Ringbud Tour
Sparrow door lock
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Screenwriter: Makoto Shinkai
Starring: Nano Hara / Hokuto Matsumura / Hikari Fukatsu / Shota Someya / Sari Ito
Genre: Romance / Animation / Fantasy
Country/region of production: Japan
Language: Japanese
Release date: 2023-03-24(Chinese mainland) / 2022-11-11(Japan)
Run time: 121 mins / 122 mins (Chinese mainland)
Author: Tata-kun
An ordinary Japanese animation viewer and movie audience
The Chinese mainland special edition poster of "Journey to the Bell Buds" hides the iconic landscape of the movie - the small buildings in the ruined land are "loaded" with ships, like flowers of steel blooming at an inopportune time. Is that a fantasy view of Makoto Shinkai anime? No, this is a bloody reality. This is the scene left by the devastating earthquake "311" Great East Japan Earthquake more than a decade ago, when many coastal areas of Tohoku were also damaged by tsunamis triggered by the earthquake. Among them, a large catamaran in the Akahama area of Ogami Town, Iwate Prefecture, washed up on the roof of a two-story guesthouse but was almost undamaged, became an iconic scenery that conveyed the horror of the tsunami at that time.
Makoto Shinkai's three post-"311" films "The Garden of Words" (2013) "Your Name. (2016) and "Children of the Weather" (2019), both choose to put "311" in the background and metaphorical. And "Your Name. "Children of the Weather" and "Suzu Bud Journey" have recently been increasingly evaluated as Makoto Shinkai's "disaster trilogy" (this is also easy to come by, I pointed this out a year ago when I saw the first version of the trailer). This film, which began to be created after the pandemic era, is Makoto Shinkai, and perhaps even Japanese animation has put "311" in the foreground like never before, and the scenery of the ship on the guesthouse is a symbol of this foreground. Makoto Shinkai said in the official interview collection "Makoto Shinkai" that he was ready to describe the disaster in reality this time.
In the creative coordinates of Makoto Shinkai, how should "Journey to the Bell Buds" be placed? It is necessary to go back to the creation of Makoto Shinkai in the 10s.
An anonymous disaster event set in the background
When talking about Makoto Shinkai's new work "Journey to the Bell Buds", please allow the author to move the time forward.
In January 2021, in a special short film broadcast after the premiere of "Weather Child" on Japanese television, Makoto Shinkai left this passage:
"The world changed in the blink of an eye. You may not be able to return to the original world. Even so, we will live in this world. Can only live. So at least, eating, laughing, falling in love, crying, getting angry, arguing. Even so, even a second more laugh is fine. As long as you cherish that moment. It doesn't matter, we, our world, will definitely cross this hurdle. ”
This work and Makoto Shinkai's previous work "Your Name. All of them allude to "311". Makoto Shinkai's words also mean that "Weather Child", released in 2019, seems to be able to connect the post-"311" narrative seamlessly into the narrative of the epidemic era, so is this a speculative rhetoric?
At least for the Japanese, the "311" narrative is fundamentally different from the narrative of the pandemic era. The reason why "311" can be prospected, privileged, and repeatedly mentioned in literary and artistic creation is because it is the memory of the nation. At the same time, earthquakes are instantaneous, and many outcomes are already decided in that instant. In the face of the earthquake, whether the movie is about a moment, or after or before, it actually gives the attribute of "after" (the so-called "post-311 era"). Therefore, the proliferation of literary and artistic creation in the post-"311" narrative is inevitable.
"3.11" Great East Japan Earthquake
The critic Tsunehiro Uno pointed out a certain inevitability of "311": "Earthquakes do not create an environment of obvious transformation from the daily to the non-ordinary, but create a situation controlled by the non-everyday hidden in the everyday." [1] This also means that extraordinary crises have always existed, and "311" is just the event that makes the extraordinary visible. Animation director Kunihiko Kihara had a similar opinion, saying, "The visual upheaval that I have always heard about when I was a child about the 'big earthquake that will come sooner or later' has finally happened. Moreover, it is not as gorgeous a spectacle as imagined. Because of this disaster, many people have fallen into deep thinking about their lives more than the spectacle of destruction. With this in mind, he revised the ending of the TV animation "Turning Penguin Tank", which he was the original and director and which began broadcasting in July 2011, making it one of the first commercial animations to reflect the mood of "311".
"311" is like a doomed impermanence, in this sense, the epidemic as an event and "311" attributes are almost opposite, the epidemic is not only not unique, non-national, with the universality of the world, but also an event that extends infinitely to the end point that is still unseen, at least we can't imagine the world after the epidemic disappears, and how the film deals with this ongoing impermanence is also a difficult problem.
Stills from "Rotary Penguin Tank"
In the field of live-action films, from the first fictional creation that gave feedback on "311", to the film of the same name adapted by Minoru Sonoko's 2001 manga "Mediocrity", many live-action filmmakers tend to deal with the "311" incident in a prospect privilege, this film premiered on September 6, 2011 added the background of "311" and directly described the protagonist's inner changes after this incident. And now "311" has passed more than ten years, in recent years, such as Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "Drive My Car" (2021), Suwa Atsuhiko's "The Wind Phone" (2020), etc. ("Suzuya Journey" and "The Wind Phone" are still very similar in some places, both say that it is a road film that goes from the southwest to the northeast and finds the origin of the "311" memory), all of which still put the event of "311" at the center of the movie, and some use "311" to find the possibility of transcending reality, but many movies fall into the quagmire of "311" , let the possibilities converge near the center of "311".
