Author: Little Death/Anitama Cover Source: Summer of the Kappa
In a few days, August will be over and the summer holidays will be officially said. At the end of this summer vacation, the weekend patch column this time recommends a cool summer work, that is, Keiichi Hara's "Kappa Summer".
Poster of the Japanese edition of "Kappa's Summer".
Regarding Keiichi Hara, he has previously recommended two of his other works, "Unexpected Lucky Sign" and "Hundred Days Red", and this time I will introduce one of his masterpieces, "Summer of Kappa". Through this work, he also jumped out of the shackles of the previous "Crayon Shin-chan" and showed the audience his ability to direct non-series works, which made him one of the most watched animation directors in Japan.
Released in 2007, "Kappa Summer" is adapted from the Japanese children's literature writer Masao Kisuma's "Kappa Riot", "Kappa's Amazing Journey" and other kappa series, as early as the film was released 20 years ago, that is, in 1987, Keiichi Hara wanted to find a carrier that could be adapted into animation outside of the manga theme, and as a result, he happened to see this series of original novels, and was very interested, thinking that this was the work he was looking for suitable for adaptation into animation. Unfortunately, at that time, the conditions were not mature, and this idea could only be temporarily shelved, but Hara Keiichi took the name of this work to heart.
Look out into the distance with a little cool.
Ten years later, in 1997, just as the game company ENIX was raising animation plans, Keiichi Hara thought of the Kappa series he had seen before, so he went to the author Masao Kisumai to request permission to adapt it into an anime, and he decided to use the theatrical version at the beginning. Masao Kisumai was impressed by Keiichi Hara's sincerity and finally agreed to the request for animation. However, although this project plan to win the authorization was well received, it was never launched, and Keiichi Hara had to focus on his own work, but he continued to do pre-concept design for the animation. Later, when Keiichi Hara made the theatrical version of "Crayon Shin-chan" in 2000, in order to fulfill his wishes, he thought about putting the kappa character in it in "Crayon Shin-chan". Finally, in 2002, someone finally took a fancy to this project that had been stranded for many years, and the animation project was officially launched. Even so, the preliminary preparation also took 3 years, the actual formal painting was only started in 2005, and finally after two years of production, on July 28, 2007, it was officially released in Japanese theaters, and finally won the Japanese domestic box office of 360 million yen, ranking 50th in the Japanese film box office list that year, which is a very good result for an animation film that is not very commercial. In addition, it has also received unanimous praise at major film festivals, won the Animation Department Award of the Media Arts Award of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the Japan Film Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, etc., and has also gone abroad to taiwan, South Korea, the United States, France and other regions, and has received many praises.
The anime is about Yasuichi Uehara, a 5th grader, who accidentally retrieves a strange taxidermy by a small river. Unexpectedly, after taking it home and putting it into the water, I found that it was actually a kappa that had been sleeping for a long time, and as she grew up, this kappa named Xiaoku by Kang Yi also learned the human language and integrated into Kang Yi's family life. Kang's family, too, gradually changed their minds from the beginning and accepted the legendary monster kappa. When Xiaoku and Kang Yi lived a happy life, the identity of The unintentional Xiaoku Kappa was exposed, causing a sensation, attracting many reporters to come, and making Xiaoku a household name for the Red Kappa. But because XiaoKu wants to protect his father's arm, it causes a commotion, causing humans to shout at Xiaoku everyone, and Xiaoku also flees the scene, and finally Kang Yi runs to find Xiaoku. Finally, after some twists and turns, after rescuing Kang Yi, Xiao Ku continued to live with the Kang family, and Xiao Ku's kappa identity was also accepted by the public.
This story, which sounds a bit young at first, originally belonged to children's literature, and Keiichi Hara would have liked this work at the beginning, according to himself, because in addition to the story setting about kappa, in addition to the friendship between teenagers and the throbbing of teenagers in sichun, there are also things about family, society, and environmental protection. Therefore, Keiichi Hara felt that this story, which was both simple and somewhat complicated, was suitable for animation and had to be a theatrical version. Because there is more content involved in the film, Keiichi Hara drew a full 3 hours of content in the initial storyboard, and then was told that as an animated film, this time is too long, he cut 10 minutes, think this has been cut a lot, but did not consider that 2 hours and 50 minutes and 3 hours are no different. However, in the end, before the team began to officially draw, he reduced the content to 2 hours and 18 minutes, which is the final version of the total 138 minutes. In the interview with Keiichi Hara, there was a question about the length of time, to which Keiichi Hara said that there is really no way to shorten it, from 180 minutes to 138 minutes, which is already the limit. But even so, this time is still half more than the 90 minutes of the normal animated theatrical version, and he is more worried that the audience will feel that the time is too long when watching, but for the sake of the rhythm of the story, this length is more appropriate. At that time, the person who interviewed him also said that he would like to see the 3-hour extended version, to which Hara Keiichi said that he wanted to see it and could only appeal to investors.
