- “Tora, Tora, Tora! Pearl Harbour was our only choice. Our race was corrupted from the day we lost the war…” Karin Amamiya, lead singer of ultra-nationalist hardcore punk band The Revolutionary Truth looms centre stage, barking out aggressive but heartfelt anti-American sentiments to a dwindling audience.
Troubled music for troubled times, one might think, though on the surface at least, there seems to be little immediate to worry about for the citizens of modern day Japan, currently one of the safest places on the planet. However, in recent times, and especially since the death of Emperor Hirohito marked the end of the Showa Period in 1989, the Heisei Period has seen a marked revival in the nationalist movement.
Nationalism, with its indelible associations of racism and the military right wing is a fairly dirty word to most people, and a subject which most would prefer to waft aside without giving a second thought. But for documentary maker Tsuchiya, who stood amongst the cowed observers at the gig with which the film opens and viewing the proceedings firmly from the other side of the political fence, there’s something more heartfelt about Amamiya’s plea. “I shivered. I don’t know why. I felt her pain, somehow, like a reflected light beam stabbing the heart.”
The New God documents Tsuchiya’s attempts to delve beyond the political rhetoric and intimidating facade of the fascinatingly complex figures of Amamiya and guitarist/band-leader Hidehito Itoh of The Revolutionary Truth, in the process discovering that all three of them have a lot more in common than their seemingly diametrically opposed standpoints might first lead one to believe. Handing Amamiya a DV-camera in which to film herself in a series of talking head shots, over the course of little over a month, he manages to get a whole lot more than he initially bargained for…
Read the rest of the story at Midnight Eye
A cute android girl becomes a bounty hunter in a post-apocoliptic city.
This movie reminded me of Final Fantasy Seven. People in a dirty city on the ground live off the scraps and garbabe from a paradise city in the sky. Bad androids lurk in dark streets waiting to find people whose brains they will eat, and the bounty hunters go after them. The animation is very smooth and life like.
The story centers around Alta (the battle angel) as she becomes a bounty hunter, falls in love, and then the tragic end. The only really negative thing about the anime is how short it is.
The opening and ending sequences are not very moving, but the music in the show is great and sets the atmosphere up wonderfully.
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A series of short biographies of several Japanese women’s lives. Among them was a women who grew up in America during World War II who later went on to become an English teacher and community leader in her rural home town in Japan. There was a woman who became interested in English from pop music and eventually became a university professor at NC Chapel Hill.
They interviewed an artist who was also a single mother and who had worked as a foreign reporter in Latin America. Also there was a woman who moved to America when she was 26 because of an arranged marriage and later moved back to Japan and now helps run a charitable organization. In addition there was a Korean girl who moved to Japan when she was 18 to become a dancer but she ended up marring a farmer after an extended courtship (of five years) against her family’s wishes.
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Village of Dreams is a film made in 1996 by Yoichi Higashi. It is about two young twins boys named Seizo and Yukiho who grew up in rural Japan just after World War II. The film documents what happened in the boy’s lives over some unknown length of time in the summer. The films more interesting aspects come from supporting roles. I really wanted to see what happened to the boy named Shinji and the girl who’s family was too poor to even buy her shoes.
Instead the films shown long scenes of things like the two boys walking, fishing, swimming, committing acts of vandalism, and other segments designed to show how the same the twins are. I kept saying to myself “Ok, they’re twins, they’re the same, I get it! What’s happening with Shinji?” Gerald Peary, film critic for the Boston Phonex shares my option:
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Bounce Ko Gals is a “day (or night) in the live of” story about a Japanese girl name Lisa who is tiring to get to New York to go to college.
She decides to stop at a shop that sells dirty underwear to sell her panties for a little extra trip money. The shop owner tells Lisa that there is a “video shooting” today as well if she would like some more money.
It turns out that the video shooting is more than what Lisa anticipated and she escapes with a professional KoGal named Joko. Although Lisa was able to save her plane ticket and passport she lost all the money she had ($2300).
Joko feels sorry for her and decides to help her so she takes Lisa on some paid dates with her to earn money singing karaoke. But after a while there were no more clients available and Joko calls an old KoGal friend named Raku to see if she can help too.
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Aiko Sweet 16 is about a sixteen-year-old Japanese girl named Aiko and her experiences at school over the summer. Aiko, the main character, is a very energetic and a bit of a delinquent. The other main character is Beniko, she is a brown-nosier and Aiko dislikes her in the beginning but later they become friends. The story (as best as I could follow) starts of a comedy about Akio and her antics.
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