"Mediocrity" stills
Whether it is Makoto Shinkai or other animations that are clearly influenced by "311" in terms of creation, they have chosen to place "311" in the background and metaphorical, and even in the first few years after the event, Japanese animation did not directly express this status quo, but rather Japanese animation, which was born with a love of fantasy, still continued the stories of various fantasy worlds. Even the animated films "The Lost House of the Cape" (2021) and "Dance of the Fuso Flowers" (2021), which explicitly commemorate the tenth anniversary of "311", chose to "anonymously" about the disaster. So can it be said that Japanese live-action films have the courage to face real events, and Japanese animation is dense and cowardly? This is not the case.
Returning to the opening "Weather Child", the catastrophic event of the work - the rain disaster seems to appear last, but in fact the disaster itself, or the unactual disaster, has existed from the beginning - Fango first came to Tokyo and witnessed the modern disaster about the city, and he could not live normally in this seemingly perfect but actually ruined modern city. In my review of "Weather Child", I wrote: "The story of "Weather Child" is set ten years after '311' (add note: this background clue is hidden in some scenes of the film), and deliberately reinforces the concept of the 'after' of the event: such a gray cityscape is not only conducive to the shaping of the mood and atmosphere of the film, but also symbolizes that disasters and crises have crossed the background scene and become part of the commonplace daily life." ”[3]
A still from "Children of the Weather"
It is precisely because "Children of the Weather" chose to anonymize and postpone the disaster, "the disaster of modern Japan - '311'" - the crossbar between this is disintegrated, and even the disaster no longer belongs to Japan, it has become universal. Therefore, "Weather Child", a film born in the pre-epidemic era, can "opportunistically" gain the perspective of the epidemic era, just as some films born before "311" are often interpreted as predictions and metaphors for the "311", an extraordinary disaster that will inevitably come to Japanese society.
Trilogy and an Odyssey
As mentioned earlier, "Suzuya Journey" removes anonymity from catastrophic events, and this change in Makoto Shinkai is not surprising if you are familiar with the evolution of Makoto Shinkai's work in the 10s. In a nutshell, Makoto Shinkai's work, the ship seemed to be gradually exposed at sea level in the 10s, and "Weather Child" as his most radical and personal expression of the past decade was like a tsunami washing the ship ashore, and finally we saw "Suzuya Journey", a ship standing on the roof.
"Your name. is Makoto Shinkai's first work that is explicitly inspired by the social background of "311" and metaphorically "311", telling the story of the heroine Miyamai Mitsuba and the male protagonist Taki Tachibana's souls exchange bodies, and finally found that this unknown phenomenon led to a natural disaster that destroyed Mitsuba's hometown - a meteorite fall, and when Taki was exploring the truth of Mitsuba, he also decided to save Mitsuba and the people around him who must have died of a natural disaster. Although the event of the meteorite disaster occupies an important position in the whole film, the meteorite hitting the ground and the first intuitive presentation of the real disaster picture is arranged at the end of the film, and there is no positive description of the disaster before, and the disaster itself is only revealed as a suspense in the middle of the film. In other words, disaster is suspended, and disaster is not the most important thing in front of a teenage girl who repeatedly confirms the relationship through the backtracking of time and the exchange of bodies. So what is important at one end of the world in the "individual-world" relationship? That is life before the disaster, especially the daily life and village relations that are deeply rooted in local culture and geopolitics before the disaster.
"Your name. stills
"Your name. "is actually a story before the disaster, and it focuses on local utopias. In this regard, Makoto Shinkai is in stark contrast to Hideaki Anno. Hideaki Anno's animated film "New Evangelion Theatrical Version: The End" (2021) also has pre-modern village depictions, but in fact, just as his live-action film "New Godzilla" (2016) can clearly see how government agencies organize operations and rescues, that is, you can see how the system works, the villages in "New Evangelion Theatrical Version: The End" also describe how primitive human systems work. Makoto Shinkai obviously doesn't care about these systems, he cares about the world she sees and lives in from Mitsuba as the center of the narrative of a line in the village.
A still from "New Evangelion Theatrical Version: The End"
"Children of the Weather" tells the story of a teenager who dropped out of school from his hometown and fled to Tokyo, only to find that Tokyo is far less beautiful than he imagined, and fortunately he found two family-like residences, on the one hand, he and the heroine Yona and her brother Kai, and on the other hand, Keisuke and his niece Natsumi. Yona is a girl who can manipulate the weather, but her mother's ability eventually caused the entire Tokyo to flood, and Fanaka's final choice to save Yona led to the fact that a few years later, Tokyo became a water city, and the city area became a water space on a large scale.
