Author: Sauce Beef Tendon /Anitama Cover Source: Utopian New Seeds and Millennium Magic
On November 25th, the Japan Film Week, co-sponsored by the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs, the China Film Archive, and the Beijing Film Academy, was held in Beijing. Held on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the film week aims to promote exchanges between Chinese and Japanese filmmakers and Chinese audiences' understanding of Japanese film culture.
The 2009 Japanese animated film Utopian Shinko and Millennium Magic was released mid-week. The film's superintendent Naofumi Katafumi and producer Tomohiko Iwase personally came to Beijing to attend the fan interaction event held after the screening of the China Film Archive and the Beijing Film Academy. Among them, the film academy held a lecture on the theme of "Animation and Reality" after the screening. Taking the preparation of "Shinko" as an example, Katabuchi supervises a large number of valuable materials and explains how to integrate field-based content into the characters, art settings and style of the work in the animation production. This lecture is of a very high level, whether it is an inspiration for creative ideas or a reference role for actual creation, it is the best one among the dozens of animation supervision lectures that the author has attended over the years, and there is no one.
At this event in Beijing, Anitama also conducted in-depth interviews with Katabuchi supervisor and Iwase producers about the work "Utopian New Son and Millennium Magic". The interview involves a large number of core spoilers, and it is recommended that you read it after watching the main film.
- That's the way it is, thank you very much. Next, we would like to ask the two of us to talk about the protagonist, the role of Aoki Shinko. When I first watched it yesterday, I gradually felt that this girl was so strong→ so mobile→ clingy little goblin (laughs). However, seeing the end, I felt that she was very "dangerous".
Katabuchi Oh Oh.
Shinko feels like a child who "lives in the moment", and she doesn't seem to mind the past very much, so she immediately changes her mood after experiencing the death of her friend Tatsuyoshi's father, and immediately laughs with Kiiko to find goldfish. Of course, it may be that the plot of the original work was reconstructed for the sake of animation. But I felt that although Shinko was not saying that she had completely forgotten the past, she was able to quickly adjust herself and focus on the next thing. However, even shinko, whose values are so "perfect", encounters adult violence when she and Tatsuyoshi go to Joy Street to take revenge. In the face of the underworld, her past invincible principles and values of action instantly pale and powerless. The strength she relied on in the children's world, as soon as she left the closed world she was in, she immediately hit her head and bled. Her mentality seems to be mellow and complete, but it is fragile and full of limitations, which is why I think she is "dangerous". As a work with "the power of children" as the theme, the plot of the second half reflects the child's powerlessness in front of adults, is this a denial of the child's power?
What Shinko Katabuchi has is the child's imagination and the child's mentality. When she went to Happy Street, to the adult world, her set of things really had no power to fight back, but this did not mean that the child's power was useless. Although the underworld gangsters she met on Happy Street are now underworld, they were also children in the past, and in the communication with Xinzi, they recalled this, so in the end they let Xinzi go. At that point in time, the part of the child that the new son had was actually affirmed. So after receiving recognition, she can see the picture of Tatsuyoshi's father's childhood in her heart, and she can also say "Let's play like a child again" when she is separated from Tatsuyoshi, and she can also run with Kiiko and return to the child's posture.
- That's the way it is, thank you very much! In response to this, I would like to talk about the so-called "thinking too much" part that I mentioned at the beginning. I think there is a metaphor here that although the new child has her own set of values in the child's world, once she leaves the child's world, her child's means can only be maintained under the good intentions of adults. This state of being in a nest, I wonder if I am alluding to Japan's post-war environment. The story of Shinko takes place in the post-war decade, when Japan was at peace and the economy began to take off. However, judging from the international situation, the Korean War ended not long after, and the Cold War gradually escalated. I can't help but wonder if the "environment in which Shinko finds itself in which good intentions are maintained" is a metaphor for japan's peace and is only peace under the patronage of a certain country.
