Can animation create a new fantasy that will be enough to rewrite the reality of the future?

Without a doubt, this work marked a turning point.
For Mari Okada, and perhaps for the history of Japanese animation as well.

After a 20-year career as an animation scriptwriter, focusing on numerous original works and original projects by other directors, Okada was finally asked by Kenji Horikawa, president of P.A. WORKS, to "give 100% of Mari Okada's work" in his first directorial effort, "Sayonara no Morno Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou (Let's Put a Promise of Flowers on the Morning of Goodbye)," which was released on February 24, 2012. The film, "Let's put the promised flowers on the morning of sayonara," was released in theaters on February 24.

In the animation genre, which is a group production that requires the use of pictures to move everything along, the directors who oversee the entire production are overwhelmingly drawn from the directing field via the animator and production progression fields. The scriptwriter's role usually ends with the provision of guidelines for cutting storyboards, and he or she is rarely involved in the production process after that.

Therefore, there are few opportunities to get a natural glimpse of the entire production process in the studio or to get a real feel for the work of the onsite staff, and cases of scriptwriters progressing to the position of director are extremely rare.

In the midst of such industry trends, Mari Okada, a scriptwriter who has distinguished herself by her ability to depict the emotions of characters with the vividness of adolescent self-consciousness and the intricacies of human relationships that are not always straightforward, has taken on character dramas that are not suited to the traditional pleasures of animate productions. Mari Okada is a screenwriter who has distinguished herself by not hesitating to take on types of character drama not suited to the pleasures of animate pleasure in the old sense.

Her rise to prominence can be attributed to the rise of what would later be termed "air-kei" or "nichijo kei" works, such as "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" (2006) and "Lucky Star" (2007), both of which were pioneering works by Kyoto Animation. In these works, the background art was faithfully created by location scouting of actual contemporary Japanese scenery, and the communication drama of two-dimensional bishojo (beautiful girls) unfolded on these layers, causing a consumption boom similar to the "pilgrimage to sacred places" in which fans idealized and simulated three-dimensional reality.

As an extension of this trend, P.A.WORKS, a studio based in Toyama Prefecture, selected Okada as the writer of its first original story in the anime version of "true tears" (2008), which is set in the same prefecture. In other words, amidst the trend toward an unprecedented level of sophistication in drawing and playwriting techniques that "fictionalize reality," from the mid- to late-2000s, the viewers came to accept the "spice of reality rubbed into the fiction" of writers like Okada as a diverse range of late-night anime of the same era. This is the reason why Okada Mari's "anime" has come to be accepted by viewers.

What "anime" means to Mari Okada: "Anohana" and "Kokosake" as private fantasies

This trend in Okada's work, coupled with her career as a screenwriter with a V-Cinema background, has often provoked questions and criticism from traditional anime fans, such as, "Does it have to be anime?

However, given the subjective reality she experienced, it was nothing short of a fantasy, idealized in the most beautiful way possible, and only possible because it was anime.

Mari Okada's fame was quickly raised by the TV series "Ano Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai" (We Still Don't Know the Name of That Flower), which she worked on from the planning stage together with her age-mates Tatsuyuki Nagai and Masaga Tanaka (A-1 Pictures 2011). (A-1 Pictures, 2011) and the theatrical work "The Heart Wants to Cry" (A-1 Pictures, 2015), which he worked on in the planning stages together with fellow ally Nagai Tatsuyuki and Tanaka Masaga. (A-1 Pictures, 2015). These two works, set in Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, Okada's hometown, which she has long kept secret, were in fact personal novels that emerged as she confronted the pain of her past, as revealed in Okada's autobiography, "Gakko e ukatta basho me ga 'anohana' 'kokosake' wo motomete ni motomete" (Bungeishunju 2017) and other works. It has been clarified.

In other words, Okada's experience of refusing to go to school for five and a half years because he could not stand the closed relationships in local classrooms formed the basis of his portrayal of Ninta Shukumi (Jintan) in "Anohana," while the circumstances of his wrongdoing father's divorce in his childhood and his mother-daughter household formed the basis of his portrayal of Jun Naruse in "Kokosake.