"Children of the Weather" and "Your Name." There is a very important difference that the latter's Tokyo is bright and beautiful (especially Mitsuba, who first came to Tokyo through Taki's body, the Tokyo she saw), the former Tokyo is like the ruins of modern civilization, and Fanaka's life in Tokyo is not so much "life" as "survival" in Tokyo; The former focuses on local utopia, the latter's rural landscape is almost absent, and the main characters in the film, including Keisuke and Natsumi, are non-Tokyo aborigines, obviously there is such a setting, but there is basically no description of their hometown (only Fangao's hometown appears at the end of the film). Although the details of the respective disasters of these two works are not really revealed until the end of the film (meteorite falls, heavy rain falls), in fact, the "disaster" of "Weather Child" actually exists from the beginning, that is, the modern disaster about the city that Fangao first came to Tokyo and witnessed, and he could not live normally in this seemingly perfect but actually ruined modern city.
A still from "Children of the Weather"
"Your name. Even if the young girl changed her own destiny, making the world, history, and individuals become plural existences, this disaster that was destined to come from the beginning (as mentioned above "311" is destined to come impermanence) finally came "on schedule", ruining all this in their hometown, and finally these countrymen who lost their homes had to come to Tokyo to live; "Children of the Weather" flee from his hometown to live in Tokyo, and sees the ruins of the modern city after the disaster. In this way, "Your Name. is the prequel to the story of "Children of the Weather".
"Suzuya's Journey" is a further theme of "Weather Child", which tells the story of Suzuya, a girl living in Kyushu, who accidentally opens the "Gate to the Gate" in the local ruins, causing the catastrophic power of the world "Constant World" (the world of death) inside the "Gate" to pour into reality, causing an earthquake. The male protagonist Kusanagi is a "closed door" who goes to various parts of Japan to close these "doors" to prevent the earthquake, but Kusanagi is sealed by the cat demon "minister" into the relics of Suzuya's mother - a chair with one foot missing, so he becomes a small chair that can run and talk. With a love and sense of responsibility for Kusata, Suzuya decided to embark on a "closed-door" journey with Kusata. The journey went from southwestern Japan, where she lived, through Tokyo, where Kusanagi lived, and finally to her hometown in Tohoku, the disaster area of "311", that is, from the strange countryside to the strange city to the countryside of her hometown. It's like replacing Your Name. Like Mitsuba's return to his vanished hometown, the trilogy connects a hidden Odyssey narrative, and Suzuya's closed-door behavior also constitutes the reconstruction of the already lost order—"already" is the key word for this doomed impermanence.
A still from "Journey to the Bell Bud"
It is such a journey through the ruins of various parts of Japan that can create a wasteland apocalyptic world that is divorced from the space of daily life. Just as ruins are scattered all over Japan, memories of disasters are also from Your Name. The countryside of "The Weather Child" Tokyo spread throughout Japan, just as the post-"311" scene gradually became the collective memory of all Japan. "People in this world are not afraid of the impending catastrophe, but the disaster has become inseparable from daily life, and people have no choice but to accept it." Makoto Shinkai wrote. [4]
Makoto Shinkai's earlier work "The Garden of Speech" is also in his post-"311" creative coordinates, with Takao measuring the feet of Moyakori as the axis, Shinkai Makoto focuses on the feet used by the body to touch the earth, and unfolds the description of the entire city of Tokyo centered on a small pavilion in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo, where the two are located. "After the March 11, 2011 earthquake, we learned how fragile the ground beneath our feet was. How unstable, special and lonely are the geological Japanese archipelago, the geopolitical Japan, our Duhui and schools as infrastructure. Another unexpected discovery using the earthquake as an opportunity was that no matter what the situation, daily life exists, and no matter how unstable it is, people will stay in that place to survive. The scenery of Tokyo may change drastically due to severe disasters that may occur in a few years or decades, so I would like to reserve daily life on this shaky ground as a story of walking footsteps in the animation screen. ”[5]
A still from "The Garden of Words"
The simple daily depiction strategy of "The Garden of Words" contrasts with Makoto Shinkai's previous work, "Children Chasing the Stars" (2011), which tells the story of Asuna, a girl living in a mountain village, who suddenly dies as a teenager she previously met, runs away from home, and breaks into the country of Yellow Springs "Yagotai" with his teacher Ryuji, who has lost his wife, in search of a way to resurrect Instantaneous and Ryuji's deceased wife. Perhaps many people will think that "The Garden of Words", which was created throughout the "311", is a transformation work of Shinkai Makoto, but "Children Chasing Stars" also hides Shinkai's most important turning point, which also continues into "Suzubud Journey".
"Shinkai Animation" 10s performance history
I think there are three turning points in Makoto Shinkai's animation production methodology, the first is "The Other Side of the Cloud, The Agreed Place" (2004), which is the first attempt at group work and commercial animation production mode, the second is "Children Chasing the Stars" with a different theme from the previous ones, and the third is "Suzuya Journey" - more CG performances are added, and in order to express Kusanagi, who becomes a chair, this work also adds a never-before-before-seen position "CG character performance", which is developed by the CG animation company "Polygon" Pictures" has performed well by Hiroyuki Seshita (director of "Godzilla Monster Planet" and "Knights of Sidnia: The Ninth Star Battle"), which shows that the production system has changed again. The key to this article is "Children Chasing the Stars", because the game hides the secret of unlocking "Suzuya Journey" and also hides Makoto Shinkai's decisive change as author.
