after this confrontation, Aoki realizes that no matter his behavior he cannot reach

Kujo again. The film’s denouement tracks Aoki’s descent.

Kujo solicits advice from Hanada-sensei and turns to leave for home. He sees Aoki on the rooftop, watching him go, as the film intercuts between Kujo’s back and Aoki wistfully

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watching. Here Toyoda inserts an eight-hour time lapse of Aoki at the rooftop railing, compressed into seventy seconds. The does not appear to move, and the soundtrack is a spare drum and guitar duet. As the new day begins and the students are returning to school, Aoki begins his countdown. Kujo immediately realizes Aoki’s intention, and while racing to reach him on the rooftop, a montage of images of the school shows it emptied of people: the soccer field, water faucets, toilets, stairways, and then shots of Aoki from the first scene of the film in Kujo’s perspective as “Drop” by TMGE plays. As Aoki continues to count claps, a voice-over of the first time the boys meet reveals their young age, giving the viewer an idea of their history of friendship. The film cuts to Aoki’s face (fig 4.9) and another voice-over is heard. Aoki’s voice:

“Kujo, take me with you, please?” and then a time lapse shot of a tulip blooming. The song’s lyrics, though sparse, also coincide with the magnitude of Aoki’s decision. The song refers to a

“drop,” meaning candy, but used in the English phonetic “Doroppu,” can have a double meaning here for Aoki’s placement over the railing. The first four lines coincide with the films’ themes and Aoki’s mindset: “Wandering around, day turns to night, Wandering around, I go into the night.”164

This sequence is full of emotional resonance, reiterating the importance of friendship to these young men. It is the only life they have known, and when faced with the breaking of those bonds to make a new life for oneself, Aoki is left completely lost. His silent request to Kujo illustrates the underlying tension between their rift; Aoki knows that Kujo desires a future and will most likely thrive once outside of their small adolescent world. Aoki’s vision is much more limited; in fact, he cannot even conceive of a life after high school and so chooses to become a legend of his time.

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Kamikaze Girls: A Clash of Cultures

Kamikaze Girls focuses on the relationship between teen-aged women. Similarly to

Crows: Zero, the first half of Kamikaze Girls develops the friendship among the youthful protagonists here, lolita-style Momoko and yankii Ichigo. After a brief animated opening sequence, the film begins in media res, with Momoko riding a scooter at top speed, colliding with a cabbage truck. In a voiceover, Momoko rewinds the story to explain how this event came to be. She introduces herself, primarily her self-identified status as “lolita” and what that entails.

She describes that it refers to a subculture of dress that mimics the style of French Rococo.

Momoko likes frilly outfits and umbrellas, adores all things cute and pretty but lives in the rice- field city of Shimotsuma in Ibaraki (approximately two hours north of Tokyo). The film is visually striking as director Nakashima mixes multiple media, including animation and other digital effects, as well as uses direct-address narratives and neon-colored filters and fast-paced editing while also referencing sukeban films. In one instance, while Momoko is waiting for a train, the camera pans in on a television in the station. The television crackles with static and introduces “The Life of Momoko.” The TV camera zooms over the Earth to find Momoko’s birthplace and zooms in on a gangster who punches and cracks the screen. More static and digital broken glass, then the film continues the narrative without the mise-en-abyme device of the television frame.

Momoko gives her origin story, relating how her father makes his living by selling knock-off clothing, eventually coming under fire for copyright abuse, and having to relocate to

Shimotsuma. After her parents’ divorce, Momoko encourages her mother to find happiness by entering beauty contests. Momoko lives with her father and grandmother and, after discovering a

(real-life) clothing store called “Baby, the Stars Shine Bright,” becomes obsessed with buying

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“Lolita” clothing, having no remorse about how she raises the funds to do so. She puts out an online ad to continue selling her father’s now-defunct “Versach” clothes and is answered by

Ichigo Shirayuri.165 Momoko immediately recognizes that Ichigo is a yankii and is terrified.

Ichigo’s first appearance emphasizes the yankii medatsu, from her decked-out scooter and long pleated skirt to the spitting and yelling. Ichigo is overjoyed at the knock-off clothes and tells

Momoko that she is in her debt and, if she ever needs her, to ask for Ichigo of “The Ponytails,” her girl-biker gang.

Ichigo continues to visit Momoko’s home to peruse the knock-off items, constantly talking at and berating Momoko. Momoko tries to separate herself from Ichigo, but the latter’s strong-arming ways defeat her. Ichigo tells her life story, about her transformation from a shy and bullied girl to a strong independent one due to the acceptance and advice from the Ponytails leader, Akimi. The Ponytails, under sukeban Akimi, is a positive outlet for introverted Ichigo, and she, in turn, by learning positive female friendship from The Ponytails, will attempt to teach these values to Momoko. Ichigo also describes a legendary female yankii/bōsōzoku/sukeban named Himiko166 and her embroiderer Ema, as a way of intriguing Momoko due to her fascination with embroidery details in her own . Himiko’s story is told in an anime sequence, combining the generically typical sukeban narrative similar to those of the Pink films of the classical delinquent youth phase and the globally popular media form. Eventually Ichigo and Momoko establish a friendship and speak to each other about insecurities and hopes.

Ichigo’s heart is broken when Akimi retires from the gang to be with the man with whom Ichigo has fallen in love and, after disagreeing with the negative changes in the gang’s behavior, also tries to retire. When Momoko realizes that the gang is going to punish Ichigo severely, she races

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to save her, bringing us to the events of the opening scene: the scooter collision with the cabbage truck.

Several films in this period have similar visual style for their female-centered narratives.

Films with a similar style, in particular the use of multi-media effects, filtered lenses, and digital manipulation of the filmic image, include Shunji Iwai’s Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) and

Katsuhito Ishii’s Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl (1998) as both exhibit the music video stylistics as well as bright colors in the sets and costumes although the films feature darker themes. Ishii’s later film, The Taste of Tea (2004) also utilizes fantastic visuals to display feats of imagination and touches upon more humorous events, like in Kamikaze Girls. Iwai’s quieter

Hana and Alice (2004), Shinobu Yaguchi’s Swing Girls (2004), as well as Nobuhiro

Yamashita’s Linda Linda Linda (2005) provide few manga/anime-style visions but explore friendships among teenage girls in a similar manner. Kamikaze Girls’s style itself is not only eclectic but also often self-referential, calling attention to comical lighting, frenetic editing, jump-cuts, and wipes that comment on the narrative. For example, it has several instances of direct address, from character to camera, but also side characters tend to comment on the girls’ internal questions. Two primary instances are when Ichigo asks if she is in love, several characters respond, “It’s love,” though she never directly asks them. Another time, Momoko, when faced with the task of designing for her favorite fashion house, asks, “Does it have to be me?” to which random people on the street, a train conductor, and others stop her to tell her, “It has to be you.” The film even has an entire sequence shot in the style of anime.

Kamikaze Girls, or its original title, Shimotsuma (Shimotsuma Story), is thematically and tonally the outlier of the films chosen for this chapter. First, it has the fewest main characters, only two of which only one is a yankii. Secondly, the main characters are

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female, a trend less common in the last twenty years. However, since yankii films tend to be so dominated by male characters, I argue that it is especially important to include Kamikaze Girls in this discussion because of the focus on female friendship and because of the ways it varies outside of the popular standard. Kamikaze Girls, though not as financially successful as the

Crows series, was a top-100 film in 2004, capitalizing on the success of the short story. While stylistically, this film is a refinement or even ironic example of yankii films, it is traditional in its concern for youthful relations. Seventies sukeban pink films focused on themes of gang loyalty and often featured sensational violent between gang members, often a stand-off between sukeban. In Kamikaze Girls, the same pattern is seen with Ichigo’s gang, the Ponytails, first in the manner which she idolized Akimi and, at the end of the film, when she must fight her way out of the gang. However, Kamikaze Girls goes one step farther in that it also integrates another girl stereotype with Momoko as a lolita. By focusing on two young women who define themselves beyond their exterior stereotypes, as well as utilized digital effects and reflexive references, Kamikaze Girls represents a revisionist and ironic entry into sukeban films, and therefore yankii films in general.

The main character is Momoko. The film begins with her origin story and delineates her cold, unsentimental demeanor matter-of-factly, in particular by depicting her as an unfeeling child who not only does not care about her parents’ divorce but also avidly enjoys brutal nature documentaries. The use of television as explanatory device appears early when it reveals her father’s debunked career as a low-level yakuza. After he is chased out of town, he and Momoko move to a small farming town called Shimotsuma to live with her grandmother. Momoko hates

Shimotsuma because of its provinciality and maintains a rich fantasy life in order to escape from its drudgery. Despite that Momoko is the main protagonist, the film criticizes her behavior by

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contrasting her with Ichigo the second female lead. The joys of Momoko’s youth are only available to her after a yankii girl relentlessly pursues a friendship.

After Momoko first meets Ichigo, a significant sequence serves to illustrate Momoko’s isolation as well as a visual demonstration of the breaking down of her beliefs when faced with

Ichigo’s intrusion. In voiceover, Momoko explains that after she first sold Versace knock-offs,

Ichigo continued to visit her unsolicited. A series of shots of Momoko at school shows that she has no friends and does not participate in group activities. She sits alone on a bench during gym class, commenting that sporty “tough” girls “disgust her,” and again is alone during lunch when she only eats candy. As she returns home, Ichigo is already there, looking through clothing with

Momoko’s grandmother. Momoko is unimpressed with Ichigo’s scooter and mocks her. Ichigo retaliates by head-butting her. In the next scene, Momoko is eating at a table; her father sits beside her watching a television program. Momoko wonders why Ichigo continues to come over.

Another scene has Momoko reading a magazine in the foreground, with Ichigo speaking in the background, talking about her plans for the future, followed by a shot in Momoko’s bedroom, again with Ichigo in the background, their conversation continued. Each cut serves as a further example of Momoko’s attempt to create distance between herself and Ichigo. They rarely face each other (unless Ichigo is yelling at her), and they are spatially separated in each shot, divided into background and foreground.

The narrative returns to Momoko and her father; the television in the background becomes the focus of the camera. As the camera moves in, the television program comments on

Momoko’s desire to live alone. The program has several young people in a circle, sitting on stools and debating particular issues of the day. Momoko explains her chosen lifestyle:

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Momoko: Humans are born alone; we think alone and die alone. If I can’t live independently then I’d rather be a water flea. They are far more independent than us humans. Female participant 1: What about friends or lovers? Wouldn’t you miss your parents or kids? Momoko: Meaningless words, just like ‘janitor’ or ‘president.’ None of those words is important. Female participant 2: You poor girl!! That’s terrible!

Momoko is desperately holding onto the way of life that has protected her until this moment.

However, this sequence criticizes Momoko for her detached and cold attitude. Momoko’s fellow television participants feel either pity or anger towards her. Though their reactions are purposely dramatic, this criticism is confirmed in the next scene.

Directly from the television panel, the scene again cuts to Momoko in her school gym.

This time she is attempting to participate in a game but stops mid-court. She turns towards the camera and begins walking. The other girls continue to race back and forth. As Momoko sighs, the ball hits her upside the head, and she is knocked out. The next shot is of Ichigo washing

Momoko’s grandmother’s vintage scooter, singing her favorite Yutaka Ozaki song. A sound bridge carries Ichigo’s voice into Momoko’s bedroom where she lays sleeping.

The brief return to gym class serves two important narrational functions. First, it defuses the tension that Momoko creates during the television panel session, and second, it mocks

Momoko in a comedic manner similar to Ichigo’s treatment of her. Ichigo is unable to outwit

Momoko’s cold logic and often relies on physically attacking her to force her to comply. Here is a moment of Momoko’s breakdown: she goes from non-participation to attempted participation

(in gym class) but is then unsuccessful. Just like her friendship with Ichigo, Momoko tries to give up during their outings, attempting to escape from the friendship. Ichigo promptly head- butts, trips, or chases her into continued participation. Eventually, despite Momoko’s

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protestations and desire to be alone, she begins to engage with Ichigo and has fun during their outings.

However, before that happens, the following scene ends this sequence: Momoko, waking upon hearing Ichigo singing her favorite Yutaka Ozaki song,167 sits in the living room while

Ichigo polishes the scooter. Momoko inquires about Ichigo’s biker gang, the Ponytails.

Momoko: How many are there in the Ponytails gang? Ichigo: Seven. Momoko: (look of disgust) Tiny! Ichigo: Do you want to join us? Momoko: No thanks. Ichigo: (not listening) You’ll need to get a license first. And get rid of the dresses. We like riding and fighting, but no drugs or solvents. We’re too proud for that. Momoko: I’m not joining. Ichigo: No loose girls, either. Momoko: I said ‘no.’

This scene takes place in two angles, cut in perpendicular 180-degree axes. The beginning is a shot-reverse-shot exchange, with Momoko inside seated and Ichigo outside standing.

Fig 4.13 Momoko sits inside, listening to Ichigo

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Fig 4.14 Ichigo describes her lifestyle with the Ponytails

This exchange has a similar dynamic to one I will discuss in Miike’s Crows films. Momoko remains seated throughout this scene (fig 4.13), unyielding to Ichigo’s bullying, but she is shrouded in shadow in comparison to Ichigo’s exposure to the exterior light (fig 4.14). These images frame the dialogue in a shot-reverse-shot sequence, pitting the girls’ points of view against each other. At this moment, Ichigo enters the house. The camera switches to a 90-degree angle, taken this time from the girls’ sides (fig 4.15). An interior sliding door and a short desk, with a covered tapestry in the background, cuts the frame in one-quarter and three-quarter segments. Ichigo storms into the house and crosses that border. She kneels to yell at Momoko, who does not move. Ichigo then moves back to the frame left.

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Fig 4.15 Ichigo crosses the 180° boundary between the two girls

Ichigo: Why are you so hesitant? Momoko: I’m not hesitating. I don’t want to be a Yanki, ride a bike, or be in a group. I’m not shedding this dress. Ichigo: What’s wrong? Momoko: It’s just lame.

Fig 4.16 Ichigo returns to her side of the shot

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After this exchange, Ichigo remains on the left side of the sliding door (fig 4.16). Momoko, though seated, has maintained an upper hand here with Ichigo, the latter’s frenetic energy now, usually a sign of confidence, belies her insecurity when faced with Momoko’s cold logic.

Ichigo: Did you just ridicule my whole existence? I’ll kick your ass! Momoko: Go ahead. Ichigo: I’ll kill you! Momoko: Why not? Ichigo: (spits) Momoko: Stop spitting!!

Throughout this sequence, from Ichigo’s first appearance until this moment, Momoko has attempted to maintain a logical approach to what she wants in her life. Her desire to alienate

Ichigo manifests in insulting her scooter, gang, and lifestyle. However, Ichigo’s constant presence wears Momoko down, represented in this moment in which she loses her temper, a quality very un-Rococco lady-like.

In discussing delinquent films, the dynamics of friendship are one of the most important narrative conflicts. As a Lolita, Momoko also exhibits medatsu, a conspicuousness that breaks from social norms. It is this quality which Ichigo most respects. However, Ichigo, as a yankii, knows how positive female-based friendships can improve one’s life. Her admiration for Akimi and her friendship with The Ponytails make Ichigo an admirable character, essentially celebrating yankii values and lifestyle.

The film’s conclusion places it thematically in between Blue Spring and Crows Zero.