On the other hand, the fantastical motifs that are key to each work, such as Menma's ghost in "Anohana" and the voice-stealing egg in "Kokosake," are all too direct symbols of the irremediable guilt Okada has felt since childhood due to his own communication problems. In the Chichibu landscape, which is basically depicted with a naturalistic realism, these imaginary devices, which are only one of them, work on the conflicts of the main characters, who each have their own complex feelings, and drive the painfully refreshing coming-of-age group portrait.

The main character grows up and overcomes his trauma in the form of rain falling and hardening the ground, and he finds reconciliation and redemption with his friends in his hometown and reconciliation with his mother, which is the common structure of both films.

In other words, the counterfactual delusion that Mari Okada was unable to fulfill in the real world is given enough persuasive power and catharsis to rewrite the landscape of reality through Masaga Tanaka's exquisite character development at the level of reality and director Tatsuyuki Nagai's subtle but sometimes unexpected jabs at the viewer's attention. The director and his team's subtle but sometimes unexpected jabs at the viewer's heart.

This is the very essence of "Anohana" and "Kokosake," which could only have been realized in anime.

The workability of both works is clearly demonstrated in the fact that Chichibu, the setting of the two works, has activated a movement of pilgrimages to sacred places involving the local community and government.

However, the starting point of this project was the strong sense of depression toward the local community by the writer Mari Okada, which is a major difference from other local cases that would have been found from a more flat viewpoint. The imagination, which was originally a very modern literary sentiment, was transformed by the power of the anime to move many fans, and (if we are to believe Okada himself) to change his own view of Chichibu and his mother, which is a feedback that goes beyond the truth or falsehood.

In other words, Okada's works not only sublimate themselves on the level of modern literature, but also change the nature of reality by embodying his own maximum "fantasy" through his works. The most recent example of such a circuit of "augmented reality" that Japanese anime has arrived at in the 2010s is that of Mari Okada, an artist who has moved from private novel fantasy to universal fantasy.

From Personal Fantasy to Universal Fantasy: From the Motif of "Separation of Time

Having thus laid bare at least some of his roots and inner life, where does Mari Okada turn to the power of animation when asked to give "100%" as a director?

His latest work, "Sayo Asa," is an answer to this question: further fantasization of the world of his works.

For Okada, who spent most of his time reading and playing video games at home with his mother during the NES boom and Super NES boom period when he refused to go to school, the animated films for children shown at community centers (probably Toei or Ghibli type) and the RPGs he immersed himself in day and night, were the fantasies that depicted "somewhere other than here" and were the most fantastical of all. Okada says that fantasy depicting "somewhere other than here" is etched in his original experience as the most anime-like subject matter of animation.

It is no wonder, then, that Okada, having finished with the task at hand, has now turned to the creation of "the world" itself in order to confront a new subject matter.

However, the TV series "Nagi no Asukara" (P.A. WORKS 2013-14), directed by Toshiya Shinohara, who is credited as the film's assistant director, is an important step in this direction. While the character drama is centered on the life-sized adolescent love groups that Okada is known for, the film attempts to develop a theme backed by a more fantastical worldview of interaction and conflict between the people of the land world who are on location in a port town in modern Japan and the people of the sea world who remain at the bottom of the ocean.

Here, Okada uses the tragic love between different species, as in "The Little Mermaid," as the basis of a mythical legend in the world of his work, and also uses the incident in the middle of the series in which the main character Hikaru Sakijima and other sea people are forced into hibernation by a force beyond human knowledge and separated from their friends on land for five years as a tool to emphasize the sadness of their romantic relationship. This incident is used as a tool to emphasize the sadness of the romantic relationship.

This depiction of "not being able to live in the same time as others" is nothing more than an extension of Okada's personal experience of being left out of the flow of time around her, which she had felt for five and a half years of refusing to go to school. This perception of time, which is also shared by the heroine Menma in "Anohana," is the most basic source of motifs for Okada when he conceives his own anime fantasy.

Therefore, "Sayo Asa," which was steered away from the private novel style fantasy of pinpointing fiction in a realistic world and toward the creation of an entire stage, was composed as an otherworldly fantasy with Okada's "time separation" motif as the foundation of its worldview itself.

