Ghost Cat Anzu is screening as part of the Japanese Foundation Film tour in the UK. We saw it last Saturday at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds. The film is an anime based on a manga by Takashi Imashiro serialised in 2006-7 and its narrative includes possible references to both animated and live action films. The film is co-directed by Kuno Yoko and Yamashita Nobuhiro utilising a distinctive method which involves live action filming that is then rotoscoped. I think that this just applies to the characters as the backgrounds appear to be painted traditionally. My knowledge of animation techniques is sketchy so I won’t say more about this technique just yet and instead just simply post some images. The story is similarly difficult to read without extensive Japanese cultural knowledge but I’ll make a stab.
The central character Karin is an assertive young girl around 11 years-old – a typical anime/manga character. As the narrative begins she is on the way with her father to visit her grandfather who is the caretaker of Sousei-Ji Buddhist temple in a rural district some distance away from Tokyo by train. The girl’s mother has died and her father decides to leave her with her grandfather as he goes looking for money to pay off loan sharks (his father refuses to give him money for this purpose). I assume that this is the summer holiday period. The Ghost Cat or Bakeneko (‘changed cat’ – a supernatural being, a form of yokai) is older than most cats, much larger and bipedal. He rides a moped and works as a masseur until one day he is stopped by the police because he doesn’t have a licence. After this he rides a bicycle. Karin soon gets bored despite Anzu’s attempts to keep her stimulated. Karin begins an adventure but needs to be rescued by a group of yokai or supernatural beings. Eventually Anzu agrees to take her into Tokyo to find her father. They are accompanied by the ‘God of Poverty’ who appears to be a character with a role something like the ‘Angel of Death’ but in this context is represented as an old man in a loincloth. Anzu has already discouraged the God of Poverty from attaching himself to another character in the temple town but here he allows himself and Karin to be taken to the Land of the Dead in the hope Karin can find her mother – I won’t spoil how they get through the portal to the Land of the Dead. Karin does find her mother and they escape back to the streets of Tokyo. But of course they are chased by demonic creatures and the King of the Dead. A car chase ensues and then a battle which is very one-sided. The result is that Karin’s mother must return to the Land of the Dead. Karin, Anzu and the yokai who have turned up to help are able to return to Sousei-Ji.
What to make of this? The film is actually a French-Japanese co-production and therefore I was able to access the Press Notes on the Unifrance website. With these and some very helpful pages on Wikipedia I am reasonably confident I understand the narrative in broad terms (I haven’t given away everything that happens in the story). The first thing to say is that the co-directors have added Karin as a new character while maintaining the story of the original manga. They tell us this in the Press Notes but I find this puzzling. What was the manga story before Karin appears? I guess it must have been focused on the Ghost Cat going to Tokyo. Karin is in some ways a more complex version of the familiar young girl in many anime, especially those best known in the West found in some of the Studio Ghibli films. She’s more complex because she’s allowed to behave differently and to inhabit a world with more unconventional characters such as her father. Much of this sense of difference comes about because of the production background of the film.
Nobuhiro is a live action director with a background in ‘independent Japanese cinema’ and Yoko is an animator. They have different influences. He cites Aki Kaurismäki and Jim Jarmusch, while Yoko cites short animations by the Russian artist Yuri Norshtein. But both also refer to Kitano Takeshi. What they try to do in their work is more difficult to fund and distribute in Japan than the mainstream anime that appear on cinema and TV screens. This is why the co-production deal for Shin-Ei Animation in Japan with Miyu in France is so important. France also has strong animation and the equivalent to manga industries. French producers also have more access to distributors and sales agents and importantly film festivals and the international market generally, so Ghost Cat Anzu has been screened at Cannes, Annecy and Berlin and has distribution by Diaphana in France and G-Kids in North America.
Nobuhiro explains the main ideas behind the narrative like this in the Press Notes (translated from the French):
But the real main theme of the film is the evolution of a young girl who has withdrawn into herself and who has a somewhat uptight attitude because she has experienced difficult things. During this story, she will begin to open up, find her smile again, and help others to get back on their feet.
Allied to this is the desire to integrate Anzu and the yokai with the local community, although of course it is slightly difficult as it isn’t clear which characters can be seen by everybody. At one point Karin doesn’t see the God of Poverty but later she accompanies him into the Land of the Dead. The idea of a world where yokai appear as part of everyday life seems fantastical but as the co-directors explain, children in Japan grow up with a yokai as familiar characters. This attempt to imbue the narrative with a form of realism is also linked to that humanist approach found in art films and modern independent films with less focus on ‘villains’ and ‘heroes’ and more on characters who are mixtures of good and bad tendencies. Japanese concepts of religion tend to mix Buddhism and Shinto. It isn’t odd then to find a Buddhist temple in a small community where the ‘sprites’ and the kami – the spirits of the natural world co-exist.
Finally for Western audiences there are familiar images linked to the work of Miyazaki Hayao especially My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away all of which have been widely seen in various forms. As a cat lover I’m also well-used to watching our cats and it’s clear that for animation cat behaviour is very instructive in terms of movements and moods. No wonder cats feature so heavily in animation and cartoons/graphic novels etc. Ghost Cat Anzu is very enjoyable. There is a sense of an unfinished story about it and I wonder if there will be a sequel. Do catch it if you can on the Japan Foundation Tour – screenings coming up listed here. It isn’t available in the UK on streaming platforms but it is widely available in the US and in France.
itp Global Film 