Blue Spring features vignettes that focus on the stasis of the boys’ life, especially in regards to the recruitment of yankiis by yakuza. Blue Spring is a grim depiction of delinquents; whereas,

Crows celebrates delinquency as youthful pleasure. In Kamikaze Girls, Ichigo runs down all the ways The Ponytails attempt to protect its members, holding each other responsible for their

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behavior and being a place of support. However, after Akimi retires and another girl takes over, the gang folds in with several others in order to build their numbers. Their code also changes, and as Ichigo attempts to pull away, she is forced into keijime (challenge) to fight her way out.

When Momoko realizes what this means, she races to the showdown location to help. The new leader is transformed from the honorable yankii to the enemy with less integrity, and Ichigo realizes that she has been too dependent on The Ponytails, taking a lesson from Momoko’s character. Momoko easily slips into yankii speak to intimidate the new leader and her minions, building a false identity on an elaborate urban legend that Ichigo invented. After they successfully negotiate Ichigo’s release from the group, an epilogue reveals that both girls have viable career opportunities with Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, Momoko as designer and Ichigo as model, but both choose to reject these options in order to maintain their freedom for a little longer.

Crows Trilogy: Through Sunglasses Darkly

The third set of films is the most recent and most popular amongst these recent yankii films. The Crows franchise also features stylistic violence, in particular, in the films’ many fistfight scenes. However, a key difference from Blue Spring and Kamikaze Girls is in director

Miike’s pacing of the film. Many scenes are slowed down for emotional resonance, having the camera rest on elaborate set-ups, especially regarding the “stand-offs” between characters. The young men size each other up and fight as a way of earning respect from each other. Moreover, the delinquent figures in the Crows films are juxtaposed against Yakuza, often with delinquents representing honorable masculine friendship and Yakuza, disloyal and cheap criminality. To emphasize further the contrast in these two types of men, the first Crows film, Crows: Zero,

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begins with the execution of a low-rung Yakuza by his gang boss. Boss Yazaki points his gun at flunkie Ken’s back, states that it is nothing personal, and shoots him. The prostrate man yells,

“Genji!! Fly!!” before tumbling headfirst off of a pier and into the water. As he sinks further into the water, we see a montage of images of Genji, a character who has not yet been introduced.

The next scene opens on the exterior of a school, the sign reading “Suzuran All Boys High

School.” The sound of crows and sweeping crane shots and dissolves take us to the school rooftop, where Genji stands alone. He faces a graffiti-ed wall, the appearance of which looks almost exactly like the one from which Kujo and Aoki in Blue Spring hang during the clapping game.

The film’s plot structure is quickly explained through a student’s speech during the school’s opening ceremony. With no pretense of classes in this school, Suzuran is a breeding ground for yankii to test their strength against various factions. At the end of the year, if the school can be unified under one bancho, a “king” is crowned. Genji, the son of another Yakuza boss, is a transfer student who wishes to rule Suzuran so that his father will accept him into his gang. The opening ceremony scene serves to introduce several of the strongest gangs in the school, some of whose members become important figures in Genji’s life. As he carves out respect little by little, he begins forming bonds with some of the boys, meets a girl, and eventually befriends Ken. Genji’s main rival is Tamao Serizawa, a bancho shown to be a loyal friend and leader. Initially, Tamao does not take Genji’s challenge seriously as Genji has not yet proven his ability to lead. After Genji quickly amasses an army, they have an epic showdown on the school grounds. They are the last two left standing, exhaustedly fighting into the nighttime.

Genji eventually wins but, even after doing so, learns one last undefeated student remains at

Suzuran. The film ends as he calls for, yet another, challenge.

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In the sequel, Crows Zero: II, Genji has still not yet defeated Rindaman, the student he challenged at the end of the first film. About to graduate, Genji has not truly conquered Suzuran.

One day, Genji interferes in a fight and is told that his actions have violated a non-aggresion pact between Suzuran and rival high school Housen. Genji must band the entire school together, upping the stakes, uniting previous rivals, and amassing vastly more bodies in another final battle. After Genji again emerges victorious, the final scene mirrors the end of the first film: the beginning of another battle with Rindaman except this time Genji finally lands a punch, foreshadowing Genji’s possible success in finally unifying Suzuran. Crows: Explode returns to the same formula, but with new faces. As the new school year begins, new student Kazuo attempts the same feat as Genji, to conquer Suzuran, and also ends true to form: the third film also ends with the beginnings of a fight between Kazuo and Rindaman.

Both Miike’s and Toyoda’s Crows films represent the delinquent film at its most distilled generic height in that it utilizes a common narrative structure but adds a unique lens through which to see it, that of the perspective of two adult male Yakuza. These films, whose worldly logic accepts a system where students never attend classes but instead fight amongst each other as the means to graduate high school emphasize savoring brotherhood, friendship, and the freedom of youth. The narrative stakes of each film increase alongside its cast numbers while never straying far from the basic formula. A new student, first Genji, then Kazeo,168 amasses friends, establishes a chosen antagonist, falters along the way, and then rallies back to win the final conflict. Although the plots tend towards superficial details, the performances of the actors work well to establish their friendships. While the ultimate purpose of all the films is to prove oneself through fighting, these friendships are the reward for doing so. Genji and Kazeo’s life

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lesson is that no battle is worth winning if it means sacrificing those friendships (or risking the well-being of the friends themselves).

The persistent theme of the Crows films is through fighting and bonding, these youths are living life to the fullest. However, the narrative vehicle that establishes this perspective is from the adult males’ nostalgia for their own bygone youth. I argue that the juxtaposition of the boys’ power struggles and the grim reality of life as a Yakuza is a consistent emotional crux of the

Crows series. Any viewer can appreciate Genji’s journey as well as the comedic points of his new friendships, but it is through the perspective of low-level gangster Ken, Genji’s father Hideo

Takiya, and rival Yakuza boss Joji Yazaki that one understands how quickly youth potential can be squandered. The subplot between these adult male characters is a framing device that underlines the importance of discursively separating the life of a yankii and those who enter an actual life of crime after high school. Bosses Hideo and Joji represent life at the top of Yakuza organizations. Hideo lives in an ornately decorated but cramped home, and every time Genji returns home, a different young woman greets him, implicating his father’s recruiting of young women into prostitution or just his own personal promiscuity. At one point Hideo introduces one woman as Genji’s “new mother . . . kidding.” Genji and Hideo’s relationship is cold and antagonistic. Indeed, Genji’s only motivation for his actions through both the films is simply that he wants “to surpass his old man.”169

As further proof of their distant relationship, in the second film Hideo confronts Genji at the club he frequents. Hideo requests that Genji meet him in a dark cramped storage area where he challenges Genji to punch him. Genji tries twice, but Hideo evades him easily and lands two solid punches in return. Hideo’s physical prowess is clearly established, but the setting underscores the squalid life of a powerful Yakuza boss. As Genji descends the stairs the scene

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cuts to his father who is seated on a crate of empty bottles. He sits in profile, squeezed in a tight doorway, and the majority of the frame features torn layers of fliers all over the walls and a low ceiling. Hideo approaches Genji, revealing the cramped space, as Genji himself must bow his head to keep from hitting the ceiling. As Hideo passes into the background, the low blue lighting highlights his white shirt, and Genji turns his back to the camera where he falls into shadow.

Hideo is clearly the focal point of this scene, and though he has advice to offer, Genji is not interested. He provokes Genji’s quick temper. After Hideo evades the first punch, he says, “It’s a good punch. But not enough. That kind of punch has to have more heart than actual strength!

And your heart is useless.” Hideo challenges Genji again, and after solidly landing another punch to Genji’s face, he kneels down before him and advises him to check his bad temper. “It’s not doing you or anyone good.” Hideo then smooths his hair and stands up to leave. That Hideo has appeared at the right time in Genji’s life and his advice is exactly what Genji needs to hear but he has to hide in the basement in order to have a one-on-one with his son exposes the truth of a high-profile gangster in this film. In his next scene, Hideo is outside and steps into an alley to urinate where he is then shot three times by a recently released juvie from Suzuran looking to earn the good will of Yazaki. This event further emphasizes the less glamorous possible outcomes for a Yakuza boss.

Narratively, Hideo is a foil for Genji. The first film features an important scene where

Hideo explains his motivation for challenging Genji to unify Suzuran. Ken visits Hideo to confess that Boss Yazaki wants Ken to kill Genji to start a turf war. Ken states that he will not carry out his orders and confesses that Genji has inspired him as a person. This scene takes place in Hideo’s home, in a small cluttered side room. From the moment he enters and throughout the scene, Hideo is removing items of clothing. The scene opens with a shot of a tabletop with a

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doily beneath a marble ashtray. A black beaded bracelet drops from off camera, and the next shot is Hideo removing his suit jacket, aided by a lower-level member. He looks over his right shoulder, where the film cuts to Ken, kneeling in the corner. The room itself is darkened in shadow, and paintings and works of calligraphy surround Ken, but it unclear where the works of art begin and the walls and doorway end. Ken looks humble and penitent, never raising his eyes to look at Hideo. The next shot of Hideo shows his face in shadow, and the background mise-en- scène is again cluttered. To Hideo’s right is a standalone rack of suits; directly behind his right shoulder is an IV drip stand next to a crow statue, its wings outstretched. Hideo acknowledges

Ken’s presence as he moves slightly to reveal a wall mirror propped against a shelf. Hideo explores the entire 360-degree space of this corner of Hideo’s home. Hideo moves to another side room, apparently searching for something, as he listens distractedly to Ken. It is revealed that these two have a previous relationship; Ken wanted to be in Hideo’s gang but was not admitted. Ken quickly explains the reason for his visit, that Boss Yazaki has asked him to kill

Genji. Hideo, however, continues to search about the interconnecting rooms, paying little attention to Ken’s confessions.

Gorō Kishitani’s performance here as a distracted Hideo conveys a confidence and power that stands in direct opposition to Ken’s physical and social position. Ken admits that this will be his first act of taking responsibility, and the scene changes again. Ken stands and walks towards an open window and finally light is exposed into the room. Ken is backlit, framed by the window and the natural green landscape outside, whereas Hideo is in the dark room, seated on a massage table. The IV drip stand and crow statue are not seen from this angle. Ken asks about Hideo’s intentions for Genji: “You plan on having him lead this kind of life?” Hideo slowly, exhaustedly, removes his tie and responds, “If he has what it takes to conquer Suzuran, I’m sure he’ll choose

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not to.” Hideo looks contemplatively off to frame right, away from Ken, his face half shadowed again (fig 4.17). The crow statue reappears behind Hideo’s left shoulder due to this new mid- close up shot. Ken smiles, reassured at the answer (fig 4.18).

The two adult men in this scene, shot alternatingly per their dialogue, match each other, not only in the frame but also in positioning. The key difference is that the exterior light surrounds Ken and Hideo is mainly in shadow, but the use of mise-en-scène also illustrates many of the key themes of the Crows Film.

Fig 4.17 Hideo with a crow statue over his shoulder

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Fig 4.18 Ken looks on with admiration

The films are heavy-handed in its crow imagery, often seen as cutaways and background images and sounds. The opening sequences always begin similarly, a sweeping crane shot mimics the flight of a crow, and the filmic image is distorted and jumpy. Then the film cuts to the silhouette of a crow, landing on a branch against a dim sky. The opening title credits follow, then a shot of the Street Beats performing the theme song onstage in a club. Each film features the band and the same song, “I Wanna Change.” The club-goers throw their fists up during the chorus, “I wanna change and keep on changing,” and the song is filled with references to birds and wing metaphors. In particular, one lyric, “I see a flock of birds without wings.

Striving to survive, still unaware of what they are,”170 is a romanticized manner of speaking about the wildness of the boys in the film, the Crows, and how they transition from childhood to adulthood.

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Fig 4.19 A shot from the opening sequence

Ken and the boys often refer to themselves as “crows,” an identity connected to attending

Suzuran. The crow signifies the chaos in the boys’ lives at any time other than when they are together. It also represents the freedom of youth, unencumbered by fiscal responsibility or other aspects of adult life. Ken, on his introduction to both Genji and Kazeo, is on school grounds and takes them on a tour around to his favorite spots, regaling them with stories of his wild youth.

Ken’s life as a Yakuza stands in direct contrast to the fun and fighting the younger Crows experience as he is known as a failure and repeatedly humiliated. While at first it seems strange to begin the film with Ken’s assassination, his last words, “Genji, fly!!,” serve to explain the importance of valuing one’s youth and protecting that experience for others through the lens of a disenchanted adult to a promising younger Crow.

Ken is the only consistent character throughout all three Crows films, a telling narrative device that confirms the old adage that “youth is wasted on the young.” While Genji and Kazeo learn valuable lessons about community and friendship, it is through the eyes of his elders that the audience recognizes the worth of these lessons. The nostalgia that permeates the Crows films

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celebrates a time before adult commitments such as jobs or family, and while this trilogy generally repeats old narrative standards of the typical delinquent film, the addition of the adult perspective further legitimates the yankii lifestyle.

CONCLUSION

Interestingly, although these films include superficial attempts at romantic storylines, the significant relationships are same-sex friendship rather than sexual conquest. In Blue Spring, the entire boys high school becomes excited at seeing a young girl waiting for her boyfriend at the school gate; Ichigo has a passing infatuation with a Pachinko player, and Genji’s girlfriend Ruka, though an important player in the first film,171 is hardly in the second film at all. Kazuo in the third Crows film has no romantic interactions. However, while no romances are developed, the yankii film does stress that strength comes from loyal relationships. Blue Spring primarily focuses on Kujo and Aoki’s split, but other boys remain close: one boy’s junior inherits his uniform jacket and agrees to carry on the elder’s dream of going to nationals; two lackeys from the group grow closer after one loses his sight (due to the other one slapping him upside the head too often). In Kamikaze Girls, Ichigo and Momoko’s friendship allows them to find a freedom outside of their cultural stereotypes. In Crows, Genji becomes a true leader to his men.

Of particular interest is the proliferation and regeneration of the yankii narrative. While there is a sense of an insured popularity, what is most marketable about the yankii is the opportunity to take popular celebrities and put them in the characteristic yankii clothes and style.

Namely, their fashion and styling experiment with non-traditional haircuts and colors, sporting multiple piercings, wearing spiked jewelry, and adopting rough speech. These films also have a common trait of integrating a new main character into a pre-existing gang, so several

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opportunities for ensemble participation occur. Though the female yankii or sukeban has not enjoyed the same popular success as the bancho, a common pink genre still features the girl yankii.172 Popular yankii texts have been remade several times and find success in film adaptations of anime and television series. Although they tend to follow a fairly un-wavering set of narrative restrictions pertaining to learning life lessons through honorable friendship, the yankii character allows for a significant number of reincarnations due to its broad and likeable set of characteristics. The honorable yankii is a relatable figure living out youthful ideas of camaraderie and harmless recklessness. Even at its darkest, the delinquent will always remember the value of friendship and loyalty, especially when faced with a solitary life of adulthood.

