#(not toshiya's but similar model)
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Source: @esptechhouse on Twitter
#toshiya#dir en grey#y: 2022#ESP Shop#b: Killer-Beelze#b: Killer KB-KUMOVI#b: black Beelze#(not toshiya's but similar model)#details yay#for reference#pic: sourced
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Bar Boo summary - 2024/05/27 Boo's 50th bday
Its Boo's 50th birthday with TTT!
They first talked about going to see COMPLEX at Tokyo Dome together recently. Koji complained Boo took up so much space with his size, that Koji himself was forced to stand sideways to avoid intruding on the next seat.
Kaoru said that it was difficult to see from his seat, due to the people infront, so he ended up pushing the other guys sideways in order to see better, and Duttch ended up stood out in the aisle. Kaoru said 'gomen ne' to Duttch 😌
They talked about Kikkawa's high cymbal kick during the COMPLEX show, and wondered if Koji can recreate it if they get a cymbal ready. They ask Kaoru if Shinya can bring his high cymbal in, and Kaoru said Shinya might actually be watching. Boo adds that Shinya sent him a bday message earlier, and wished him good luck for the broadcast.
Talk of the COMPLEX show takes up the first 30mins.
Boo brings out a board with a list of interesting topics to discuss. The first one is 'Birthday memories'. Boo starts this by explaning how he had a bday countdown party the previous night. He was so drunk he doesn't remember much of the party, but he does remember he was desperate fo the toilet when he got home around 2am. Because he was so drunk, he couldn't find the key to his front door, and ended up fully pissing his pants. Strangely after he got in, he managed to completely clean everything up, despite being so drunk. This also happened to him once in his 20s, and he ended up getting the police to help him get his door open then (with pissed pants).
Koji then tells a story about when he was in LA with Boo, doing modelling work with the company Crimie. They had to share a hotel room, and Koji woke up in the morning to see Boo asleep flat on his back, with his massive belly and impressive morning glory. Koni then tells a similar story about having to share a hotel room with Boo once, and nearly dying from Boo's farting.
Boo asks the others if none of them have ever pissed their pants as adults. Only Tsuyoshi says he has. Duttch says he nearly shit himself when he was in America once, but had to do an 'outside shit' in the bushes in front of someones house instead. Kaoru laughs at this 😆
The next topic on the board is 'Meeting people you admire'. Kaoru says that Dir en grey were once invited bsckstage of a Kyosuke Himuro (vocal of BOØWY) show by an aquaintence while they were in LA. 4 members other than Kyo went, but there were a ton of people hanging around the dressing room door when they got there, so the 4 of them just hung out off to the side. To their surprise, they were called in, and Kaoru was super nervous. Himuro asked Kaoru, 'Are you the vocalist??', and Kaoru had to apologize that the vocalist wasn't with them.
Duttch says that at the recent COMPLEX live, Aiji was kinda playing air guitar to the music, and this reminds Kaoru of what Toshiya had said the day before at the Pierrot talk. Toshiya had said that back in the day, whenever anyone called Aiji on the phone, Aiji would always be playing guitar while on the phone.
Teru from Glay turns up to join Boo on his bday, and the others pretty much go quiet after this. Boo explains to Teru how he met all the TTT members. He first met Kaoru while he was working for MTV. MTV sent him to cover/report on a Dir live, and Boo says that Kaoru and Toshiya recognized him from MTV and made fun of his MTV persona. Kaoru says 'no, thats not how it went', but refused to give his own version of the events when asked by Koji.
Boo ends up crying from emotion a couple of times having all his friends praise him, despite being royally fat shamed for most of it too.
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In the deg pic you reblogged, toshiya is wearing a hat that is really close to a n*zi uniform hat and clearly modeled after one
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I know Deg isn't exactly innocent of having controversial clothing choices (e.g. Die with a swastika, which was mind you originally a religious symbol that unfortunately got repurposed by the Nazis) as well as using controversial imagery in their music videos and lives, but surely Anon you understand that's merely part of their stage performance, and something they have already distanced themselves from if you look at them now. It doesn't mean they agree with the Nazi ideology...to put it simply, it was worn for 'shock value'. Also, why me? Of the 50+ notes (as of now) that the original post has, why me? I have to be shamed for liking Deg now?
