Jonathan Clements's Blog, page 25

Made in Scotland…From Girders

So that's the first weekend done of Scotland Loves Anime, a mad rush of films and festivities in Glasgow, featuring Satoshi Nishimura and Shigeru Kitayama, the director and producer of Trigun: Badlands Rumble. They were both charming, enthusiastic and informative, and deeply appreciative of the reaction of the Scots to their work. I would say more about it, but I have spent the last three days in a sleepless Japanese haze, and someone else has most meticulous reports that actually remember them better than I do. Follow the links for in-depth accounts of the Summer Wars screening and the Q+A that followed the UK premier of Trigun: Badlands Rumble.

This morning I'm off to Newcastle University to see the people there, but I am back in Edinburgh for Wednesday, when I shall be terrorising and traumatising class Japanese Translation 2B with tales from the anime world. Another lecture open to all university students in the afternoon, and then finally I shall get some sleep… although on Friday it's the Scotland Loves Anime Education Day, and then another weekend of frolics in Edinburgh.

There's an article on it all in last week's Scotsman on Sunday, too. I've got to write my next Neo columns while I'm here, so hopefully I will be able to find the time in the middle of all this to sit down and annotate the latest issue of Big Comic Original.

Somebody Else's Problem

It wouldn't be the first time an anime studio had an entrance that looked like someone's flat. But once I'm buzzed in and up the stairs, someone's flat is precisely where I find myself.

Taizo's easy-iron shirt is mainly nylon, causing him to swelter in the July heat. He stares back at me in mild confusion.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I was looking for Intergalactic Studios. The people who made Schoolgirl Milky Crisis." Not its real name, but you get the idea.

"Ah yes," he says. "Welcome."

"I must be in the wrong place," I continue. "Sorry for barging in—"

"This is Intergalactic," he says. "Well, to be perfectly accurate, that shelf there is Intergalactic Studios. The blue ring binders and the two red box files. Oh, and the in-tray with the egg sandwich on top."

"But," I stammer, "what about the premises? You know, the three buildings with all the animators, and that woman with the funny eye who answered the phones, and the offices where all the marketing people had the robot statues…?"

Taizo sniffs.

Taizo was never full-time at Intergalactic. He was an external auditor, the accountant who turned up twice a year to sort out the tax returns. And then one day… well, I'll let him tell it.

"One day, there's a call from the bigwigs, and they say it's all over. No more money for production. No shows to make, no videos to sell. So there's no need for a studio, and no need for the marketing people. Everybody got laid off, and they sold the real estate to pay off the debt. Actually, truth be told, two of the buildings were only rented anyway."

I look around the dingy room at the neat little row of folders on the shelves, and the slowly baking egg sandwich.

"So at the end of the day," says Taizo, "Intergalactic is just the intellectual property. It's just the I.P. as you say abroad. So all they need is an accountant to look after the contracts and bank the cheques."

He rifles through the mail and comes up with an envelope bearing a UK postmark.

"Here you go," he says. "British DVD royalties for the year ending this April. I shove that in the bank, and that's probably me done for the week. Unless a fax comes in from South Africa or France or somewhere."

Taizo really is it. Intergalactic Studios is now nothing more than a shelf in an accountant's office. The studio "staff" is Taizo alone, collecting a few pennies a month to open the mail and bank the cheques.

I ask how long this will go on.

Taizo shrugs.

"The show's got a few years in it. Might as well leave it to putter away and generate income. The thing the bosses really want is a movie deal. You know, DreamWorks or someone rings up and says they want a movie option. That really is money for nothing. Put Tom Cruise in it. James Cameron directing or something. All I have to do is make a few photocopies."

But what about the future, I ask. What about the anime of tomorrow? Who will make them?

Taizo shrugs again.

"Somebody else's problem," he sighs.

This article first appeared in NEO #75, 2010.

Redline

Issue #2 of Salon Futura is now up online, and includes my in-depth piece on the origins of Takeshi Koike's Redline - just out in the US and Japan, and due to play at Scotland Loves Anime this weekend.

