manga – Takarabako

Kenji Miyazawa in Anime and Manga

This is the second out of three planned post about Kenji Miyazawa.

1) The Life, Works and Themes of Kenji Miyazawa
2) Kenji Miyazawa in Anime and Manga: Adaptions and Influence
3) A Trip to Kenji Miyazawa’s Beautiful Hometown Hanamaki

Kenji Miyazawa’s stories became very popular in post-war Japan, so naturally there have there have been animated adaptions. The earliest ones were puppet animations – The Restaurant of Many Orders (1958) and Gauche the Cellist (1963) – and the most recent adaption is Matasaburō of the Wind from the Anime Mirai 2016 (Young Animators Training Program).

But Miyazawa’s influence goes far beyond just adaptions of his work. His ideas had and continue to have a big impact on generations of artists. The most notable case may be Leiji Matsumoto’s works, particularly Galaxy Express 999 and The Galaxy Railways.

In this article, I will try to provide a non-exhaustive overview of these adaptions and influenced works.

Adaptions and Re-Adaptions

Take a short glimpse at the anime works that credit Kenji Miyazawa and you will notice: Many of them have been adapted two or even three times. Out of the huge catalogue of Miyazawa short stories, a few seem to me particularly popular. Gauche the Cellist, Night on the Galactic Railroad, Matasaburō of the Wind and The Life of Budori Guskō have all been adapted twice or three times even over the course of the decades.

Out of the ones I have seen, all had an interesting artistic directions. There are more straightforward works, like Takahata’s take on Gauche, but the majority of the adaptions have unusual – sometimes daring and experimental – visual styles that complement the eerier, weirder elements in Miyazawa’s stories. Unfortunately, some of the older works are hard to get your hands on nowadays – I’m not sure all of them were released physically in the first place.

Let’s take a short look at the works by the most prestigious directors.

Isao Takahata’s Cellist

Takahata’s 1982 adaption of Gauche the Cellist may seem fairly conventional. It adds a few details to the original story, but nothing major. However, this was an independently produced endeavor with great attention to detail that took 6 years to complete and was the beginning of an approach to anime production that Takahata would later use again in My Neighbors the Yamadas and The Tale of Princess Kaguya: To attain the highest level of artistic consistency, the 63-minute movie was solo-layouted and key animated by Yoshitsugu Saida.

Most of the movie is fairly realistic – the lavish backgrounds stand out in particular – but there are some very stylized scenes of comic relief that may surprise people who only know Takahata’s newer works. One scene also pays tribute to Tom & Jerry.

Also notable is the attention payed to the music. In addition to the pieces used in the original story, Takahata chose a few classical compositions for the movie. Saida took cello lessons in order to animate the movements as accurately as possible. The song Hoshimeguri no Uta written by Miyazawa himself is notably used in the opening credits.

While other adaptions of Miyazawa works may stand out as more artistically daring, this is definitely an excellent adaption of Gauche. I have to admit the original story never resonated much with me, but any admirer of animation as an art form should watch Takahata’s Gauche at least once.

Gisaburō Sugii’s Cats in Space

Gisaburō Sugii, one of the earliest directors in TV animation, took on the arguably most famous animated Kenji Miyazawa adaption, released in 1985: Night on the Galactic Railroad. In the beginning, Sugii had trouble adapting Miyazawa’s abstract work into something concrete, as Jonathan Clements describes, so he made an interesting choice: “It was the manga artist Hiroshi Masumura who came up with a solution – keeping the original abstraction in the anime by making the lead characters cats.”

The original work was already quite weird at times, but Sugii’s version takes it to a new level. The movie is dark, slow and sometimes outright creepy. It still keeps Miyazawa’s message intact, but it’s nothing I would show to children as casual entertainment. That being said, the very nature of this highly unique movie and its incredibly strange atmosphere make it quite compelling. Definitely recommended!

Funny anecdote: The movie was recently licensed in Germany by publisher Anime House, but the voice and music tracks were lost over the years, so in order to produce a dubbed version, Anime House had to recreate these tracks. They used the official soundtrack release to restore the music and the sound effects while the missing parts of music were recreated from scratch by the dubbing studio, based on the original sound. The process was documented here.