They have already blossomed into what is a mature band with their own unique sound, that inspires the fans and younger bandmen alike. Their current image and sound is something that they carefully 'refined' over the years. Ok, maybe they have made mistakes in the past, but don't you think it's quite unfair to judge them based on something that happened long ago? (I see an awful similarity to cancel culture here)
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Now if you're going to nitpick at things like these in a message that was clearly sent to cause provocation, and considering the current timing of messages I've been getting lately, then you seriously need to find something better to do.
You could argue I should find something better to do, but I'm honestly not OK with taking such maliciousness lying down.
#asks#dir en grey#kyo#kaoru#die#toshiya#shinya#has anyone else been getting similar asks?#@Dir fandom I'm sorry for clogging the tag with this but I seriously think what I've been dealing with lately is ridiculous#can't we all enjoy our bands in peace?#I don't follow everything nor know everything about Dir - but I love them with my soul#I've never met them in person - but they're my heroes - they've inspired me and continue to inspire me#they pulled me out of the darkness when I needed them most
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TRICKSTER AGE vol. 32, 2016/10/15 Toshiya’s Creativity VOL.01 -The Five Senses-
Translated by DIR EN GREY - Italia
Please DO NOT repost or use any parts of the translation without permission.
Toshiya, bassist of DIR EN GREY, the rock band that achieves an overwhelming support all around the world and, of course, in Japan. He currently conducts the production of the apparel brand he launched by himself, “DIRT 100% Natural Dirty / DIRT 100% Dissolutive Dirty” and he started a series in this magazine. This time, as a kickoff memento, we must look for his interests and preferences, as he’s doing well in both music and apparel, so we did an interview having the five senses as theme; sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
SIGHT
What are the things Toshiya has been seeing until now? The things that left an impression on him were many during his boyhood, as he’s curious about many different hobbies. That influence still goes on now…
“Sight”
Movies, Gundam, manga: childhood memories.
I haven’t watched any movie recently, but if I have to tell a movie that left an impression on me, that’s “E.T.”. It’s the very first movie I watched in a theatre since I was born. That time, since we were expecting my brother or sister to be born, I went to the theatre with my father, just the two of us, for the first time to watch that movie. Even if I was a child, I remember being greatly impressed by it. I said “Won’t he [E.T.] come to our house?” (laughs). I wanted to become his friend, I wanted to play the famous scene when they put their index fingers together.
I’ve been telling this since before, but I started liking Gundam when I was at the elementary school. The one that had an impact on me was “Mobile Suit Z Gundam”. The contents were clear, in the end the protagonist turns into a vegetative state and while watching those inappropriate things for a children I was like “what the hell is that?” (laughs). It was very different from the things about robots and heroes I’ve been knowing since that moment. I didn’t even understand the plot properly at that time, but to some extent, ever since I can remember, when I watched it I thought that it was a surprisingly deep story. I think it’s a story not suitable for children in which the good are rewarded and the bad are punished, in which there are opinions on both sides and each side fights for the things they must protect. I guess I liked it also because of that. Even if I started watching it in real time starting from “Z”, my favourite mobile suit was Qubeley. The robots I knew had an angular shape but, since Qubeley had a round shape, that streamlined feature was innovative.
I also went buying the gunpla with the pocked money I received. The first one I bought was a Char’s Zaku and, just in half of his body, you could expose the mechanics it had inside. Then there were supposed to be some kind of miniature bulb you had to insert where its eyes were so they could shine properly. That’s why I felt like it was more a thing to display instead of a thing to play with. But it was too difficult and I couldn’t build it well, so I remember asking my father to build it for me. Last year I went to the “Gunpla Expo Worldtour Japan” and there was a modeler named NAOKI who I became acquainted with, but that person is amazing. Recently, when I made a temporary store for my fashion brand, I was given a Qubeley gunpla as a present and I was so happy about that.
