Five Gateways to an Extraordinary Mind
The new Masaaki Yuasa Blu-ray collection from Shout! Studios offers a glorious dive into the world of the brilliant Japanese auteur.
Among the talented directors who have emerged in Japan in recent years, Masaaki Yuasa is the most mercurial and difficult to categorize, as this lavish six-disc set demonstrates. Yuasa marches to the beat of a different drummer (or rhythm section), mixing genres, styles and media with a seemingly effortless facility. His films have little in common with most anime features and even less with American studio animation.
In an interview conducted via email in 2017, he said, “Spirited Away is a favorite work of mine; if it is not a direct influence, there are many similar scenes in [Hayao] Miyazaki’s older works. For example, Future Boy Conan. I watched that series as a child, and I think its animation greatly affected me. I’m influenced by many directors whose work I love including Tsutomu Shibayama, Hayao Miyazaki, Ken Izaki, Steven Spielberg, Yasujirō Ozu, Brian De Palma, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock and Tex Avery. Yellow Submarine is a favorite film that I think has had a strong influence on my own work.”
The influence of Yellow Submarine can be clearly seen in Yuasa’s first feature, Mind Game (2004), adapted from a manga by Robin Nishi. What begins as a love triangle involving a manga artist named Nishi, his childhood sweetheart and her fiancé spirals into an out-of-control fantasy-adventure replete with yakuza thugs, an eccentric old man and episodes that take place inside a whale. The story takes a back seat to the constantly shifting visual styles that range from Flash-animated dance steps to processed live-action stills, and a palette that changes unpredictably from subdued to DayGlo. Mind Game will remind some viewers of the “head trip” films of the ’70s.
Yuasa directed two acclaimed films in 2017 (an astonishing feat for any animation helmer): Lu Over the Wall won the Cristal for Best Feature at Annecy; Night Is Short, Walk on Girl won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.
Lu Over the Wall mixes elements of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, Miyazaki’s Ponyo and alienated teen sagas into a quirky, highly personal film. In a flyspeck coastal village, three teenage musicians rehearse and attract Lu, an exuberant young mermaid.
Whenever she hears music, Lu’s tail splits into legs and feet, enabling her to dance.
And when she dances, every person within earshot joins in — whether they want to or not. As the film is animated in Flash, the dances may look upbeat and funny, but the characters’ feet and bodies flail about cartoonishly, with no sense of weight or believable motion. Their friendship with Lu leads the teen trio to challenge the villagers’ prejudice against mer-people and eagerness for unrestrained real estate development.
Based on a novel by bestselling author Tomihiko Morimi (who also wrote Penguin Highway and The Tatami Galaxy), Night Is Short, Walk on Girl offers a complex, offbeat narrative. A group
group of students sets out for a night on the town in Kyoto. The heroine, known only as The Girl with Black Hair, is eager to explore the adult world, especially the world of alcohol. The plot lurches along unsteadily, like The Girl herself after her umpteenth cocktail, although everything is resolved happily. Yuasa once again uses
Flash for interesting, if sometimes odd, effects. The musical numbers impede the fragmented storyline, but Yuasa still manages to generate sympathy for the heroine as she encounters a succession of off-kilter, often bizarre individuals.
In many ways Yuasa’s most conventional feature, the fantasy-romance Ride Your Wave (2019) adds a greater emotional resonance to his brightly colored, minimalist visual style. Hinako may be a klutz on land, but she’s a skilled surfer. When she moves to a small beach town for college, she falls for the gentle first responder Minato, who rescues her from an apartment fire. After he is killed in an accident at sea, Hinako believes she can make him appear in any watery surface by singing their favorite song. Eventually, Hinako realizes she must let go of the past. Inspired by Minato’s selfless devotion to help anyone in need, she becomes a lifeguard — and a capable, independent young woman. Yuasa’s Golden Globe-nominated Inu-Oh (2022) ranks as his most complex work to date. Based on a novel by Hideo Furukawa, Inu-Oh (“Dog-King”), draws on two pillars of traditional Japanese culture: The Tale of the Heike, an epic account of the great 12th century Japanese civil war; and Noh drama, an exquisite, recherché court art form that was established in the 14th century.
The title character is the son of the leader of the foremost Noh troupe in Japan. Because his father struck a deal with a demon to achieve that fame, Inu-Oh is born grotesquely deformed. His limbs are of uneven lengths and his face is so hideous that he’s forced to wear a wooden mask. But as he learns to dance, Inu-Oh’s body transforms, assuming beautiful human proportions. He and his blind musician friend, Tomona, join forces to become 14th century pop stars, playing to wildly cheering crowds. In contrast to the flailing dances in his earlier works, Yuasa adds accurately observed classical ballet, gymnastics and break dancing moves to Inu-Oh’s performances.
The “Five Films” set comes loaded with extras, including a poster, a booklet, interviews, voice-over commentaries, trailers, character designs and two short films, Happy Machine (2007) and Kick-Heart (2013). For viewers weary of the familiar plots and overused, overrendered look of so many recent animated features, Masaaki Yuasa’s work offers an uncompromisingly individual vision. ◆
Masaaki Yuasa: Five Films (Shout! Studios: $99.98 (six discs, Blu-ray) is currently available for purchase.