The Different Side of Japanese Movies

My last two posts have been about the Prince of Tennis musicals, but the truth is I ended up getting interested in them because of Saitoh Takumi, and I only saw Saitoh because one of my perverted friends suggested watching a movie called Sukitomo. (I'm not saying I'm ungrateful for finding him, but come on—he has done non-BL projects...)

I also held off discussing other Japanese movies until I covered Tenimyu because, as it turns out, nearly every Japanese-made movie or TV series since 2005 tends to feature one or more “graduates” from a Tenimyu production. This may be due to the fact that there are so many cast members in the various productions (not to mention the various people who have played the different characters over the years) that it's practically a given for the acting industry to be inundated by them. This is particularly true in the BL genre, where a certain few actors seem to dominate the stage.

I'm breaking this up into two posts, of which the order will hopefully make sense. This post will review the BL-genre movies I've seen, and the next one will review the non-BL projects. For this post, I'll review the ones with so-called “happy” endings (read: no one dies, tries to kill someone, or ends up in a similarly unfortunate situation) first. The ratings are mine, keeping the content in mind:

Sukitomo
Rated PG












Summary: Yoshiki (Aiba Hiroki), a photographer for his school newspaper, takes pictures of his childhood friend Tomokazu (Saitoh Takumi) at boxing matches. A frightening incident makes him realize he just might like the clueless Tomo more than he thought. The only problem is, so does Tomo's own stepsister.

Review: This was the first project where I saw Saitoh Takumi and Aiba Hiroki, and had no idea they had been in Tenimyu together (as Hyotei's Oshitari and Seigaku's Fuji respectively.) While I rate it PG, the truth is nothing ever actually happens; it's probably the “safest” movie out of everything I saw, which is why I suspect my friend suggested it first. The tension is entirely emotional. It's the content of the film that makes it PG—aside from being a BL movie, it touches on the subject of incest (despite the fact Tomo and his stepsister aren't blood related.) On an unrelated note, this is also the movie where I learned the appropriate time to say Ja, matashita (“Then, see you tomorrow.”)


Itsuka no Kimi e
Rated PG-13












Summary: More photography! Photography major Hayase Kouhei (Ryunosuke Kawai) can't figure out his new classmate, the introverted and unapproachable Noboru Fukami (Saitoh Takumi), and ends up befriending Noboru's more outgoing brother Ryu. But the dark secret of Noboru's past may not be what Hayase expected.

Review: Another Saitoh movie—he must have been really busy in 2006. This time he stars with Ryunosuke Kawai, who played Hyotei's Hiyoshi in Tenimyu. I have to say, out of all the BL movies I've seen, this movie had a plot that was the most believable (and interesting.) Admittedly it's predictable, but the acting makes it impressive. However, there are a couple of decidedly suggestive scenes you may not appreciate, and an actual kiss towards the end. If you can handle that, then you might want to take a look, just keep one thing in mind: “Aniki” is the term for a brother, not a name.


Takumi-kun Series: Soshite Harukaze ni Sasayaite
Rated PG









Summary: Takumi Hayama (Tomo Yanagishita), a youth with an acute fear of being touched, attends an all-boys high school where he attracts the attention of the school's idol, Saki “Gii” Giichi (Kato Keisuke), much to the chagrin of Gii's longtime admirer Izumi (Yasuka Saito). Unfortunately, he also catches the eye of a devious, predatory student, who has plans of his own for Takumi.

Review: Tomo Yanagishita (Seigaku's third-generation Kaidoh from Tenimyu—of course) plays the lead; Aiba Hiroki (Seigaku's Fuji) also makes a brief appearance as a violinist. For the most part this movie is relatively safe, and even kind of sweet, if grossly overacted. (Although I get the feeling from other people who have seen the movie that it was intentionally done like that, since the manga is much the same way.) The plot was simple and predictable, but again, it was clearly intended to be like that so I can't fault them. There's a suggestive scene at the end, but the frosted lighting simply makes it too comical to be realistic.

Ai no Kotodama
Rated PG-13












Summary: University students Ootani (Hidenori Tokuyama) and Tachibana (Yasuka Saito) have been living together for two years, hiding their relationship from others. A girl from their high school days suddenly shows up out of the blue, sparking jealousy and misunderstanding between them.

Review: At first I thought there was no Tenimyu connection in this film, but as it turns out Yasuka Saito (who was also Izumi in Takumi-kun) had played Higa's Hirakoba in the "Progressive Match" Tenimyu performance. It's an interesting take on the BL genre—the two actually start off together and face challenges as a couple, rather than getting together halfway through the movie. There are a couple of suggestive scenes and at least one kiss, but nothing too serious or dramatic.

