Hey, the Olympics (& Paralypics, too) are taking place in Tokyo! After being delayed from last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the quadrennial games are finally happening... Despite the pandemic still essentially looming over Japan as a whole, and competitors are being prevented from playing for smoking marijuana, and there won't be any spectators in the stands because of said pandemic still looming, which has resulted in some players pulling out of the games entirely... And this is arguably the lesser of the problems with the entire thing. "Citius, Altius, Fortius", indeed.
Huh, I was hoping for something a little more upbeat for an intro, so let's just move on to the point I wanted to make: Tokyo in 1964!
The last time Tokyo was home to the Olympics was back in the Summer of 1964 for the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, and those games were an important one for not just Japan, but the world as a whole. Internationally, this was the first time the Olympics were truly broadcast live, by way of satellite feeds, and were also the first time the games were aired in color, at least partially; it's also the first time South Africa was excluded due to apartheid, which stuck until 1992. For Japan, this was the country's chance to show how much it had changed since the end of World War II, with the only real remnant of that era being Emperor Hirohito (a.k.a "Emperor Showa") opening the games themselves. This was a peaceful Japan, & its various technological advancements, like the Tokaido Shinkansen & various tech that the Olympics would continue to use to this very day, helped give the country the feeling that it was ahead of the curve, in some regards. The 1964 Summer Olympics also received a documentary in the form of Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad, often cited as one of the greatest sports documentaries ever made.
That leaves only one question: So how was life in Tokyo leading up to all of this?
Turns out anime studio WaoWorld & media production company Think Corporation wanted to answer that question, so the two came together (along with numerous other companies) to do so in an interesting fashion: Through anime. After an apparent 4.5-year production process, Showa Monogatari (literally "Showa Story") wound up being the final product, allegedly becoming the first anime ever aimed primarily at senior citizens & baby boomers, i.e. people who actually were alive back at that time; it was even called a "TV Manga", just like early anime at the time was. The first four episodes initially had an advance airing on Mie TV from December 30, 2010 to January 2, 2011, followed by a handful of other regional stations airing those episodes throughout January, & a compilation movie would debut in theaters later on January 29. After that, the full 13-episode TV series would receive a proper broadcast during the Spring 2011 season, where it received either a late morning, early afternoon, or prime time evening time slot, depending on the station. Showa Monogatari came out just before anime simulcasting had started to become fully standardized via Crunchyroll, so it unfortunately missed out on that boat, though it was given a full fansub (TV & movie), & its first episode did see some coverage on sites like ANN when it started airing in full. So let's see if this anime truly does give the viewer an idea of what life in Tokyo was like the last time the Olympics were held there, and if an anime aimed at "old people" can even appeal to younger audiences.
 |
| The exact sentiment many people feel in regard to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. |
New Year's Eve, 1963 (Showa 38). Japan has experienced all manner of events both local & abroad, like the assassinations of John F. Kennedy & Rikidozan, the debut of the Meishin Expressway, & the introduction of a new 1,000 yen bill. However, 1964 (Showa 39) will be the year that Tokyo finally gets to host the Olympics, but life continues on for the people of Japan, including that of the Yamazaki Family, who live in the Kamata district. Whether it's youngest child Kohei, middle daughter Yuko, oldest son Taichi, husband Yuzo, housekeeping wife Kanoko, or the old & experienced grandmother Yoshi, this family will live their lives as they can, from New Years Day to that October day when the Olympics begin.