A simple comparison of "Journey to the Bell Buds" and "Children Chasing the Stars" shows that there are many similarities between the two: one is that both are road movies that directly tell the story of death and going to the world of death (Yagotai, Changshi). Second, there are many character nature correspondences between the two, such as the mediums that symbolize fantasy are set as cat-type animals; With women as the protagonists, the father's roles in the family of the heroine are absent, Asuna is the early death of her father and living with her mother, Suzuya is the death of her parents due to "311", living with her aunt, and what she is looking for is not so much the memory of the family as the memory of her mother (the ending reveals that the "mother figure" that Suzuya saw in the ordinary world when she was a child is actually herself when she grows up now, which also implies that Suzuya has the image of a mother - the same as the heroine of Makoto Shinkai's previous works); There are also key male characters who are all long-haired beautiful boys. Third, both works depict injured and mutilated bodies: for example, in "Children Chasing Stars", an arm injury was caused to save Asuna, "Suzuya Journey" can be described as the same in this plot setting, the small chair that Kusata turned into is also missing a leg because of "311", and "Children Chasing Stars" teacher Ryuji paid the price of losing an eye in order to resurrect his deceased wife, and his eyes did not return until he finally gave up this obsession. And the most important point is that both films take the movement of "falling" as the center of gravity - to be precise, starting with "Children Chasing Stars", falling has become the center of gravity of every Shinkai Makoto animation.
A still from "Children Chasing Stars"
Makoto Shinkai can be called an SF writer period probably until "5 centimeters per second", during which Makoto Shinkai fell in love with the classic dreams of mankind since ancient times - flying and ascending, which was given the meaning of exploring the unknown world with awe. Makoto Shinkai's generation of creators was heavily influenced by Japanese animation in the seventies and eighties, and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), born during this period, needless to say, is the story of a teenager who goes to fight in the universe. Miyazaki, who became famous in the eighties, is also a famous flying machine enthusiast, and the post-apocalyptic wasteland worldview of Valley of the Wind (1984) is indispensable for flying tools, a world full of toxins that does not seem to allow humans to touch the ground with their feet; In "Castle in the Sky" (1986), the father of the young Balu is an adventure pilot, Balu is attracted by the "Sky City" photographed by his father, and the image of his father who died early overlaps with the Sky City far away, which also attracts him to fly to the sky; In Miyazaki's late "The Wind Rises" (2013), Jiro Horietsu becomes friends with Italian aircraft designer Caproni in a dream, and Horikoshi is unable to become a pilot due to vision problems, and instead becomes an aircraft designer, just as Miyazaki Hayao dreams of flying successfully through animated curves. The animation company GAINAX (the one that produced the old TV version of "Evangelion" in college) that Hideaki Kuno evolved into in college, also influenced Makoto Shinkai, the company's first work "Wang Li Space Army" (1987) is about the future civilization and technology decline of society, scientists and adventurers looking for ancient science and technology, and eliminating all kinds of political and secular dilemmas, doing their best to make rockets and fly to the universe, the ending of the film, after the rocket flies to the universe, The film arranges a montage that connects the history of human society, science and technology civilization, and in a positive sense, it also praises the dream of human beings to pursue ascension since ancient times.
Mobile Suit Gundam stills
Makoto Shinkai's early works also harbor such an upward movement: "Voice of the Stars" (2002), a collection of his own independent animation, sets up a heroine who has to separate from the male protagonist and fly to the universe in order to fight the alien invasion; "The Other Side of the Cloud, the Agreed Place" associates the heroine with the survival of the world, and sets up a white giant tower leading to the universe to symbolize the power of the world, in order to save the heroine, the two male protagonists made a plane to fly to the upper end of the White Tower; Even "5 Centimeters Per Second", which describes everyday time, arranges a rocket launched on Tanegashima in the second chapter, and the people on the ground look at the rocket as if they can no longer recover the distant relationship and witness the irretrievability of the relationship. Even the opening animation of the beautiful girl game "EF" series (2006-08) led by Makoto Shinkai sets up a rotating staircase to the sky, a paper airplane flying upward, and the characters are following these rising things but cannot catch up, and the relationship caused by gravity is impossible (this is why the ending of "Voice of the Star" and "The Other Side of the Cloud, the Agreed Place" is optimistic, and the male protagonist actively creates the possibility of rising to approach this impossible relationship suspended in the universe. ）。 The ascent constituted an important scenery of the early "Shinkai animation".
"Voice of the Stars" stills
However, in "Children Chasing Stars", the scenery of the previous "Shinkai Animation" is no longer there, and the fall is the center of gravity. The boy who was supposed to be the male protagonist died unexpectedly, and the boy had led Asuna to fall in a falling motion (jumping from the bridge to the ground with Asuna but nothing happened), but he was suspected of falling to death in the downstream river, and no one knows whether he was homicide, suicide or accident. Facing her mother, who informed her of her death, Asuna also said in disbelief: "It is impossible for him to fall to his death." She believes that teenagers with the power to fall will not fall to their deaths. The unexpected death of the teenager here and the unexpected twist of the play, this unexpected accident forms the core of the work, and the journey to the world of death in this film is actually the process of Asukina accepting this unpredictable accident as a fact, accepting this sudden eternal loss.