Keiichi Hara was born in 1959 in Kanbayashi City, Gunma Prefecture, and grew up watching movies on TV with his parents, especially European and American movies, especially like war movie themes, I have also said that I have always wanted to do a war theme animation, but found that the works I later directed were all daily life series. As for starting to draw, according to his own words, it was kindergarten that began to like the Godzilla series of movies, and then scribbled and painted by himself, slowly exercised, and gradually lost interest after middle school. However, after entering middle school, his hobbies and interests have also changed, he has participated in the athletics department and the swimming department, and he has also traveled on a bicycle, which is a relatively normal and energetic teenager. Later, when I applied for the Art University, I did not get into the school because of my poor grades, so in order to meet my desire to work in painting as a child, I applied to the Tokyo Institute of Design and learned the production technology of animation. Interestingly, compared to animation, Keiichi Hara prefers movies, such as the style of directors such as Yasujiro Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, and David Lane. Speaking of this, Keiichi Hara also has a nickname, known as Yasujiro Ozu in the animation industry, and then in 2013, Keiichi Hara also made his only live-action movie, which is the film "The First Road" commemorating the centenary of Keisuke Kinoshita.
The miserable little cool who held his father's broken hand and cried.
Since entering the industry in 1980, Keiichi Hara has been working with children's works and the themes of Fujiko's duo, and he himself likes Fujiko. He said that he was very honored and happy to be able to participate in Fujiko's works such as "Doraemon" and "Super Power Magic Beauty", after all, he was able to turn his favorite manga into animation through his work, which seemed to be a great sense of accomplishment. In the 1990s, he concentrated on the production of "Crayon Novel", not only as the second-generation director of the series of animation, but also as the director of several theatrical versions. "Crayon Xiaoxin" is also a children's animation, whether it is a TV version or a theatrical version, before and after ten years, it has been doing "Crayon Xiaoxin". It was also more than twenty years before and after that that he was familiar with children-oriented works, and the task of writing the script for "Kappa Summer" was also taken on by himself. He said that compared to the original work, he has made a lot of modifications, not only in the performance of Kang Yi's personality, adding some profile descriptions of him, but also adding a lot of original characters, such as Kang Yi's sister, the family's puppy, Kang Yi's favorite girl, etc. It can be said that this is a mixed work with the original as the skeleton and the original Keiichi adding flesh and blood.
Reporters flocked to Xiaoku after being exposed.
For "Kappa Summer", a work he fully devoted himself to, it can be said that it is the culmination of more than 20 years of work experience before Keiichi Hara. When he went to the original author for permission, he saw that the author's city of HigashiKurume, Tokyo, where the author lived, was particularly suitable as a background stage for animation. So from then on, he often went to Higashi Kurume City to take pictures when he had time. He went alone, and then he decided that the animation was made, and the production team often went to take pictures, just to be able to perfectly show this beautiful place. Then, at the time of production, most of the background is painted according to the photo, but because the protagonist is a kappa, there are more water scenes, and it is more laborious to draw by hand. So Hara Keiichi considered using CG to make pictures showing water, and some cars and some scenes were also made in CG, which could save more effort to enhance the painting of other parts.
Water surface represented in CG.
This kind of strange creatures are picked up and raised at home, and the two sides have established a deep relationship, when the outside world does not understand everyone shouting and fighting, the protagonist runs away from home with his friends, and then after some twists and turns to solve the story, to say that everyone is more familiar with the nature is "Doraemon" one of the theatrical versions of "Nobita and Dinosaurs", the domestic "Big Fish begonia" is also this routine. However, "Summer of Kappa" is more different, because in the middle of its story, the legendary creature of kappa has been discovered by the outside world, and has caused a hot topic and become a hot topic in society. This somewhat purely idealized conception also makes the whole work more absurd and realistic, a bit of an allusion to the irresponsibility and lack of discipline of the media. Because Keiichi Hara prefers that this is not an ordinary animation, but a film to be produced. So in order to highlight the sense of reality, he decided not to use voice actors to dub as much as possible in dubbing. In the end, it is the actor and the real child to match, for which Keiichi Hara said that letting the child match can restore the child's sense of innocence, especially in terms of emotional expression, which can be more natural. Several of the children in charge of the dubbing were very hard and performed very well, although at the beginning they were inexperienced and a little nervous, but as they entered the state later, the matching got better and better. Even the dogs in Yasuichi's family are specially voiced, for which Keiichi Hara said that Yoshihito Anwara, who is in charge of dubbing, is really hard, and in order to be able to express the emotions of dogs, he strives to learn various dog barking, and makes a major sacrifice for this work.
End with the whole family having fun together!
For Keiichi Hara's works, the order of our recommendations is a bit reversed, from the latest "Hundred Days Red" to the previous "Unexpected Lucky Sign", and finally to this famous work "Summer of Kappa", but regardless of the order, Hara Keiichi's works are worth a look. When you finish watching this "Kappa Summer", it means that the summer vacation is officially over.
Not picking up a kappa summer vacation is over
References
Japanese Wiki Encyclopedia
Animestyle Interview with Keiichi Hara
Animeanime Interview with Keiichi Hara
The best movie chosen by movie treasure ex & otona anime ex anime creator
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