Showa Monogatari is easily best described as a show that's "as slice-of-life as slice-of-life can be", because that's really what it aims to do. Each episode details as realistic a life as possible, one in which things like "drama" are more self-inflicted by the characters than put upon them by some larger event or figure. In that regard, I should start with a rundown of the recurring cast. Kohei is a young 12 year old who can be a bit impetuous at times, & often gets himself in trouble, but tends to mean well, when he's not simply trying to keep him & two friends Toshiya & Shinichi entertained. Yuko is the 17 year old middle child who's sensitive about her height, but falls for an upperclassman at her school named Sawatari, with the two looking to start a budding relationship. Taichi is a 20 year old student at a local technical college, and his growing knowledge about how much technology is advancing often gets him into arguments with his father. Yuzo, then, is a self-employed pipe maker who runs a small at-home factory & prefers to stick to old-fashioned methods, which matches with his penchant for being rather stubborn & crotchety towards his kids at points. Kanoko is your standard doting housekeeper of a mother, who means nothing but the best, but is also ready to tell it like it is to her kids at points. Yoshi, likewise, is an old grandmother who tends to side with her grandchildren over her own son, as she often points out Yuzo's own hypocrisy; she's also revealed to have survived the Bombing of Tokyo during WWII, so she's seen some stuff. Finally, aside from Toshiya & Shinichi, our main supporting cast are Goro, Yuzo's sole employee who often acts like a cool old uncle to the kids, & Ryo, a former employee of Yuzo's who now works in the relatively new TV anime industry (Episode 4 indicates that he works for Mushi Production on Tetsuwan Atom/Astro Boy), and has a quiet crush on Yuko; at 24 & 17, respectively, it's up to you on whether that counts as uncomfortable or not.
In terms of the shoe's modus operandi, each episode deals with its own individual plot, usually (but not always) revolving around some part of Japanese life & culture at the time. You have stuff like Kohei trying to figure out how to spend his otoshidama, Taichi attending his coming of age ceremony & trying to figure out what "being an adult" really means for him, Yuzo & Goro's completed order of pipes for a company being stolen by a deliveryman they had originally trusted, getting ready for Obon, Toshiya having to move to Osaka, & Yuzo needing emergency surgery when hit with peritonitis. That being said, though, there are some overarching threads that run throughout the show, like Yuko's relationship with Sawatari (who is indicated later on to be a part of the miyuki-zoku that appeared that summer), Yuzo trying to keep his local operation running despite the strain it puts on his body & familial relations (& Taichi's assertions over the future of automation replacing old-school craftsmen), Taichi potentially being scouted to join what looks to be an early form of the New Left (in relation to protests against the Vietnam War), and in the last episodes the overarching shadow of the Olympics themselves starting up. To be fair, though, the primary focus in the series is to (mostly) have each episode focus on its own little story, as outside of those handful of overarching plot lines (& the fact that the show distinctly happens across most of a calendar year) almost every episode feels fully self-contained, with only the end of Episode 12 directly tying into the next (& final) episode with Yuzo's hospitalization.
At the end of each episode is also a short segment called "Leisurely Stroll", in which a female narrator (Hitomi Kikuchi, in what seems to be her first role) explains the history behind one or two landmarks in Tokyo (or Hokkaido, for one episode) that are seen in that respective episode, and showing how the staff behind the anime took care to depict it as accurately as possible. It helps add some extra context to the real-life world & events that the anime obviously took great care in replicating in as much detail as possible, and even the OP sequence is nothing but a comparison of a location in modern-times (i.e. 2011), followed by a fade to how it looked in 1964 via photograph, and then a fade to the anime imitating the older photograph. There's just a very visible attention to detail in making younger viewers appreciate how much things have changed over the decades, while older viewers can look back at these days with a sense of fondness & nostalgia, but without the show trying to do so via rose-tinted glasses; there's never a feeling of "Wasn't life so much better back then?", which is good.
 |
| Toshiya's a fan of Sanpei Shirato. Toshiya has great taste. |
Of course, a major aspect of Showa Monogatari is to essentially serve as a peek at how life was in Japan during 1964, right down to actual historical events. The climax of one episode, for example, happens because of aftershocks from the Niigata earthquake that year (which could be felt down in Tokyo), while another takes place during an actual major drought that happened in Tokyo that summer (it was nicknamed "Desert Tokyo" or the "Olympic Drought"), and of course once summer moves into fall in the last quarter of the show the streets start getting filled will tons of Olympics branding. Speaking of branding, the anime also goes to great lengths to make everything feel as accurate as possible, with plenty of pop culture being referenced every now & then, and many real-life products are showcased. This is especially true of music, with each episode having at least a unique ending theme that's a fully licensed song of the time, and many also include at least one other licensed song heard via the radio during the respective episode itself. The 8 Man anime is at least referenced as Kohei's favorite anime, though never shown, there's that bit with Ryo working on Astro Boy, Sanpei Shirato's Ninja Bugei-cho/Band of Ninja is not just stated but even has covers of it shown, and pretty much every single episode lists a cavalcade of companies (Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Mitsukoshi, etc.) during the end credits, indicating that many actual products of the time are fully licensed & shown here; plenty of actual movies are also visually referenced by way of their posters throughout. Also, I have to imagine that the International Olympic Committee had to approve the showing of the Olympic logo in the last few episodes. If anything, the reason why Showa Monogatari didn't get simulcasted at the time may have been as much about it looking to be a licensing nightmare as it likely was a case of Crunchyroll just not having quite the reach that it does now. That being said, this attention to detail really helps the show a whole lot.