The mangaka I like is Morohoshi Daijiro. When I was in elementary school or so I went to play at one of my relatives’ place and at that time he had the Weekly Shonen Jump volume in which “Ankoku Shinwa” was serialized. I started to like the atmosphere of the pictures and the contents a lot since I read it. As for the plot, its basis were ethnology and archaeology and it also had quite a SF atmosphere… Besides, having the mystery factor, it was a worthwhile reading. Also, the unique design was good too. In addition to this, I also liked sports manga, a little bit of everything, I read pretty much everything.
HEARING
“Hearing”: something you can’t miss being an artist. According to Toshiya, it’s a valuable sensation that shakes many different emotions and also makes childhood memories come back alive.
“Hearing”
A sound in which one feels comfort, and then music.
I guess a sound in which I feel comfort is the sound of public baths. I hear it when I use the baths, the voices and the sound of daily existence echoing make me feel good. But this good feeling I get by using the baths may be just a bit deceiving. Talking about public baths, lately [the number of] stylish health centers has increased, isn’t it? Somehow health centers have a mechanical image. Like, they are way too beautiful… Getting into the bath and then eat one thing after another, it seems like a task that just leads to mere sleep. I feel like that’s completely different from public baths, they have an heart-warming aspect, I feel like they’re somehow close to onsen. Well, it doesn’t necessarily means that I hate health centers because I said so. When I go to other regions because of the lives, I go [to health centers] with the staff. There I get my body scrubbed. But, to my surprise, it happened I got it done by young girls and therefore I was a bit in panic (bitter smile).
The sound I hate is the noise of road construction in the middle of the night. When to that sound when I’m just about to fall asleep while lying down willing to sleep, I end up waking up bothered by it. Because of that my drowsiness disappears and I can’t sleep at all even if I’m willing to. I really want it to stop once for all.
I’m totally fine with high frequency sounds that are often labeled as detestable like the one you get when you scratch on a blackboard. Everyone around me was just like “Argh!” and seemed they hated it, but I was fine.
I was born in a rural area in Nagano and, since the mountains were close to where I was, I prefer the sound of nature instead of the peacefulness of the town. Even the sound of the frogs in the summertime could calm me down (laughs). As there were rice fields all around, you could hear them croaking the whole time. That reminds me that in the past I have a feeling there were some kind of Notostraca in the fields, but lately I can’t really see them. Even if it’s something that I recalled by chance. It’s not like I look in the fields all the time (laughs). I look at them when I stare out of the shinkansen windows while travelling to another region or when I go back home to my family. Then, I can’t see fireflies anymore. When I was a child, they often used to come to rest on the window screen and shine. I strayed a bit from the topic, but when I think about sounds, memories of a long time ago come back to my mind like this. I guess it’s because the things I felt from my childhood still remain just like this.
Talking about music, I can listen to everything. Or, in a better way, I listen to a wide range [of genres]. I listen to pop music and enka as well. When I was a child, my mother liked Sawada Kenji and Anzen Chitai and their music was often playing in the house. Then there was Yamaguchi Momoe, I think. I remember listening to her along with the others. That’s why, instead of pop being a recent thing, it’s more a thing of long ago… I tend to feel like listening to nostalgic things. Talking about really old song, I think I can know their melody too.
SMELL
“Smell” and “scent”. The one that impacts Toshiya the most is the former one. He says he hasn’t a very sensitive sense of smell. He doesn’t even have a good nose.
“Smell”
Food and places… smells that linger together with memories.
[The smell] I like… well, I think that probably you’ll understand me if you’re Japanese, but isn’t it the smell of the curry you have on Saturdays? (laughs) Like, when I came home from school and walked down the street, I could sense that peculiar smell of people preparing dinner coming from every house around. I really liked it.