And now for the “Not So Happy Endings” (otherwise known as “the crippled puppy drowns after watching his mother get hit by a car” endings). Do not watch if you're depressed, or don't want to get depressed:

Boys Love
Rated R

Summary: Magazine journalist Taishin Mamiya (Yoshikazu Kotani) is hired to interview the famous model and temperamental high-school student Noeru Kisaragi (Saitoh Takumi), only to find himself in deeper water than he imagined. After a rough start, their relationship is further tested by the demons from Noeru's past and the wanton promiscuity they drive him to in the present. And then there's the matter of Noeru's overprotective friend Chidori (Hiroya Matsumoto)...

Review: The title says it all. Saitoh's back, teaming up with yet another Tenimyu alumnus: Yoshikazu Kotani, formerly Seigaku's Kawamura. First, I take serious issue (!) with the way the relationship between the characters started, but after witnessing far worse things in Kichiku Megane I suppose it's to be expected in this genre. And the ending...granted, the opening scene already gave the impression it wasn't going to end well, but literally everything changes in the last three minutes. It's basically like a sucker punch with an added knife-twist for good measure. I've noticed this theme a lot with BL products, which strengthens my belief that the producers of such projects think these endings are appealing to women. (I would really like to meet these women, because I didn't find it appealing in the slightest.)

While you never actually “see” anything, there is partial nudity and a few scenes that don't leave anything to the imagination, which is why I gave it an R rating. Still, the acting is pretty damn good for a Direct-to-DVD film, so if you can handle the scenes mentioned above, it's a decent enough picture. And for the record (MAJOR spoiler alert; highlight to read): Saitoh can do a fantastic death scene.


Renai Shindan
Rated PG-13






Summary: This is actually a 12-episode TV series instead of a movie, with four completely separate story arcs covering different aspects of “forbidden love”: the first and last arcs are BL, with three episodes each.

In the first story arc, the young painter Tsubasa (Tomo Yanagishita) is constantly being harassed by a gang of thugs when he meets two other boys: tough rebel Leo (Shiozaki Airu) and quiet sculptor Kain (JURI). When he has to choose between the two, the consequences may prove more than he can handle.

In the last arc, physician Kei Katsuragi (Ryunosuke Kawai) is saved by lifeguard Kanade Maki (Kumai Kouhei) when he nearly drowns. No sooner does the relationship start than Kanade is diagnosed with a serious—and fatal—heart condition. (Think of it as Love Story with a truly gut-wrenching twist at the end.)

Review: Like everything else I've seen, Tenimyu actors abound in the BL portions of this series, although Saitoh is absent. Tomo Yanagishita (Seigaku's third-generation Kaidoh and star of the Takumi-kun movie) shows up again, along with Shiozaki Airu (Rokkaku's Amane) and JURI (Yamabuki's Jin). In the other story, Ryunosuke Kawai (Hyotei's Hiyoshi) is back after doing Itsuka no Kimi e to play the role of Kei.

Like the movie Boys Love, nothing is ever actually shown, but you do see some kissing and fade-to-black scenes. Again, the focus seems to be more on emotional trauma than anything else, and this series has that in spades. Without spoiling anything, I can only say you shouldn't expect a happy ending. Ever.

So there you have it. Really, the only reason you'd see these films is if you're a fan of any of the actors (like me *coughSaitohcough*) or you like the genre. If I had to recommend one out of all of them, the acting in Itsuka no Kimi e impressed me so I'd go with that one. Up next: the "normal" Japanese projects I've seen.

A Drama By Any Other Name

I'm not exactly sure how I made the jump from listening to seiyuus in various anime to Japanese dramas (or, as some rather frightening otakus try to insist, “do-rama”...probably the same folks who missed the joke and still insist Hellsing's “Alucard” is misspelled.) The closest tie I can find lies with my attempts at finding a few seiyuus in live-action work. As it turns out, while many of them dub certain English movies that come to Japan, the vast majority stay within the realm of animation.

Oddly enough this makes sense, considering they're completely separate fields of work despite being in the same industry. Even here in America, I can't think of any actors who have managed to maintain a career in both fields at the same time; they usually give one up in favor of the other, or are primarily in one field with occasional work in the other.

At any rate, my venture into the world of Japanese live-action projects led me to a few names in the acting field, and one particularly interesting find: Saitoh Takumi.

