Hi Rei! This is my first encounter with your writing. Great article! Here’s a couple of points that might be of interest:
I feel like the economic aspect in all this is vitally important - there’s a big difference between the Dragonball fiasco (too much money paid for the rights, not enough left for creatives/the actual movie), and the basically limitless money hose funding Shogun/Pachinko. The economic model of streamers gives a lot more scope for scope, as it were, rather than hoping to get mallrats to turn out to the theater on Friday night in San Bernadino. I don’t know the extent to which this is true for shows about other countries, but this economic shift doesn’t feel particularly Japan-centric.
Hollywood hasn’t always been a dumbing-down machine vis-a-vis Japan. When Akira Kurosawa couldn’t get a home movie made 20th Century Fox funded Kagemusha (due to the intercession of George Lucas).
That’s all I’ve got. Thanks again for the article!
I love you comment Daniel! Your ideas could easily be it's own article and I'd gladly read it.
I want to answer/discuss some of your points further:
1. It is true that DragonBall and Shogun/Pachinko were born out of completely different circumstances, but I don't think there's a universe in where Hollywood would have turned out a good Dragon Ball movie at that time. Just like almost every Japan centric movie then, directors and producers were obsessed with the caricarized idea of Japan, whether it be submissive geishas, comically beleaguered salarymen, and stoic warriors who would sooner perform a dramatic seppuku than exchange a simple greeting with their foe. These characters were often thrown in like Pokémon, having no rhyme or reasons to their seemingly illogical actions, other than 'wacky Japan', and I am certain that Shogun and Pachinko would have been crafted with the same treatment back then (80s Shogun is a good example of this. It's a good show but many parts are very fetishized and underexplained in comparison to the remake).
2. The economic shift certainly has a lot to do with it! A great example to your point is the movie Shinkansen starring Brad Pitt, which is basically a call-back to all the classic Japanese troupes to get "mallrats to turn to the theater", but even those movies seem to have incorporated mored depth into the nuances of Japan.
3. You are correct to say that Hollywood isn't a dumbing-down machine of Japan, but I think audiences before might have been more susceptible to it, compared to now where true Japanese content has become so widely adopted that even western audiences are starting to see the old Japan troupes as silly and somewhat offensive.
And what a time to be alive! Just that the Japanese Godzilla and The Boy and the Heron got prime time screenings all over the West makes me so excited for the future of Japan focused content!
The screenwriter of Dragonball Evolution (Ben Ramsey) eventually apologized for taking the job for a pay check, although there is a whole bunch of other people to blame too.
Obviously Shogun etc. has raised the bar (co-creator Rachel Kondo is half-Japanese btw) but there is a bigger question here, of the fictional Japan that people in the West seem to get installed in their heads at some point, which doesn't correlate with actual Japan -- and at worst manifests in creators thinking "I love Japan! I'll stick a geisha in my story! And now I need cackling yakuza bad guy!".
Where does this fictional Japan come from, specifically? And how does it infiltrate people's brains so successfully? ...are questions that some PhD should probably answer.
Great post. Starting with The Last Samurai and ending with Shogun really illustrated how far things have progressed.
Hollywood is really late to the game. Fans of manga and anime are no strangers to the complex themes and storytelling found in Japanese creative works.
Also great to see someone like Sanada Hiroyuki get his due in a leading role. The guy can act. I watched Mortal Kombat before starting on Shogun. Dude was carrying the whole show on his shoulders (with help from Chin Han and Asamo Tadanobu)
Hi Rei! This is my first encounter with your writing. Great article! Here’s a couple of points that might be of interest:
I feel like the economic aspect in all this is vitally important - there’s a big difference between the Dragonball fiasco (too much money paid for the rights, not enough left for creatives/the actual movie), and the basically limitless money hose funding Shogun/Pachinko. The economic model of streamers gives a lot more scope for scope, as it were, rather than hoping to get mallrats to turn out to the theater on Friday night in San Bernadino. I don’t know the extent to which this is true for shows about other countries, but this economic shift doesn’t feel particularly Japan-centric.
Hollywood hasn’t always been a dumbing-down machine vis-a-vis Japan. When Akira Kurosawa couldn’t get a home movie made 20th Century Fox funded Kagemusha (due to the intercession of George Lucas).
That’s all I’ve got. Thanks again for the article!
I love you comment Daniel! Your ideas could easily be it's own article and I'd gladly read it.
I want to answer/discuss some of your points further:
1. It is true that DragonBall and Shogun/Pachinko were born out of completely different circumstances, but I don't think there's a universe in where Hollywood would have turned out a good Dragon Ball movie at that time. Just like almost every Japan centric movie then, directors and producers were obsessed with the caricarized idea of Japan, whether it be submissive geishas, comically beleaguered salarymen, and stoic warriors who would sooner perform a dramatic seppuku than exchange a simple greeting with their foe. These characters were often thrown in like Pokémon, having no rhyme or reasons to their seemingly illogical actions, other than 'wacky Japan', and I am certain that Shogun and Pachinko would have been crafted with the same treatment back then (80s Shogun is a good example of this. It's a good show but many parts are very fetishized and underexplained in comparison to the remake).
2. The economic shift certainly has a lot to do with it! A great example to your point is the movie Shinkansen starring Brad Pitt, which is basically a call-back to all the classic Japanese troupes to get "mallrats to turn to the theater", but even those movies seem to have incorporated mored depth into the nuances of Japan.
3. You are correct to say that Hollywood isn't a dumbing-down machine of Japan, but I think audiences before might have been more susceptible to it, compared to now where true Japanese content has become so widely adopted that even western audiences are starting to see the old Japan troupes as silly and somewhat offensive.
And what a time to be alive! Just that the Japanese Godzilla and The Boy and the Heron got prime time screenings all over the West makes me so excited for the future of Japan focused content!
The screenwriter of Dragonball Evolution (Ben Ramsey) eventually apologized for taking the job for a pay check, although there is a whole bunch of other people to blame too.
Obviously Shogun etc. has raised the bar (co-creator Rachel Kondo is half-Japanese btw) but there is a bigger question here, of the fictional Japan that people in the West seem to get installed in their heads at some point, which doesn't correlate with actual Japan -- and at worst manifests in creators thinking "I love Japan! I'll stick a geisha in my story! And now I need cackling yakuza bad guy!".
Where does this fictional Japan come from, specifically? And how does it infiltrate people's brains so successfully? ...are questions that some PhD should probably answer.
Great post. Starting with The Last Samurai and ending with Shogun really illustrated how far things have progressed.
Hollywood is really late to the game. Fans of manga and anime are no strangers to the complex themes and storytelling found in Japanese creative works.
Also great to see someone like Sanada Hiroyuki get his due in a leading role. The guy can act. I watched Mortal Kombat before starting on Shogun. Dude was carrying the whole show on his shoulders (with help from Chin Han and Asamo Tadanobu)
Incredible article!
You're incredible :P
Brb... off to watch Shogun!
You won't regret it :P
I am very much interested in Shogun, tokyo vice is in my radar too once i have the time to watch it.
tokyo vice an absolute banger of a series!
Love it myself! Just finished the final episode yesterday!