Visit somewhere cool to relax.

It's in the middle of rainy season in Japan.
I can't go out but it's a good time to plan my summer vacation.
Somewhere cool to relax and less people.
Lake Chuzenji in Nikko must be for you and me!

Anime All Star Version of “Flowers Will Bloom” is Gorgeous!

NHK released the new version of 311 earthquake recovery support song, “hana ha saku” or “Flowers will bloom” in March.  They call it “anime all star version” and the anime characters, which are very popular among Japanese almost all generations appeared in it.  For example, “Space Cruiser Yamato,” “Pocket Monster,” “Lupin the third,” “Astro Boy,” “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” and such.  It’s incredibly star-studded cast.

When I watched the video, I re-recognized that we are closely and deeply related to the anime and manga culture and it is along with our lives anytime.

I don’t know how much the characters encourage us to stand up again when we are in a harsh time.  At least for me, this new version of support song is touching. 

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Raf Simons's days in Christian Dior.

I was very surprised to know that Raf Simons, the artistic director of Christian Dior, left the most prestigious fashion house after his three and a half years contribution.

 “Dior and I,” is a fashion documentary film that depicts Raf’s eight weeks, from day one when he started working for Dior till his debut haute couture collection of fall-winter 2012.  Initially, I thought it’s just a behind the scene fashion movie, but it was much more than I expected.  On the contrary, it became one of my favorite movies of the year 2015.

Raf had been a director of Jil Snder, a Milan fashion brand, which is characterized as sharp with modern line and form.  As for Dior, it’s the most elegant and feminine brand.  People were very curious how Raf, a minimalist, would meet the high demands and create his own Dior style when he took the position as a director of Dior.

A haute couture collection usually takes six to eight months to prepare, but Raf was given only eight weeks.  What is worse, he had never designed haute couture before.  The movie reveals all the process of making the collection including some conflict with staff members and Raf’s nervousness as well.

What impressed me most is Raf’s attitude.  He is calm, shy and restricted rather than arrogant and self-indulgent, which people in the fashion industry are likely to be.  He is intensely focused and never loses control until the end.  He knows exactly what is required, that is, a mixture of Raf’s modern minimalism and Dior’s legacy.  It’s easy to say, but when I saw his final output, I knew he did it in a perfect way. 

Nowadays, almost everything seems to be determined by marketing.  People are likely to rely on the analyzed data and figures because they don’t want take any risks.  As for Christian Dior, Raf’s inspiration and creativity itself was the marketing that showed the big brand the way to go. 

Under the incredible pressure of high expectations, he must have carried a heavy load on his shoulder.  Raf explained the reason why he left Dior as “personal” only.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing his next challenge after leaving Dior.

The trailer of "Dior and I"

You can see the details of Raf Simons's first show 

that was introduced in the "Dior and I."  

Christian Dior Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture 

2012/13 AW held on July 2^nd  25 min

Raf Simons’s last collection for Jil Sander 2012/13 AW.  

It was held just before he moved to Christian Dior.  

It’s mesmerizing.  

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Taken on a visionary trip. Yubiwa Hotel’s performance at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale.

photo: Tsunan Shinbun

This autumn, I went to Niigata to see a Yubiwa Hotel’s performance, titled “But I was so in love ---Tsunan-machi Okura snow shed version,” or あんなに愛しあったのに〜津南町大倉雪覆工篇,  held at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale.  Yubiwa Hotel is one of my favorite performance units and I had longed to see this performance since I saw it last timeat Ichihara Art×Mix in 2014.  

Shirotama Hitsujiya, the director of Yubiwa Hotel has a unique way of making dramas.  She trys to find “treasures” of the local area by doing ethnological research and creating stories based on them. This time, the drama is set in Tsunam-machi, a remote area in Niigata pref., which has heavy snow in winter.