It can be said that after this work, the scenery of "Shinkai Animation" has undergone subversive changes, and the rise is all in preparation for the fall. In "Suzu Bud's Journey", the falling movement is distributed into the two most important plots: the first is the disaster force "Vermido" pouring out from the gate of Tokyo, Suzuya grabbed the lifted Vermia and rose into the air, Vermia entrenched in the air to form a huge platform, Suzuya sealed the disaster with a chair Kusanagi, after the vermia disappeared, she was protected by the civet "Minister" and fell into the river of Tokyo (which is also reminiscent of Makoto Shinkai's description of Tokyo's river water space in "Children of the Weather"), It was this fall that led to the discovery of the forgotten ancient city gate hidden deep in Tokyo's sewers, which is also Tokyo's gateway to the ordinary world, and at the same time "fictionalized" a historical secret of the modern city of Tokyo.
In the second paragraph, Suzuya steps into the door to save the sealed Kusanagi, which is also the movement of falling from the air, and then when she and Kusanagi seal the vermime in their hometown at the same time, they also fall from the sky with the help of the spirit cat, and the two use the falling traction of gravity to insert the "essential stone" into the vermi, thus sealing the calamity. Interestingly, the way vermias cause earthquakes is also from the door to the door into the air, when the vermia falls to the ground, the earthquake will occur, and finally the vermia sealed by the bell buds they turn into dirt and fall to the ground, these long strips of soil turn into mountains covered with plants, and this result is the same as the earthquake - fallen leaves return to their roots, and return to the earth by falling. Makoto Shinkai, who once longed for the sky, has become more attached to the earth, and if the final fall of "Weather Child" from the clouds back to the ground is not obvious enough, then "Journey to the Bell Bud" is the most powerful example.
A still from "Journey to the Bell Bud"
Isn't this Your Name. A variation on the ending? "Your name. At the beginning, Taki looks up at the sky and sees the beautiful "shooting star" that cuts across the night sky, and the result of this "meteor" is finally depicted, falling to the ground causing a huge explosion, and a storm destroying the village - like the vermia of "Suzubud Journey" smashing into the ground, these wonders eventually return to the land by causing a great change in the earth. In terms of animation performance, the last two people of "Journey to the Bell Bud" seal the vermia by gravity falling, resulting in natural phenomena such as explosions and storms, and both works use naturalistic realistic paintings to express these phenomena and achieve visual wonders, which are also the same goal. And the fall is not connected with the negative meaning, but Shinkai Makoto has been dissolving the meaning of the binary distinction of "rising-positive" and "falling-negative", the rise may be negative (flying into the sky is also accompanied by life danger), and the fall pulled by gravity can also be celebrated.
In my opinion, the depiction of gravity is an eternal topic in Japanese naturalistic realistic animation, and as mentioned earlier, Makoto Shinkai first tried this representation in "Children Chasing the Stars", an animation that focuses on the downfall, and the Ghibli animation that this film learns – especially the animation led by Hoon Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki – is good at naturalistic realistic animation. A brief history of Japanese animation performance needs to be inserted here: in the seventies, animation artists such as Takahata Hoon and Miyazaki Hayao who came out of Toei Animation films pursued an animated realistic return in TV animations such as "The Girl of the Alps" (1974) and "Future Young Conan" (1978), which was different from the limited animation at that time when TV animation did not value motion but attached importance to the visual effects of still painting.
A still from "The Girl of the Alps"
From the late eighties to the nineties, the realistic style painting revolution led by animators Takashi Nakamura, Mitsuo Iso, Toshiyuki Inoue, Utsunomiya Ri, Keiyuki Okiura, Shinya Ohira and others, although the methodology in subdivision is not exactly the same, but in general, there is an important breakthrough in the pursuit of three-dimensionality and weight that gives people a sense of realism in animation, especially how to show how to appear real; On the other hand, Mamoru Oshii established a systematic layout production system in the animated film "Mobile Police Patlabor 2" (1993, Makoto Shinkai referred to the work in some clips of "Weather Child" and "Suzubud Journey"), which used this system to make the realist animation image perspective more accurate and closer to the camera lens picture under the real image, and each lens was first booked to use a wide angle or telephoto for design and painting. It is distinguished from the visual image of the human eye, and even emphasizes the distortion perspective of the real camera lens in the animation. In Japanese animation from the 00s to the 10s, the influence of the realism revolution at the end of the last century has long been popular and can be seen everywhere. Coupled with the impact of "Web painting" and independent forces from outside the animation system, even this kind of realism began to become an old school. [6] Letter to Peach (2011), directed by Keiyuki Okiura, is an animated film that uses "old-school" naturalistic realism to express gravity. The work tells the story of the unexpected death of Momo's father, who follows her mother back to live in her hometown of Shioshima, located in the Seto Inland Sea. On the way back to her hometown, three drop-shaped objects dripped from her head, which are the original forms of the three yokai that appeared later, and the water droplets falling from the sky hinted at the meaning of gravity.