130For the best succinct description of yankiis, see Shoji Kaoji “Our Yankiis are Different Than Your Yankees,” , 7/5/2002, . Accessed 6/10/12. 131Ibid., p. 107-108. 132 Sato discusses the first appearance of the term in the 1984 edition of The Basic Knowledge of Contemporary Words (Tokyo: Jiyu Kokominsha, 1984), p.10. No author cited. 133 Ikuya Sato, Kamikaze Biker: Parody and Anomy in Affluent Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). It is important to note that Sato’s translation spells it ‘Yankee,’ and not the now common and closer transliteration yankii. In Japanese, it is written asヤンキー. 134Sato writes that the 1981 edition featured an article on boso driving and was about one-sixth of the issue overall. He also notes that major newspapers began reporting on the subject heavily following this. 135Sato, 2, from White Paper on Police 1981, 1983, and 1984 and the White Paper on Crime 1983. 136Joachim Kersten, “Street Youths, Bōsōzoku, and Yakuza: Subculture Formation and Societal Reactions in Japan,” Crime and Delinquency, 39, 3, (July 1993), pps. 277-295. P. 278 137A punch perm is a permanent hair curling system developed by Shigemi Naganuma in the 1960s. Instead of using the common round curling iron, he devised a hexagonal curling bar that held the hair more tightly. The final affect was to simulate black people’s hair. It was mainly popular from 60s to the 90s, especially among bōsōzokuand chinpira (low-level criminals), but fell out of common wear due to its association with the Yakuza. 138Ibid. 139Sato, 238. 140Sato, 63-64. 141Referenced in ’s DVD extras for Kamikaze Girls. 142Doug Williams, “Concealment and Disclosure: From "Birth of a Nation" to the Vietnam ,” International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique 12.1 (1991), pps. 29–47. P. 35. 143 Donald Richie, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2001) p.153. 144Desser, 39. 145Colette Balmain, “Pinku Eiga/Pink Films,” The Directory of World Cinema: Japan, ed John Berra (Bristol U.K.: Intellect, 2010), pps. 249-252. P. 250. 146Colette Balmain, 251. 147For a complete overview report on sesakuiinkai, see Woojeong Joo, Rayna Denison, and Hiroko Furukawa, “Manga Movies Project Report 1: Transmedia Japanese Franchising,” The UK Arts and Humanities Research

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Council, for a research project titled: Manga Movies: Contemporary Japanese Cinema, Media Franchising and Adaptation. Accessed 6/15/2012. 148 The main character in the 2009 comic and anime series as well as film, Droppu (Drop!) and Water Polo Yankee,was inspired by what he read about yankii in comics rather than what he actually knows of them in real life. 149Writer’s note: read from left to right 150Kazuhiro Kiuchi, Be-Bop High School, Young Magazine, Kodansha, 1983-2003. 151“Scanlations,” online manga scanned translations found online at Accessed 6/6/2015. 152Sato, subject index, 275. 153 Sato, 111. 154Sato,112. 155Masculinity is a key component to the yankii film, which I address further in the discussion of Kamikaze Girls. 156Tadasu Tagawa, "Artistically Impoverished Popular Music," Japan Quarterly, 26.3 (1979), p. 359. Michael K. Bourdaghs, “Za Kinkusu: Ray Davies and the Rise and Fall and Rise of Japanese ,” Popular Music and Society, 29, 2 (2006). Accessed 2/16/16. 157Lead singer and Eikichi Yazawa continues a solo career and is so popular and beloved in Japan that he is often referred to as “世界の矢沢” (sekai no Yazawa) or “the World’s Yazawa.” Seiichiro Kuchiki, Iroiro.jp, http://irorio.jp/amanojerk/20130911/77170/ 158 Both Thee Michelle Gun Elephant in Blue Spring and The Street Beats in the Crows: Zero films will practically exactly replicate the band’s outfits on this album cover. 159Car stunts and drag racing examples: Rebel Without a Cause (1955), (1973), Grease (1978), all Fast and Furious films (2001, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017). Other death-defying stunts include: Lost Boys (1987) and Breaking Away (1973). 160Charles Spano, “Thee Michelle Gun Elephant: Artist Biography,” Accessed 2/25/16. 161 Ibid. 162In another powerful scene, when Yukio stabs Ota, another TMGE song plays as the viewer only sees the image of a bloody knife coming through a bathroom stall door. 163Ellen Rolfes, “For Hundreds of Years, Cherry Blossoms are a Matter of Life and Death,” PBSNewHours.com, 4/12/2013. Accessed 9/24/2016. 164Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, “Drop,” lyrics by Chiba Yuusuke, trans Alex Fyffe and Yumi Hori. Translation found online < https://longdream.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/drop-by-thee-michelle-gun-elephant/>Accessed 2/6/16. 165Ichigo first introduces herself as “Ichiko,” because her real name means “strawberry,” which she feels is too “un- yankii.” For consistency, I will refer to her as Ichigo throughout the discussion of Kamikaze Girls. 166Interestingly, Himiko’s story closely resembles many major plot points from the Pinky Violence sukeban series, in particular Girl Boss Delinquent: Worthless to Confess, where a rebellious bancho rounds up her previous gang sisters in order to exact revenge on Yakuza for their treatment of the girls, their men, and even one father. The finale is a sword-slashing massacre in a discotheque. 167The lyrics are repeated three times in the film, first when Ichigo, as a younger teen, runs away on her bicycle singing the song at the top of her lungs, second time is here, and a third is when she hears the song playing in a pachinko parlor and she has a bonding moment with “unicorn Genji,” the man she eventually falls for but cannot be with. Ozaki is cited on the Kamikaze Girls DVD as being very popular with yankii fans and this song in particular, “Fifteen’s Night,” as one of the most beloved. The lyrics that Ichigo sings are translated as “I glare at the adults that have no idea how I feel/and my pals are making plans to run away from home tonight/for now, I just don't wanna go back to school or home/A night at 15/when I'm shivering unsure even what I'm doing here/I race off on a stolen motorcycle, no destination in mind/into the pall of the dark night/escaping into this night/'cause I don't wanna be bound by anyone/A night at 15 when I felt I was free. “Kamikaze Girls” website , and Ozaki translation Accessed 2.10.16 168Genji is in the first two films, Kazeo Kaburagi is the protagonist of the third film, but the formula applies. 169When hearing this, Ken states, “so cool!” 170Translation found online < http://www.jpopasia.com/group/thestreetbeats/lyrics/kiseki-25th-anniversary-best- 1984-2009/i-wanna-change::134846.html> Accessed 2.1.16. 189

171Most of her role is limited to a typical male-oriented coming-of-age story. She is a performer in the club that Genji visits, she cheerfully attempts to break down his icy exterior, and, after doing so, she is kidnapped by a rival gang member and held hostage and must wait for Genji to come to her rescue. 172Contemporary female yankii are typically depicted as singular figures with “recuperating” narratives of parting with their gangs like Ichigo. They are often minor characters who exhibit a competent toughness. In , the main character’s mother and best friend are both reformed yankiis, and the eldest sister in the anime Minami-ke.

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Chapter 5: The Near-Disaster Film: Discourses of Youth and Disaster in Millennial Japan

In direct contrast to the selection of art-house independent features chronicled in the first chapter on New Japanese Cinema Seishun Eiga comes this chapter’s discussion of the action and suspense driven narratives of, what I term, near-disaster films, due to the simple fact that an oncoming disaster gets averted. As a genre, the disaster film has a long history within Japan and the narrative structures tend towards genre blending with science-fiction, bio-ecological, and horror film characteristics or, in other words, popular cinema. However, there has also been an emerging trend in recent film and anime texts that dive into the sub-genre of the near-disaster.

Animated films such as the Higashi no Eden series (Eden of the East, Kenji Kamiyama, 2009),

Summer Wars (Mamoru Hosoda, 2009), and the live-action Fish Story (Yoshihiro Nakamura,

2009) represent this new category of near-disaster film as they chronicle young people faced with imminent wide-scale disaster but whose resourcefulness prevents the disastrous event and saves Japan (and the world). Also significant, the films chosen for this chapter employ complex intertextuality in U.S. filmic references, demonstrating an international platform of known disaster genre conventions as well as an opportunity for some one-upmanship for Japan.

Interestingly, these films also play with semi-futuristic technology while also firmly conventional in their conservative leanings, especially in the identification of working class male-hero and the importance of collective strength and unified group effort.

Three significant shifts away from the disaster film of the past are occurring: first, the transformation of the mass-destruction and loss narrative into one of “near-disaster”; second, the change of the protagonist from a single science-hero or working professional-hero to the un(der)

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employed youth; and third, the inclusion of a youth-hero as the great mobilizer and leader which the rest of Japan chooses to aid and support. This salvation occurs through using social media and everyday technology to enable the entire national collective to participate in deterring the oncoming disaster. I analyze the emerging subgenre of the near-disaster film as part of the larger discussion of contemporary genre cycles that prominently feature specific types of youth characters. In this chapter, I consider the history of the disaster film in Japan, its character archetypes and narrative formulas. Then, I will closely analyze three films that represent the near-disaster film and how these films update typical archetypes and formulas with youth- oriented themes and representations.

As a genre, the disaster film may have the most personal and political meaning compared to any other film genre in Japanese history. Modern Japan has continuously suffered (and contributed to) significant tragedies on scales political, ecological, and nuclear: radical modernization in the Restoration, a multitude of debilitating , atrocities across

East Asia, the near total devastation of major cities due to carpet and nuclear bombing in World

War II, the seemingly unending economic recession of The Lost Years, and finally the most recent 3.11 tragedies of the combined Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown at

Fukushima. Japan’s history of disaster is source and motivation for creating a multitude of discourses of catastrophe, prevention, and salvation.

Many scholars have analyzed Japanese literature, film, and art that depict moments of national disaster to consider these media. Discussing the trauma of the atomic bombings of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Susan Sontag argues that media texts “bear witness to this trauma, and, in a way, attempt to exorcise it.”173 In other words, it can be argued that disaster films in Japan project future to reduce the trauma experienced at the sudden onset of devastation.

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Creating anticipatory texts ideally enables the general population not only to predict a disaster narrative but perhaps even to thwart the traumatic experience of disasters. In other national contexts, the disaster film can simply be an expression of fantastic imagination, but due to

Japan’s history of disaster, both manmade and natural, Mick Broderick argues the films display a

“metatextuality of [disaster],”174 an intertextual-referentiality. Namely, Broderick argues that fictional disasters comment on Japan’s context of disaster, producing readings at both levels of industry and reception, and I assert this “meta-textuality” contributes to a new millennial iteration of disaster films, near-disaster films, whose narrative event is the aversion of disaster rather than the devastation.

THE JAPANESE CONTEXT AND THE DISASTER FILM IN JAPAN

To situate these contemporary films within the lineage of the Japanese disaster film, I will elaborate on the Japanese national context and its history of disaster films. Japan has a precarious geographic position, with an ever-present possibility of natural disasters and events, especially regarding earthquakes, typhoons, and . DuringWorld War II a near-total destruction occurred in all of Japan’s urban centers, fallout from the dropping of atomic bombs on and Nagasaki, and finally nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll in the years following the end of the war. Now, in addition to being vulnerable to natural and man-made disaster, Japan is currently experiencing an on-going economic recession, beginning in 1989 after their economic bubble burst and continuing through present day. This period also marks the second “ice age” of employment in Japan’s “silver democracy,” a system which privileges elder contracted workers over hiring new recruits.175 This economic recession, termed “The Lost Years,” contrasts the immense growth Japan sustained after WWII (the Economic Miracle), and the depreciation of

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the marks a vulnerability on a global economic and trade scale. In addition, the recession places a domestic anxiety on the citizenry because of the ongoing possibilities of being struck with another .176

Stephen Keane’s analysis of disaster films asserts that genre cycles evolve every twenty years. Keane breaks down broad categories of disaster film, and, though he largely discusses

U.S. films, the general evolution also applies to the Japanese disaster film. After World War II, the first cycle of disaster films is the 1950s science fiction films that draw on the modern reality of nuclear power and Cold War ideology after World War II.177 Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, spectacle disaster films highlight mass destruction and significant human causalities but also feature the eventual survival of the . The third cycle of films are often grouped under the term, sekaikei, meaning “World Type,” and are “millennial” disaster films. These films, beginning in the late 1980s through the early 2000s, express a millennial anxiety, a simultaneous fear and celebration of the end of the world, as especially expressed by young writers and directors born after WWII. A fourth cycle, appearing around 2005, is the return of the big-budget spectacle disaster film along with a subgenre of near-disaster movies.

Starting the first cycle is the most famous disaster film from Japan, Gojira (Ishiro Honda,

1954), which, along with the film Lucky Dragon No. 5 (Kaneto Shindō, 1959), begins with the post WWII nuclear relationship between Japan and the . In 1954, American nuclear testing contaminated the tuna boat, Lucky Dragon No. 5 (Daigo Fukuryū Maru). The survivors’ plight and subsequent failing health were closely documented in popular media. The incident clearly inspired Shindō’s film, and the first scene of Gojira also references the tuna boat workers. Gojira illustrates a raging beast awakened by nuclear fallout, rising from the sea to stampede the people and destroy Tokyo. The film expresses nuclear anxiety in the dichotomy

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between Japan and the U.S.: Americans are the cause for the destructive nuclear testing vs. a peaceful Japanese scientist-veteran whose scientific break-through and self-sacrifice eventually destroys Gojira.178 Ideologically, Gojira attempts to rewrite the end of World War II wherein

Japan has invented superior weapon to defeat the nuclear attack, as symbolized by Gojira’s wakening and rampage, and then his destruction.179

The second cycle is the action-disaster film from the 1960s to the late 1970s, films that can also be described as “spectacular cinema,” using pyrotechnic and special effects to enhance the audience experience of disaster.180 Though these films could be considered more as “disaster- ridden” rather than “disaster movies,”181 they serve an important function as an expression of a new evolution of disaster narratives, one that moves from the characters being “innately passive and survivalist” to them “taking control of the situation.”182 These action-disaster films most clearly line up as predecessors to the near-disaster film in 2000s Japan, especially when comparing the transition from disaster to (or terrorist-motivated disaster) but also in the hyper-valorization of the film’s male hero.183 Nihon Chinbotsu (Shiro Moritani, 1973) features a

Japan that has become aware of an oncoming threefold natural disaster. Tectonic plates shifting will cause Japan to sink into the ocean, accelerated by a volcano and then tsunamis. The

Japanese government attempts to evacuate all its citizens, raising money by selling off valuable historic landmarks and artifacts. Neighboring countries hover and bargain over pieces of

Japanese history, and in the end the archipelago sinks while survivors watch from the air.

Other films, such as The Last War (Sekai Daisensō, Shue Matsuyabashi, 1961), its 1974 remake Prophecies of Nostradamus (Nosutoradamasu no Daiyogen, , 1974), and

Virus (Fukkatsu No Hi/Day of Resurrection, Kinji Fukasaku, 1980) dichotomize Japan against

Western nations, namely the United States and NATO, as well as Germany and Russia. In these

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films, Japan is caught in the middle of nuclear wars between Western nations and North

Korea.Another type of spectacular disaster beyond natural and nuclear attacks are those films which fill the narrative with action sequences such as Shinkansen Daibakuha (,

Junya Sato, 1975) in which a downsized businessman in league with an activist holds a bullet train hostage with a bomb for money.

In her article, “Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to

Akira,” Susan Napier, using Andrew Tudor’s term, describes both Gojira and Nihon Chinbotsu as “secure horror”: films which contain the external threat in order to end with government and people re-established, having worked together in successful collectivity.184 In the realm of the disaster film, I find this notion of “secure horror” to be useful; however, it does not resonate in the same manner as the near-disaster because the fourth-cycle near-disaster film performs a differing ideological recuperation of the nation with disaster prevention with conservative ideological endings, especially through ending with significant closure. Also in the near-disaster, the salvation of the nation is through a non-governmental entity as hero or leader of the movement rather than the success of governmental or rescue organizations.