Then, I also like the smell of rain a lot. I can’t compare it well with anything, but I like that wet smell that I can’t even express. Or rather the peculiar smell of soil and asphalt. I feel like my heart calms down. Besides I think that the smell of historical buildings feel somehow familiar to me. When we travel to different regions while on tour, I occasionally go to visit castles and so on, but I can sense a familiar smell when I go to my grandma’s place in the countryside. It rather feels quite humid. When I recall that scent, which was a smell to me during my childhood, all the time anywhere I am I’d connect it to my memories. Then, even the scent of museums and libraries is soothing, even though it’s not like I always go there. I like the characteristic scent and the silence. Lately I also enjoy entering cafés etc. and relaxing in there. I have a luxurious time [in there].
Among the smells I hate, the very first one to come to my mind is the one of stinky tofu. It’s eaten all over Asia and it’s made by fermented tofu and it’s a food similar to Japanese natto or kusaya, popular among foreigners. Again, its smell is just way too strong. I think we were probably touring somewhere around Shanghai or Taiwan and, as I wandered around the streets with all the members, there was a smell far from being the one of udon. It was so bad to that point of saying “I guess people’s dying somewhere because of this?!” (laughs) Actually I don’t know if that smell killed people. But its smell is so strong to the extent you pinch your nose. Since I was feeling uneasy about it, I asked the local people “What smell is it?” and they answered me “It’s the smell of food”. I thought “It can’t be true!” but people say that, even if it smelled so bad, once you eat it, you get into it. It’s horrible if you just take a smell of it, but I heard it’s delicious if you can manage to put it in your mouth. Even if I was told those things, it was absolutely impossible for me. I can’t eat it. Or perhaps I should say I can’t take it to my mouth (laughs).
I wasn’t really joking when I told that I pinch my nose. Either speaking of it, I think I’m an insensitive person. Sometimes there’s people who perceive something like “It doesn’t feel good” and who have a fine ability for sensing things. But I feel like women are definitely more sensitive about that.
TASTE
Toshiya, the one who isn’t picky about food, so far. As he said “I’m not that sensitive to taste, but I end up overreacting to hot and spicy food”.
“Taste”
He’s not really picky, but in fact he has a sweet tooth.
When we travel to different regions while touring, I look forward to eating those regions specialties. Even if I say so, I’m not even the type who’s a picky eater. It may sound unexpected, but I like sweet things. I like both japanese-style sweets and western-style sweets. I buy pretty much sweets of the konbini. After having breakfast, I drop in at the konbini and while thinking “Mhh…” I’m already reaching out for them (laughs). It’s hard to say what’s my favourite sweet thing. It fairly depends on the mood I’m in that very day. Mh, maybe it’s the moon cake (laughs). When I see it, I often feel like grabbing it. Some drinks to accompany it are hot green tea, soy milk or cow milk. The chemistry between those three and the moon cake is the best. I also like alcohol, so I drink it too while eating sweet things. Even moon cake and sake are absolutely perfect!
I don’t think there are things I can’t eat, but I don’t like spicy foods. Red things like chili are definitely out of discussion, and I don’t really like pepper as well. But for some reason, I’m fine only with wasabi. Since I’ve never eaten anything that stimulated me since I was young, I guess I haven’t that much immunity against hot food. Even the curry at my parents’ home wasn’t hot. In the past, when I used to go to play to at my friends’ home, I usually had curry. I remember being astounded after eating by its excessive hotness. Like “Is curry this hot?!”.
Then, I thing I still can eat but I don’t really like is coriander. I guess I prefer not to eat it. The ones who like it seems to appreciate it very much, but I can’t believe it. Lately on TV I saw many shops specializing in coriander, many all-you-can-eat coriander restaurants and so on and I thought that isn’t a thing I would eat like that. I heard there are many women who likes coriander, although I think that sweet things are suitable for women, but I can’t understand coriander.
There’s one more thing I hate. When we were on tour overseas, I really hate the pizza we used to have on the bus. It was more a matter of quantity than a metter of taste. It didn’t feel like japanese delivery pizza, a single slice was already too huge. We ate it all together, but it was… (bitter smile). I can’t like it. The pizza we ate in Italy was delicious, so it’s not like I hate pizza. That catering pizza we had overseas was awful.