In addition, Peach, who has never dared to dive from the bridge, finally plucked up the courage to jump at the end of the film, and the diving shows the rules of gravity from top to bottom, corresponding to the monster falling from the sky in the opening scene, and the existence of gravity is emphasized by echoing back and forth. The ubiquitous and natural gravity outlines the beauty of the naturalistic realism of animation. When the monster finally returns to heaven, Peach asks them to carry the plot of the letter to their father, and after a series of death-related experiences, Peach finally faces her father's death, so that the farewell from the earth to the sky against gravity, as if defying gravity requires anti-reality logic and painstakingly imagination to do it. It is precisely because of the previous depiction of the strength of gravity that death as an upward force against gravity shows a sense of heaviness, which is why learning to gaze at death is an unbearable weight. Death shows the weight of its realism through the "movement" that defies gravity and exists in the imagination.
A still from "Letter to Peach"
My friend Rocefator pointed out in an article quoting Japanese animator Nobuaki Doi: "It is thought-provoking that although Makoto Shinkai is known for his label as a personal independent anime, "Your Name" symbolizes his commercial success and public recognition. The images are supported by the elite of traditional animators who have been cultivated in the scene of masterpieces such as Ghibli Animation. On the surface, this seems to mean Your Name. The success of Shinkai Makoto was the first time to obtain the cooperation of the traditional animation concept of realistic aspirations. In Your Name. Previously, as an independent animation writer, Makoto Shinkai's work had limited drawing resources, which forced him to develop a methodology for minimizing the need for painting in video. In Makoto Shinkai's works, the key words are always clouds, stars, rain and other scenery, rather than the handsome facial features or meticulous gestures of the protagonists. In this sense, the combination of Shinkai's animation aesthetic and the technology of traditional animation has never been envisaged, inspiring unprecedented conflict and fleeting dazzling flashes. The closer the realist aspiration of painting is integrated with the Shinkai Makoto concept (which cannot be truly achieved), the more its contradictions become prominent, and the more the work inspires its charm in the structure of self-denial. ”[7]
This passage supports "Your Name. As a collection of the second turning point in the history of Shinkai animation performance, it is necessary to point out a fallacy in the text, the contradiction between "realistic painting and Shinkai Makoto-style concepts" has long appeared in "Children Chasing Stars", but at that time it was not possible to achieve close integration. What Makoto Shinkai is looking for in "Children Chasing the Stars" is the realistic representation of Japanese animation that has become a classic, and even imitates the otherworldly presentation of Miyazaki's animation (where the protagonist on the journey acts as the eyes of the world). However, neither of them succeeded, not only could the painting resources not match such realistic aspirations, but Shinkai Makoto was also unable to express an alien world that made people curious about it, nor could it represent a different world that could exist as an independent object and have a separate order. "Your name. undoubtedly made up for the failure of "Children Chasing the Stars", the first time he so successfully expressed gravity (to use Rocafetor's example: "In "Your Name. In the climax, Miyami Mitsuba staggers to the ground and rolls downhill, this scene is painted by the original artist Keiyuki Okiura, who aspires to the tip of the pyramid with realistic aspirations. In the face of that strong sense of discord, I am afraid that I have to admit that Toi's argument is overwhelmingly persuasive. "), also avoids the weakness of the inability to depict the details of the world. In "Children Chasing the Stars", Makoto Shinkai wanted to depict the fall and express gravity in a naturalistic and realistic way, and let gravity and death be connected, and it was not until "Suzubud Journey" that it was really completed.
Makoto Shinkai
I don't know who prescribed it - although realistic animation performance is different in every era, from "Momotaro Sea God Soldier" (1945) during World War II, to "The Legend of the White Snake" (1958) produced by Toei Animation in the fifties, to "Akira" (1988), which was the enlightenment realism movement in the eighties, to the establishment of a new realistic methodology "Mobile Police Patlabor 2"... - performance authenticity has always occupied the core of Japanese animated films in all eras. As animator Ryota Fujitsu believes, Japanese animation is constantly evolving around how to get "real." [8] Makoto Shinkai's background as an independent animator is no exception, but in his early days, he used static elements to express reality in a roundabout way. Shinkai's more mature commercial animation production system and team with rich experience in realistic expression are also naturally closer to naturalistic realistic performance with a privileged position. The independent animator who shocked the commercial animation industry has now chosen a more mainstream route that is more in line with the public's perception of Japanese animated films, just like the falling movement of his animation to return to the world. And "Your Name. This sense of realism, full of contradictions, has also taken over the baton of generations and has become a new symbol of realism.