The third-cycle millennial disaster films, sekai kei, are defined by “the virtual celebration of [disaster]” per Napier’s discussion of Akira’s (Katsuhiro Ōtomo, 1988) “postmodern privileging,” or welcoming of disaster in certain genre films of the late nineties to the early

2000s.185 Sekai kei, a term coined by anime fans and Japanese cultural critics, is a genre category that first appeared online in fan discussions of anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion (Hideaki

Anno, TV series 1995-1996; films 1997-present). The term’s origins are notoriously untraceable other than appearing on online anime forums, but Hiroki Azuma and Christopher Howard expand on the term and genre category, first in Azuma’s book on Otaku methods of categorizing

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sub-culture, Otaku: Database Animals, and then in Howard’s article, “The Ethics of Sekai-kei:

Reading Hiroki Azuma with Slavoj Žižek."186 Seikai-kei games, light novels, manga, and anime primarily appear in the late 1990s to the early 2000s and imagine a post-apocalyptic world while anticipating another forthcoming apocalyptic-type disaster: a sort of double-disaster scenario.

Some examples of this cycle are: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Saishū Heiki Kanojo (manga 2000-

2001; Dir. Mitsuko Kase, anime TV series, 2002), Voices from a Distant Star (,

2003), and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Light Novels, 2003-2011; Dir. Tatsuya

Ishihara, anime TV series, 2003). All films/series place youth protagonists involved in romantic or friend relationships; the decisions of those involved also dictate the fate of the world, usually a dystopic and apocalyptic world where the end is imminent. The world’s fate depends on youth who struggle with indecision and typically displays a breaking down of the world in order to build it back up as a sort of cleansing destruction. Especially important in these disasters is the collapse of governmental and military forces. In “secure horror” disaster films, some portion of society and civilization survives. The government, working with specialists such as scientists and engineers combined with the military force, offer possible survival. However, in this cycle the government and military are corrupt, youth are abandoned or betrayed, and the state of dystopia is itself indicative that there can be no future. Manga and anime best displayed these narratives and also served (most specifically with the global recognition of Akira as art film) to introduce anime films outside of Japan. Coming out of the 1980s, the Japanese film industry had been long struggling. However, at the beginning of the new millennium, renewed interest in Japanese films occurred primarily due to the popularity of English-language distribution of VHS and DVDs of independent art films, low-budget horror films, as well as anime and manga. Anime television

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and film were also widely fan-circulated through pirating copies and therefore remained an industry mainstay after the renewal of the film industry’s economy in the latter 2000s.

The 2000s saw a revival of the standard natural disaster format, especially as the films coincided with a growing industry for big-budget spectacular cinema, creating a fourth cycle. In the first decade of the new millennium, several films which either center the narrative around or feature natural disasters include Nihon Chinbotsu (a remake, , 2006), 252:

Seizonsha Ari (252: Signal of Life, Nobuo Mizuta, 2008), Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008),

Kansen Retto (, , 2009), Sono Machi no Kodomo/The Town’s Children

(Surviving the Quake, Tsuyoshi Inoue, 2010), and the Umizaru films, especially Umizaru 3: The

Last Message (Eiichirō Hasumi, 2010). Coinciding with the recovery of the domestic Japanese film industry, the majority of these films were extremely popular.

Moving into the fourth-cycle, the three films that I have noted above can be clearly identified as near-disaster films in that their narrative climax is the prevention of the disaster.

While my chosen texts also comment on the ideological work as described by Napier and speak to national pride, they depart from secure horror as the uniting force of government or institutions fail, and instead individual heroes, who are slightly outcast people, motivate citizenry to successfully avert disaster. The near-disaster film’s narrative is primarily devoted to the prevention of a disaster that threatens to strike. Similar to a proto-typical “action” (and disaster) film, the primary protagonist is a “layman” who has practical skills but no specialized knowledge and most often is a charismatic and un- or under-employed, male character.187 The Japanese near-disaster film varies from the typical action film because it so clearly aligns within the lineage of the disaster film as the stakes of the possible event are high; the character archetypes are nearly identical, as are the elements of the “secure-horror” genre. The primary exception

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from “secure-horror” is that the near-disaster film features the destructive spectacle (or most of it) but no human casualties. This sub-genre is indicative of a shift to celebrate the prevention of disaster, showing the process of stopping disaster rather than just the survival of a few.

THE DISASTER FILM AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

For the disaster film the first narrative element is the disastrous “event” itself. Ideological readings follow the argument that “generic cycles are sparked by resonant ideas, that they are acutely reflective of social, cultural and political developments,”188 and thus the critic needs to understand the circumstances of the filmic world in order to read the larger contextual implications. Maurice Yacowar most famously catalogues eight possible types of disaster events in his article, “The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre.” He terms them as the “Natural

Attack,” “The Ship of Fools,” “The City Fails,” “The Monster,” “Survival,” “War,” “The

Historical” (which includes the future), and “The Comic.”189 These types are, for the most part, self-explanatory. However, even within these specific categories of event-types, genre convergences are still at play, such as with the “war” and “comic” categories that imply other genres. His distinctions amongst natural attacks, technology-based disasters (in “The Ship of

Fools” and “The City Fails”), and supernatural occurrences (“The Monster”) are most helpful as they most specifically refer to narrative events while also establishing the “primary situation” which initiates the film’s setting and the logical events to follow from that setting.190 The natural attack has three types: the “natural monster” (in which Gojira would fit); the attack of the elements such as in Nihon Chinbotsu (1973); and “natural attack by an atomic mutation” such as the giant ants of Them! (1954). In “The Ship of Fools,” an isolated journey turns into a travel

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disaster; in “The City Fails” humans are punished for their hubris and the grandeur of civilization.

The stakes of the disaster film can often be understood as divine punishment or a kind of tragic irony. On Hollywood spectacle films, Geoff King writes, “One way to gauge the thematic implications of disaster films is to examine the targets that come in for maximum destruction.”191

For natural disasters the assault on historical landmarks, urban centers, and mass populations preaches humanity’s ecological irresponsibility; nuclear testing off the Pacific coast awakens an enraged sea monster that punishes mankind for its folly. Both of these scenarios represent moralizing lessons and political anxieties. In addition, the characters’ personalities or roles in society often define their fates. Though almost all of the characters must suffer, those who represent corruption or dishonesty do not typically survive. Overall the disaster film not only comments on specific contemporary national, social, and economic anxieties but also serves a function on the level of anticipating spectator reception, to return to Yacowar: “Disaster film exploits the spectacular potential of the screen and nourishes the audience’s fascination with the vision of massive doom.”192 Many writers discuss the spectator’s pleasure in viewing spectacular narratives of destruction, but only Sontag warns against the complacency of consuming disaster texts as “neutralizing” the “abhorrent,”193 describing a false safety in watching disaster unfold before one’s eyes. This argument will be further expanded on in the chapter’s conclusion.

The disaster film typically utilizes roughly drawn two-dimensional characters.194 This is due to the circumstances of disaster predicating a large cast because lives must be threatened or sacrificed in order to justify the gravity of the narrative event as a disaster. With a large cast of characters, there is not enough time to create and explore complicated and in-depth personalities, and therefore the commonly agreed-on status of characters run primarily along the lines of sex,

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class, and race/ethnicity. Throughout both the U.S. and Japan is the common element of a single male hero-protagonist, and while there may be major female characters, they are often ineffectual witnesses or sidekick love-interests to the main active male. The active male hero is

“usually a layman with practical sense but without specialized knowledge.”195 Across the many iterations of the disaster film in multiple national cinemas, the hero layman is the most consistent type placed at the center of these films. That he is the most active and the most likely to survive

(and find love) speaks volumes in films in which religious figures, men of power and wealth, scientists, engineers, and others have privileged information. In natural and/or technological disasters there is also often the appearance of the “specialist,” typically male, who suspects an upcoming disaster and is dismissed by ignorant institutional powers that prefer to protect investments or reputations. The specialist is eventually vindicated when disaster does strike but, though he suspected it, cannot prevent it.196

The near-disaster has several common qualities with the typical disaster film. The premise is the same: an upcoming disaster; the primary characters fulfill similar gendered and categorical roles; the spectacle wows. However, the post-millennial near-disaster film shifts discussion of hero-layperson and technical expert towards a Japanese class context of youth and employment, specifically the social categories termed Freeters and NEETs, upon which I will expand shortly. Thus, to analyze near-disaster films, it is important to note the departure from the disaster film: first, the choices of the youth hero, technical experts, and villains; and second, the near-disaster’s spectacular destruction that does not include mass human casualties which gives a new kind of “secure-horror.”

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THE NEAR-DISASTER FILMS: THE TEXTS

The near-disaster film is presented as in a contemporary, if not near, future. The three films examined here were all released in 2009, and the films fast forward one to three years, basing the action in 2010 or 2012.197 I have chosen to focus on these three works/series primarily due to their similarity: namely the types of disaster, the character roles, and the prevention of disaster.198 Arguably, Japan has been “always-in-crisis” during the life span of these young protagonists’ lives, and because of this, these youth have come of age always anticipating another disastrous event, natural or terrorist. These youth, raised in precarity, are shown as the most adaptable to disaster. In fact, main characters often desire disaster, wishing for “something” to happen. Yet when they face the real possibility of a disaster, they repeal that desire as well as acknowledge their own complicity with the sorry state of Japan. In other words, a general pattern shows the characters’ transition from passivity and inaction to active participation.

The “everyman” hero and technical specialists of the typical disaster film are also found here but often translated to a youth who can be described as a freeter or NEET, an important departure from the typical adult male professional hero. The Japanese word furita comes from the English word “Free,” and the Japanese term for a part-time job (drawn from the German) is arubaito; NEET is an acronym meaning “Not in Education, Employment, or Training.” The growing number of young people in part-time or no employment at all, termed freeters and

NEETs, became a recent site of social panic. These categories of Japanese youth have increased markedly in the last twenty years and carry a stigma of laziness or social ineptitude. The appearance of these social and labor categories in popular genre films is increasingly frequent, and, in this specific sub-genre, they overtake the previously occupied place of adult male heroes, specialists, and, interestingly, also villains. The intricacies of this will be outlined after a brief

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overview of the films, in particular their generic commonalities, creator profiles, and intended audiences.

Set in the near-future of 2012, Fish Story begins by showing the deserted streets of

Tokyo. A comet is approaching earth and its imminent impact imposes an end to civilization, as it will cause massive tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Despite the threat of the comet, a single music store is open. The youthful proprietor plays a song recorded 37 years ago by an obscure Japanese punk band called Gekirin and insists that, somehow, this song will save the world. Through exposition of inter-connected stories, Fish Story, like the cycles of disaster films, is structured across multiple decades. Altogether five major stories span from the 1950s to

2012. The film’s expansive storyline begins in 1953 with the mistranslation by an underemployed man of an English-language book, the eponymous Fish Story, a novel. In 1975,

Gekirin records the eponymous song; 1982 follows a young driver as he listens to that song and hears his clients discuss urban legends about the musical group; 1999 tracks the failure of

Taniguchi and the debunking of Nostramdamus’s apocalyptic prophecies; 2009 shows two young teens on a ferry boat; and finally, in 2012, the record store owner contemplates the salvation of the world from an incoming comet. Each decade cycle features a youth protagonist at the center, and, by the end, the film reveals generational ties between the characters. However, as the film progresses, each youth protagonist engages in active participation in order to overcome fears and to accomplish personal success. At a personal level, each decade has a

“hero,” but as the chronological history leads up to the comet and possible destruction of the world, it is a collective effort of youth participation that saves the world. In particular, the 2009 storyline features two main characters, math genius Masami and freeter Segawa, on a ferryboat that is about to be hijacked by a cult organization. This “micro” terrorist-disaster initiates a

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connection between the two youth protagonists, and Segawa saves Masami. The events of this story arc will, in turn, allow Masami to stop the “macro” disaster of the impending comet in

2012.

Eden of the East’s narrative begins three months after ten missiles strike Japan. This terrorist act, referred to as "Careless Monday" (Yuuutsuna Getsuyobi, which translates closer to

“Melancholy” Monday), does not result in any apparent victims and is described as “soon forgotten by almost everyone.”199 Three months later, Saki Morimi, a young woman currently in the United States on her graduation trip, gets into trouble for throwing a wishing coin into the front yard of the White House and is subsequently saved by Akira Takizawa, a resourceful young

Japanese man.200 However, Akira has lost his memory and holds a gun in one hand and a cellular phone charged with 8.2 billion yen in digital cash in the other. Akira soon realizes he is a seleção, a contestant chosen by a hidden billionaire, Mr. Outside, to participate in a game to change Japan. Mr. Outside chooses players, gives each of them ten billion yen, and tells them to

“save” Japan. The film soon reveals that Akira has erased his own memory due to his involvement in the Careless Monday attacks, caused by a rival player, Ryou Yūki . As Akira begins to put together his past, he realizes that he was responsible for mobilizing a force of

NEET volunteers to evacuate each target site before the missiles landed. Again, on a small scale, the “Melancholy Monday” attacks have already been thwarted, but the new upcoming attack, orchestrated by youth villains Yūki and Daiju Mononobe, still looms. Through another act of collective participation, Akira leads a group of more than 20,000201 technical specialist youths to avert a terrorist missile attack.

Mamoru Hosoda’s Summer Wars, like Eden of the East, features a terrorist threat but in the form of a rogue virus that has hacked into online infrastructures to wreak havoc on Japan.

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Youth-hero Kenji Koiso is a math whiz who holds a part-time low-end job moderating the massive computer-simulated virtual reality world OZ. Natsuki, one of the most popular girls in his school, asks him to help in celebrating Sakae’s ninetieth birthday, the family matriarch and

Natsuki’s great-grandmother. While at Sakae’s home, Kenji receives an anonymous text message with a complicated math equation to be solved, and simply responding to the message enables AI software, “Love Machine,” to corrupt his OZ avatar. By hacking into civil servants’ user accounts in OZ, Love Machine wreaks havoc on the town’s civil infrastructure. The film reveals

Natsuki’s estranged uncle, Wabisuke, created Love Machine after stealing the family’s inheritance and running away to the United States. Wabisuke wrote Love Machine and then sold a prototype to the U.S. army. As a way to test Love Machine’s abilities, the U.S. army released the virus online, initiating the events that terrorize Japan. Natsuki’s family attempts to stop the program by trapping the virus into a locked network. However, due to a weakness in the program the AI virus escapes, and in retaliation it begins a countdown to crash an asteroid probe on one global nuclear reactor in the world. Through a combined effort, the family is able to challenge

Love Machine using handheld gaming consoles, GPS units, and mobile phones, all domestically made in Japan. The rest of the world sees the efforts of Natsuki’s family by tracking the fight online and lend their online accounts in aid. Eventually, Natsuki defeats Love Machine at an online card game. Love Machine then changes the intended crash site from a nuclear reactor to the family estate. In a slight variation from the other two films, the stakes of the disaster moves from a macro or worldwide level threat to a personal one. As well, interplay between class differences occurs, primarily between Kenji and Natsuki’s family, who have prestigious ancestral ties. Additionally, Wabisuke, who is the illegitimate son of Natsuki’s great-grandfather and the black sheep of the family, redeems himself. Wabisuke’s first appearance initially

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establishes him as the primary villain, but as he is brought back into the family structure, the

U.S. army is revealed to be the true villain. Wabisuke fights alongside his family as a representative of both the Jinnouchi family and Japan.