Los Samurais

My Spanish publishers didn't hang about. A Brief History of the Samurai was only published a few months ago, but the Spanish rights were sold while it was still in galleys, and it now joins Wu, The First Emperor of China, The Moon in the Pines, Chinese Life, Mao and two books on Vikings in Spanish editions. It does feel quite weird to have eight books out in a single foreign territory, with bio blurbs that describe me as el historiador Jonathan Clements.

Wu, incidentally, is now out in Spain in paperback, and has the following kick-ass review from someone called Martinez Shaw: «Este obra demuestra que un buen libro de historia puede ser más apasionante que la mayoría de las novelas históricas»*

I am clearly much more loved in Spain than I am in France, where only one of my books has been translated. And not loved at all in Sweden. Come on, Sweden. Everybody else in Europe has bought the rights to at least one of my books… was it something I said about Vikings…?

(*"This work shows that a good history book can be more exciting than most historical novels" Don't get me started…)

Viking Smackdown

From A Brief History of the Vikings by Jonathan Clements, available in the UK and in the US.

—

The crucifix began to compete with the hammer of Thor as the must-have fashion accessory, and missionaries soon followed behind the trendsetters. In distant Iceland, for example, where missionaries had been visiting the remote communities since 980, the news of the conversion of Norway as a whole led many of the die-hard heathens to believe they were missing out on something.

When Thangbrand, a Saxon priest in Crowbone's retinue, was dispatched to Iceland to spread the word, many Icelanders began to seriously consider converting. Others, however, spoke out against the Christians in the same manner as the Trondheimers of old. One Hedin the Sorcerer was slaughtered by Thangbrand the Christian soldier, along with all his retainers. A similar fate awaited Veturlidi the Poet, who composed a satirical verse about the missionary, for which he was cut down in front of his son.

Thangbrand met his match when his ship, the Bison, was wrecked on the eastern coast near Bulandness. There, he got into an argument with a devout heathen lady by the name of Steinunn, who asked him where his Christ was when Thor was causing his ship to be smashed on the rocks. According to Steinunn, Thor had challenged Christ to a fight, but Christ had not shown up.

Question Time

Gainax were in the house. Almost all of them. It was a one-hour panel at the Locarno Film Festival, with a veritable football team of famous figures. Takami Akai, creator of Princess Maker, wearing a pair of welding goggles. Yasuhiro Takeda, author of the Notenki Memoirs, sporting a dapper panama hat. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, designer on Evangelion and Summer Wars, with a shock of rock-star hair and a pair of posh spectacles. Hiroyuki Imaishi was there, in a polo shirt (the true uniform of the...

History vs Mystery

There will never be a 100% historically accurate Confucius movie. It would be in a dialect of ancient Chinese that literally nobody could understand. The manners and customs would be more alien than the wildest science fiction, and the character motivations truly inscrutable. And no matter how careful the scholarship, it would be open to attack from all sides, because the original source material is already riddled with holes, assumptions and later interpolations.

Our prime source for...

Groove in a Grove

Tajomaru is part of a trend in filmmaking that has seen a number of Japanese classics approached from new angles. In Hollywood, we have the Satsuma Rebellion retooled in The Last Samurai, and Keanu Reeves already at work on the forthcoming Forty-seven Ronin. Within Japan, Sogo Ishii's Gojoe (2000) replayed a famous samurai legend with a gritty, glossy, pop sensibility. Shinji Higuchi's Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess (2008) re-appraised a Kurosawa classic through the priorities and...

Now on Kindle

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis, the book, is now available in a Kindle edition, here in the United States, and here in the United Kingdom. In mere moments, all you cyber people can upstream it from the intertubes onto your digithing. Don't delay, download today!

"With a wealth of insider buzz about all things Japanese and more than you ever thought to ask about… this book is great fun indeed—including the index. A required purchase for all libraries serving otaku patrons." – Library Journal

"a tour o...

Spooky Ooky

Danger comes to the forest where kindly spirits have made their home, when a construction company begins evicting tenants from a nearby housing estate. Local child Kenta Miura seeks the help of the 350-year-old ghost-'boy' Kitaro after the human residents are plagued by evil spirits. These hauntings turn out to be the work of Kitaro's fair-weather friend Nezumi Otoko ('Ratman'), a mischievous spirit who has been hired by the Chaya Construction Company to scare the residents out.

On the run...