In this sense, the adults who appear in this movie are all people who have experienced war, and the new sons are a new generation that has not yet been born in the war. So one day, they will become a generation carrying a new era, they will establish a new society and order, and they will vow not to go to war again. And as a new generation of the new society, their "new" is not only from the adult giving. In the future, they must rely on themselves to open up their own "new" and create their own new era.
- Indeed. Although the new son born after the war lives in the present, it is difficult for adults who have experienced war in the work to shake off the shadow of wartime, especially Tatsuyoshi's father.
From the perspective of his age, Tatsuyoshi Katabuchi's father thought that he had been on the battlefield. He demands that he must be a hero, but as a hero, he has a relationship with the underworld. He eventually could not bear this contradiction and finally ended his own life with his own hands.
- You mentioned the topic of war, and I think of a question, there are so many people in this work who are deeply affected by war, but the only time the specific era at that time is mentioned is the new grandfather's sentence "The war ten years ago." After all, there are too many details unique to Japan in this work, and Japanese people may be able to speculate about specific eras based on clues, but foreigners like us may not be easy to feel. Then you mentioned before that this work deliberately chose Yamaguchi Prefecture as the stage, but the name Yamaguchi is not mentioned in the work except that this land was called Zhou Fangguo in ancient times, which is probably not easy for not only foreigners, but even Japanese people to understand. Does the work deliberately downplay the time and place in which the story takes place?
Katabuchi did have a dilution. But that's because I want the Japanese to be able to understand "what kind of war was a decade back in time." I hope that even if the time and place of the war are not specifically specified in the film, Japanese audiences will be able to understand for granted which war is mentioned in the film. If they don't understand, it's a big problem, and that means forgetting. So we deliberately do not explain too much, and those who understand will naturally understand. And if someone reads the work and doesn't understand it, I hope that after they have doubts, they will spontaneously investigate and study the history of that era.
When I discovered that the work was set in the post-war decade, I couldn't help but wonder how every adult character in the work was in the war. So after Tatsuyoshi's father suffered a tragedy, I suddenly found that in this work, the new son's family only has a mother, and his father has not appeared. Finally came out, and it turned out in the middle of the night. I wondered if this father would have a very serious problem and not come home at night to indulge in alcohol.
Shinko Katabuchi's father is actually doing research in college, but he does have a story in the war. In reality, his prototype is the father of the original author, Nobuko Takaki. And this father was actually a kamikaze pilot in the war. As a special attack team member, he was destined to die as a human bomber. According to Takashi's teacher, her father was reluctant to accept such an arrangement, and he had a sudden idea that if he married and inherited the family business, he might be able to escape the special attack mission. So he entered the Aoki family and became the heir of the Aoki family. However, the army did not turn a blind eye, and he was still ordered to fly a special attack. Fortunately, the war was over before he could carry out his mission.
—— It turns out that there is still such a passage. Since you mentioned the archetypes of the characters in the work, I would like to ask a question. When I watched the movie yesterday, I thought about the new girl who was so amazing when she was a child, what kind of adult will she become when she grows up. As a result, I went home to check it out, and it turned out that the prototype of the new son was the original Takaki teacher, Dawenhao (laughs). I would like to ask a more disrespectful question, is Takaki Sensei a "tough" person like Shinko? Have you recommended her writings?
Katabuchi (laughs) Takaki Sensei is now over seventy years old, but he is like a young man. She always had a young heart. As for the book, I would like to recommend a copy of "Friends Who Embrace the Light", which has a part of the plot and "Utopian New Son" is interchangeable. In the anime, we not only use the original novel of "Utopian New Son", but also borrow the lines from "Friends Who Embrace the Light". The scene where the new son's father and the new son talk about genetic genes is actually from "Friends Who Embrace the Light". In this book, like "New Son", the protagonist is a young girl and her friend, but everyone is a high school student. Although the ages are different, the stage and "New Son" are located in the same land, and it should be the same family that should be referenced.