The directors and writers of these three works emerge from the same generation. Eden of the East director and writer, Kenji Kamiyama, as well as Summer Wars writer, Satoko Okudera and director Mamoru Hosoda, are all born in 1966 or 1967. Their early careers were spent in the creative arts and are associated with major anime and film industry names such as

(Hayao Miyzaki), Production I.G., , and Madhouse studios. Similarly, the director of Fish Story, Yoshihiro Nakamura, and writer Kotaru Isaka, the original novel’s author, were born in 1970 and 1971 respectively. At the time of Fish Story’s release, both had barely reached middle-age and yet hold high-level industry positions in their fields.

They also all represent a generation born after WWII, raised on the long legacy of kaijū-eiga, disaster films, and the work of such anime auteurs as (b.1928),

(b.1938), and Hayao Miyazaki (b.1941).

Eden of the East premiered on a Fuji TV’s animation block called , a premier time slot which is known for more mature narrative and and a wider viewing audience than typical anime demographics. These include young adult with a high number of female viewers as well as some teen audiences. Kamiyama’s reputation was already in high esteem after he wrote, produced, and directed two original television adaptations of

Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell series. Eden of the East represented his first original narrative, and it was successful enough to garner two film sequels released in theaters. Similarly,

Hosoda contributed portions of immensely popular anime series, such as the Digimon series

(1999-2000), as well as directing the movie (1999) and the opening title sequence of Samurai

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Champloo (Shinichiro Watanabe, 2004). Hosoda then directed The Girl Who Leapt Through

Time (2006) to many critical accolades. Summer Wars enjoyed similar success, both critically and financially.202 Summer Wars was rated for general audiences, is oft likened to a Studio

Ghibli film, and reflects the same audiences, predominantly family friendly as well as young fans. Fish Story had a much more limited release, mainly at film festivals, but was widely reviewed positively and received an award from the New York Asian for “Best Pop Culture Rush.”203 Though it played to smaller audiences, they are predominantly comprised of festival-going adults.

For all three films, the initial narrative event places ordinary citizens in a situation of oncoming major disaster, one that seems inescapable. As the central characters come to terms with their projected fate, however, they resist and choose instead to find a solution. All three works feature the emergence of typical disaster film character types, specifically the layman-hero who translates here into a freeter-hero, the technical specialist who in these examples appears as

“NEETs,” and the villain who varies between both. The stakes for the hero- and helper- characters are very high as each text focuses on a specific group of people in whose hands rests the fate of the world. The stakes of these narratives deviate from the typical disaster film in very specific, but slight, ways. Primarily, the power to change events is taken from larger governmental institutions and placed into small citizen units, such as a family or group of friends. Still, these disaster narratives display a conservative ideology, one in which male protagonists win and the nationalist discourse is always asserted. In other words, the microcosm and macrocosm set of stakes are resolved: first, at the level of the characters who not only survive but thwart the disaster and, second, at the national level in that Japan—in direct contrast

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to the U.S—has saved the world. In each film, Japan emerges the victor on a global scale, often showing up the failings of the United States.

Fish Story and Lay-Heroes

Fish Story exhibits freeter characters most prominently, especially through the writing of the eponymous song by Gekirin in 1975 and Segawa’s heroics as “Champion of Justice” in the

2009 story arc. Summer Wars and Eden of the East also have freeter characters, but Fish Story makes its youth lay-heroes the key agents towards averting disaster. In Fish Story, the interplaying roles of youth across several generations initiate a collective progression, beginning in the fifties to the present-day crisis in the approaching comet. In the 1970s storyline, fictional punk band Gekirin represents freeters in the initial stages of their career before signing a record contract with Okazaki’s father. Band members have juggled part-time jobs to support themselves and their families while attempting to make a career in music.

“Fish Story,” their song, is truly a legacy of temporarily employed men. Immediately after WWII, when work was scarce, a third-generation Tokyoite Japanese-American applies for a job to translate a novel, Fish Story, from English to Japanese. Using a dictionary to translate every single word, the man improperly translates the novel, and it is recalled, the only existing copy finding its way from Gekirin’s agent to its band leader, Shigeki. Shigeki borrows lines from the book for the song’s lyrics, and as they record their “Fish Story,” lead singer Goro talks over the guitar solo, asking Okazaki how people could not love such a great song. The studio decides to cut the soliloquy from the song, leaving a minute of dead air in the middle of the recording.

This minute-long silence takes on an urban legend as a haunted recording: if a listener has a sixth sense then it is possible to hear a woman scream. Although their agent recognizes them as

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musical visionaries and believes in their message, their music is too new and alienating to be popular, and eventually the studio ends their contract. Though temporarily employed, the futures of the members of Gekirin are now unknown, and the film provides little indication as to their future endeavors.

The urban legend around “Fish Story’s” minute of silence drives the 1980s arc of the film. Masashi is a part-time driver for hire, another freeter, whose passengers explain the urban legend and force him to listen to a cassette recording of “Fish Story” in his car. After an encounter with a college student who has premonitions, Masashi, listening to the song again, hears a woman scream during the minute of silence. After he stops the car and jumps out, he realizes that the scream comes from an actual girl being attacked by a rapist, and fighting back all of his cowardice and fear, he comes to her aid. At the end of the film, Masashi is revealed to be Segawa’s father, the hero in the 2009 arc. Thus, the actions of these generations of average, individual men culminate in the successful prevention of the oncoming 2012 disaster.

However, the outstanding case of the “freeter” as hero is in the 2009 arc, as Segawa, a young man temporarily employed in the food service industry on a ferry, explains to Masami, a lost high school math student, that Segawa’s father raised him to have as a true calling being a

“champion of justice.” A brief montage from his childhood in the nineties shows him training his body and mind and instilling a sense of moral righteousness in himself. Segawa’s preparation is the only way disaster can be averted: constant anticipation and vigilance. Segawa represents one youth in a long chain of generations who have endured and survived disasters in contemporary

Japan and in this fictionalized version can successfully avert disaster in the future.

The beginning of the 2009 narrative arc starts with young high school girls running on the deck of a ferryboat. After Masami falls asleep on a bench, the ferry drops off her fellow

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students and embarks towards Hokkaido. She awakens to find that the ferry will not stop until it reaches its next destination. Frustrated and upset, she sits in the cafeteria and cries. Then, a tart on a plate is set down in front of her. Segawa in a white chef’s coat tells her it is a fruit tart.

However, he has delivered it to the wrong person. As he takes the tart away, she continues to cry.

The film cuts to black, and a title card screen reads: “2009: In 3 minutes and 33 seconds the ferry will be hijacked” (fig. 5.1)

Fig 5.1 Title screens tell the viewer the immediate future

On-screen time begins counting down. This clock countdown mimics one that opens the film, a countdown of the comet’s collision with earth, but this is a smaller scale of the future mass destruction.

The next shot is of another tart, again being set down in front of Masami. Masami states that she did not order this, but Segawa, kneels. “Mind if I tell you an amusing story? It’s about my father. Actually it’s about the way my father raised me. My life’s so ludicrous it’s laughable.

The ferry won’t stop until we arrive in Hokkaido, we might as well enjoy ourselves. The story of

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my absurd life will make the trip memorable. Do you want to hear about it?” She nods in agreement. He stands to take a seat across from her. The camera tracks toward him as he looks off-screen right towards an eyeline match with Masami. “You see . . . I wanted to be a champion of justice. Isn’t it ridiculous? That’s what I wanted to be.” The two of them are now in a medium two-shot, talking across the table (fig. 5.2):

Weird isn’t it? It’s a vague ambition when you think about it. It’s not like wanting or be a lawyer or soccer player. According to my father the preparation was more important than the title. A strong body and a calm mind. He told me that I had to acquire those qualities. I’ve been working out since I was a kid. And I had Zen training too—to have a mind as peaceful as a stream—a mind that stays calm and isn’t tempted by violence.

She asks him, “Did you succeed?” and he answers, “I don’t know….” They both laugh.

Fig. 5.2 Masami and Segawa get to know each other

Throughout their exchange, the camera alternates between close-up and medium shots of the two of them as one explains or replies or two-shots of them seated together. Though not much physical action has taken place yet, their dialogue represents a comforting feeling between strangers. Most of all, it situates Segawa, working as a freeter who is committed to doing part

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time work while waiting to find a way to fulfill his true calling as “A champion of justice” (正義

のみかた/seigi no mikata). Their clothes clearly demarcate their social class and category,

Segawa’s white chef’s jacket and Masami’s school uniform. Their interaction is unlikely, but because of his temporary placement aboard the ferry, he saves Masami from the hijackers when they attack.

The progression of events in Fish Story is represented not as a case of coincidence but as fated to happen. As such, Segawa’s choice of profession on the ferryboat is strictly a part of his destiny, being raised as a defender of the oppressed, as a champion of justice. He was destined to save Masami so she can eventually write the formula on the five-person international spaceship who launch a missile that will intercept the 2012 meteor before it destroys Earth.

Segawa’s constant references to his father’s encouragement are not only romantic and optimistic but also bridge the multiple decades depicted in the film. Segawa is a direct product of the seventies and eighties arc, as “Fish Story” by Gekirin has inspired Masashi to train Segawa as a hero. However, Segawa and Masami are both heroes, and she will become the savior in the future. Youth heroes are linked in Fish Story, and the cult hijacking the ferryboat is a direct precedent to the larger impeding disaster, the comet. The film warns that the ferry will be hijacked in three minutes; the film builds a minor threat that the “champion of justice” easily resolves. Then Masami also saves the world, just in time. The spectacle at the film’s end is the giant explosion in the sky just as the on-screen clock winds down to almost zero. The audience twice anticipates a threat, sees the sequence spectacle (fig. 5.3), and then is gratified as the young heroes survive—a good instance of a “secure horror” resolution given twice.

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Fig. 5.3 The oncoming comet blows up

All the story arcs exhibit conservative ideologies with their masculine driven storylines, in particular how male protagonists overcome their fears and enter into heterosexual unions in order to establish a clear patriarchal order. Masashi saves the woman who will become Segawa’s mother, and their family life is shown to be happy, producing a young, again male, hero. Segawa then in turn saves Masami. While Masami is the crewmember aboard the international spaceship and solves the ultimate equation, the film shows her fast asleep, just as she was on the ferryboat bench. She is brilliant but still childish. As a hero, Masami is not as independent as Gekirin

Masashi, or Segawa but instead part of a larger collective team. Her most important role in the film is that she represents Japan in the international collective and is the one who provides the formula to save the world. Although Fish Story’s primary antagonist is a comet—which spectacularly blows up—pride in Japan can still be represented.

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Eden of the East and Youth Technical Specialists

Eden of the East’s premise is predicated on Akira’s amnesia, emphasizing that, although he is often without memory or identity, he is infinitely resourceful, smart, and charismatic. He is a newspaper delivery man, a free-timer position, which enables him to encounter Mr. Outside who then chooses him as a seleção. By chance, Saki meets Akira in the U.S. in front of the

White House. He quickly sweeps her up and she becomes totally reliant on him. Her association with the computer software development group, Eden of the East, becomes a resource for Akira in regaining his memory and winning Mr. Outside’s game. Even Kazuomi, the leader and most politically motivated member of Eden of the East, quickly becomes fully committed to aiding

Akira. The television series and films make a point to refer to the social category, NEET, in reference to both the Eden of the East group but also the 20,000 volunteers that Akira mobilizes into an emergency task force to evacuate citizens from the projected missile targets. Due to public backlash, Akira ships the 20,000 young Japanese NEETs in a shipping freight to Dubai where they could wait for the public panic to subside. Kazuomi and his software developer friends are self-proclaimed and proud NEETs and develop software for public use alongside brilliant computer geek, Yutaka Itazu, known as Pants. Pants is a hikikomori, meaning a shut-in, who never leaves his room but has an incredibly sophisticated computer system that he uses to monitor Mr. Outside’s gamers while also investigating the disappearance of the 20,000 NEETs.

All of these self-proclaimed NEETs eventually represent resources for Akira as he utilizes them for their skills. In the climax of the final episode of the television series, the 20,000 furious NEETs have returned from Dubai and the abandoned shopping mall where Saki and the members of Eden of the East also reunite. Through security monitors, Eden of the East members watch as the NEETs, who have been stripped naked for their transit, sort through

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thousands of cell phones to find their own while waiting to hear from Akira. In this, the details of the pending disastrous event finally materialize. As the Eden of the East group access Itazu’s data from the seleção phones, they read that Mononobe has orchestrated sixty missiles to “Attack

Japan…to restart it from the Postwar Era.”204 The key landmarks targeted by the missiles are shown. Computer programmer Micchon tells the Eden members that their current location,

Toyosu, is on the list. The 20,000 NEETS and other main characters’ lives are at stake, elevating the already upcoming consequences of national disaster with personal investment. The power shuts off over all occupants of the shopping mall. Then everyone’s phone rings, startling the

Eden of the East members. Akira’s image appears. He is sending a one-way video call to all of the occupants of the shopping mall. The NEETs are shown in various parts of the building, reacting to seeing Akira for the first time in three months after their exile. Akira begins challenging the NEETs: “Hi, Johnny’s! [sic]205 There’s a reason I gathered you here today! And that is to kill you who know the truth about Careless Monday--as well as all the citizens who tried to criticize me--with a new missile attack!”206 A countdown clock begins. Saki grabs her phone and yells, “There’s no way you’d do something like that! Why would you tell such a lie?”

Indeed, Akira is lying, but, as recently revealed, he often manipulates the events of Mr. Outside’s game by taking on the role of villain in order to mobilize others to “defeat” him. The narrative emphasis on Saki’s response is to signify the depth of his goodness by her unshakeable belief in him. A close up shot of her distressed face pleading into the phone remains the focus of the other members. The countdown clock is shown again, and, after a brief pause, the close up of Akira returns. Almost as if he is responding to Saki personally, he states that what he says is not a lie.

He continues, “However, there is still a slim chance for you to survive! All Johnnys who want to

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live, start by assembling on the roof!” The shot goes to a close up of Saki’s face as she faintly states Akira’s name in concern.

The 20,000 NEETs arrive on the roof of the shopping mall where Akira asks them to use their cell phones to crowd source a solution to prevent damage from the new missile assault. As

Akira stands atop a carousel, he uses the NEETs’ ideas to prevent disaster. Though Akira receives all the credit, it is the combined abilities of the NEETs that save Japan.207 The set up of the scene is important in that Akira’s position on the carousel places him far above the mass of

NEETs, most of whom are unimportant and nameless. However, within that group of unknown

NEETs are the secondary protagonists the film, the Eden of the East group, and they represent the known population of young, heroic, computer programmers. They stand with the others, in awe of Akira’s charisma, but the drastic disparity in spatial positioning places them well below

Akira (fig 5.4). However, the film makes a point to credit the actual averting of disaster to those amassed on the roof not to Akira himself.

Fig 5.4 Takizawa, atop the carousel, addresses the naked NEETs

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The role of the technical specialist in a typical disaster film is generally to support the hero-layperson, which is seen here as well. However, in previous iterations the technical specialists are the ones who distribute early warnings and are often unheeded and helpless in the face of the impending danger. In Eden of the East, freelance computer programmers are specifically self-labeled NEETs and therefore represent a contemporary kind of person not in education, employment, or training. Namely, these people are unemployed persons with specialized knowledge, if not a career. In this semi-futuristic depiction of technology, Eden of the East depicts youth NEETs not as helpless technical specialists but as the actual think-tank required to save the world.