A still from "Mobile Police Patlabor 2"
The spectacle of the Empty Court's Gate
The realism of Shinkai animation is inseparable from the creation of spectacle - the "real" here does not mean a realism, or even necessarily represents reality, this is by no means objectively restrained realism, subjective realism - the spectacle created in "Suzuya Journey" is more extreme, in addition to continuing to add to the lens (adding more light performance and lens movement, etc.), and adding more CG performance also highlights the heterogeneity (such as the vermire entrenched over Tokyo), but the more important spectacle lies in the presentation of the scene, The wonders of the scene are condensed in the iconic scenery mentioned at the beginning of the article - the ships "blooming" on the small buildings of the ruined earth.
Animation director Naoko Yamada once said, "Maybe I always liked to take pictures and realistic video works. However, it is not about incorporating realism into animation works. Instead, I need to draw a very thin dividing line between actual existence and non-existence, and I want to build the animation world and then simulate the shot. So it's a feeling of 'substitution becomes realism in the animation world'. [9] Naoko Yamada's confession also applies to Makoto Shinkai's work, no matter how much emphasis Shinkai's work emphasizes the real texture of the spatial scene (even the overly glorified texture), it is by no means the same objective realism as mentioned above—not so much the authenticity of their work, but the illusion of "realism" that gives the viewer a "sense of reality", called "real". For example, the use of glare that is very personal to his personal style, such natural light does not appear in reality or even in the actual shot of the camera. His world is like the world in the eyes of the teenage protagonist, their inner world and emotions are externalized into the wonders of the world, externalized into the body organs of the world.
A still from "Journey to the Bell Bud"
"Your name. In ", Taki and Mitsuba, who had originally exchanged bodies and looked for each other, came to the crater smashed by meteorites, and they stood on either side of the cross-shaped sunset, and the two who had been unable to balance their respective time differences found a wonderful middle line here, just as this is neither day nor night "magic moment". It is not important why miracles happen at this time, what is important is that miracles actually happen for no reason, which is one of the core wonders of the work. They are in an elusive but real balance, the middle line, like the appearance of miracles.
It is precisely because this is not a realistic real world, but full of subjective and impulsive "reality" that the following plot can be established: Mitsuba convinces his father, as a politician, that the process of letting his father direct the villagers to evacuate is missing (this is also one of the manifestations of Makoto Shinkai's lack of concern for the social system written earlier), and the movie only shows Mitsuba, who is no longer confused, walking into his father's office, and the father looks at Mitsuba's firm eyes and understands his daughter's consciousness. In "Suzuya's Journey", a similar plot is like Suzuya convincing Serizawa Kusata to be in the northeast for no reason, and asking Serizawa to take her to the northeast for a while.
A still from "Journey to the Bell Bud"
But "Journey to the Bell Buds" is ultimately the same as "Your Name." This one presents a certain reality across Japan in the form of a road movie, as it was written earlier: "The scene of '311' gradually becomes the collective memory of all Japan", and these realities can no longer be expressed in exchange for "subjective realism" for spectacle. However, in this work, the ruins that Suzuya visited are wonders. The ruins are a space where the original function of the place has disappeared, and when Suzuya closes the door, they recall the daily situation that used to play the original role of the space, and in the various simple daily words here, the disappearance and the meaning of the past make those daily revelations magical, not to mention that Shinkai Makoto also adds more wonders to these ruins: a door is inexplicably erected in the atrium of the ruins of Kyushu Onsen Street, and it is really inexplicable to think that this door appears here, However, it is such an inexplicable picture that is used as the first poster of the movie, as an iconic concept of the film; In order to make Kobe's abandoned amusement park illuminated inappropriately and turned into a kind of stage performance device, the film set up a plot of the destruction of a power generation house, and used 3DCG to make a long-range mirror, so that the ruins that flashed the undeserved light overlooked the city where people lived below the mountain; The ancient castle gates, a fictional thing that will not exist in the Tokyo sewers, seem to hide the historical mystery of the city under the modern city, and it is a spectacle created by urban legends...
As the plot progresses, Suzuya experiences one spectacle after another, and the formation of the "311" event is gradually pushed to the foreground and revealed. Suzuya's personal experience is pulled into a collective shared experience, which is increasingly incongruous with Makoto Shinkai's subjective realism that creates an approximation of illusion, which is no longer just the world through the eyes of the teenage protagonist. And this incongruous maximization is precisely the small building carrying the ship that appears in the dream-like world, where there is both the weight of death symbolizing reality and the light subjective illusion. Finally, Suzuya and Kusata climb the hull of the ship that fell on the small building in the ordinary world, recite the spell of the seal, and at this point, the puzzle of the last wonder of "Suzuya's Journey" is finally completed.