Speaking of food, I used to cook often before. But lately I don’t do it that much. I used to make hamburger and cabbage rolls. When I cook, I may pay particular attention to it. Before I tried to cook thinking that if I cooked using incredibly expensive ingredients, it would have been super delicious, but it wasn’t really like that (bitter smile). I guess I didn’t like it because I wasn’t raised in a bourgeois family.
TOUCH
It feels that “touching” leads to many different sensations and behaviuor. It’s also something that’s connected to one’s interests and likings and that becomes an important factor to determine one’s appearance. How’s Toshiya’s touch being surrounded?
“Touch”
Painting, developing, building up.
It’s not really a hobby, but from long ago, around the time I went to Art school, I liked drawing. When I was a child, since in my neighbourhood there were more girls than boys, I often played with girls. But I started hating being rallied for playing house and from that time on I started drawing at home by myself. Since crayons stained, I draw a lot using pencils. Speaking of what I used to draw… I feel that I used to draw a lot of robots, as expected. I also draw the character of a picture book I liked called “Memementama” all the time. Like, it was this kind of cute ghost with just one red eye and a black body, a bit round. This mementama liked red things, so it would eat all red things. The story is a bit grotesque because the point of it is that when it finds out its own eye is red, it ends up eating it.
Then lately I’m interested in Rolex. In the past I used to think that Rolex were somehow too royal, but since I had the chance to hold in my hand one that was made in the same year I was born, I changed my mind and thought that good things are fine. From that time, whenever I tried to look for many different things about them, it was more interesting than expected. The Rolex company itself became a sort of secret society and the whole thing didn’t become evident. Maybe that’s because the brand image is firmly encircled. Because of that, nearly every information coming from Rolex comes like something that an employee leaked. Now I know things like that model was made around that time, but that’s a leaked information as well. Even that model and the newest one will change and I’ll seem like not knowing it anymore, but surely in a few years won’t anybody leak anything once again? That kind of hidden side is also intriguing.
Speaking of touch, I’m also interested in how a body is made. Meaning that I like to touch my body by myself. I’m turning training into an habit. When I say training, no matter how effort I put in doing it, but when I lost my concentration even for a bit, it loses all its meaning. That’s why I have to keep doing it every day. When I first started doing it it was fun, but the fatigue piles up little by little and doing it every day is tiresome. There are also times in which I’m too tired to do it. However, when neglecting it like that, my muscles disappear immediately. When I do it, I gain them on the part I trained, but when I don’t, they will degenerate two times faster… I think that kind of simple cycle became interesting. From that I learned again that I have to keep on doing anything.
“In conclusion”
About his current interests, roots and serialization.
This time, as a commemoration of the very first column of the series, we had to investigate Toshiya’s interests and likings by interviewing him about the five senses and, lastly, we tried to ask him about the things he’s interested in right now.
“Let me think… maybe it’s the long drama called “Maguromaru” (laughs). It’s the most interesting among these days’ dramas. Until now it was “Aibou”.”
In the entry of Smell the word “castle” popped up too, and it seems like he likes historical things very much.
“When I was a child, during Tango no Sekku [the festival that later became Kodomo no Hi, children’s day] I used to wear a paper helmet and an armour and, instead of having my name written on them, they had like “1Xth generation”. After having asked to my grandmother many things about that, somehow it felt like my family was a line of warriors. In my hometown Nagano once ruled the Takeda family, but there were the twenty-four generals of Takeda Shinken and it feels like my family was a descendant of one of them. That’s why, considering that, I may somehow feel fascinated.”
Toshiya is active in many fields like being a musician and making apparels but, does he assimilate various data from daily things in order to create anything?
“As far as the things I’m interested in are concerned, I think I’ll try to look into it them some extent, but I’m a lazy person (bitter smile). Because of that I guess it’s a fifty-fifty. I think it’s okay not to know in particular those things that I may be interested in, but I’m also fine not knowing. So, I’m the type who don’t really think he will create something from himself. But I cherish the connection with this.