We got to the Tsunan-machi Okura snow shed, which Hitsujiya selected as the stage for this performance.  The Okura snow shed, located just along the Shinano River, used to be a snow shelter to protect the local road and people from heavy snow.  We, the audiences were asked to walk back and forth through the snow shed with the actors as the story went on.  Basically, the shed became the tunnel that connects the real world with fantasy. 

Having heavy snow, sometimes over 4 meters a day in winter, and a decreasing population, Tsunan-machi has a lot of difficulties.  The drama starts when the schoolgirls who belong to “social study club” introduce the history and some legends of the region.  The play seems to raise several important matters; how can we cope with this situation and how can we figure out any solutions.  However, it’s not a social scientific drama, on the contrary, soon before we know it, we are drawn into a beautiful fantasy.

One schoolgirl says;

“Teacher, can we also become snow?  If so, we would be able to come back here again.” 

I think these words are a great invention of this drama because it is a fantastic solution to the problem that this remote area has. 

And then, winter comes and snow starts falling on the ground of Tsunan-machi with a snow fairy, or yukimushi.  The aerial dance that expresses the snow fairy was breathtaking and we saw the image of people coming back to their hometown by transforming themselves into flakes of snow.

Although there aren’t so many words in this drama or possibly because there aren’t so many words, the performance appeals to our senses and we feel at one with the fantasy that Hitsujiya created. 

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It was a heavenly experience, Yubiwa Hotel’s performance at Ichihara Art×Mix.

Kominato Railways that runs through canola flowers fields.  photo:Japan Times

It was just a few months ago when I saw a Yubiwa Hotel’s performance for the first time.  And now, I became a big fan of it.  Its latest title, “But I was so in love”, or あんなに愛しあったのに---中房総小湊鐵道編　was one of the most impressive performances that I‘ve ever seen.  I still remember some of the scenes played at Ichihara Art×Mix, an art triennale that has just launched at Ichihara in Chiba prefecture this year.

Yubiwa Hotel is the name of performing arts company that Shirotama Hitsujiya has been leading.  Her way of playmaking is unique.  She thinks that stages should not always be at theatres, and practically, she has used the seashore, a factory, a book store, a tennis court as alternative acting places and made the most of the uniqueness of the spaces for her playmaking.

This time, Hitsujiya used local trains as her stage.  It was really interesting!  When I visited Ichihara Art×Mix, it was in the middle of spring and the sites were incredibly picturesque.  Fields were covered with tons of yellow canola flowers and pink cherry blossoms.  “This must be real Shangri-la!”  I almost shouted.  The performance was taken place on the trains of Kominato Railway that run through this mesmerizing countryside.

photo: Chiba Nippou

“Welcome aboard on Kominato Railway today!”   As the train departed on time, a conductress announced. 

“Now, let me see your train ticket, please.”  The following moment when she tried to check passengers’ tickets, she found a woman falling down on the floor. 

“Passenger?  Passenger?  OMG!  She is dead!!!”

photo: Chiba Nippou

Something scary happened just in front of all of us passengers (=audience) on the train and we were strongly drawn into the act.  The drama went on not only on the train.  At Satomi station, musicians got on the train and started playing.  In canola flowers field stretching outside of the windows, people were dancing.  The story developed beyond our imagination and it took our mind past and future unexpectedly.  Finally, the borders between a fictional world and a real world, actors and audience and dead and alive were getting vague.  That’s exactly Hitsujiya’s magic.

When the train got to the terminal station, I felt so sad because I knew that’s the end of the journey and also the end of the story.  I wished I had been in the story as long as I could.

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I'm fed up with getting tickets.

I’m sick and tired of trying to get tickets.  I was totally exhausted when I tried to get a couple of seats for my favorite performance.    I’m wondering how do people usually get their tickets?  It seems that it’s getting harder and harder to reserve tickets compared to a few years ago.