However, even though NEETs play the key role in the narrative crisis and resolution of

Eden of the East, an underlying conservatism still exists. NEETs may be educated and resourceful, but they require a great motivator and organizer, here performed by the charismatic

Akira. At one point in the story, one NEET recognizes Akira on the street, and though he is incredibly angry with Akira for kidnapping him and sending him to Dubai, he admits that he met his soon-to-be wife abroad and reluctantly thanks Akira for helping him achieve social acceptance. Again, conservative ideology appears in this underlying criticism of NEET characters, ultimately depicted as socially inept or directionless. As well, In the final moments of

Eden of the East, Yūki fires his missiles (fig. 5.5). Akira, through his phone, launches a counterstrike (fig. 5.6), the missiles are intercepted in the sky above Tokyo (fig 5.7), and Akira cuts a heroic silhouette against the backdrop of averted disaster (fig 5.8). The NEETs are naked and in awe. The secure-horror ideology here is the same as Fish Story: the explosions are satisfying and harmless as Japan is saved again by youth.

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Fig 5.5 Yūki fires missiles

Fig. 5.6 Takizawa, informed by the NEETs, launches a counterstrike

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Fig 5.7 The missiles are intercepted

Fig 5.8 The NEETs look on as the plan succeeds

The villains in Eden of the East are also characteristic of disaster narratives, especially in contrast to how the series characterizes its main protagonist, Akira. Akira’s primary rival is neo- conservative Mononobe who hates Japan in its current state and wants to push it into a crisis in order to create change. Mononobe manipulates fellow seleção, Yūki, who, after caring for his ailing parents, resents the privileging of the elderly in Japan. Yūki wishes to take revenge on a

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society that has overlooked him. Although Yūki orders the missile attacks, Mononobe is the intelligence behind him. Mononobe represents the elder echelon of youth whofeel they have been made impotent by mishandled finances of the Lost Years and over-reliance on U.S. protection.

Mononobe’s ultimate goal is to take over Mr. Outside’s wealth and install a fascist government.

Yūki and Mononobe’s ideological opposition to the current state of Japanese politics in the narrative echoes real-life ideologies in contemporary Japan, though to an extreme. Mononobe is the prototypical anime villain; he is a megalomaniac and craves power and money. His ultimate goal is to reinstate fascism, and, in that, he represents the greatest betrayal to his fellow youth population. The rest of the characters recognize that his desire to revert Japan to a pre-WWII state is one that denies citizens civil liberties and promotes war. In response, as a final move to

“save Japan,” Akira chooses to divide evenly the remainder of his fortune, bestowed by Mr.

Outside, among the citizens of Japan. In this way, Akira defies the seleção system and Mr.

Outside’s individual-centric strategy to save Japan.

Mr. Outside’s seleção game sets the premise that Japan needs saving. He chooses participants with rivaling ideologies, all of which demonstrate a dissenting attitude of contemporary Japan. Some seleção see the silver democracy as unfair; others, like Mononobe, attempt to profit monetarily from regime change. One seleção takes her newfound wealth and privilege and uses it to become a serial killer, murdering rapists and sex offenders. Akira, however, as the chosen protagonist of the films, represents the “right” way of saving Japan: through the manipulation and motivation of the Japanese youth public. Akira as the layman-hero is required to lead, but the ultimate lesson is that Japan’s salvation can be found in the untapped potential of youth collectivity and technical knowledge. It is an interesting reminder for a nation

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known for collectivist culture versus capitalist individualism. By comparing Japan and the U.S.,

Eden of the East warns against singular ambition and reinforces the strength of group endeavors.

Summer Wars and Reforming the Youth Villain

Another aspect of youth representation in these near-disaster films is the depiction of the youth as villains. The choice of antagonists illustrates a way of elaborating on the political context of the films and alsohighlights the significance of the protagonists. In Eden of the East,

Akira’s seleção rivals are neo-conservative youths who hate Japan in its current state and want to push it into a crisis in order tocreate change. Fish Story features a natural disaster so while it has no particular villain, per se, the film makes a point of dichotomizing good people from bad, such as the phony priests predicting the end of the world in 1999 and, again, in the hijacking of the ferry in 2009. Summer Wars’s depiction of the villain blurs these distinctions in order to depict a youth who can turn from bad to good through the restorative power of the family.

Wabisuke was employed in the U.S. at Carnegie Mellon University, and as a computer programmer he represents the upper echelon of labor mobility. Wabisuke’s technical skill allows him to freelance, and therefore he is able to deprive Japan of his knowledge and skill set and move to the U.S. The Jinnouchis consider this—as well as a theft of family money—as a betrayal to Japan and he is cast out. Wabisuke differs from the NEETs of Eden of the East as he is motivated to work and create, whereas the 20,000 Eden NEETs do not mobilize themselves until directed by a strong leader. However, Wabisuke’s early actions in the film place him firmly within the category of villain as his choices are not for the good of Japan but for himself.

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Summer Wars focuses on the class circumstances of the Jinnouchi family’s powerful ancestry and unique placement of careers within the local civil infrastructure. Throughout the film, the family acts haughty about their lofty origins but is predominantly approachable and functional. The family’s noble lineage had ties to the silk trade though, at present, the family is no longer wealthy because a forefather frittered away their funds, and Wabisuke has stolen the remaining money and left the country. Math whiz and guest Kenji is consistently painted as the outsider, and eventually he will reveal how he envies a large family setting. His respect for

Natsuki’s great-grandmother will spearhead his investment in this family as well as his desire to set right what Love Machine has wrecked because of his participation in solving Love Machine’s puzzle.

An important motif in Summer Wars is the depiction of the main characters eating together as symbolic of in-group inclusion. The Jinnouchi tradition of eating as a family is seen often and is even remarked on by Kenji who mentions that he often must eat alone because his parents are not at home. Sakae, the matriarch of the Jinnouchis, places great importance on family meals. As well, as the female family members gather in the kitchen, great detail is put into their culinary tasks: chopping and peeling vegetables, washing dishes, and receiving fresh seafood deliveries from Uncle Mansuke. Kenji’s first night involves an enormous feast, with all family members seated along a long table. The family members are lively as they grill him and tease each other. The first night dinner also marks the return of Wabisuke. Wabisuke is the illegitimate son of Natsuki’s great-grandfather, another factor which places him outside of the family circle. A tense confrontation occurs between some of the female relatives and Wabisuke, but Sakae asks if he is hungry. He replies that he does not want any of their food and continues to berate Japan, citing bad weather and crowded streets. He seats himself at the table, now

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abandoned by family members who are standing around in shock. Only Natsuki greets him happily. The next scene shows the female relatives around the table in the kitchen, eating, smoking, or cleaning as they recall Wabisuke’s history. In particular, they note that he took the last of the family money and left for America ten years ago.

Many key scenes happen in the large living area, where the long dining table is set up for the family to eat. These scenes often use the décor to imply points about the characters’ relations.

The living area is open-air, the sliding wooden doors open the room to the night air. The house is also rimmed with an outside walkway. The house is built on a foundation, and the floor is elevated. The revelation of the family home often happens in a 180-degree axis, either looking squarely inside from outside or outside from the living area. The following night, Kenji and

Natsuki’s cousin, Kazuma, discover Love Machine. In the discussion about how to defeat Love

Machine, the framing shows the family from a position outside of the home. After Wabisuke interrupts from off-screen left, the family members, several with their backs to the outside, turn towards Wabisuke’s voice. The confrontation is rendered in a long take, enabling the framing to pan left to reveal Wabisuke sitting on the outer walkway, drinking a beer. The framing continues to pan left until the whole family and Wabisuke are in the image. A housing pillar between

Wabisuke and the rest of the family cuts the image vertically, further emphasizing the separation between Wabisuke and the family (fig 5.9). Though a fore, middle, and background can be deciphered the image is remarkably flattened. Kazuma jumps up from the table: “How do you know it won’t work?” Wabiskuke replies, “How do I know? Because I developed him.” The image is slightly off center left, and Wabisuke’s head is tilted downwards, his eyes looking up, making him appear threatening, echoing a classic villain pose. Kazuma, Kenji, and Natsuki look

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shocked. Wabisuke grins. On Kazuma’s nearby computer, Love Machine in the Oz battle arena busily defeats and consumes opponent avatars as Wabisuke explains the program in a voice over.

Fig. 5.9 Wabisuke spatially separated in this 180° shot

Natsuki’s young uncles begin to argue with Wabisuke, pointing to how much trouble

Love Machine has caused. Wabisuke defends himself, saying he only wrote the program and therefore is not to blame for virus’s actions. When the argument becomes physical, one uncle tells them not to fight in front of Sakae. The image is now within the ima, and Wabisuke’s shocked face is shown from the matriarch’s point of view (fig. 5.10). In a reverse shot, Sakae stares squarely to the front, grimacing at Wabisuke (fig. 5.11). A two-shot shows them facing each other in the foreground, the family now in the middle and background (fig 5.12). Wabisuke approaches his grandmother. From above Wabisuke’s left shoulder, Sakae’s face is captured in a downward facing image. Wabisuke states: “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I worked really hard to try to redeem myself. I wanted to be able to come back home filled with pride…”

Sakae’s face softens.

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Fig. 5.10 Sakae shocks Wabisuke

Fig. 5.11 Sakae’s determined look

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Fig. 5.12 The two in profile as the family looks on

This series of images stand out from much of the film. A special history exists between these two characters, and this is the moment in which they are trying truly to communicate. The rest of the family is either in the background or unseen, their voices silent while watching the two of them speak. Wabisuke continues: “Look at this, Granny.” She looks downward at

Wabisuke holding out his cell phone. “I just got an official offer from the U.S. Army.We’re about to be even richer than when Gramps was alive! It’s all thanks to you. The money you gave me allowed me to develop it on my own.” Sakae looks shocked and she moves away from him.

Their moment of possible reconciliation has been broken. The image returns to outside the house’s exterior, back to where the sequence began.The distance and placement outside of the home suggests that the intimacy between the two in the over-the-shoulder medium shots has come to nothing. Sakae is walking away from Wabisuke (fig. 5.13). The family looks on and gasps. Sakae pulls a spear from an ornamental vase. The female family members scream in shock. Sakae then approaches Wabisuke, spear poised behind her and coming toward him as he looks at her through a point-of-view shot. She closes in and lifts the spear. Wabisuke’s shocked

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reaction is shown in her point-of-view. Wabisuke drops the cell phone, and Sakae swings the spear at Wabisuke. He trips over a dining table, spilling food everywhere (fig 5.14). Sakae continues after him. He tips another table, glasses and dishes crashing. As he stops, a close up of his profile shows the spear in his face (fig 5.15). Sakae exclaims, “Wabisuke! You deserve to die right here!”

Fig. 5.13 Sakae walks away from Wabisuke

Fig. 5.14 Sakae attacks Wabisuke with a a ceremonial spear

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Fig. 5.15 Their confrontation comes to a stand-still

There is deliberate significance to the props illustrated in this scene. First, Sakae’s ancestral pride, combined with national pride, is accentuated in her use of traditional weapons which are displayed throughout her home. Secondly, Wabisuke himself is not only pushed back through the space, but he wrecks the table of plenty which symbolizes family unity. Sakae realizes that the lending of money enabled Wabisuke to create Love Machine. Also, he took that money and left Japan, and to use and develop his software for another country is betrayal to potential Japanese intellectual property. Sakae’sactions indicate that he has brought shame on the

Jinnouchi family and that his cooperation with the U.S. army is a betrayal to Japan. Wabisuke is a “technical specialist,” but before he offers his aid to help Kenji avoid a disaster, he has first attributed the problem to the real enemy, a corrupt United States government that bought his services for an ignoble purpose. Thus, the film establishes the U.S. as the villain in this conflict, with Wabisuke, a fool. By the film’s end, Sakae has passed away but has left in her will the desire to see Wabisuke welcomed back into the family which occurs before the final stand-off with Love Machine. When this happens, Love Machine and the United States are the only

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antagonists who remain, a clear reminder that on a global scale, the U.S. represents a potential threat to Japan.

At the beginning of the Love Machine crises, the virus makes mischief at the local level by hacking into Japanese government civil services. Love Machine’s capabilities allow it to commit acts of domestic terrorism, and though Natsuki’s uncles state that no one died due to the disorganization, it was a nation-wide crisis. In fact, Sakae’s death is the only one possibly caused by the virus because her vital sign monitor went off-line, and even that is questioned. When

Wabisuke learns of Sakae’s death, he returns to the family who welcome him because of Sakae’s final wishes. Kenji and Wabisuke’s cooperation frustrates Love Machine, which then in turn decides to drop a satellite on a nuclear plant anywhere in the world. Domestic terrorism is transformed into a world-wide threat. Before the final confrontation, the entire family sits down to eat and discuss their battle plan, with former outsiders Kenji and Wabisuke now welcomed at the table.

We invest in the efforts of Kenji, Wabisuke, Kazuma, Nastuki, and all of the Jinnouchis because of the senselessness of Love Machine’s terrorist threat, one that can target any nation at its whim. Natsuki’s online card game of hanafuda reduces Love Machine’s reach considerably, but it can still threaten the family personally by shifting its target to their estate. Kenji’s math abilities thwart the final crises (fig. 5.16 and 5.17), which ebbs and flows between global to local levels. However, though the threat moves onto the Jinnouchis personally, it can be argued that this still represents a macro level disaster. The importance of tradition, history, and conservative family ideology can be interpreted onto the Japanese nation writ large. The Jinnouchis represent re-integrated family whose honor has been restored. The final scene shows the elder family members planning the future wedding between Natsuki and Kenji, as the two are pressured to

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kiss in front of Sakae’s portrait. Not only have the Jinnouchis reconciled their own family integrity with Wabisuke, they have also accepted the outsider with great potential, Kenji.

Fig. 5.16 The satellite crash lands in a lake

Fig. 5.17 The disasater spectacle without casualties

The major difference of the near-disaster film compared with the disaster film is the reduced number of lives lost but also the prominence of the hero. In the disaster film the hero- 230

leader can generally only save a small band of survivors, losing some along the way, but in the near-disaster film, the hero saves the nation and sometimes the world. The disaster film, as a genre, focuses on the survival of a small group. Even if the disaster is on a global scale, by time constraints alone, the narrative invests on key characters. In a move away from the “classic” phase of disaster conventions, these three near-disaster films emphasize collective effort from each key character and each one's contribution in averting disaster rather than relying solely on the hero-layperson to lead them out. In Summer Wars, the Jinnouchis represent an incredibly valuable cross-section of society, and without any of their individual resources, Kenji, Natsuki, nor Wabisuke would be able to play their major roles in stopping Love Machine. Like Eden of the East, there is mobilizing ground forces of civil security, but whereas Akira recruited unemployed NEETs to evacuate citizens, Summer Wars shows the permanent employment of

Natsuki’s uncles and grand-uncles who are members of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force,

Emergency Medical Technicians, Fire Sergeant /Fire department and Rescue Squad, local police, fisheries, doctor, care-based worker, and the owner of an electronics business that carries supercomputers. Summer Wars, through the Jinnouchi family’s employment, celebrates the unsung civil servant heroes in the case of real disasters. However, despite the far reach of the family’s resources, they would never have mobilized themselves into action without Kenji’s guidance and inspiration, therefore reinforcing the power of group effort and need for youth leadership.