(Editor's note: You have the opportunity to retrieve the experience and photos of Mr. Takashi, and indeed as the supervisor said, the youth is radiant, and the life of the female master is radiant. ）
——Can you also introduce the characteristics of the original novel of "Utopian New Son"?
Katabuchi's novel has such a characteristic in Takashi's writings, and when Takaki writes literary works, he will certainly not forget the description of eroticism. Only "Utopian New Son", because she knew in advance that there would be a child reader, deliberately excluded all erotic elements from it. But what surprised me most when I read the novel "Utopian New Son" was that although there was no erotic element in this work, it had a lot of death breath. I think the breath of death in the original work may be the embodiment of the mentality of the new children who want to survive.
- That's the way it is. This is also the question I had when I watched the work, although the film is filled with the breath of death, it seems that it is not too attached to death itself? The most obvious thing is that when the new grandfather died, if it was Hollywood to shoot, it would definitely be a big fanfare. However, the film treats this paragraph briefly, and I seem to feel the Japanese aesthetic of loneliness.
Therefore, Katabuchi said that the new children were actually growing up in their own growth, and gradually learned that "people will eventually die". They have always harbored an uneasiness in their hearts, afraid that they will die when they are young.
As it turns out, I seem to have heard that some children are afraid to sleep because they are afraid of closing their eyes...
Katabuchi will never wake up again. Therefore, the breath of death described in "New Son" is the breath of death seen in the eyes of children. They discover death from the space where they have nothing, look at death, think about death.
But I wonder if Shinko's attitude toward death will be too relaxed. The goldfish raised is dead, find a replacement, not to say that the previous one is not dead. Tatsuyoshi's father died, not to grieve, but to take revenge. She seems to be very "relaxed" about death, what do you think of Shinko's attitude towards death?
Katabuchi I think she was still too young to really understand the meaning of death. Although she had understood that death should be a helpless thing. But at the same time, she felt that the helplessness of death was not an insurmountable barrier. She felt that death was not absolute, so she persuaded herself to believe that the goldfish was still alive. But when they finally saw the living goldfish, she should have vaguely understood, "That's just another goldfish." Therefore, when Grandpa dies later, the new son will never think that Grandpa will come back from the dead. In the process, she gradually understood death, and understood some other things. This is the growth of children, who become adults step by step in these understandings and learnings.
(To be continued)
<h4>Utopian New Son and Millennium Magic</h4>
Hara: My My New Child and the Magic of the Millennium
Original story: Nobuko Takama ("Shinko Imaginary (My My New Child)"MAGAZINE HOUSE, Published by Fumiaki Shincho)
Supervision and Script: Katabuchi Musta
Character Setting and General Drawing Supervisor: Tsuji Shigehito
Director: Kunio Katsuki, Fumie Muroi
Screen composition: Chie Uratani
Art Supervisor: Shinichi Uehara
Color design: Ken Hashimoto
Photography Supervisor: Yuki Yuki Motomoto
CG 监 system: Kentaro Yayama
Editing: Yoshishiko Kimura
Otoki: Hidekiyo Murai, Minako "mooki" Obata
Support: Japanese culture
Executive Producer: Shungo Maruda
Chief Producer: Yojin Takaya
Katakata: Tomohiko Iwasaki, Miho Ichii, Ryoichiro Matsuo
Animation: MADHOUSE
Producer: "Utopian Shinko" Production Committee (Ai Hui Entertainment, Shochiku, MADHOUSE, Yamaguchi Broadcasting)
Publisher: Shochiku
Main sound distribution: Mayuko Fukuda (Shinko Aoki)
Nanako Mizusawa (Takako Shimazu)
Mori Nagai (Noko)
Manami Motokami (Shinko's mother)
This article is for publication by Anitama only, and no unit or individual may publish part or all of this article in any form.
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Original: m.anitama.cn/article/d04ec96f401a0c2d?utm_source=toutiao