In the end of May, there is a Bunraku, Japanese puppet theatre, performance, which I desperately want to see.  So, I decided to get the tickets at any cost.  After checking online, I found out that there are two ways to buy tickets.  There is a ticket allocation for theatre members as well as for the general public.  Needless to say, I thought I would try both of them just to be on the safe side.

I became a member of the theatre right away by paying 3,500 yen in order to gain the exclusive presale tickets.  So, I presumed that my tickets should have been all but assured.  However, it was not that simple.

On the day they started selling the tickets for theatre members, I simultaneously logged into the theatre’s website and called the reservation center at 10:00 AM on the dot, but both the server and the phone were busy.  I tried them over and over again and when I finally got through to the operator, it was already 10:30 though, I was told that only B seats on the third floor were available.

I was so disappointed!  The first thing that popped into my head was if I could actually see anything from the third floor.   And the second thing was that the 3,500 yen theatre membership was of little avail.

Not to worry.  I had another opportunity to get better seats.  I was well prepared for the on-sale day for general admission tickets.  On that day, as luck would have it, I was able to access the website as soon as they went on sale.  But again, unfortunate.  Tickets were sold out while I was filling out my information. 

Afterwards, I got to know that the tickets were completely sold out in just three minutes. 

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The Tale of Princess Kaguya

When I was a kid, one of my favorite folk tales was ‘Kaguya hime or Princess Kaguya.’  I read it over and over again and I still remember the scene in which the messengers from the moon descend to Earth to pick the Princess up with the full moon as a backdrop.  It was not only beautiful and owe inspiring, but made me aware of the existence of outer space and the creatures living there for the first time. 

It’s amazing that the story dates back to the 10^th century.  It’s the oldest-known science fiction narrative to exist.   Isn’t it fun to think that people 1,000 years ago imagined aliens on the moon as they looked up at the sky?  For me, as a four or five year old kid, Princess Kaguya was nothing but an alien who tried to contact us like ET.

  

The original story writes that one day, an old bamboo woodcutter finds a bamboo tree glowing mysteriously while he is working.  A beautiful baby girl appears from it.  The old woodcutter and his wife think that the baby is a gift and raise her as their own.  After, she grows up into a beautiful princess, princes and even the Emperor himself vies for her affection.  However, she returns to her home on the moon leaving the Emperor alone and heartbroken.

Ghibli’s latest animation, ‘The Tale of Princess Kaguya’ is based on this story.  The difference is that Takahata, the directer of the film has embodied the character of Kaguya and has added the reasons why she came down to Earth and had to return to the moon.  As the tag line of the film goes “A princess’ crime and punishment,” the reasons are the clue to understand the film.

Takahata depicts the liveliness of everything on the earth closely with seemingly rough and dynamic strokes.  When Princess Kaguya runs though the field, gentle breeze blows and the grass bends joyfully along with it.  Birds, insects, animals, grass, trees and flowers, everything is alive.  Our lives are filled with brightness, even though we have to go through sufferings.  Despite fear, anger, and sadness, our lives are wonderfully original.  The film brilliantly illuminates it with images of life.

I longed for the moon when I was a kid.  On the contrary, Princess Kaguya longed for the earth.  It can be said that the film tells something important from the viewpoint of an outsider.  It’s a cerebration of life on earth.

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Looking up the night sky

In the night of April 22, the Lyrids meteor shower peaked.  I was ready to look up the night sky, but unfortunately, it was cloudy and I couldn’t see any bright showers. 

I’m not an astronomy maniac, though.  I like just watching the night sky every so often.  I don’t know exactly when it was, but I never forget the moment when I saw the Milky Way very clearly.  It really blew my mind.  There were, literary, astronomical a number of stars there and I felt as if they were twinkling and making some happy sounds. 

There was another opportunity that made me look up the sky.  One day, Tsuruhiko Kiuchi, an amateur astronomer who found two new comets, showed us Comet Swift-Tuttle, which he rediscovered, coming closer to the earth.  I saw a comet, which had a long white tail, with his big telescope for the first time in my life.