I’m personally more fond of Sugii’s take on The Life of Budori Guskō 27 years later (the second time the story was adapted in animated form). The movie also portrays the main characters as cats and has much of the same eerie weirdness as Sugii’s Railroad, but I found it more tangible and the visuals more appealing. The story also shares some biographical elements with Spring and Chaos (see below). For more details on the production process, read Clements’ article linked above.

(Screenshots from sevengamer.de)

There’s another “adaption” of Night on the Galactic Railroad with the English subtitle Fantasy Railroad in the Stars by digital artist Kagaya – a 48-minute tribute to the story. It shows the train on its journey through the galaxy – and it’s quite beautiful, including the music – the kitsch factor is high, though. Kagaya also added narration of passages of the original story, but did not aim to retell the whole story, encouraging viewers to read the original instead.

Shōji Kawamori Peculiar Biography

Shōji Kawamori of Macross fame directed the 1996 movie Spring and Chaos (イーハトーブ幻想 Kenjiの春), produced by TV Iwate, the local television station of Miyazawa’s home prefecture. Kawamori also decided to portray the characters as cats, but this is not an adaption of a story, but a biographic take on Miyazawa’s life as a teacher, writer and farmer.

The one-hour movie portrays Miyazawa as a rather eccentric teacher and references some of his work, including Miyazawa’s Hoshimeguri no Uta song already used by Takahata. In addition to traditional cel animation, the movie has a couple of very interesting and experimental sequences that use beautiful, abstract crayon-styled animation to portray dreamlike sequences. These sequences are absolutely outstanding.

While people who don’t know anything about Miyazawa may be puzzled by this movie, I still think its message and atmosphere can be appreciated regardless of background knowledge. It is a competent retelling of Miyazawa’s grown-up life that covers topics such as his idealism, the death of his sister and his wish to become a farmer. Very peculiar indeed, but definitely worth a watch!

Kazuo Oga’s Solo Effort on Taneyamagahara at Ghibli

Ghibli Background Artist and Art Director Kazuo Oga adapted Miyazawa’s Night on Taneyamagahara at Studio Ghibli in 2006 – mostly all by himself. Oga is credited for direction, drawing all the key frames and “dramatization”. And it shows: This is not a typical animated movie, but rather a collection of stills with added narration. But these stills are beautiful! The story borrows the setting of Taneyamagahara, but the events are anime-original. I personally think it captures the appeal of Miyazawa’s story perfectly and absolutely does it justice. The narration is also quite excellent and pays a lot of attention to details – for example, the local Iwate dialect is used. Give it a try if you want to experience one of Miyazawa’s mysterious, yet oddly calming stories about nature.

(Screenshots from AniSearch)

Last But Not Least…

It may not stand out as much as the other works mentioned here, but my personal favorite of all Miyazawa adaptions is the 2016 version of Matasaburō of the Wind – a 25-minute short movie made as part of a subsidized training project for young animators, called Anime Mirai (now: Anime Tamago). The character designs are cute, the colors very appealing and it captures the calming yet mysterious nature I love so much about Miyazawa’s works. You can really feel the wind while watching!

These are by far not all adaptions, but from the ones I have seen, I consider them the most interesting.

Influenced Works

To conclude this article, I would like to name a few cases of other anime or manga works referencing or being influenced by Miyazawa’s works, first and foremost Night on the Galactic Railroad.

– As mentioned above, Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999 and The Galaxy Railways directly pay tribute to Night on the Galactic Railroad.

– In the 2013 post-war movie Giovanni’s Island (big recommendation), the protagonists are nicknamed after the protagonists in Night on the Galactic Railroad, and in a pivotal moment in the the second half, the galaxy train appears in a dreamlike sequence.

– Kunihiko Ikuhara’s Mawaru Penguindrum heavily references several elements of Night on the Galactic Railroad, including to Scorpion’s Fire.

– Both Bungaku Shōjo and Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora reference Night on the Galactic Railroad several times.

– Hayao Miyazaki mentioned in an interview that that he always imagined the cat in Judge Wildcat and the Acorns as bigger-than-human as a child – a reason why Totoro is so big.

– In Takahata’s Pom Poko, two of Miyazawa’s songs are used as background music (I already mentioned the Hoshimeguri no Uta – the other one is called Spring Joy and seems to originate from Matasaburō of the Wind, from what I read on a Japanese blog).

– Jonathan Clements mentions Keiichi Hara’s Colorful and Birthday Wonderland movies also received inspiration from Miyazawa’s works.