A still from "Journey to the Bell Bud"
Makoto Shinkai seems to have the consciousness that he must depict "311" and depict reality in order to fulfill his social responsibility as a person who does not directly experience disasters. However, "311" is placed at the center of the suspense of the whole story, Suzuya finds her diary from her childhood, her diary stops on March 11 of a certain year, and when this unsurprising suspense is revealed, "311" also gains an unprecedented privilege in the film, just like the ruins that become spectacles, the door that stands in the empty atrium for no reason, this surrealist landscape is exactly how the film portrays "311".
epilogue
"Shinkai Animation", the contradiction between fantasy and collective memory of common experience marked by various wonders, and Makoto Shinkai's animation concept and realistic ambition has reached an unprecedented level. One of the big reasons for this is that Shinkai Makoto may somehow be closer to mainstream voices. Thankfully, "Suzu Bud Journey" did not slide into the trap that allows real problems to be solved in the subjective world - too many animations have slipped into this trap when dealing with "311", such as the aforementioned "Lost House of Cape Sea" and "Fuso Flower Dance", which obviously lays a tone for realistically depicting suffering, but it seems that as long as the story reaches a certain key point, the protagonist can complete the task of saving the world by saving himself in the fantasy world - in the end, Suzuya can only save himself, She couldn't change the landscape of the ruins. In the eyes of Suzuya when he was a child, Suzuya and Kusata grew up with the brilliance of mature parents, which is not to imply that they will form a family, but that teenagers and girls have taken the initiative to become responsible parents who can build a new world for the next generation.
A still from "The Lost House of the Cape"
After the 10s of "Shinkai Animation", "Suzuya Journey" is destined to form two extremes with "Weather Child".
"Children of the Weather" is because the egoism of young girls has caused the entire city to become a water body ruin, and their behavior has been questioned by adults, and even audiences outside the film have reprimanded them for having problems with their three views. However, even so, the teenager still thinks that he has changed the world, and Makoto Shinkai also affirms the unbridled love of the teenager. But on the other hand, the change in the world is really negative.
A still from "Children of the Weather"
"Journey to the Bell Buds" is like being responsible for "Children of the Weather": since the teenage girl in "The Children of the Weather" is convinced that she has changed the world, the young girl is also responsible for her actions, so what "The Journey of the Bell Buds" does is to destroy disasters, especially Suzu Buds also need to be responsible for accidentally pulling out the stone, for which she paid for the entire journey and finally returned the stone to its original place. The act of closing the door of disaster in "Journey to the Bell Buds" is more like a social experience. The last part of this trilogy has also become the way to enter the world after experiencing a period of rebellion. Compared to the sky, Makoto Shinkai after "311" loves to describe these young girls who grew up on this land and took root here, and finally fell back to the solid ground to continue living.
"Your name. let the public know Makoto Shinkai, but at that time he had not yet had time to realize that his identity had changed from an independent animator to a national director, and this time he seemed to be fully aware and made a change. Perhaps "Journey to the Bell Buds" was an accident, or was it some kind of beginning?
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[1] Tsunehiro Uno and Jeffrey C. Guarneri, translated by Wang Han (translated from Jeffrey C. Guarneri), Imagination after the Earthquake: Japanese Otaku Culture in the 2010s, July 20, 2018, Imagination after the Earthquake: Japan's Otaku Culture in the 2010s, quoted in Verge: Studies in Global Asias》，University of Minnesota Press，2015，P114-136，
Source: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/40181408;
[2] DREAMER 译,[翻译]《回转企鹅罐》监督几原 Kunihiko x Tsujimura 深月特别对谈,2021.7.7,Original text: Ring Ping Drum Official Complete Guidebook All About Survival Strategies, Gentosha Comics, 2012,
Translation source:
https://virtualstar.home.blog/2021/07/07/%E3%80%90%E7%BF%BB%E8%AF%91%E3%80%91%E3%80%8A%E5%9B%9E%E8%BD%AC%E4%BC%81%E9%B9%85%E7%BD%90%E3%80%8B%E7%9B%91%E7%9D%A3%E5%87%A0%E5%8E%9F%E9%82%A6%E5%BD%A6x%E8%BE%BB%E6%9D%91%E6%B7%B1%E6%9C%88%E7%89%B9/；
[3] Tata-kun, "Children of the Weather" about the world but not the world system - "we" are no longer silent at this moment,
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/90898383；
[4] The contents of the "Suzuya Journey" project included in "Shinkai Makoto";
[5] Xinhai Cheng, translated by Liu Ruoyi, Yanye Zhiting : Official Storyboard Picture Collection, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2022, p119;
[6] For reference to the following materials, see - SFLSNZYN translation, Toshiyuki Inoue × Oshiyama Kiyotaka Dialogue: What is the authenticity of painting: Reflections on the history of painting expression in the thirty years of Heisei, March 13, 2023,
Translation source:
https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show id=2309404878454691594775；
[7] rocefactor, Post Cinema – Nobuaki Doi, Daisuke Watanabe and Japanese animated films of the 2010s, October 2022, 22,
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HBTffBGCMcRTxDB-7u3FOA；
[8] Ryota Fujitsu, "In This Corner of the World" in the History of Anime, Origin "Eureka November 2016 Issue Special Feature = Kounoshiyo" (Jōshi 书), Seidosha, 2016;
[9] Takashi, Awa, 20 Hai Bunka Media艺术祭优秀奖获奖纪念 "Voice 之形" Yamada Naoki 监督访谈, 2017.9.26, Original text: "The Movie 'Ryogata'" Interview with Director Naoko Yamada "A Work of Sincerity that Depicts Hope", 20th Japan Media Arts Festival Excellence Award Commemoration, September 26, 2017,
https://animeanime.jp/article/2017/09/26/35438.html，
Translation source:
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s id=1582701563154413022&wfr=spider&for=pc。
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