I was lying on the grass in the meadows when the Perseids meteor shower peaked some years ago.  It was just like a 3D spectacular.  Shooting stars were moving toward me one after another and one of them had a long red tail that lingered in the sky pretty long.

The night sky is enjoyable even if there aren’t any astronomical shows.  Just looking for star signs and galaxies are fun enough for me.  One summer night, we found a small luminous body moving across the sky slowly when we were relaxing on deck chairs after a BBQ party.  Someone said,  “Is that an airplane?”  “No, planes should have red and green lights.”  “Then, UFO?”  “It will be fun if it’s a real UFO, but UFOs are supposed to fly randomly.”  Our conclusion was that It was an artificial satellite or the International Space Station. 

The reason why I like looking up the night sky is that we all came from the space originally.  And I believe so.

Photo: wired.jp / courtesy Luis Argerich

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March comes in like a lion, ３月のライオン

“Thermae Romae,” “Himizu,” “Moteki,” “Space Brothers,” “Helter Skelter,” “Jin,” “Brave Hearts, Umizaru.”  Do you know what these have in common, they are all recent big hits?  The answer is that they are all based on comic books.  These are just some examples and you can easily find a lot more movies like them. 

Comic books are real treasures for the movie and TV drama industry.  However, I have hardly read any comics for all but two decades and I’m not well up in them.  Then, I have just started reading some major comic books at hand to see what their contents are actually like.  As a matter of course, soon I realized that some of them are annoying with amount of onomatopoeia and I thought they are just waste of time, but some of them are actually not bad. 

“March comes in like a lion, ３月のライオン” written by Chika Umino is great!    It’s a shogi-themed manga, but I think it should attract both men and women in all generations.  Story goes like this.  Rei Kiriyama, a 17-year-old boy, is leading a lonely life.  He lost his family in an accident when he was a kid.  He became a professional shogi player for living, still holding a big pain deep in his heart.  One day, he met Kawamoto three sisters and finds what he lost little by little.

I got goose-bumps in shogi match scenes.  In shogi, games end when a looser declares “I’m lost.”  That’s a rcruel rule.  Umino depicts how players stick to winning the games with the characters’ background stories.  Players sometimes have to resort to tricky tactics.  They have no choice but to do it to win the game because winning means getting a place for their own.  By the way, Manabu Senzaki 8 dan supervises the descriptive notations in the story and most of them are from the records of historically famous matches.  That makes the story very realistic. 

I was always wondering why manga geeks liked quoting a lot of famous phrases from comic books?  I thought that geeks should be more creative and start making their own phrases, instead of borrowing other people’s phrases.  However, now I feel a bit different because I found some good phrases in this comic and wrote them down in my notebook.  Power of manga could be very strong.

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Flash Mob

Many people at a square in Shibuya, all of a sudden, pretended to make calls with bananas holding in their hands.  People on an escalator gave high five each other.  People came from nowhere and they started dancing together in an airport.  Passers-by were all eyes, puzzled and wondered what on earth was happening. 

Those performances are called flash mob acts and it’s getting popular around the world.  According to Oxford Dictionary, the definition of flash mob is as follows:

Flash mob (noun)

a public gathering of complete strangers, organized via the Internet or mobile phone, who perform a pointless act and then disperse again.

The first flash mob act was born from an idea of an editor for Harper’s Magazine, Bill Wasik in 2003.  Wasik said that he just wanted to have an experiment to see what would happen if he proposed random people, by email, his idea of getting people together and performing his scenario. 

Why do flash mobs attract a lot of people around the world? 

Basically, flash mobs don’t have any purposes themselves.  Masaaki Ito, the author of “Flash Mobs” said that it could change the order of space.”

