KENJI NAKAMURA IS ANIME GOD TRIBUTE POST
Kenji Nakamura is a good director. Very good. And I'm gonna explain exactly why. Now I know a decent amount about the processes behind filmmaking, not so much about animation though, so applying the auteur theory as blatantly as this might not work. Nevertheless this will be a long-ass analysis of one of the most distinct animators working in Japan today. I'm a junior, so I don't know if longposts like this are discouraged. If they are, I'll certainly stop.
The three (and only three!) series' that Nakamura has directed so far have displayed wildly different artistic styles, making a summary of his aesthetic preferences complicated. There are a few common trends in these works; his designs are relatively flat and lack complex shadowing, such that although looking more anime Tsuritama wasn't all that much of a departure for him. He seems interested in ugliness for the sake of naturalism, from the detailed mouths/teeth/eyes in Mononoke and Trapeze's character designs, Yuki's demon face in Tsuritama, and the recurrence of sweat. He is fairly versatile in the different techniques and effects he uses in each series (stop tricks meant to represent character psychology, rotoscoping/video in Trapeze for a more grotesque appearance), but commits to them until the end (unlike Yuasa's Mind Game, which drops the mixed video/animated parts in the second half of the film).
Foremost is his talent in color. Color is a facet of animation that stands out compared to other types of cinema. Directors with reputations as being good with color like Manoel de Oliveira, Edward Yang, or Hou Hsiao-Hsien couldn't dream of the level of control animation brings in this regard. Each of Nakamura's three shows have wildly different palettes, but they never seem garish. How he exploits different painterly styles and integrates them with every other element of the production is rare in anime.
There are some similarities in the narratives of his works as well. All deal with some degree of magical or supernatural phenomenon. All usually focus on one abnormal character (Medicine Seller, Irabu, Yuki). Mononoke and Tsuritama both deal with the relationship between places and their people (although Mononoke in a more omnibus format). All of them deal with psychological illness or deviation, and tend to synthesize the supernatural and psychological elements together toward that end.
MONONOKE
Mononoke's art was clearly influenced by ukiyo-e woodcuts, with it's ethereal and theatrical presentation. There is a greater spectrum of hue here than in the later Trapeze, but the color is comparatively more muted, probably both to prevent visual busyness but also to capture the show's intended mood. While ukiyo-e prints have largely hedonistic or peaceful subject matter, Mononoke is a horror. In fact, it takes this decadent backdrop of the ukiyo-e and subverts it.
It also achieves this horror without using darkness or obscurity. Everything is constantly in plain view. This succeeds not only because of the disturbing imagery, but also due to the orthogonal architecture. Anyone who has seen anything by Chantal Akerman, or Ernie Gehr, or Stanley Kubrick for that matter will know what I'm talking about; strict rectangular buildings and parallel walls seem to trap the characters and convey an animal-like intensity. The horror results from the characters being isolated together in a visually closed space: a train, a boat, a hotel room, and so on.
Horror often plays with the assumption of societal normalcy. Horrible things like abuse, incest, rape, or murder can either be explained as a product of the supernatural and thus an aberration, or as something implicit to humanity that the supernatural is merely a symptom of. Mononoke succeeds by straddling this line and making it unclear how much of the terror is a product of its characters' own doing.
TRAPEZE
Trapeze's art style is more modern, with a broad spectrum of influences: surrealism, Dada/Neo-Dada, a bit of Fauvism, you name it. It works well with the pastiche, anarchic quality of the script. In terms of color, Trapeze has a rather limited palette, but exploits it to its fullest. Painter primaries/secondaries are diversely and unconventionally patterned in the backgrounds such that you get an effect of simultaneous contrast within each individual shot, and successive contrast as the shots are put together through editing. Despite containing less colors, Trapeze still feels vibrant, perhaps moreso than Mononoke.
When I first saw Trapeze, I was skeptical of the treatment of mental illness by the show; the wacky carnivalesque setting, the nods to Freud in Irabu's three forms, the femme fatale nurse, the fact simple revelations were enough to resolve serious psychological problems...it seemed rather demeaning. It becomes clear after a few episodes that this show isn't about psychology at all. The manner of direction rarely changes between the different patients, keeping a uniform style throughout. This is not psychological realism. Instead, a lot of the disorders are anxiety based and result from a conflict between the expectations of the patient's job and their own personality. A yakuza who is scared of knives. A pitcher who can't throw. A reporter who runs away from his leads. Through Irabu, these patients overcome their superego constraints and start to live for themselves. Irabu, seemingly unconcerned for his patients' well-being and massively egotistical, teaches by example. And though I've grown tired of the last few episodes are more serious cliché, this show pulls it off by delivering a general message about the importance of mental health. Top of the class anime.
TSURITAMA
Tsuritama is unique in terms of how much Nakamura adheres to conventions. Character designs are more anime than his previous two shows, and the plot is a serialized, charming character piece rather than the weird and procedural format of Mononoke and Trapeze.
This doesn't mean, however, that the art is anything less than fantastic. Thin linework combined with a pastel color palette make it stand out. There are a variety of great landscape shots, while his past two works didn't have any. It also displays a more impressionistic style in the backgrounds, unlike Mononoke and Trapeze, both of which often avoided mixing colors. It lacks the naturalistic quality of impressionist painting, however, because it's far too bright. I think this style coheres with the magical realist story well, even if the magical realism remains in the periphery for the most part.
The script is a creative retelling of the Enoshima Engi and the dual Shinto/Hindu goddess Benzaiten, goddess of flow (so, naturally, flowing water). There are light animist elements here and there, but I think Tsuritama doesn't really set itself up as a religious fable or anything like that. It's a fairly standard show with awe-inspiring art. Overall I'd say this is a less bold endeavor than the other two, but a great demonstration of Nakamura's range and of high quality overall.
In conclusion, Nakamura's shows nail everything (writing, sound design, pacing) but what makes them stand out is their deft use of artistic styling and color. Animation and cinema are subfields of the visual arts. They are subject to the same styles and trends, but have duration, sound, and narrative in addition. To me, these added elements are more for the purposes of commentary than to create some frankenstein Gesamtkunstwerk. The fact that Nakamura's shows all have precedent elsewhere isn't important. His talent results from how he plays with the expectations implicit in those styles and in doing so commentates on them.