Now, let me preface the following by saying that anyone who knows me is well aware how rare it is for anyone to catch my eye. When my friends had magazine photos of the latest “hot actors” on their walls, I had prints of fractals and photoshopped fantasy landscapes. I can be greatly impressed by someone's work, or admire their outlook on life or their humanitarianism, but I don't think I've ever really stopped dead to watch someone since I was about 14.

*ahem* That being said...

Oh. My. God. Saitoh Takumi. I would gladly pay any amount of money to watch him in ANYTHING. (I'm not kidding. Even just reading the phone book onstage. In Japanese. I don't care.) I'm quite proud to say I've never “squee”d once in my life, not even as a teenager, but this is probably the closest I've come to it. He's only two months younger than me, too. (Does this mean I have a thing for younger men? Heh.)

How did I find out about him? Well, the most accurate answer would be to say my friends are perverts (and you know who you are) who were more than happy to point me in the direction of live dramas when I told them what I was doing. They were curious as well to know if any seiyuus had roles in live projects; however, the only references they had on hand were BL dramas.

This means that, yes, Saitoh has been involved in a number of live-action BL movies along with his other “regular” work. Not pornography, mind you—apparently a line is drawn when the actors are actually seen as well as heard, for which I'm eternally grateful. These movies seem to follow the same rules as the games and Drama CDs as far as plot is concerned: they all focus on emotional turmoil over action/adventure (I have yet to see anything catch fire, get riddled with bullets or blow up on the set) and more than one of them have an ending so far from “happy” that driving shards of glass through your arm would actually lighten your mood.

As far as acting ability goes, coming in a close second to Saitoh Takumi is Kato Kazuki. I would explain where I saw him first (and since), but that would completely ruin the semi-chronological order I'm trying to maintain in my posts, so I'll leave that for another time.

Consequently, the fact I'm watching/listening to more Japanese media than American these days has convinced me of the need to actually learn the language—both speaking and writing. Not everything I've seen is subbed, and many of the subtitles I've seen lie somewhere between “awkward” and “completely different from what's being said”. So, in a shockingly rare moment in my life, I'm actually serious about something. God knows I have nothing but time on my hands these days; I might as well use it constructively. To that end:

Nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimas. Demo, mada jozu ja arimasen.

Exactly what projects have I seen Saitoh Takumi in, and what does he have in common with Kato Kazuki? That's in my next update.

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Now playing: Kato Kazuki - Solitaire
via FoxyTunes

Hearing Voices

As mentioned in my previous post, I became curious as to why so many obviously talented Japanese seiyuus would lend their voices to eroge games aimed at women. Considering there's no similar counterpart in America (adult products are completely separated from the rest of the entertainment industry) and the fact that more than one actor's career has been destroyed when their involvement in the adult industry is revealed, I wondered why voice actors in Japan would participate in BL projects without fear of their identity being discovered.

Well, as I've come to learn, seiyuus involved in anything related to the BL genre are treated like nothing short of rock stars. No, I'm not kidding. Just do a search for “Live Pastel Collection” if you don't believe me. This probably explains why so many of them get involved without worrying about their reputation; if anything, it seems to boost their career in other areas.

There's a relatively small group of “regulars” from what I can tell, with the same names showing up again and again. I've actually come to be impressed by a number of them, the most talented in my opinion being seiyuu veteran Yusa Kouji. His resume is longer than the Amazon River, with a career that covers a great deal of projects; he's most famous for voicing Ichimaru Gin from Bleach, but that's far from his only mainstream anime.

I first heard him (perhaps unfortunately) as Midou Takanori in Kichiku Megane and took an interest in the actor behind the voice. This is rather ironic, considering I found Midou's path with Megane-mode Katsuya disturbing at best (outright horrifying at worst). Mini rant and a major spoiler ahead; highlight to read:

I take serious issue against any plot where one character drives another to the brink of catatonia/catalepsy yet you can still get a “happy” end (which, I may add, is only achieved because Midou shows up a year later and can't remember a damn thing during the time Katsuya abused him.) Right, so Katsuya finally realizes at the last second he pushed too far—so what? The player already notices about halfway through Midou's route that he's losing it. Katsuya's way too slow in the realization department.

