Dis­cov­er an ani­mé trea­sure trove this spring at the BFI

Fol­low­ing on from their recent Japan­ese film sea­son the BFI are final­ly join­ing us in the muck and pro­gram­ming an Ani­mé sea­son. Lead by pro­gram­mer Justin John­son, this first part of the sea­son in April (with more to fol­low in May) cov­ers a fair­ly broad scope, from the industry’s foun­da­tion­al works to mod­ern clas­sics to more recent hits. Out­side of the fol­low­ing high­lights there’s more to dis­cov­er: such as Eiichi Yamamoto’s vivid water­colour night­mare Bel­ladon­na of Sad­ness (intro­duced by Helen McCarthy – a cru­cial voice in ani­mé acad­e­mia), plus Yamamoto’s 60s series Kim­ba the White Lion. Then there’s the oppor­tu­ni­ty to over­whelm your brain with ani­mé on the biggest screen in the UK – with Ghost in the Shell as well as Mamoru Hoso­da​’s Belle play­ing in the IMAX. Here’s some of the high­lights from their pro­gramme, which kicks off on 28 March.

Inu-Oh

The lat­est film from Masaa­ki Yuasa – direc­tor of Dev­il­man Cry­ba­by, Night is Short, Walk on Girl and Elvis Costello’s favourite TV show of 2021, Keep Your Hands of Eizouken – Inu-Oh is anoth­er idio­syn­crat­ic feath­er in the animator’s cap, though it’s also his final one with Sci­ence Saru (for now). Based on the nov­el Tales of the Heike: INU-OH by Hideo Furukawa, a sort of fic­tion­al­ized spin-off from The Tale of the Heike, Yuasa trans­forms this his­tor­i­cal fic­tion into an anachro­nis­tic rock opera. Inu-Oh fol­lows Tomona, a blind musi­cian spe­cial­is­ing in the biwa. He even­tu­al­ly meets and befriends the epony­mous Inu-Oh, a noh the­atre per­former shunned for their atyp­i­cal appear­ance – one that also lends him a spe­cial tal­ent as a dancer. They strike up a cre­ative part­ner­ship that sparks a wild change in the land­scape, one that attracts oppres­sive response from local leaders.

Even for Yuasa the film shows aston­ish­ing visu­al flex­i­bil­i­ty, mix­ing real­ism and abstrac­tion, tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern art, the macabre and the com­i­cal; it’s anar­chic in the same way its musi­cal deuter­ag­o­nists are. Like Ride Your Wave before it the film has a sur­pris­ing­ly trag­ic edge to it too, mourn­ful for the fates of its char­ac­ters and per­haps in a meta­tex­tu­al sense, the end of Yuasa’s jour­ney with the stu­dio he founded.

Pat­la­bor: The Movie & Pat­la­bor 2: The Movie

Mamoru Oshii has direct­ed no short­age of mas­ter­ful ani­mat­ed as well as live action films, and the Pat­la­bor series stands proud­est among them. Before Oshii made his vast­ly influ­en­tial adap­ta­tion of Ghost in the Shell, he toyed with ques­tions of tech­nol­o­gy and total­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment, post-human detec­tive mys­tery and mil­i­tary action with the Pat­la­bor series. Fol­low­ing on from the OVA – well worth seek­ing out and watch­ing where you can find it – Pat­la­bor: The Movie fol­lows the char­ac­ters of that short series into a sur­pris­ing­ly gran­u­lar, pro­ce­dur­al inves­ti­ga­tion involv­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing of big robots and a poten­tial soft­ware mal­func­tion, and its far-reach­ing consequences.