– The song Hoshimeguri no Uta composed by Miyazawa himself is not only used in adaptions of his works, but also in Wish Upon the Pleiades (Gainax, 2015), Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet (David Production, 2016), Baja’s Studio (Kyōto Animation, 2018).

Links

Notes on Galaxy Express 999
The Trouble with Budori Gusuco

Chica Umino Talks About How Western Children’s Literature Influenced Her Stories

In Japan, it is common for classics to be republished with modern manga-style cover art to appeal to a younger audience. Shueisha did that for Anne of Green Gables in 2011 – and asked mangaka Chica Umino (Honey and Clover, March comes in like a lion) to draw the new cover artworks.

The July 2019 issue of the picture book magazine MOE contains a list of 77 Western children’s books recommended for Japanese adults. They used that occasion to interview Chica Umino about how these books influenced her childhood and the stories she writes. Highlights were added by me.

Umino says, she read Anne of Green Gables and Heidi as a child, so she was very happy when she was asked the draw the new cover artworks for Anne. She is very fond of the recent adaption Anne with an E (streaming on Netflix) and remarks that if she was asked again to draw the cover artworks, her Anne would probably end up more like that. “Pale skin, lots of freckles and really red hair – even though she isn’t a beauty, there is a lot to love about that girl. Just like the real Anne [from the books].”

She said, growing up with the books just as Anne was growing up in the story inspired her to feature characters of various ages in her works:

“As I child, I first only read until Anne of the Island [the 3^rd book in the series]. What came after that seemed to me like a world different from mine at that time. But after that, many changes came with Anne growing older and I continued reading the books matching my age and found that appealing. I want my manga to be read for a long time, so I take care to not only have characters of the same age group appear. I also try as best I can not to draw the clothes and hairstyles according to current trends.”

As a child, Umino perceived Marilla as a very strict person. But thinking back on how she took care of Anne despite wanting a boy to help with the farm work, she can see Marilla’s kindness now. She also loved the scene when Matthew gave Anne a dress with puffed sleeves as a present and reread it countless times. Another of her favorite scenes is the one where Diana’s little sister gets seriously sick and Anne saves her.

Umino says, she is the kind of reader who rereads the same book many times. As a child, Anne of Green Gables, Heidi and the Little House on the Prairie book series were the ones she read over and over again, starting from her first elementary school years.

Having had very unruly hair as a child, Umino could relate very well to Anne being self-conscious about her red hair and found it reassuring to find someone with the same anxieties.

Umino is also very found of the mundane moments in the books, particularly the ones about preparing food. She loved in how much detail Montgomery portrayed the baking of a cake in Anne, down to getting milk from the cow. Her parents belonged to a pioneer group in the Yamagata prefecture, so the scene where Marilla bought wool to knit a sweater for Anne was right out of her own life.

Especially reading the Little House books was like reading stories out of her mother’s life for Umino. Her mother’s parents died young, so just like Laura and her sisters in the story, her mother had work for other families and do the work sons usually do. This made Umino’s affection for the books grow even more.

Reading the meal scenes in Anne inspired similar moments in her manga: “Because I read these scenes so passionately, I thought having meal scenes in my own manga would make it more fun for the readers.” Getting letters and photos from readers who tried to cook soft-boiled eggs the way they remembered it from March comes in like a lion made her very happy.

Finally, she explains how these books influenced the usually atypical families appearing in her stories:

“I used to wonder why I don’t really portray normal families much, but nowadays I understand that this is due to the influence from Anne and Heidi. Because I always read stories where a child came from outside. Heidi and Anne were thrown into a different world all of a sudden and had to adapt to that [new] life, and for Laura with her pioneer family it was also like going to a new world. Because I grew up with stories like these, I now think I may be unable to tell any other stories.”

She concludes: “The books I own may be old, but the illustrations and their designs are really beautiful, so I hope they will stay with me forever.”

