Love & Pop

"Love & Pop" is based on an novel by Ryu Murakami. It follows four Japanese high school girls who engage in "enjo-kosai". Enjo-kosai means "compensated dating". It is a practice in Japan where older businessmen pay teenage girls more commonly to simply spend time with them, or often for prostitution.

The main character, Hiromi (Asumi Miwa) is a pretty high school girl. She does not have the direction in life that three best frineds - Chisa, Nao, and Chie - already have. The film also depicts Shibuya in Tokyo. It is a fashonable downtown in Tokyo for girls who are intersted in fashion and trend, but it is also famous place for older men because that they hunt girls who accept enjo-kosai easily.

Hiromi has never engaged in enjo-kosai, but Chie (Yukie Nakama) has already and somtime had enjo-kosai including prostitution. Nao (Hirono Kudo) also has experince to do "Terekura". It is a telephone conversation and/or dating service, where it is free for women to talk and the men pay a lot money to participate in. 

When Hiromi met hem for window-shopping in Shibuya as usual, she found a beautiful and expensive ring in a jewelry store. Chisa, Nao and Chie wanted to help Hiromi to buy the ring. And then they accepted a pedophiliac and perverted businessman's offer of enjo-kosai - to have lunch with him. However Hiromi refused to take all the money because she did not want to change a relationship with her best friends. That is why Hiromi goes on enjo-kosai and prostitution by herself to get money for the ring.

"Love & Pop" is the first live action film for Hideaki Anno. Needless to say, Anno is best known as the director and writer of "Neon Genesis Evangelion", regarded by many as the greatest and most ambitious anime series of all time. After Evangelion, Anno made another great anime series "Kare Kano" which I wrote ealier on this blog and directed the film.

According to Wikipedia, Anno's style has come to be defined by the touches of superflatism and postmodernism that he injects into his work, as well as the thorough portrayal of characters' thoughts and emotions, often through unconventional sequences incorporating psychoanalysis and emotional deconstruction of these characters. It is well apparent in Love & Pops, too. Thus we can easily find common styles and touchs between Evangelion and Love & Pops.  

Besides that, Love & Pop was filmed almost entirely on hand-held digital cameras, and contains some very unusual camera work, including many different mounted camera positions, such as on a toy train, under tables, or inside girl's skirts. These unique and somehow perverted-like angles and hand-jiggling camera work leads us to feel the character's anxious emotions.

The English DVD released in 2004 and its sales copy is; "School girls by day...call girls by night." One reviewer on amazon.com claim; "this is misleading and inappropriate, since this is a serious film, not some smut!" I completely agree with it. Anno tries to depict more complexity like unbalance between frindship and virginity for teenage girls or anxiousness that teenage girls as existance of "more than child, less than adult", such as exact charctars of Evangelion.

You can see whole films with English subtitle on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etMGycQ4aos

Reportedly Anno planned the ending scene to draw that four characters enjoied themselves on a beach in Okinawa, a popular sightseeing area in Japan, and shooted on location with actors and stuff. However, almost all of stuff appeared reluctant to comply with these pictures because of mismatch against mood and substance of whole stroy. Then Anno adopted another ending scene what four charcters walk and walk on a sewage canal in Shibuya.

Its back music is a cover of a famous song which took on in 1960's in Japan. The tittle is "Ano Subarashii Ai Wo Mou Ichido." It means "wonderful love once again." Both the scene on the sewage canal and lyrics of this famous song are so ironical. I believe it is exact match to the Anno's movie.

I found the original ending scence and alternative one used unreleased firms which were shooted in Okinawa. 

Linda Linda Linda

The plot is here from IMDb: The school Festival is about to begin and Kyoko (Aki Maeda), Kei (Yu Kashii), and Nozumi (Shiori Sekine) are looking for lead vocals after their band breaks up. Kei recruits Son (Du-na Bae), a Korean exchange student who is still learning Japanese. The girls choose perform three songs from The Blue Hearts, an 80s punk rock group. They choose, Linda, Linda, Linda, An Endless Song, and My Right Hand. They have several late night practice sessions while Son tries to perfect her Japanese and Kei struggles to play the guitar better. The girls each face typical high school drama. Kei has to ask an ex-boyfriend for help. Kyoko has a crush on Kazuya (Katsuya Kobayashi) and is excited when he asks for help at the crepe stand. Son is asked out by a Japanese student who tries to learn Korean to impress her. They each face different struggles while trying to master their songs for the school festival. They almost fail to arrive when they fall asleep practicing in Studio Q. On their race to get back to the school it begins to rain and they forget instruments, fall, and Kyoko almost fails to meet her crush to tell him how she feels. They finally arrive at the school festival just in time to deliver a good performance to the excited crowd.