The main character, Makia, belongs to the Iorph, a people of immortality who stop aging in their teens. Along with the giant dragon Renato, they are feared as a mystery of the ancient world, and are also called the "Farewell Tribe" because of the fate of those who must continue to watch over others as they die. The story is based on a tribe called the "Farewell Tribe.

In the context of legitimate high fantasy, this setting follows the lineage of the long-lived species of the Twilight, such as the elves in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and other works.

More than that, however, the initial lifestyle of Makia and her friends, who live in hiding in a land isolated from the outside world and weave the events of daily life into the special fabric of hibioru, is exactly the self-portrait of Mari Okada, who used to keep a diary during her reclusive years in Chichibu.

With such a world setting as the crystallization of Okada's past works as a starting point, what themes were discussed?

The first step was a forced departure to the "outside world" full of violence and hope.

The beauty brought about by the violence of the "outside world.

The film opens with a bittersweet love triangle between Makia, a shy and passive person who has no immediate family, Leilia, a beautiful girl with a lively personality, and Krim, a boy who is in love with Leilia but whom Makia has a secret crush on.

The fantastic sequence in which large tears fall from the eyes of Makia, who witnesses their meeting, and flowers of light appear in the dusk, is a heart-stabbing and delicate coming-of-age story. The "usual Marie section" is anticipated.

However, the scene changes immediately after that when Renato, a ferocious pterosaur, flies in from the sky above Makia and her friends, followed by an assault by the armies of Mesate, a powerful nation. The scene then changes to an assault by the forces of the Mezate, a great power, who are following Renato. Renato has been dying out from a strange disease, and the Mezate have come to steal an Iorph woman to conceive a child by a prince in order to obtain a vein of immortality as a new source of power.

This sudden violence filled with sexual nuance probably stems from Mari Okada's original experience of being intensely aware of the "outside world" when, as a recluse, she offended a domestic violence man, who was her mother's lover at the time, and was raided at home with the intent to kill her.

Those who have been led astray by the pastel key visuals and the claim that this is "the next great sensation after 'Anohana' and 'Kokosake'" will be reminded that the film's net rating as a "fantasy" is more like that of "Game of Thrones" at this point.

Or, if you are a core video game fan of a generation close to Okada's, you will also notice the significance of the selection of Akihiko Yoshida, making his first attempt at animation, as the character designer for this film. Despite his flowing and graceful drawings, Yoshida is also an artist known for his work with Yasumi Matsuno in the "Ogre Battle" series and other heavy, bloody fantasies.

Therefore, "Sayo Asa" is filled with an atmosphere that suggests that many gruesome events must have occurred between the lines of scenes that are not directly depicted in the film.

In the midst of the chaos, Makia is accidentally caught up in the flight of Renato, who is dying of a strange disease, and crash-lands in a distant forest under a moonlit night. He hears the cries of a baby on a cliff in despair and discovers a camp that has also been wiped out by bandit attacks. He rescues the child, the lone survivor, from the hands of his murdered biological mother.

There, night falls and the title back plays, announcing that the true subject of the film has finally been set in motion.

Yes, the theme of "doing the mother" oneself while exposing oneself to the terrifyingly beautiful outside world.

To "mother" a young girl while holding her back in time

Thus, the story focuses on Makia's struggle to protect and raise the boy she has named Eriale.

Of course, there is no way that a 15-year-old girl can suddenly raise a child on her own, and so Macia's child-rearing begins as she learns how to make a living and how to be a mother by staying with her mistress Mido, who runs a farm and raises two children at first.

The production emphasizes the accumulation of tactile theatricality, starting with the reaction to the first encounter when Eyal grabs Macia's finger with the tiny palm of his infant hand, and continues with her first walk with the help of Mido's children, and the unique method of soothing her by crawling "wriggle worms" on her stomach when she throws a tantrum. Anyone who has experienced child rearing cannot help but sympathize with this approach.