A Look at the “Satoshi Tajiri: The Man Who Created Pokémon” Manga

Original Title: ポケモンをつくった男　田尻智
Published: May 21, 2018
Publisher: Shōgakukan
Price: ¥900

Last year, an autobiographical manga about the life of Satoshi Tajiri, creator of the famed Pokémon franchise, was published in Japan. Shōgakukan marketed the book as a “Learning Manga Special” (学習まんがスペシャル) – Learning Manga 学習まんが is a popular series that covers many famous personalties, including Tezuka Osamu, Napoleon, and van Gogh. They also included photo material and information on Tajiri in addition to the manga sections. The book made some headlines in English media outlets for featuring some never-before-published early-stage designs of first-generation Pokémon (covered in detail here) but was otherwise mostly ignored. I’ll try to give an overview of its contents.

The first thing to notice is that the manga is, unlike most manga, actually a hardcover release. It includes 16 colored pages and fully-colored front and back covers (as opposed to just a colored sleeve), making its ¥900 price tag more than justified.

The first few pages contain a brief overview of how Tajiri’s love for bug catching and video games eventually lead him to develop Pokémon before the manga section begins.

The manga covers the following chapters of Tajiri’s life:

Prologue
Bugs and Invader – Tajiri hunts bugs as a child and discovers his Space Invader in his youth, the game that turned him into a video game enthusiast.
An Increasing Number of Friends – Tajiri creates and sells the a dōjin strategy guide magazine “Game Freak” during his high school years which becomes extremely popular and leads him to meet Pokémon character designer Ken Sugimori and composer/programmer Jun’ichi Masuda.
Struggles of an Amateur Publisher ~The First Game Strategy Guide~– The group of friends decide to make video games together. Tajiri’s motto is that Game Freak should “make games they’d want to play themselves”. With no budget and resources, however, they have to build their development environment from old used computer parts and find a publishing partner for their games. Their first success, Quinty, nets them 50,000,000 yen – money they use to create a company.
Hardships of Society and the Budding of Pokémon – Tajiri witnesses the potential in the cooperative aspect of the GameBoy’s link cable and decides to create a game centered around that aspect. With support from Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto, development on Pokémon begins.
A Series of Troubles – Game Freak experiences funding problems, eventually leading to a development time of 6+ years while Tajiri continues to polish his ideas. Dissatisfied with the situation, all three of Game Freak’s programmers leave at a crucial point, at which point composer Jun’ichi Masuda offers to take the position of the main programmer, despite only having hobby experience.
The Birth of Pokémon – Pokémon is finally completed and released first in Japan, then worldwide. It becomes an instant hit.
Epilogue – Tajiri is happy whenever he sees how Pokémon has become a part of so many children’s lives.

Between chapters, there are short trivia segments about Tajiri’s life that include some of his personal remarks. While the general story that lead to the birth of Pokémon is well-known, we learn a bit more about Tajiri here – his fondness for overseas radio programs and discovering unknown worlds and more. There are some amusing anecdotes here: His love for video game music lead him to sneak out of his home at night to record the sound of the games in arcade centers when few people where there, a passion he shared with one of his friends. His mother, however, was really angry when she caught him one night.

The last part of the book contains a six-page commentary by Shigeru Miyamoto, reminiscing about his relationship with Tajiri and his personality. Here Miyamoto says that although he worked as a producer on the Pokémon series, Tajiri had such a keen understanding of what makes a game fun that Miyamoto didn’t really have to get involved during the production of the first game. What he did, however, was provide Game Freak with a larger ROM that allowed Tajiri and his friends to increase the number of Pokémon in the game from 30 to 150. Miyamoto’s comments help to understand what an extraordinarily strong vision Tajiri had and what set him apart from his peers.

The manga itself is a joy to read and will appeal to both readers interested in the life of Tajiri and those who just want to see the birth story of the Pokémon games presented in an exciting way. The drawings are playful, but not too exaggerated, and there’s a lot of additional information crammed in via narration textboxes.

Overall, I’m quite fond of this book. It’s very accessible even for children, and the presentation of the environment Tajiri grew up in makes it a rather engaging read, complemented by facts and tidbits about Tajiri and the Pokémon franchise. I always perceived Tajiri as a rather media-shy person, but in the manga, he actually makes a quite social impression. I also realized once more that many of the most successful creative people had parents who granted them a lot of freedom and supported them in their endeavors – in this case, Tajiri’s mother.

The book is not too in-depth, so there are undoubtedly books out there that cover the history of Pokémon in more detail, but it’s definitely very enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone at least mildly curious about what kind of person “the man who created Pokémon” is. I see no reason why the book wouldn’t have at least moderate success on the English-language market.