Its trailar with English subtitle from YouTube is below. 

From Left: Du-na Bae, Sekine, Maeda, Kashii

Some of people must feel sort of boaring because it is completely not like Hollywood movie. One reviewer of IMDb exactly pointed out the characteristic of this firm: This movie is realistic in that it does not need artificial plot devices and major suspension of belief on the part of the audience. It just shows what ordinary teenage high school girls trying to put together a rock band in a few days for a festival would do in those precious few days of their lives. This is perhaps the last significant thing they will do before they head out to the real world.

Du-na Bae, Yu Kashii and Aki Maeda are young and talented actress in Korea and Japan. In controst, Shiori Sekine, playing Bass, is not. In her real world, she is a rock musician and belongs to a rock band "Base Ball Bear".    

Shiori Sekine

For Shiori Sekine, the movie's story is exactly real. When Sekine was a first grader student in her high school, she were requested from one of second grader students to play a keyboard for a school cultural festival. The student was Yusuke Koide, now Base Ball Bear's vocal and guitarist. This request eventually opened up making band and then Sekine changed to play a bass. In 2003, two year later from the festival, Base Ball Bear debuted. 

The participation by Sekine and other real musians gives the movie more effort adding reality. Shione Yukawa, playing an ex-band member who hurt her finger, is famous solo singer in Japan. Yuko Yamazaki, playing a senior of K-on club, is a leader of Japanese rock band "ME-ISM". 

I found three music videos of the movie from YouTube. First two of them are the ending scene of that.

THE BLUE HEARTS

THE BLUE HEARTS was a popular Japanese punk rock band that performed from the latter half of the 1980s to the early half of the 1990s. They have been compared to such bands as the Sex Pistols, The Clash and the Ramones. In 2004, The Blue Hearts were named by HMV Japan as one of the most successful and influential Japanese music group.

"Linda Linda" was first released for them on 1987. Lyrics and music were written by Hiroto Komoto, the band's lead vocalist. It remains one of the groups most popular songs. Other avobe tunes - "Owaranai Uta" and "Boku no Migite" are also their hit numbers.

You can  see "Linda Linda" played by THE BLUE HEARTS with Japanese lylics and English sibtitle. 

Hyakki Yakou Shou

First of all, what "Hyakki Yakou Shou" means? Japanese word "Hyakki Yakou" means "Night Parade of One Hundred Demons". Japanese folklore in ancient times such as 9th Century tells that every year youkai, the Japanese specters, will take to the streets during summer nights. Anyone who comes across the procession will die, unless protected by some Buddhist sutra. "Shou" means abridgment. Thus "Hakki Yakou Shou" depicts Japanese youkai, demons or ghosts and contacts between human being and them.

Ritsu and Oziro/Oguro

This is because "Hyakki Yakou Shou" does not scary and sometime comical or heartwarming. A main charcter Ritsu Iijima is 16-year boy (at the beginning of the series, now university student) and has extrasensory power what he can see not-human being such as specters or ghosts. He succeed the power from his grandfather Kagyu, who was a writer regarding specters and demons. Ritsu is guarded by Ao-arashi,dragon-derived specter, and has two servants, Oziro and Oguro, who are brid-derived specter.

Oziro and Oguro are funny and contributes the story as not-scaring atmosphere. Other characters are atractive as well as them, such as Tsukasa, beautiful cousin for Ritsu. When Tsukasa comes Ristu's home, Oziro and Oguro entertain Japanese sake to her. It is supernatural but so natural. That is the author's word - "write a story in which human beings and specters lived side by side in a boundary-pushing ground, not saying which is right or wrong."

As I said earliar, Ima's drawing is very sensitive and fine. She made her professional manga debut in Comic Image with "My Beautiful Green Palace" in 1993. But before her professional debut, she worked as an assistant for 12 years. Probably it tempers her as a fine manga artist. As the author itself says, the most influenced by as the creator is Moto Hagio, whom I wrote an article about earliar on this blog. Ima says "I worship Hagio as a goddess."