It seems that the attitude of reaching out as much as possible for things he’s interested in didn’t change since he was a child.
“In fact I’m spoiled. I’m the type who gets anything he wants, but as I grew old I realised that there are also things I can’t get. So I learned that maybe I have to reach a good compromise with myself (laughs). But if there’s any chance, I tend to reach out for it. That’s because otherwise I won’t be able to grasp it.”
In this time serialization, we’re planning on having his creative part as a feature. As the one in charge of editing says, it seems that there are already a many different projects, but perhaps even showing his other aspect, the one that’s different from the usual one of him playing the bass on stage, would be great.
“I wonder how will it be. As far as personal things are concerned, I guess I’ll refrain a bit from telling them because I want to keep them for myself. That’s why I’m a bit afraid of telling the truth (laughs).”
This series, which will dig into Toshiya from various points of view, will start for real in the next issue. Don’t miss it!
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Taishō Trilogy of Seijun Suzuki
As a salaried director at Nikkatsu, Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki has been making crime movies for decades. He has directed around 40 movies from 1956 to 1967, of which Tokyo Drifter and Born to Kill are considered the most acclaimed. In a later attempt to reignite his career after splitting paths with Nikkatsu and veer off to the new ways of expression and stylistics, Suzuki started working on surrealistic feature film Zigeunerweisen becoming the first part of unformal Taisho Trilogy: Zigeunerweisen, Kagero-za, Yumeji. The three films are not linked with any similarities in the plot but set in the same period of emperor Taisho ruling the nation. It was the time of 1920-1930s. All films resemble hectic dreams and bear unmistakable visual similarities. The films have been meant to create the new stylistics for Suzuki developing his old strife to produce the shots of supreme beauty to strike not less than Godard’s shots used to do. Taisho Trilogy is an example of films lacking the coherence, yet remaining unforgettable with their quixotic and wild visuality.
Zigeunerweisen (ツィゴイネルワイゼン) - 1981
From my point of view, the best way to get a glimpse in the Taisho Trilogy is to watch the last part of it Yumeji. The last film encapsulates all the achievements of the trilogy. Comparing with Yumeji, Zigeunerweisen is almost impossible to comprehend. The film employs riddles in abundance, and the hints given can unlikely help to solve quite a few of them. In a surrealistic way, Suzuki’s tale shows the relations between two former co-workers Nakasago (portrayed by Yoshio Harada) and Aochi (Toshiya Fujita) who developed affairs with the wives of each other (at some point, Nakasago even suggests to exchange the wives). The story is ambiguous and not very coherent as Suzuki doesn’t bother himself to show the things in any sort of logical way or order.
In fact, the film is set in several dimensions, and it never becomes clear whether Nakasago has died or not, and whether Koine and Sono (both played by gorgeous Naoko Otani) are the same women or two different. We don’t really get a clear idea of why Nakasago killed a woman and if he actually killed her or not. The behaviour of a spooky girl also remains mysterious and unclear. Is she sort of ghost or she has bridged some spiritual connection with the world of death? We never learn it for sure. Moreover, we don’t even know where is the reality or dream or fantasy. Suzuki does his best to confuse the viewers with his surrealistic images and bizarre storytelling.
What we know for sure, is that Zigeunerweisen is the title of a vinyl record that Nakasago and Aochi used to listen. It has some gypsy tunes on it. Somehow, the record is used as the spiritual connection between Nakasago who dies and the outer world. Also, there are some references making to think Suzuki paints some ties with the political situation in Japan in the 1930s. The blind kids might symbolize of Japanese right forces getting insane prior to invading Manchuria (though, it is too obvious for Suzuki to be entirely sure that was an original intention). There is also a connection between the fact that Aochi is a German language professor, the relations of Japan and Germany and the title of record taken from German - Zigeunerweisen. And once again, this is just a guess as it never becomes clear what the author implied.
