Today, the winners of the 40th Japan Academy Awards were announced in the works about animation and close-ups, "Your Name." "Best Screenplay" and Best Music Awards, while Best Film and Best Animation were won by Hideaki Anno's "New Godzilla" and Naoshi Katabuchi's "In This Corner of the World", respectively, and "New Godzilla" was the biggest winner of this Academy Awards, winning the best awards in 7 departments, and Hideaki Anno also made a best director. "Your Name," which set Japanese records in the second half of 2016. " once again lost to "In This Corner of the World" in the professional film selection, but in fact, this time "Your Name." "" is not powerless, but "In this corner of the world" is really the most unexpected and powerful dark horse in the Japanese film industry in 2016, when the simple youth love meets the growth history of the chaotic girl with the feeling of home and country, it is difficult to win.
Your Name. This time, it won the Best Screenplay Award at the Japan Academy Awards for animation, which is also a record, and radwimps' animation for "Your Name" won the best music award. However, the heavier best animation ended up in "In This Corner of the World", and in the previous film awards selected by professional film critics in Japan, "Your Name" always lost to "In this Corner of the World", for "Your Name". "The second-highest-grossing anime in the history of Japanese cinema may seem a bit unfair, but I personally don't think it's that Makoto Shinkai has a serious problem with his personal ability, nor is it that film critics are biased and discriminatory against the work. Instead, from the emotional resonance brought by the background pattern of the story, "In this corner of the world" is slightly better.
Your Name. The highlight of "" is that Makoto Shinkai designed to like each other because of the exchange of bodies, with love across the distance of time and space of young men and women love story, children love you and me, plus exquisite pictures, beautiful music bonuses and is a rare Shinkai Makoto story. And "In the Corner of the World" also has children's love, the same growth of girls, but "In the Corner of the World" is placed in a special era background - Japan at the end of World War II, in a chaotic background, everything about the heroine Suzu has distinct characteristics of the times.
The stage of "In this corner of the world" takes place in Kure City, Hiroshima, the young girl Who is good at painting, Ah Ling, married Hojo Shusaku, a naval attendant living in the military port of Kure City, but as the war progressed, Zhou Zuo was sent to the battlefield as a soldier, Ah Ling alone took on the heavy responsibility of maintaining the Hojo family, at the end of World War II, Japan's domestic materials were seriously scarce Ah Ling racked her brains for the family's life, as a military port, Kure City was frequently bombed by the Allies, and along with the war Ah Ling lost a hand in the bombing, Witnessing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, his sister was also replaced by the atomic bomb because of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, and Ah Ling waited for her husband to return, and finally took a war orphan to continue to live strong in this world.
"In this corner of the world" does not wash away Japan's problems in World War II, nor does it go to the special black allies, but through the experience of Ah Ling, a young girl who actually has nothing directly related to the war, to tell the audience that the war launched by Japan has caused great harm to its country and people, in fact, it is essentially an anti-war film from the perspective of Japanese civilians at the end of World War II, but if we look at it from the perspective of political correctness, it may be completely opposite. Therefore, in the context of the current Sino-Japanese relations, if "In this corner of the world" can be officially released in the domestic film market, it will really create another miracle.
"In this corner of the world" can be unanimously welcomed by the audience and professional film critics, perhaps because of this kind of young girl's growth story and the feelings of home and country, in fact, this reason is also easy to understand, think about the excellent modern dramas in China, anti-war dramas are to connect the love of children, growth and home country and the world, "Bright Sword", "Snow Leopard", "Latent", "The Right Way in the World is Vicissitudes", "Peking No War" and other works have the growth of men, there are children in the chaotic world, Start the story based on respect for the villain's INTELLIGENCE and ability. The love of children under the feelings of home and country can render the helplessness and sadness of the whole story more, and at the same time cause a resonance. Sometimes when we watch a movie and cry, it is not necessarily for the characters in the movie to cry, but for the inability of ourselves and the characters to do anything.
Jin Yong in the "Divine Eagle Heroes" to talk about the great hero, for the country for the people, the archery trilogy from the Jin Kingdom and the Southern Song Dynasty to the Mongol invasion of the Southern Song Dynasty, and then to the final "Yitian Slaughtering Dragon Chronicle" At the end of the Yuan Dynasty peasant uprising, every martial arts master who came and went without a trace had a connection with the home country, and the heroes placed under the home country were also involuntary, Guo Jing Huang Rong, even though he had unique martial skills, could only stick to Xiangyang City in the face of the invasion of the Mongolian Iron Horse, and finally the city was defeated and martyred. Corresponding to the long-term prosperity of Jin Yong's martial arts adaptation TV series is Japan's Dahe drama, each Dahe drama is also placed in the context of history to tell the growth and love of the celebrities of the times (such as Daimyo and their families), and "In this corner of the world" can be said to be a dahe drama animation at the end of World War II from the perspective of a civilian girl.
As an aside, I recommend that you have time to make up or return to the "Sui and Tang Heroes" animation of the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio that year, and the story of Ge Shuyun and Li Shimin is the helplessness of the children's love in the face of the process of history.
Of course, it does not mean that a good work must talk about how the home country is, but excellent film works are often related to the real society, even if the story takes place in the virtual world of animation, as long as the audience is still living in reality, the more the audience can empathize with the more successful, so the connection with the society and the feelings of the home country is indispensable for the work. Makoto Shinkai also said that when the story of "Your Name" was designed, it also received a certain impact of the 2011 East Japan Earthquake, and had a reflection on Japanese society after the earthquake. Many people's expectations for the theatrical version of "The Shape of Sound" are also because the story of the whole play is based on bullying in school, which triggers complex interpersonal problems later.
And Katabuchi Su Nao himself always has a sense of reflection when it comes to works involving war and violence, adding a lot of tragic elements to the "Black Reef" TV animation, and adding violent tragedy to the gangster gunfight violent aesthetic film of Hiroe Reiwei's original manga, in the ova Robert finally left a life but was disabled, and in the original manga, he retired completely. But Robert, who is finally crippled in the anime, is lucky, she is completely free from the endless nightmare, and the people who still live in Roanapura continue to sink in this quagmire, and the more they struggle, the more painful.
Although "In This Corner of the World" did not perform as well at the box office as "Your Name." Even the box office results of the theatrical version of some late-night animations are not comparable, but this is a crowdfunded film, it takes 6 years from the project to the release, and a crowdfunded production can win the Japanese Academy Award, which is also a major event in the history of Japanese cinema