And then there's the movie, which despite premiering in theaters after that initial four-episode advance showing, isn't simply a compilation of those same first four episodes, like you'd think. Instead, it's actually a "digest" take on the entire series, covering Episodes 1, 4, 6, 7, & 10-13, and by that I mean "Parts of the first four episodes listed are all covered in just the first ~25 minutes, while the remaining four take up the remaining ~71 minutes". At the very least, along with the fact that the entire series got a DVD release via boxset just months after it finished airing, that means all of Showa Monogatari was actually fully produced prior to its proper debut in the Spring of 2011, which would make sense here, as rare as that can be for anime production in general (especially prior to streaming really taking off). As for how this story works as a movie, the first third focuses primarily around Yuko's budding romance with Sawatari, with Yuzo & Taichi's arguments over how to run the factory also being featured, plus a couple of scenes to set up Kohei getting an autographed baseball so that it has relevance when Toshiya moves away near the end. While this first third does overall work well enough by focusing mostly around a single overarching plot thread, you can still tell that it's a compilation of a (mostly) episodic series, simply because the movie loves using a fade-to-black transition to cut from one scene to another if they weren't originally meant to lead into each other in the TV series. After that, though, the remainder of the movie is more or less just a straight run through the last four episodes, only with the OP, ED, & next episode previews all removed. The end result is that the movie kind of sets up Yuko as more of the lead character, since her overarching story gets the lion's share of the attention in the first third, before switching things over to the family as a whole for the larger majority, since those last four episodes feature little to no cuts made to them, in terms of actual episode content. Not just that, but the Yuko/Sawatari storyline ends with Episode 11, which is roughly in the middle of the movie's overall length, making it feel like the movie hit a climax too early.
The end result is the movie flowing a bit too fast for its first third, only to then slow down a lot for the remainder, especially once Yuko's overarching plot comes to an end. It's not terrible, but it's definitely no replacement for the TV series, & I'm honestly shocked that WaoWorld & Think Corporation even produced this.
In terms of production, Showa Monogatari is a very solid piece of animation, if rarely aiming to be anything more than that; WaoWorld isn't known for being a groundbreaking studio, by any means. Being a series that was very likely to have been fully produced prior to its debut on TV, there are essentially next to no real animation errors or awkward drawings that I could notice, with everything being very consistent. If there is anything really notable it's that the very beginning of the series is more likely to utilize CG for things like vehicles & a handful of sequences where the environment is CG to allow for some neat camera movement (like someone moving through a room quickly), and that would match up with the fact that this anime actually had two directors. Namely, Mitsuhiro Tougou (Wind: A Breath of Heart, Honey x Honey Drops) was in charge for the first four episodes, while Hiroshi Kugimiya (Sugar Bunnies; traditionally is an animation director) was in charge for the remainder of the series, though I imagine that "Series Director" Tadahiro Murakami (who's traditionally a producer) helped enforce that the shift between directors resulted in no major changes in execution. Meanwhile, the writing headed up by Yasushi Hirano (every TV season of City Hunter) is all similarly solid & enjoyable, with the characters aiming to sound more realistic than what you'd normally see in anime, and while they still fit rather easily into your expected tropes & the like, I think the Yamazaki Family & Co. manage to sound realistic enough for the era. As for the character designs by Tatsuo Yanagino (Reikenzan: Eichi e no Shikaku), they are exactly as simple & relatable as you'd likely expect, and I wouldn't be shocked if some find them to be a bit "bland", though I'd argue that's kind of the point here.