Suzuki uses Aochi as a sort of symbol of his audience: a confused man is trying to follow the story and understands very little from his friend’s behaviour. The ending is bizarre just like the whole movie, and we are left with no answers, as well as Aochi. However, giving the answers is not something the film has been made for. This is entirely visual work, and it is drastically important to pay attention to the shot, mise-en-scène, camera work and usage of light. Zigeunerweisen is a visually appealing film, and many shots are just like gorgeous paintings we enjoy. The matter of greatest importance for Suzuki was to fully realize and utilize his potential in elaborating the exquisite ways of artistic impressions. Making Zigeunerweisen, he made up his mind for creating a fresh visual language. He comes up with the material which is confusing, but it goes without a doubt Zigeunerweisen can be hardly compared to anything else. Watching Zigeunerweisen, at some point you realize there is probably no way to twig what is real and what is just irony, mockery, dream or fantasy. Nevertheless, the visual style is so solid and brilliant that it starts seeming the only way to accompany the frantic twists of the plot which remain spooky and incognizable just like the vinyl record or tunnel we see several times in Zigeunerweisen.
Kagero-Za (陽炎座) - 1981
The second film of Taisho Trilogy clarifies several points I remained dubious about after watching Zigeunerweisen and Yumeji. This trilogy is an example of substantially visual cinema where the logic and storyline are abandoned, in order to prioritize the importance of the mood and shocking stylistic beauty of the shots. Seijun Suzuki used to say “I make movies which make no sense and no money”, and this is true. Watching Zigeunerweisen, I was struggling to understand where do the twists of plot and expression lead and what is the idea behind it. Kagero-za or Heat-Hazed Theatre makes it transparent there was apparently something Suzuki implied, but it would remain incognizable as there are numerous ways to interpret the tale.
Kagero-Za is another psychological surrealistic tale in this trilogy. The plot is a formality as it never gets too clear. We follow the story of playwright Matsuzaki (portrayed by Yusaku Matsuda) who encounters his different mistresses, one of whom appears to be the wife of rich businessman Tamawaki (Katsuo Nakamura) who wants protagonist dead. Heroes pass away and appear again. In Zigeunerweisen I was still wondering what that supposed to mean, but with Kagero-Za I realized these are the actual fantasy ghosts who might bear symbolic meaning. The protagonists talk in one location, and in the next shot show up somewhere else. They jump from topic to topic, the dialogues are bizarre making both conversations and plot incoherent - though, this is something Suzuki has been trying to achieve.
Kagero-Za resembles a deranged dream or plot of a kabuki play. At some point, we actually see the events might be nothing but the new play of Matsuzaki who is seeking for the new story. We see awkward scenes on the theatre stage, and playwright observes them too. Perhaps, the whole story is like that - just a fantasy of Matsuzaki told in a surrealistic way.
What is Suzuki brilliant in is coming up with the fresh ideas of his shots. Dozens of shots require studying and might be considered art objects. The usage of vivid traditional paintings Suzuki employs is striking and spectacular, making the film’s visuality pretty impressive. Camera work and montage also follow the lead of Suzuki’s bizarre visual code. Again and again, Suzuki creates mise-en-scene of stunning beauty. The scenes and shots are often not linked to each other with any sort of explanation, but they are perfect with no respect to the story. Kagero-Za is not a film of non-linear plot and not a non-plot film either. It is an attempt to reject any sort of dictate created by traditional view on the films and necessity of coherent plot and background. Highly experimental and visually appealing work of Suzuki is meant to make neither sense nor money. But the aesthetics of Suzuki should be acclaimed as something rare and remarkable. This aesthetic will lead him to the third and last film of the trilogy Yumeji which I regard as the best part of Suzuki’s surrealistic Taisho films.
Yumeji (夢二) - 1991
The last film of Taisho trilogy in a very surrealistic tone tells a story of Japanese painter and poet Takahisa Yumeji (1884-1934) encountering several mistresses and his rival artist Gyoshu Inomura who is arguably more talented than Yumeji (portrayed by Kenji Savada). Throughout the account on the screen, we get a glance on the psychological and art struggles of the painter who is seeking the perfection and inspiration for his paintings.