A performance suddenly cuts in our daily life and changes our scenes.  In a few minutes, our scenes go back to normal as if nothing happened.  What people experienced for some minutes is more than just fun.  Although participants of events are anonymous, they get to know that they have power to attract people’s attention when they get together for an act. 

It remind me of one event which took place around the same time of the last year.  People who were opposed to re-starting of Ooi nuclear power plant got together in response to the announcement made on Twitter and strolled around the prime minister’s official residence.  It was an political event, but both flash mobs and Twitter parades are all but the same on SNS based movements.

After the 3-11 disaster, we have been trapped in a smoldering atmosphere.  I think that flash mobs show us some possibility to be connected, not close-knit, and break out of the stagnant air. 

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朝ドラ「純と愛」 きわめて個人的な総括

新しい年度が始まって気持ちはグイグイ前向きなはずなのに、NHKの朝ドラ「純と愛」が終わってしまった喪失感が大きい４月１日です。（笑）

結構のめり込んで、朝から号泣しながら見てましたから。 （←バカですね〜）

３月３０日（土）最終回の視聴率は20.2％。　６ヶ月の平均視聴率は関東で17.1％。ヒットメーカー遊川和彦さんの脚本にしては、期待するほど伸びませんでしたね。そして、最終回のエンディングも賛否両論というか、私のツイッターTLには非難の礫が飛び交っていました。実は私も、あのエンディングなら最終週はナシでいいじゃない！と憤慨したクラスタ。

でもね、面白いドラマでした。黒一面のオセロが、最後の一手で白にパッと変わるみたいに、極端から極端に振れる遊川節を十分堪能したし、役者さんも良かった。特に風間俊介さんの狂気を含んだ演技には目を見張りました。ホント、朝が楽しみな６ヶ月でした。

そこで。このまま何も語らずに終わってしまうのは勿体ないので、個人的な総括をちょっとさせていただきます。（長文注意）

【エンディングは本当にあれで良かったのか？】

脳腫瘍に倒れた愛が、手術後の昏睡状態から純のキスで目覚めるかどうか？　これが鍵だったわけですが、結局視聴者の想像力にゆだねるという結果でしたね。よく見ると、かろうじてハッピーエンドと読める仕掛け（魔法の国写真館の待田純さん＝寂しそうな笑顔がなんとも…）がつくってあったけど、劇中の登場人物とともに苦難を味わい続けた視聴者はカタルシスを求めているわけで、あれでは不十分。想像力に任せるなんてしないで、ドラマらしく明確に映像化して欲しかった。１００歩譲ってあのエンディングを受け入れたとしても、その前の純のモノローグは？？？でした。父のように、母のように、兄のように、弟のように…って。狩野家メンバー、そんなにお手本になるような人たちだったかな？

【視聴率が意外と伸びなかった理由を考えてみた】

朝ドラの視聴者は、ほとんどが時計代わりにテレビを見ているだろうし、放っておいてもチャンネルはそのままなはず。そこに遊川ファンがプラスされるんだから、普通に考えればレイティングは上がりますよね。では、なぜ？ 個人的には、出足の２〜３週間に固定客を逃した。それが大きいと思ってます。そのいちばんの理由は、ヒロインのキャラクター設定が破綻していたからではないでしょうか。

純のキャラクターは、

狩野純　２２歳

嫌いな言葉は、「固定観念」、「大人になれ」、「みんなやってる」。

正義感が強く、歯に衣着せぬ態度で言いたいことを言う純は、周囲に煙たがられて孤立。友達もいない。でも「魔法の国」のようなホテルをつくるために、明るく前向きに頑張ってる。

まあ、ひと言で言えば、「トラブルメーカー」なわけです。

いきなり登場した嫌われ者のヒロインを、愛すべきヒロインとして視聴者に短期間で定着させなければならない。それが出来なかったことが要因でしょうか。現に、私もまわりにも、ドラマ開始２〜３週間で「もうバタバタ騒がしくて無理」と脱落した者２名。私も辛かったけど、最初の山を越えたら慣れてきました。（笑）