As for the music, Showa Monogatari features an original soundtrack composed by Gido Hayashi, in what looks to be his first major work as a composer, though this is his only time working with anime; he'd go on to score numerous films directed by Hideo Jojo. It's filled with pretty much nothing but piano & violin tracks, which helps establish a very consistent & generally soothing mood, one that delivers a mix of homeliness, melancholy, & even nostalgia, depending on the situation. Easily the standout track is the nameless opening theme, which utilizes the violins excellently & gives a nice "looking back at the past" feel. As for the various licensed songs heard throughout each episode, they're all generally very good & especially catchy, and having Kohei often sing alongside them when they're on the radio is a nice touch, as plenty of people would do that (*raises hand*). As for the voice cast, leading everyone is Shoya Chiba (Tahomaru in Dororo [2019]) as Kohei, who I have slightly mixed feelings about. On the one hand, his performance is really wooden & dry, and even someone who isn't a native Japanese speaker (like myself) can tell that while he gets the emotion needed for a scene, he can't quite deliver on it. On the other hand, however, Chiba was literally just 16 years old when he got this role, so I feel harsh judging his performance on the same level I would for a more experienced seiyuu; props at least for casting someone only slightly older than his character. Misato Fukuen (Saki Mikajima in Durarara!!) & Makoto Aoki (Shinji Taira in Rumbling Hearts), however, deliver great performances as Yuko & Taichi, respectively, and this anime would actually be Aoki's final TV series, before he moved over to working in J-Dramas.
After that we have Yasunori Matsumoto (Gourry Gabriev in Slayers) as Yuzo, who I seriously couldn't even recognize, because he gruffs his voice up so much for the generally grouchy & crotchety father, but he also does a great job here. Matching up well with Matsumoto is Sakiko Tamagawa (Pirotess in Record of Lodoss War & Legend of Crystania), whose Kanoko is both kind & caring, though totally believable in the few moments where she has to be harsher on the children; the Yamazaki Family is one that believes in "tough love", to put it nicely. In what is pretty much perfect casting, Hisako Kyouda (Genkai in Yu Yu Hakusho) matches up well as Yoshi by being a seiyuu who's best described as "elderly woman who takes no crap", and she always tops things off with a "kuwabara, kuwabara" chant for good blessings. Finishing things up with the major recurring cast, we have Masaaki Tsukada (Goro), Wataru Takagi (Ryo), & Hiroyuki Hoshino (Sawatari), among others.
In some regards, I can totally see someone describe Showa Monogatari using words like "bland", "banal", or even "boring", and in some ways they'd be totally justified. As I said early on, this is "as slice-of-life as slice-of-life can be", so you have to take this anime as exactly what it aims to be: A look back at normal life in Japan in 1964, aimed primarily at the people who were literally alive back then. There's definitely a bit of nostalgia baiting to be had with this show, when taking the primary market into consideration, but it's not so much that it feels saccharine, and that does result in it honestly having an appeal to a (comparatively) younger watcher, such as I, who wouldn't be born until 22 years after when this anime takes place. Sure, it's easy to see that the anime treads very lightly on the less-positive things going on at the time, with the exception of the "Olympic Drought", which in turn does remove some of its potential impact as a proper piece of historical fiction, but at the same time that wasn't really the intention of this anime at all; at least these pieces of history weren't outright ignored. Sometimes, you just want to wind down & enjoy a simple, easygoing series, one in which most conflicts can be finished within the span of the episode it starts in, and Showa Monogatari honestly hits the spot for that itch well, and I honestly did learn some historical stuff watching it.
Now we just have to wait for the year 2068 for the hypothetical sequel, "Reiwa Monogatari", which will detail life in Tokyo in the year 2021 leading up the second Tokyo Olympics; it'd honestly make for a decent horror series, I'm sure.
Anime © Showa Monogatari LLP (Sync, WaoWorld, tvk, Teletama, Chiba TV, Mie TV, KBS Kyoto, Sun TV)
No comments:
Post a Comment