CONCLUSION: INTERTEXTUALITY AND TECHNOLOGY

Along with the generic similarities, another commonality amongst Eden of the East,

Summer Wars, and Fish Story is in their extensive intertextuality that often references mediated

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technologies. Fish Story is proliferated with references to both U.S. and Japanese disaster films such as Godzilla and Armageddon (1998), to the prophecies of Nostradamus and the superhero television series, Go Ranger. Eden of the East’s primary male youth-hero constantly references motion pictures from Taxi Driver (1976) and Kate and Leopold (2001) to Le Grande

Bleu (1988). Summer Wars’s creation of the online Oz is borrowed from Japanese social media site Mixi and the game Second Life as well as the aesthetics of Nintendo games and the Wii interface.208 A constant intertextuality creates commentary about mediated discourses of disaster, from battle games to other disaster films, but also to real life disasters such as 9/11.

Each film makes use of suspense and spectacle, namely explosions and destruction, but takes mass deaths out of the picture. Leading up to each climactic conclusion is the use of the standard countdown clock, appearing on-screen, as a significant method of instilling tension and dread. As stated earlier, many theorists write about spectator experience in the pleasure of seeing disaster spectacle: “if part of the draw was their wonderful, worrying spectacle . . . the final satisfaction came in their glowing climactic victories . . . [that] can be taken to task for their simultaneously simplifying the issues and glossing over the pressing realities of the time.”209

Similar to Napier’s application of the notion of “secure-horror,” the near-disaster film engages in a problematic ideology. Secure-horror explains the pleasure but implicitly ought to question spectator complacency. Sontag argues that the spectator’s eager consumption of these kinds of spectacles “neutralizes” the “abhorrent.” She writes:

Here, ‘thinking about the unthinkable’ . . . as a subject for fantasy—becomes, however inadvertently, itself a somewhat questionable act from a moral point of view . . . Collective nightmares cannot be banished by demonstrating that they are, intellectually and morally, fallacious. This nightmare—the one reflected, in various registers, in the —is too close to our reality.210

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Sontag is addressing 1950s science fiction films, particularly those genre films that utilize nuclear themes and fantasies to dispel fears of the very real and present Cold War. However, when considering these near-disaster films of over fifty years later, those that have everyday protagonists with access to current technologies once thought of as available far in the future, I would argue that her message is timelier.

“Futuristic” technologies in the near-disaster film are, in fact, “too close to reality.” Real life mobile technology, online interfaces, gaming, and communication platforms in each of these films represent realistic advances in an era of fast-advancing achievements. In each near-disaster film I have discussed, key players rely on specifically Japanese domestic technologies, from cell phones to gaming systems to computer programs, to prevent the oncoming disaster. Although in some cases the technologies used in these films were “ahead of their time,” such as Eden of the

East’s image-recognition software, they are, in the soon-future, now available. Internet search engine Google has released a cell phone application called “Google goggles” so that when users take a picture with their phone, the application can perform an image search online or can translate foreign languages into a chosen user language. Google also purchased the social media platform Instagram which allows anyone to share images and to crowd source ideas, though it is rarely used in that capacity. Is the online world, OZ, science-fiction or simply a foreseeable future projection for a streamlined, synergized online corporation? Sontag argues that the science-fiction of the 1950s was too close to reality, but the technologies featured in Japanese near-disaster films are almost certainly reality. When she writes, “Collective nightmares cannot be banished by demonstrating that they are, intellectually and morally, fallacious,” she was discussing supernatural or atomic events, but in Japanese popular culture, natural disasters, in particular, are a reality, not fallacious, and prevention is the fiction. While this technology, Eden

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of the East’s phone app or Summer War’s OZ international online community mirrors the current possibilities of online connectivity and access, the use of these technologies points to the future possibilities such technology represents. The ideological work of the near-disaster film is to empower the ordinary citizen character with collective cooperation, to move beyond

“neutralizing” the abhorrent disaster.

Despite the skewing of the hero-type towards male youth protagonists and the emphasis on the untapped potential of collective youth, the near-disaster film still tends to resolve its narratives with a national and patriarchal conservatism. Like the classical American disaster films which “depict a society in crisis attempting to solve its social and cultural problems through the ritualized legitimating of strong male leadership, the renewal of traditional moral values, and the regeneration of institutions like the patriarchal family,”211 so do these near- disaster movies. Wabisuke is brought back into the family fold, and Summer Wars ends with the promise of a future marriage between Kenji and Natsuki. Akira wins the game and will most likely enter into a romance with Saki after his mission is finished. In addition, though Eden of the

East defends marginalized youth movements, it still treats the 20,000 NEET volunteers as expendable, illustrating that they could be shipped away to Dubai for several months with no real economic or social consequences for their disappearance. Fish Story’s punk band Gekirin sit around a table and wistfully speculate how their last album will someday affect a man who will fall in love with a woman and have a great child who will save the world. This in fact does come true as the day’s events, including listening to “Fish Story,” inspire Masashi’s decision to save his future wife. Masashi becomes a patriarch and trains his son, Segawa, to be a “champion of justice.”

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The “regeneration of institutions” also speaks to the power of collective cooperation, a cornerstone of Japanese ideology. Each text utilizes a form of crowd sourcing, from the 20,000

NEETS in Eden of the East, to the chain reaction of different youths over generations in Fish

Story, to family resources in Summer Wars. The nation, as well as the patriarchal family, is not only reinstated but also reinforced.

The narratives of these three films also reinforce ideological norms of a victorious

Japanese culture on a global level. Each film openly compares its reactions to disaster against those of the United States. In Fish Story, the U.S. has already failed to stop the comet with its

“Project Armageddon.” After the project fails, the U.S. government hides a chosen few underground forsaking the majority of its population. It is then up to an international collective of scientists and astronauts in a last-ditch effort to destroy the comet. However, despite the great minds aboard the Indian spacecraft, it is Masami who is the only one able to write the formula for their success. In Eden of the East, after returning to Japan and seeing the news of yet another missile crash, Akira and Saki spend the day together, ending the evening by snapping a cell phone picture of themselves with the smoke of the bombing site rising behind them. Akira comments that this is “their” 9/11, and the image graphically matches the New York catastrophe.

From the giant television screens in the depicting live news to the dual lights emitting from the bombing site, Eden of the East is quoting from a domestic disaster context as well as a global political one, but one in which Japan’s 9/11 has no human fatalities. Summer Wars criticizes a technology genius like Wabisuke for forsaking Japan and going to the U.S. to sell

Love Machine to an irresponsible U.S. army. In the end, the family members who work at the ground levels for all branches of Japanese security combine with the Japanese technocrat

Wabisuke and math-lete Kenji to save the country.

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As a final note, although this chapter focuses on films before the 3.11 disaster (the

Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami, and Crisis at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant), research for this chapter led me to many emerging youth movements mobilized as disaster aid for that crisis.

The student movement in Japan was in force in the 1960s, but it is often discussed that after the national economic success of the 1970s and 1980s, the disparity of incomes within the youth population and the subsequent alienation from each other explained the lack of any further youth political mobilization. However, after the events of 3.11, youth populations have risen again in mass protests against nuclear power, and often it is those who are temporarily employed who have the mobility to donate time to relocate to Tohoku to volunteer and help in rebuilding. Youth movements have gained a new visibility in Japan, not just in the masses of volunteers but also those who are politically motivated such as those who fight for “” rights or the protection of those employed in temporary or contracted positions.212 While freeter or NEET heroes could not avert the recent natural disasters in Japan, they are certainly mobilizing en masse to aid fellow citizens and fight for a better tomorrow.

173Susan Sontag, “Imagination of Disaster,” in Hibakusha Cinema, ed. Mick Broderick (New York: Kegan Paul, 1996), p. 46. 174Mick Broderick, “Introduction,”Hibakusha Cinema, ed. Broderick (New York: Kegan Paul, 1996), p. 2. 175Martin Fackler, “In Japan, Young Face Generational Roadblocks,” The New York Times, “Asia Pacific,” 1/27/2011. Accessed 6/12/2015. 176Ibid. 177Majority of sources investigate U.S. disaster and horror films and the cold war, but the theoretical arguments remain useful. See Susan Sontag, “Imagination of Disaster”; Stephen Keane, Disaster Movies: The Cinema of Catastrophe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006); Mark Jancovich, Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1996); Kim Newman, Movies: End of the World Cinema (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000); and David Seed, American Science Fiction and the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2013). 178 Susan Napier, “Panic Sites,” Journal of Japanese Studies, 19, 2 (Summer 1993), p. 331. 179For more on the ideological readings of the Gojira figure and U.S./Japanese nationalist discourse, see Chon Noriega’s “Godzilla and the Japanese Nightmare,” in Mick Broderick’s Hibakusha Cinema, pps. 54-74. 180 Geoff King, Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Block buster (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000) 166- 169; Peter Kramer, “Women First: , Action-Adventure Films, and Hollywood Female Audience,” in Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster, eds. Kevin Sandler and Gaylyn Studlar (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999) 9-11; Stephen Neale, Genre and Hollywood (London and New York: Routledge, 2000); Michael Ryan and

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Douglas Kellner, Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 271. 181 Nick Roddick, “Only the Stars Survive: Disaster Movies in the Seventies,” in Performance and Politics in Popular Drama: Aspects of Popular Entertainment in Theatre, Film and Television (1800-1976), ed. D. Brady (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pps. 243-269. 182Keane, 53. 183 Keane, 62. 184 Napier, 332. 185Napier, 330 186 Hiroki Azuma, Otaku: Database Animals (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), p. 124. Christopher Howard, "The ethics of Sekai-kei: Reading Hiroki Azuma with SlavojŽižek," Science Fiction Film and Television, 7,3 (2014), pps. 365-386.. Accessed 9/11/16. 187Though the more contemporary term would be “lay-person,” I use “layman/laymen” here as both a specific reference to Maurice Yacowar’s work, but also because it is also the case for each of the films discussed that the hero is male; Maurice Yacowar, “The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre” in Film Genre: Theory and Criticism, ed. Barry K. Grant (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1977) 277-284. 188Keane, 4. 189Yacowar, 277-284. 190Stephen Neale, “Aspects of Ideology and Narrative Form in the American War Film,” Screen, 32,1 (1991) p. 36. 191King, 150. 192Yacowar, 278. 193Sontag, 52. 194Yacowar, 285, Keane, 20, Roddick, 252. 195Yacowar, 290. 196Sontag, 39, Yacowar, 288. 197Summer Wars is technically set in 2009 but in a slightly alternative universe, one in which major online infrastructures such as Oz exist. 198While other films create a disaster scenario which does not truly cause mass destruction such as Bright Future (2003) which focuses on bio-terrorism and anime series such as FLCL (2001) and the majority of Clamp series, all of which often have the end of the world as the narrative stakes, these series diverge deeper into fantasy or science fiction in contrast with the relatively “realistic” world of Eden, Summer Wars, and Fish Story. 199Eden of the East, subtitles by . 200A symbolic foreshadowing of the savviness of Japan vs. the United States since Saki is genuinely treated as a terrorist in the United States at the beginning of the television series and again in the first films. 201 20,000 is the number consistently referenced in the series and films. 202Ranked number 7 on its debut. Japan Box Office, August 1-2, 2009, BoxofficeMojo.com, . Accessed 6/15/2014. 203FisshuSutori, Asiawiki.com, . Accessed 8/12/2013. 204Translation by Funimation, the subtitles are written over the original Japanese on the screen. 205Eden of the East’s term for NEETs is “Johnny’s” [sic]. 206Translation by Funimation. 207 At the beginning of the first film he has been dubbed the “Air King” and his silhouette is emblazoned on T-Shirts all over the world. 208Justin Sevakis, “Interview: Mamoru Hosoda,” Anime News Network.com, , 12/22/2009. Accessed 4/28/2014. Bill Desowitz, “Winning the ‘Summer Wars’: Interview with Mamoru Hosoda,” Animation World Network.com, 12/23/2010. Accessed 4/28/2014. 209Keane, 14. 210Sontag, 53. 211 Ryan and Kellner, 23. 212Sharon Hayashi and Anne McKnight, “Good-bye Kitty, Hello War: The Tactics of Spectacle and New Youth Movements in Urban Japan.” Positions, 13,1 (Spring 2005), pps. 87-113.See also: Machiko Osawa and Jeff Kingston, “Japan has to Address the Precariat,” Financial Times.com, , 7/1/2010, Accessed 7/20/2012.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion: Youth and Film in Japan

My aim with this dissertation is to analyze contemporary Japanese film, to contribute to the field of film scholarship, and to interrogate noticeable trends in narratives with youth protagonists at the center. Therefore, by focusing on Japanese youth, the issue of character became important. Years of watching Japanese film, for research and pleasure, revealed to me some of the key patterns discussed in this project; namely the appearance of social and cultural categories such as yankii, Freeter and NEET and common themes of everyday life for Japanese youth, such as bullying, isolation, and friendship. Ultimately, I am attempting to define new genre categories and rearrange previously set boundaries in a way that highlights a cultural and political context, that of a recovering Japan (1990s-present) and its youth culture. My work enters here, as a scholar who dedicated research to watching contemporary films from Japan and recognizing the similarities of theme and classifications which exceed those of set genre categories. Each chapter is dedicated to genre re-classifications by delineating narrative parameters and visual, sometimes sonic, motifs.

Of course, there are some issues which I still need to address as I continue to revise. In contrast to other chapters which are new genre subcategories, the grouping called New Japanese

Cinema Seishun Eiga is comprised of two established categories with their own sets of scholarship which I connect but do not problematize. The films of this chapter can also be placed under different umbrella terms such as independent or art-house film. The centrality of the social problems affecting the youth protagonists dominates my reading of these films, which can borderline on focusing too much on character. The Death Game films have a deadly game as

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their narrative drives and while the groups of films do not overlap neatly, experiments with audience identification and suspense in differing ways. A chapter on yankiis is simply not enough, as the yankii in Japan’s popular culture has outgrown even its own generic category and could benefit from a longer project, and the work on pinku films and sukeban is underdeveloped in this chapter. Finally, the Near-Disaster film, the only chapter which also utilizes animated texts, does not adequately address the visual reading methods necessary in a textual analysis of live-action and animation. Additionally, the specificity of the medium of animation evokes even deeper readings of spectacle and disaster, which makes the analysis even more complex.

The youth in these films are often set against the most obvious antagonist: adults. One primary manifestation of a “climate of blame” is this tension that emerges throughout these films between the generations. Across many films of this period and through multiple genres is the alienation between young and old, hostility and blame. Older characters are blamed for the recessionary state of Japan, while the youth are unguided wanderers, characteristic of the lost potential from lack of strong leadership. Throughout these films, older male characters fail to lead or inspire the protagonists although sometimes these adults warn against fantasizing about the pleasures of being an adult. Also, in step with the generic structures, these older male characters represent systematic oppression, either as evidence of the failure of the system or a tool of the system itself.

