Ieji

The latest film starring Kenichi Matsuyama (松山ケンイチ) tells a story lies close to my heart. Directed by documentary film maker Nao Kubota (久保田直), Ieji (家路), which translates to The Homeward Road, tells the story of a family from a farming community that was evacuated due to it's proximity to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Jiro, played by Kenichi with a Fukushima accent, sets out to cultivate and rebuild the contaminated land.

Ieji is currently in limited release in Japan, and was shown at this year's Berlin International Film Festival.
http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20146954#tab=video25
Film Website: http://www.bitters.co.jp/ieji/

My Back Page

We have come to assume that Japan is a relatively safe society, free of social unrest and violence. Sure, there is the sliver of attention that Japanese gangs command in foreign media, through directors like Beat Takeshi, or the Yakuza (龍が如く) video game series from Sega. You may even be familiar with the Aum Sinrikyo (オウム真理教) sarin gas attacks on Tokyo subway in 1995. But even before that, there was the Japanese Red Army. A communist group that formed in the early '70s with the goal of overthrowing the Japanese government and monarchy.

Released in 2011, My Back Page chronicles the early career of mutli-award winning journalist and critic Saburo Kawamoto at Asahi Journal (朝日ジャーナル). Kawamoto, who is at first sympathetic to the ideological driven students who form the Japanese Red Army, is played admirably by Satoshi Tsumabuki  who also appeared in 2010's critically acclaimed Akunin (悪人). Opposite Matsuki is Kenichi Matsuyama who already feels like a veteran of Japanese cinema at the age of 27. Matsuyama enjoys throwing himself into a wide range of continuously challenging roles, and I think that kind of hurts his performance here, as he doesn't seem believable as the driven leader of an underground socialist movement.

Director Nobuhiro Yamashita also deserves some attention here for creating a believable early 1970s Japan. The film was even shot in 16mm, which almost gives the film a documentary feel in some segments, and matches the images with the time period.

I highly recommend My Back Page to anyone looking to dig a bit deeper at Japan's recent history into events that have molded it.

Detroit Metal City

Detroit Metal City (デトロイト・メタル・シティ) by Kiminori Wakasugi is a few years old now. Originally released between 2005 and 2010 over 10 volumes. It was followed up with a concurrenlty released live action movie and anime adaptation in 2008.

It's not so much a dark comedy, more slapstick, coated with an absurd parody of death metal. The main character Soichi Negishi longs for success as an independant singer songwriter. But to pay the bills has found himself a member of the increasingly successful and KISS inspired death metal band, Detroit Metal City.Although I'm yet to see the anime, I'm a big fan of Kenichi Matsuyama as Negishi. And it's hilarious to see Gene Simmons with a little cameo.

The anime series was produced by Studio 4°C who are responsible for the recent Berserk remake, and have also worked on Batman, Halo, Street Fighter, Thundercats, and Transformers anime. The advantages of the anime series is that it can ramp up the more extreme elements with sequences that are just not possible with a live action version. And it doesn't disappoint.

The Detroit Metal City manga has just been made available digitally in Japan. So if you have a Sony Reader, or there is also the app for Android phones and tablets. Unfortunately it's not supported on my rather dated Galaxy S.

Check out the author of Detroit Metal City, Kiminori Wakasugi, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wakasugi_k
And you can download the series from the Sony Reader Store here: http://ebookstore.sony.jp/index/comic/