Swing Girls

The movie's plot is here: A group of school girls in northern Japan are stuck in class for the summer, where they find nothing interesting. One girl Tomoko encourages her classmate to deliver the lunches for the school brass band cheering for their school baseball team, thereby getting out of the class for a day. Tomoko and her friends realize helping Takuos plan to fight the next big game could get an opportunity for them to skip the math class all summer. Takuo not having enough members to form a brass band decides to make the girls into a big band swing group. Tomoko buys a saxophone and starts to learn on her own. With the help of Takuo, she makes the other girls involved. They start to practice and slowly learn how to play. The Swing Girls are born. (from IMDb)

I found a video what lead us understand the movie's plot. It is without English subtitle but you can see that well. 

Shinobu Yaguchi

The director Shinobu Yaguchi specializes, according to wikipedia, in feel-good "zero to hero" films, where a group of people take up an unlikely activity, face a number of obstacles, but finally succeed. His film "Waterboys"(2001), which depicts a group of teenage boys who seek fame in synchronized swimming, was particularly successful and led to a TV series.

In our commonsense, synchronizes swimming is for girls. Thus the struggle of that for boys led us funny. On the other hand, jazz is basically for mens but some of women and girls prefer to performing jazz for blassband in school class activities. Yaguchi's "Swing Girls" follows the unlikely but fact-based story of a group of girls who perform a traditional swing jazz.

Kamikaze Girls

The story is: Momoko is an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. Ordinary, that is, if you define ordinary as wearing elaborate Lolita dresses from the Rococo period in 18th Century France. A complete fish out of water in her rural and sleepy Japanese town, where everyone buys their clothes (and everything else) at the same store and no one understands her, Momoko's life is one of sugared sweets and frilly treats. Desperate to make some money to pay for her expensive indulgence, Momoko tries selling bootleg Ver*ace and Uni*ersal Studios clothes left over from her Dad's yakuza (gangster) days. However, when punk girl and self-styled 'Yanki' Ichiko comes calling, her days as 'ordinary' are most certainly numbered... Friendship brings these two unlikely girls together. (from IMDb)

One more description is: Momoko is ultra-sensitive and feminine, picturing herself as a pampered French princess while meticulously embroidering frilly clothes. Ichigo is a member of a girls' biker gang who hides softer emotions and dresses like a feisty boy. When the two young people are thrown together, each helps the other develop new skills for survival—and for living as a whole woman. Artist Kanesada continues Takemoto's story by writing and drawing an additional episode in Ichigo's maturation, then concludes with a tale about a schoolgirl who falls in love with an older man in the garment industry. The book is more character-driven than much manga, and the page layouts do an unusually good job of weaving together different levels of the action, as readers can simultaneously see what the characters are doing, saying and thinking. There's something creepy about young girls calling themselves "Lolitas" and imagining that having sex with a grownup will transform them into grownups, too. Still, there's also a genuine sweetness about these stories as the characters grope uncertainly with new roles and take chances that can pay off wonderfully. (from Amazon.com)

They are perfect. It is no need for me to add more sentence about the story. The below video is the trailor of the movie from YouTube.

Ichigo and Momoko

Shimotsuma, the setting of this funny story, is a real city in the countryside of Ibaragi Prefecture, northen Tokyo.

"BABY, THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT", a lolita fashioin shop which Momoko really loves, is also real. 

http://www.babyssb.co.jp/overseas.html

And surpriseingly, a supermarcet "JUSCO", which is drawned as the object of teasing and joking, is real, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JUSCO

I admire JUSCO as accepting to use the name: However, thanks to JUSCO and others for cooperating the filmmaking of the movie, it became to clear the peculiar and funny existence such as lolita and yankee girls on thier ordinary and regular lives. 

The movie was directed by Tetsuya Nakashima in 2004. Momoko is acted by Kyoko Fukada known as an idol in Japan. Ichigo is acted by Annna Tsuchiya, a famous Japanese model. But now both of them are quite active in the  film industry. 

"Kamikaze Girls" is based on a novel in 2002 written by Novala Takemoto. You can get it from amazon.com.