Another characteristic of this film's direction is that the sequences of Elial's upbringing are smoothly connected by skipping years without using words to explain them as much as possible. This allows the viewer to feel how Makia lives each day with a different sense of time from that of humans, which can only be felt in the length of the film.

An animation film that immediately comes to mind is Mamoru Hosoda's "Wolf Children" (Studio Chizu, 2012), which depicts the difficulties of a mother raising a child who is a different species and therefore grows up very quickly. The same is true of "Sayo Asa," in which the female protagonist, who has no father figure and is forced to raise a child on her own for a number of reasons, fosters motherhood.

However, in contrast to "Wolf Children," which could not escape criticism for being "a male director's unconscious imposition of an ideal" through the characterization of the female protagonist Hana and the direction of various parts of the film, Mari Okada's film is based on the reality of the mother-child relationship that she herself grew up with. In contrast to "Wolf Children," which could not escape criticism for "imposing an unselfish ideal," this film takes the opposite direction in its approach.

Few artists have been made to realize how imperfect motherhood is as Okada has. Therefore, after having settled the theme of the "child" in his works up to "Kokosake," Okada's next challenge is to try to stand in the position of the "mother," with whom he has had many conflicts. If we read the film from an auteurist's point of view, we cannot help but see in Makia's choice to play the role of Elial's mother as a young girl, a simulation of Okada's own character.

Perhaps to the same extent that Mamoru Hosoda entrusted motherhood to Hana's inclusive character in "Wolf Children," the fortuitous circumstances in which Makia in this film happens to receive appropriate support are a convenient pictorial reality that can only be depicted through the narrative of animation.

However, the highlight of "Sayo Asa" is that it highlights the process by which motherhood is formed as a posteriori persona depending on one's position and environment, rather than making it an intrinsic quality of the individual.

The End of the "Contrastive Experiment" on Motherhood and Fatherhood

This characterization is further accentuated by the contrast with the other maternal seeker. This is the relationship with Leilia, who was captured by Mesate and forced to become the prince's wife.

As a shadow of Machiavelli, who was to closely watch over the upbringing of her son Eial, whom she is not related to by blood, Leylia accepts the choice to give birth to her own daughter Medmer, but is deprived of her and forced to live a solitary life in confinement.

The composition of the film is like an experiment in contrasting the fate of the pseudo-mother who tried to achieve self-realization by "playing mother" and the real mother who was deprived of her "motherly" identity.

The story of this epic fantasy unfolds as the fates of these two mothers are intersected at each juncture by Krim, a survivor of Iorph, who joins the resistance to Mesate in its quest to reclaim Leiria.

Krim, who seeks to overthrow power in order to repudiate change, embodies a form of "fatherhood that has fallen to zero," so to speak.

The contrast between his way of being and that of Eyal, who rapidly grows into a young man through adolescence, motivated by a desire to protect his mother, can also be read as an experiment in contrast on the male side, similar to the contrast between Makia and Leylia.

As analyzed in critiques such as Tsunehiro Uno's "Maternal Dystopia," many Japanese animated films have, through the power of unrestrained imagery, deformed and enlarged sexual motifs, exposing the problem of the impossibility of maturation that has been a part of postwar Japanese history.

Compared to such conventional image-driven fantasies, the situation-simulation fantasy in this work may seem somewhat plain and bland in terms of visual pleasure.

However, if the task of animation is to reconstruct a new image that breaks through the circle of twisted motherhood and fatherhood, Mari Okada's attempt to find a satisfactory form of motherhood and fatherhood from scratch, using her own life as a reference point, is extremely important.

It is also equivalent to depicting the landscape beyond "In a Corner of the World" (MAPPA, 2016), which also uses augmented reality techniques to recapture the starting point of postwar Japan as a world that is connected to the present. In other words, the Makia of "Sayo Asa" live in the world after Suzu Hojo, the protagonist of "This World," becomes the "mother" of an A-bomb orphan who has lost her relatives in Hiroshima at the end of "This World.

In the last year of the Heisei era, can anime depict a new fantasy that will be enough to rewrite the reality of the future?

The first step toward such a question has begun here.

(Text by Daichi Nakagawa)

＜Profile of Daichi Nakagawa

Editor and critic.