One consistent detail in the films described in this project is that the youth protagonists must fend for themselves, with multiple emasculated adult males having failed in their roles in teaching leadership and successful adulthood. All About Lily Chou-Chou’s Hasumi, Love &

Pop’s Hiromi, and Tokyo Trash Baby’s Miyuki muddle through their isolation and pain without their family’s acknowledgment or knowledge. Miyuki’s boss confesses a pedophiliac fetish and

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one elderly male customer brags of his contribution during post WWII recovery efforts. In Battle

Royale, Gantz, and Death Note, Shuya’s father commits suicide due to his inability to find employment; Suzuki is an unemployed in Gantz who frightfully hides during most missions before eventually following Kurono’s leadership; Light’s father is the Tokyo Police chief but is utterly ineffective because he does not have the imagination even to conceive of something as other-worldly as the “death note” and therefore is miles behind the two boy wonders. Like Shuya’s father and Suzuki, Chief Yagami is quickly unable to compete in recessionary Japan. The presence of failed-yakuza Ken throughout the Crows films symbolizes the happier state of youth over adulthood. In Kamikaze Girls, Momoko’s father is described as a

“loser,” and her mother left them when Momoko was young to join beauty pageants. Summer

Wars features a large tight-knit family with several civil servant uncles and grand-uncles, but it was one outsider uncle, Wabisuke, who caused the destructive force of the Love Machine virus in the first place. Finally, Eden of the East’s gamemaster, Mr. Outside, is eventually revealed to be an elderly taxi driver who sheepishly accepts a punch to the face from Takizawa. Through these films, the generational conflicts persist, and whether having to survive a violent world or manipulate an unfair one, these youths are all presented as having a previous generation who has failed to provide leadership and has left their world in shambles. Whether they succeed or fail depends on the generic parameters set around them, but their precarity still resonates. None of the youth protagonists within these films are privileged in the worlds they inhabit, and their trials speak to the cultural resonance that their success is symbolic of a projected future Japan.

One goal of this project is to enter the conversation of Japanese film by analyzing films which have not received much attention. As I discuss throughout the dissertation, much of the

English-language scholarship on Japanese cinema focuses on star directors and auteur theory,

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those whose work comprise much of classical Japanese cinema. This project focuses on building on Japan’s film industry legacy by examining contemporary films which emerge at the turn of the millennium and which are characteristic of both national and industrial contexts.

Additionally, these films are fascinatingly unique as well as critically engaging.

What I have yet to address is the 3.11 disaster and its impact. On March 11th, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake 43 miles off the east coast of Japan caused 133-foot tsunami waves and shifted the main island of Japan eight feet east. The tsunami also caused a level seven meltdown in three nuclear reactors in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It is the most powerful earthquake recorded to have hit Japan, caused 15,894 deaths, left 6,152 injured, and 2,562 people missing.213 A significantly devastating event, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and subsequent Fukushima meltdown placed Japan in the center of the international stage of global aid efforts. It reshaped the imagination of disaster and, in the age of social media, was documented and shared in real-time across the world. Many citizens uploaded cell phone videos and images of the tsunami and the destruction of city infrastructure, and these records have since been aggregated on the Japan Disaster Digital Archive. While reconstruction efforts are still underway and much of the damage still needs repair, one of the most productive outcomes from such a terrible event is a boom in documentary and fictional filmmaking surrounding narratives of nuclear contamination, food and health safety, and discourses of disaster. There are so many emergent filmmakers at this time, especially in documentary, that I have not discussed or researched at this time but is a future research interest.

Most timely is the October 13, 2016, U.S. release of Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s

Shin Godzilla, titled Godzilla Resurgence in English. As one of the featured directors in the first chapter of this dissertation for Love & Pop, Anno presents a vastly different genre film with a

241

similar visual style. In many ways a satire, Godzilla is both a reinvention of the original 1954

Gojira (Ishirō Honda) and a scathing indictment of Japanese bureaucracy and the fall out after the 3.11 catastrophes. Anno and Higuchi’s Godzilla re-centers its Japanese creature back into a

Japanese-specific context, as a low-ranking deputy chief cabinet secretary tries to cut through the bureaucratic red tape to warn the citizens of Godzilla’s arrival.

The last Japan-made Godzilla films was Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004, marking twelve years as the longest time gap between Japan’s Godzilla output. Godzilla’s legacy in the last few decades has been as a re-appearing monster-champion who defends earth from other notorious monsters. ’seponymous monster is appearing to Tokyoites for the first time in a new origin narrative. The bureaucrats of Japan in Shin Godzilla assemble to evaluate the appearance of a water geyser in Tokyo Bay, debating which cabinet is responsible for certain solutions. The film sets about understanding how a nation handles disasters with Anno and

Higuchi satirically skewering the Japanese government’s increasingly pedantic and delayed response. The only official with the vision to guess that this disastrous phenomenon may be a giant creature is Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yaguchi who is sternly admonished for making himself and his superior appear foolish at the suggestion. Anno and Higuchi introduce dozens of characters, mainly ministry officials and military personal whose titles appear in large font at the top and bottom of the frame. At one point a rank and title fills over half the screen, obscuring the official’s face. Since this is a Godzilla film, it also perfectly over Anno’s anime television series and film remakes of Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV series 1995-1996, films 1997, 1997,

2007, 2009, 2012), a set of texts that may also fit into the genres explored in this dissertation as they were originally marketed to a youth audience invested in otaku (avid fan) subcultures. The intersection of a kaijū eiga (monster film) with the legacy of both Anno and Higuchi’s work in

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animation and live-action adaptations of animation series, such as the recent

(2015) film directed by Higuchi converges into a new kind of Godzilla that acknowledges the gravity of disaster while also winking at a domestic audience who still harbor resentment, namely the precariat youth citizens of contemporary Japan.

Godzilla, in his first form, snakes onto the coast of Japan, large button eyes and blood gushing from his gills (fig. 6.1). As he crawls onto the land, rowboats and ships are pushed up a channel spilling onto the streets in a perfect quotation on the tsunami’s effects in 2011. After

Godzilla returns to the sea, Yaguchi and the other, out of touch, officials, visit a demolished area of the city where only Yaguchi prays over the remains, recognizing the human loss in the rubble.

Also significant in this film is a sincere nationalist sentiment, which at first seems to contrast the criticism of the government response. After Godzilla’s appearance reaches an international stage, the United States, recognizing their guilt in the nuclear waste dumping in Tokyo Bay, decides to drop a third nuclear bomb, this time on Tokyo. As the Japanese ministry rallies itself against this uncompromising decision, the film swells with a sense of Japanese nationalism. There are so many ways in which this post 3.11 disaster film dialogues with the attitude and themes I have discussed in the near-disaster film that watching Anno and Higuchi’s new take on Godzilla inspired and excited me for my continued research on popular film and genre iterations. Shin

Godzilla closes a loop created in 1954 with Ishirō Honda’s original Gojira, a disaster-ridden present with a disaster-filled past. They both warn of man’s hubris, war, and underestimating nuclear power while also celebrating Japanese collective action and sacrifice in the face of the unthinkable.

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Fig. 6.1 The new Godzilla slithers out of the ocean into the city

Further cementing the parallels between Ishihara Honda’s Godzilla and Higuchi’s

Godzilla was Toho’s April 2015 promotion, capitalizing on the 2014 U.S. Godzilla film by

Gareth Edwards and promoting their upcoming return with Anno and Higuchi, which recreated a life-size replica of Honda’s Godzilla’s head and claw emerging over the roof of Toho Cinema

Shinjuku Building.214 Directly next to Toho Cinema is Hotel Gracery, whose 9th floor hotel rooms have a special view (fig. 6.2),215 furthering the effects of cinema and everyday life as well as Gojira’s place in Japan’s everyday consciousness (fig. 6.3).

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Fig. 6.2 A hotel room with a view of a Godzilla statue

Fig. 6.3 A Godzilla statue peers over Toho Cinema

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A final commentary on Shin Godzilla and the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor meltdown,

Mark Schilling compares Chief Deputy Yaguchi’s team and other military personal with the

“Fukushima 50,” who are “the workers who risked their lives laboring round-the-clock to stabilize the crippled No. 1 nuclear plant… Despite some initial bumbling, most of these folks, especially Rando [Yaguchi] and the anti-Godzilla task force he heads, are hardworking, dedicated and formidably bright, rattling off jargon-packed dialogue with nary a pause for breath.”216 Anno’s heroes are brainy, nerdy, innovative, and slightly socially-inept. They are self- described, “pains in the bureaucracy,” and they work around-the-clock to combat both a stifling government standard and Godzilla’s unpredictability. They are the everyday heroes and they inhabit the space between precarious youth and cynical adults. Yaguchi’s team in many ways represents the next stage for all the youth protagonists of this project, newly equipped with the knowledge of how to navigate the changing of the old guard to a new future.

213 Richard J. Samuels, 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan [Cornell University Press, 2013]. 214 Elliot Wagland, “Godzilla has arrived in Tokyo and He’s Terrifying,” The Huffington Post.com, 4/15/2015. Accessed 10/15/2016. 215 Mark Schilling, “Our Favorite Monster Returns to Terrorize Japan in ‘Shin Godzilla,’” JapanTimes.com 7/28/2016. Accessed 10/15/2016. 216 Mark Schilling, “‘Shin Godzilla’: The Metaphorical Monster Returns,’” Japan Times.com 8/2/2016. Accessed 10/15/2016.

246

Appendix

NEW JAPANESE SEISHUN EIGA

19 (Kazushi Watanabe, 2001). Film.

All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai, 2001). Film.

Bad Company (Tomoyuki Furumaya, 2001). Film.

Bounce-Ko Gals (, 1997). Film.

Dokomademo Ikō (Don’t Look Back, Akihiko Shiota,1999). Film.

Gaichū (Harmful Insect, Akihiko Shiota, 2001). Film.

Go (, 2001). Film.

Hana and Alice (Shunji Iwai, 2004). Film.

His and Her Circumstances (Hideaki Anno, 1998). Anime TV series

Love & Pop (Hideaki Anno, 1998). Film.

Pornostar (Tokyo Rampage, Toshiaki Toyoda,1998). Film.

Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001). Film.

Swallowtail Butterfly (Shunji Iwai, 1996). Film

Tokyo Eyes (Jean-Pierre Limosin, 1998). Film.

Tokyo Trash Baby (Ryūichi Hiroki, 2000). Film.

DEATH GAME FILMS

Andron (Francesco Cinquemani, 2015).

Death Game Park (TV Tokyo, 2010). TV mini-series.

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins, 2008, 2009, 2010) Novels.

247

The Hunger Games films (Gary Ross, 2012; Francis Lawrence, 2013, 2014, 2015). Film.

Ikigami (Mase Motoro, manga: 2005-2012; film 2008)

Incite Mill (Hideo Nakata, 2010)

Kokumin Quiz (Reiichi Sugimoto, 1994). Manga Series.

Liar Game (Kaitani Shinobu, 2005-current). Manga Series.

Liar Game (Hiroaki Matsuyama, Ayako Taiboku 2007, 2009-2010). TV Series, 2 Seasons.

Liar Game: Final Stage (Hiroaki Matsuyama, 2010). Film.

Liar Game: Reborn (Yasukata Nakata, 2012). Film.

“The Lottery” (Shirley Jackson,1948). Short Story.

The Maze Runner series (Wes Ball, 2014, 2015, 2018)

“The Most Dangerous Game” (Richard Connell, 1924) Short Story.

The Running Man (Paul Michael Glaser, 1987),

Series 7: The Contenders (Daniel Minahan, 2001). Film.

Sweet Home (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1989) Film.

Tokyo 10+1 (Higunchinsky, 2003). Film

YANKIIS

Bad Boys J (Takashi Kubota, 2013). Film.

Be-Bop High School (Hiroyuki Nasu,1985, 1986, 1987, 1987, 1988, 1988) TV movies

Be-Bop High School (1996-1997). TV series

Be-Bop High School (Fuminori Kaneko, 2014). Film.

Blue Spring (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2001). Film.

Chinpira (,1996.) Film.

Crows Zero (Takashi Miike, 2007). Film.

248

Crows Zero: II (Takashi Miike, 2009). Film.

Crows: Explode (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2014). Film.

Drop (Hiroshi Shinagawa, 2009). Film.

Drop out Teacher Returns to School (Tokyo Broadcasting Systems, Inc 2003.) TV Series.

Elite Yankee Saburo (TV Tokyo, 2007). TV Series.

Elite Yankee Saburo: The Movie (Yudai Yamaguchi, TV Tokyo, Toei, 2009). Film.

Fighting Delinquents (Seijun Suzuki, Nikkatsu, 1960). Film.

Fighting Elegy (Seijun Suzuki, Nikkatsu, 1966). Film.

Gekijo Ban Kenka Bancho: Zenkoku Seiha (Takeshi Miyamoto, JollyRoger, 2010). Film.

Gokusen: The Movie (Tōya Satō, Nippon Television Network Corporation, 2009). Film.

Great Teacher Onizuka (, 1999). Anime TV Series.

Great Teacher Onizuka (Fuji Television, 1998). TV Series.

Great Teacher Onizuka (Fuji Televeision, 2012). TV Series.

Hana no Asuka Gumi (Yōichi Satō, Toho, 1988). Film.

Hana no Asuka Gumi NEO! (Yutaka Tsurita, Toho, 2009). Film.

Kamikaze Girls (Tetsuya Nakashima, 2004). Film.

Kid’s Return (Takeshi Kitano, Office Kitano, 1996). Film.

Majisuka Gakuen (TV Tokyo, 2010). TV Series.

My Boss, My Hero (Nippon Television Network Corporation, 2006). TV Series.

Rookies (Tokyo Broadcasting Systems, Inc., 2008). TV Series.

Rookies: The Movie (Yuichiro Hirakawa, 2009). Film.

Scrap Teacher (Nippon Television Network Corporation, 2008). TV Series.

249

Shiritsu Bakeleya High School (Takashi Kubota, Nippon Televsion Network Corporation, 2012).

Film.

Slackers (Masahiro Muramatsu, 2009). Film.

Slacker 2 (Watanabe Takafumi, 2009). Film.

Sugarless (Takashi Kubota, Nippon Television Network Corporation, 2012). Film.

Surely Someday (, 2010). Film.

Time Slip Yankee (Michinara Nakagawa, 2012). Film

Waruboro (Yasushi Sumida, 2007). Film.

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan (Tokyo Broadcasting Systems, Inc., 2010). TV Series.

NEAR-DISASTER/DISASTER

252: Seizonsha Ari (252: Signal of Life, Nobuo Mizuta, 2008). Film.

Akira (Katsuhiro Ōtomo, 1988). Film.

Gojira (Ishiro Honda, 1954). Film.

Kansen Retto (Pandemic, Takahisa Zeze, 2009). Film.

The Last War (Sekai Daisensō, Shue Matsuyabashi, 1961). Film.

Lucky Dragon No. 5 (Kaneto Shindō, 1959). Film.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Nagaru Tanigawa, 2003-2011; Tatsuya Ishihara, 2003).

Novels and Anime TV Series.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Hideaki Anno, TV series 1995-1996; films 1997-present).

Nihon Chinbotsu (Shiro Moritani, 1973). Film.

Nihon Chinbotsu (Shinji Higuchi, 2006). Film.

Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008). Anime Film.

Prophecies of Nostradamus (Nosutoradamasu no Daiyogen, Toshio Masuda, 1974). Film.

250

Saishū Heiki Kanojo (Shin Takahashi, 2000-2001; Mitsuko Kase, anime TV series, 2002).

Manga, Anime TV Series.

Shinkansen Daibakuha (The Bullet Train, , 1975). Film.

Sono Machi no Kodomo/The Town’s Children (Surviving the Quake, Tsuyoshi Inoue, 2010).

Film.

Umizaru 3: The Last Message (Eiichirō Hasumi, 2010). Film.

Virus (Fukkatsu No Hi/Day of Resurrection, Kinji Fukasaku, 1980). Film.

Voices from a Distant Star (Makoto Shinkai, 2003). Anime Film.

251

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