The tantalizing tale is enhanced with numerous surrealistic forms, characters, images and entire scenes. It is also impossible to follow the stream of the tale before we get an idea we bump into the artistic fantasies of Yumeji, and the line between the death-life and reality-fiction is painted by Yumeji himself. The bizarre work of camera moving from the left to the right, and back again and showing the scenes with unusual composition and angles illustrate this far-fetched definition of different dimensions which unite and mix up in Yumeji’s mind. The story contains both surrealistic scenes and detective-like motif, though It is not entirely clear whether Wakiya (played by Yoshio Harada) has been actually murdered or not, and it is unclear if the whole story ever took place in the reality. The endless riddles bridge the gap between Suzuki and Buñuel with Robbe-Grillet.
What is certain is that the film tells about Yumeji’s perception of the art and women which are pretty much related in his life. There is no mood for art without passion Yumeji chases women with. He encounters the most beautiful ladies and seduces them, but he doesn’t love them in a human way. His fetish is about their postures, outfits, behavoiur is utilized for the ideas of paintings, and the women’s beauty for him is nothing but inspiration for art and poetry. He feeds himself on their boundless sexuality and allure like a vampire, and he is so addicted to their beauty that women, in fact, define his art. We see Yumeji is in the relationships with a woman who loves him, but the artistical mindset makes him seduce the other women as potential models or nudies.
Seijun Suzuki shows the gorgeous women and their perfect bodies in abundance to immerse himself and viewers in Yumeji’s fetish (and probably the director’s fetishism as well). The scenes with Tomoyo (played by Tomoko Mariya) and Hikono (Masumi Miyazaki) are charged with the enthralling sexuality the female protagonists radiate. They are frequently shot as the paintings, and this images strike with the boundless beauty Yumeji and the viewers fully immerse into. This is a very sexy and surreal fantasy which resembles Alain Robbe-Grillet’s L'Eden et après in an artistic way and Trans-Europ Express by the manner of storytelling. The usage of aggressive montage and dense colours reminds of the style of La Chinoise by Jean-Luc Godard.
To sum up, Yumeji is a set of fetish fantasies made like a collection of his paintings he could have possibly completed. Every shot is like a painting where mise-en-scene stuns with beauty and bizarre mesmerizing power. The story is hard to follow and riddles might be very confusing, but it can be interpreted in many ways. Yumeji is important and striking as an art object and surrealistic experiment, yet there is probably no way to delve too deep into the film: it is much better to enjoy the sophisticated shots and the beauty of Yumeji’s mistresses portrayed by Tomoko Mariya, Masumi Miyazaki, and Reona Hirota. The last but not the least thing is the usage of music. This is the film Shigeru Umebayashi has written his brilliant and sublime music theme Yumeji for. Later the same theme would find international acclaim after being remarkably used in the film of Wong Kar-wai In the Mood for Love.
#yumeji#seijun suzuki#鈴木 清順#takehisa yumeji#tomoko mariya#masumi miyazaki#Kenji Savada#kagero-za#zigeunerweisen#taisho trilogy
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Release of Gundam Customs based on Toshiya’s collaborations
The black Hyaku-Shiki litterally based on Toshiya’s custom in collaboration with modeler Naoki is getting released this January 2019! It is still up for pre-order but already in the 2nd round, coming out in March 2019.
Hyaku-Shiki Crash (https://p-bandai.jp/item/item-1000130102/)
Furthermore, a Qubeley very similar to the colour scheme of Toshiya’s custom in 2015, which was holding a miniature of his bass, is getting released and is already in the 4th round of preorders (March 2019)!
Qubeley Damned (https://p-bandai.jp/item/item-1000130098/)
Especially if you know nothing about customizing Gundams, this is your chance to own approximately the same models as Toshiya’s, which are then going to be very easy to personalise even further so that they are exactly like them. And if you do, well this is still a good news because black, grey and sleek Gundams are rare!
#and building a gundam is way easier than you might expect#gundam#gunpla#plamo#plamodel#custom gundam#Dir en grey#Toshiya
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