/digression

At any rate, I first noticed the unique quality to Yusa's voice, and thanks to him I developed a deeper interest in Japanese voice acting as well as the English dubs. I explored the careers of other seiyuus, and wasn't surprised to discover a great number of them have crossed into both mainstream and BL projects: Yasumoto Hiroki, who voiced Honda Kenji in Kichiku Megane, is another Bleach alum and has gone on to voice the hunter Tooga Yagari in Vampire Knight. Even Hirakawa Daisuke, the voice behind KM's protagonist, has an extensive list of mainstream anime to his name. Other voice actors who have participated in both “regular” and BL projects are Fukuyama Jun, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Toriumi Kousuke, and Midorikawa Hikaru, just to name a few.

When researching the different voice artists I came to realize that one of the most popular products in the BL world seems to be the “drama CD”. Similar to the old radio dramas, they usually involve a plot device of sorts, and many of them have a “free talk” session at the end where the actors get together and discuss pretty much anything. Some are safe to play in public, others not so much, but I find it interesting that Japan has managed to keep the art of radio drama alive in the digital age.

From what I can tell, the vast majority of these men are straight, and many of them are married. They all seem to take a light-hearted attitude about the BL genre, which you would pretty much have to if you planned on working in such an industry for any length of time.

Given the extensive resumes of many seiyuus I researched, I wondered if any of them had also worked in any live acting series. Along the way, I discovered a few interesting things about the acting scene in Japan, and learned just how far-reaching the BL genre is.

...but that's a post for next time.
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Now playing: Xandria - Save My Life
via FoxyTunes

You've Done WHAT With Your Time?

So it's been two months. I'm not in Irvine yet, but it's only a matter of time before I end up there or directly in L.A. Does that mean I've entirely stopped my plans to try out the VA field? Hell no. In fact, while I'm stuck in limbo, I'm taking the advice of my former college advisor (who's done VA work herself) and trying to lay out what my demo reel will sound like. She was a great help and did her best to tell me more about the field, even though she got a parking ticket from speaking with me for so long (I'm really, really sorry about that, by the way—if I'd known, I would have run up the street myself to put money in the meter.)

I don't feel like getting into where I've been these past two months, because it doesn't really matter. But I have been exploring a few things as I get my future together. Forgive the seemingly random order of my posts over the next several days, but if I don't break things up it's going to be one unbearably long post instead, and even I can't stand to hear myself ramble that much. At any rate, expect a few separate (yet loosely related) subjects to follow in the coming days when I have the time.

To start off, I'll discuss the springboard for much of my recent research. In a word or two, playing the intriguing yet (very) traumatic Kichiku Megane got me thinking about a few things. I was curious as to who exactly would lend their voice to such a game, if it was normal or even expected of male seiyuus to do so, and why they didn't bother hiding their participation in these projects like the actors in regular eroge games do. (I did indeed uncover answers to these questions, but I don't have room to discuss them in this post.) The results of my research have proven surprising, all the way down to the very basis of the BL universe.

In short, while the “Boy's Love” genre is a relatively new phenomenon here in America, it's actually a runaway success in Japan. It's aimed at women, oddly enough, and there's a definite distinction between BL products and products aimed at the gay male demographic. Generally, BL characters are prime examples of bishonen (“pretty” males, often effeminate) while characters aimed at gay men are more muscular, emphasizing the masculinity. Plotlines found in the BL world are also usually far more intricate and emotionally involving...often to a gutwrenching and/or tragic degree. You're not always guaranteed a happy ending; in fact, many times it's the exact opposite.

Conversely, I also wonder about products aimed at straight men involving relationships between women (AKA “yuri”.) They don't seem to be nearly as popular as the BL genre, and from what I've been told the plots certainly don't have the same kind of emotional depth and impact found in BL products. But would they really be more popular if they did?

So this leads me to believe that the perceived attraction to the BL universe is supposed to lie in the generally accepted idea that women appreciate beauty and strong emotion. My only guess as to why the result of that perception would manifest in the form of homosexual relationships is that it's something “new” for women, watching men take a role traditionally assigned to female characters in a romance story. Since it's not actually a woman being depicted, the usual socially accepted boundaries (such as the pursuer being too physically aggressive) are negated.

Or it could be something else entirely. Someone suggested that watching an otherwise “regular” human drama with an all-male cast attracts women because they don't feel any competition, nor any pressure to identify with the female character. Who knows? Judging from the rapidly increasing number of teen and college-age BL fans, I'm sure someone will write a great psychology paper on it someday.

As this post is getting too long already, I'll end it here. Next up should be my thoughts on the seiyuus who lend their voices to the BL genre, and how my interest in the rather expansive career of one particular voice actor indirectly drew my attention to the live acting scene in Japan.

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Now playing: Evanescence - Missing
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