The sequel, Pat­la­bor 2, dou­bles down on the patient pac­ing and moody atmos­phere of the first, but actu­al­ly moves away from the first into a deeply involved polit­i­cal alle­go­ry for Oshii’s thoughts about post-occu­pa­tion Japan and the actions of the Japan­ese Self-Defence Forces. The immense detail and sur­pris­ing real­ism in its con­struc­tion in its use of peri­od-accu­rate tech­nol­o­gy along­side the fan­ta­sy of its mecha sto­ry­line and the com­plex­i­ty of its polit­i­cal themes make it one of Oshii’s most fas­ci­nat­ing works. With lit­tle in the way of high-def home releas­es, the chance to see Pat­la­bor in the cin­e­ma isn’t to be missed.

Liz and the Blue Bird

A crit­i­cal­ly-beloved work from Naoko Yama­da, one of the best direc­tors cur­rent­ly work­ing in ani­mé and any­where else, Liz and the Blue Bird has remained some­what elu­sive in UK home releas­es and cin­e­mas until this point. A spin-off from the series Sound Eupho­ni­um, it focus­es in on two of the show’s sup­port­ing char­ac­ters Mizore and Nozo­mi, and a sort of unre­quit­ed love between them. As in her oth­er works, Yamada’s film evoca­tive­ly uses flower lan­guage in place of what the char­ac­ters them­selves can­not express, used along­side her close atten­tion to body lan­guage and ani­mat­ed char­ac­ter acting.

Through­out, Yama­da depicts Mizore and Nozomi’s recital of a musi­cal piece from Liz and the Blue Bird, while visu­al­is­ing the fairy­tale itself that the music is based on through soft­er, water­colour tex­tures. The cou­pling of the fairy tale to the real world is del­i­cate and mov­ing, but becomes com­plete­ly over­whelm­ing in the real­i­sa­tion of Mizore and Nozomi’s musi­cal piece (com­posed by Sound Euphonium’s Aki­to Mat­su­da), their duet of oboe and clar­inet rep­re­sent­ing these fic­tion­al char­ac­ters as well as an expres­sion of their evolv­ing relationship.

Also show­ing is Yamada’s pre­vi­ous fea­ture, the per­haps bet­ter-known A Silent Voice. Anoth­er heart-rend­ing, visu­al­ly rav­ish­ing endeav­our worth see­ing – with a num­ber of the same cre­ative tal­ents on board.

Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors

It’s not just con­tem­po­rary hits that should grab the atten­tion in this sea­son, but also some looks at the ear­li­est exam­ples of ani­mé. The recent­ly re-dis­cov­ered and restored WWII pro­pa­gan­da film Momotaro’s Divine Sea War­riors – pre­vi­ous­ly thought burned by the Amer­i­can occu­pa­tion, as not­ed in Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements’ The Ani­mé Ency­clopae­dia. Direct­ed by Mit­suyo Seo, it was the first fea­ture-length ani­mé film, com­mis­sioned by Japan’s Naval Min­istry after see­ing Disney’s Fan­ta­sia. It’s influ­ence was so that it inspired the career of Osamu Tezu­ka, the ​‘God­fa­ther of Man­ga’ and a major fig­ure in shap­ing the ani­mé indus­try into what it is today (for good and for plen­ty of bad).

Iron­i­cal­ly, Seo was actu­al­ly a left­ist polit­i­cal­ly – the book­let for The Roots of Japan­ese Ani­mé detail­ing his involve­ment with the Pro­le­tar­i­an Film League of Japan – con­tra­dic­tions which makes Momotaro’s glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Japan­ese impe­ri­al­ism and colo­nial­ism mor­bid­ly fas­ci­nat­ing (and report­ed­ly, a life­long shame of Seo’s). Sim­i­lar­ly, a pro­gram of rarely-seen ani­mé shorts details the way the form evolved in the ear­ly days of Japan­ese cin­e­ma, includ­ing Seo’s Ari-chan the Ant (1941), which shows how the film­mak­er had already emu­lat­ed Dis­ney in his use of the mul­ti-plane cam­era, these tech­niques help­ing lay foun­da­tions for the ani­mé industry.

The BFI’s Ani­mé sea­son runs at BFI South­bank and BFI IMAX from 28 March – 31 May. Tick­ets for April are on sale now, tick­ets for May are on sale from 4 April.