同じ遊川脚本のドラマに、「曲げられない女」（主演：菅野美穂　日本テレビ　2010年１月〜）がありますが、このヒロインも純にちょっと似ています。

キャッチコピーは「わたし、まっすぐ生きていたいのです。」

曲がったことや無駄を嫌い、いかなる物事もきちんとして、些細な言い間違いですら、その場で正さなければ気が済まない。「すみません、正確に言っておきたいので」が口癖。その為周囲とはいつも軋轢が生じ、璃子と再会し、光輝に出会うまでの32年間友人を作ってこなかった。(wikiより)

ね、似てるでしょう？　

でも、「曲げられない女」は、司法試験に連続１０回落ち続けつつも挑み続けるストイックさがあり、彼女の正義は社会的な正義で、自分に対して、世の中に対して曲げられないもの。一方、純のそれは、「深夜にコーヒーを飲みたい客に、なぜホテルのルールだからと言って１２時過ぎにコーヒーを持って行っていけないの？」というホテル経営の効率など無視した子供じみたもの。ドラマのキメ言葉「あなたはそのままでいてください」に値するヒロインの正義感が読み取れなかったです。

【オフィシャル・メッセージがブレていた】

このドラマ、最初NHKは、「宮古島出身の一人の女性が大阪で働き、後に夫となる男性と共に夢に向かう姿を描く。」と発表していたんですよね。純愛ものとか、ラブ・コメディとかとも言っていた気がします。でも、ドラマ中盤くらいから、復興支援のメッセージを込めたと発言するようになって、物語もどんどん過酷になっていきました。もし初めから、辛い過酷な環境にいる人が希望を持って立ち上がれるような、そんなメッセージを送る物語、と言ってくれていたら、見ている方も心づもりも出来ていたのに…（泣）。

【最後に、風間さんの演技について】

６ヶ月間、すごく面白くドラマを見ていましたが、個人的な収穫としては、風間俊介さんという役者さんの凄さを知ったことです。この方の、一瞬で皮膚温がサーッと下がり、柴犬のような表情が狂犬のギラつきに変わるところなんて、もうひっくり返りそうでした。純と愛をきっかけに、「それでも、生きていく」、「アキハバラ＠deep」、「前橋ビジュアル系」など過去の出演作品も拝見しましたが、この３つはまったく違うキャラクターで質の違う演技を見せてくれています。（って、私べつにジャニヲタじゃないですよ。笑）

あ〜、長々と書いてしまいました。ごめんなさい。でもスッキリ。

いちおう、これで私の「純と愛」は一区切りということで、

さあて、４月を始めようかな。


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Sherlock

The Olympic games were over but I still have other interest in London. Do you know what? It’s Sherlock!!!

Sherlock is a BBC TV drama series that was broadcast on NHK BS. It’s a modern version of Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” and the character portraits what Sherlock would be like if he was living in the 21st century.

In this series, Sherlock is a “consulting” detective. He is super smart and observes everything intensively like mechanical eyes to find any possible clue to solve any cases at a glance. At the same time, he is too self-confident, arrogant and what he does always bugs people, even staff members of the London police. Yes, he is obviously a problem person.

Even so, Sherlock seems very an attractive character and Benedict Cumberbatch acts modern Sherlock so nicely. I think that he successfully shows some aspects of Sherlock, such as talented, freaky, wild and childish. He is cut out for the role!

At the end of the latest season 2, Sherlock Holms disappeared suddenly. Is he dead or still alive? The last scene of the story left me some mysteries and disturbed my heart a lot. I’m dying to see the next episode for the show as soon as possible but the problem is that the shooting for the next season has not started yet in London! How long do I have to wait for it?

As I look for some information about next season’s episodes, I got totally hooked on Sherlock.

【additional】

Benedict Cumberbatch navigates BBC's Olympic opening coverage

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