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canmom · 2 years ago

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Animation Night 153: Kara no Kyōkai, part 1

We are entering... a slightly tricky phase of Animation Night. It’s not that we’re out of great animated films, far from it. Hell, we’ve yet to screen such classics as The End of Evangelion or Adolescence of Utena. But that’s the puzzle: a lot of such films are awkward fits for the format, requiring a lot of context, or standing too short or too long to fill the format.

Nor are we short of beautiful, artistic films from Europe. AniObsessive recently did a column on The Swallows of Kabul, which might finally be an answer the question of ‘what the hell could go beside Funan’. But I think we’ve had a bit too much war and genocide on this blog lately, so we’ll save that for another day.

Instead, let’s keep it chuuni!

It’s been a long while since Animation Night had anything to do with the Nasuverse. Back on Animation Night 60, I wrote a fairly brief description of Fate, and we enjoyed the spectacular Heaven’s Feel movies with only mild confusion.

But this was far from the only time that studio Ufotable adapted the the works of the enigmatic king of chuunibyou, Kinoko Nasu.

Let’s set the scene to begin. I’ll try and go over what I’ve been able to find out about the history, bearing in mind that Nasu-san is insanely prolific and his meta-setting is a seemingly infinite rabbit hole of lore...

...but as far as the man* himself there’s only the barest information to go on about his earlier life. He went to Hosei University, and afterwards started creating novels with his high-school buddy Takashi Takeuchi. Their first project was 空の境界 Kara no Kyōkai, lit. The Boundary of Emptiness but titled in English The Garden of Sinners in 1998 - that’s our subject for tonight, so more on that in a minute!

(*Wikipedia offers a citation for ‘man’ to a 2004 blog post where he jokes about being called a girl in a newspaper, in which he remarks もともと女々しいのがワタクシの芸風ですものボンソワー。[My style’s always been feminine, bonsoir.]; no further comment on that.)

In 2000 the pair founded a dōjin circle called TYPE-MOON to publish the visual novel 月姫 Tsukihime (lit. Moon Princess), which was a mega-hit when it launched at Comiket, and from that went on to create another visual novel called Fate/Stay Night, which was an even bigger mega-hit. This led to a forest of spinoffs with increasingly baroque titles like ‘Fate/hollow ataraxia’ or ‘Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya’, the most successful being the gacha game Fate/Grand Order, which launched in 2015. That gacha game has in turn spawned many many adaptations of its various storylines, such as (deep breath) Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia or Fate/Grand Order: Final Singularity - Grand Temple of Time: Solomon. Really rivaling Kingdom Hearts there. Some of these films have been described as creative and ambitious, others very staid and playing it safe, but to be honest I am a foreigner in this land and I can’t tell you too much about them.

Anyway, as far as biographical details go, perhaps there’s more buried in an interview somewhere? But if so, I’ve yet to find it.

Our subject for tonight is a seven movie series produced by Ufotable from 2007-9, adapting Nasu’s first work. You might say, Bryn, that’s nuts, seven entire movies! To clarify, these movies are for the most really short, each just about an hour long with a couple of exceptions. So we should be able to pretty comfortably view the whole thing over two Animation Nights.

So what’s it about?

Set when it was written in the late 90s, it follows a teenage girl demon hunter called Shiki Ryougi, who has ‘Mystic Eyes of Death Perception’, which let her see indications of how things will die. She becomes a detective specialising in supernatural cases, alongside her eventual husband, Mikiya Kokutou. So romance and supernatural battles.

Many of these ideas, particularly the death perceiving eyes, would be reprised in Tsukihime. Within the meta-narrative, Kara no Kyōkai is an alternate universe, but not one completely disconnected from the rest, with its characters showing up for minor roles - and even playing a role in the end of Heaven’s Feel.

Except, that’s selling it short, because it’s also the first outing for the more esoteric concepts of the Nasu’s works: the Akashic Record, the Jungian anima and animus, and the paradoxes of the Taiji in Chinese philosophy to name a few. And to ground that, all sorts of dark shit: Wikipedia reels of suicide, rape, patricide, incest and murder, along with DID. It sounds like a lot!

Of course, it’s also about ridiculous psychic powers with long names, magic eyes, and so on. It’s easy to mock all these chuuni elements as hollow and pretentious, but imo the resulting blend is to strike out somewhere fascinatingly weird and achieve effects that a more reserved work couldn’t. We’ll see whether that comes together here!

In discussing the film series, Nasu described the original work - which he came to view as a rough early work - as ‘like a prose poem’, inherently very difficult to adapt. He turned down proposals to adapt it as a TV series and a movie, imagining it would be too hard for audiences to follow. But when a seven-movie series by Ufotable was proposed, he changed his mind:

It was such an off-the-wall idea that I got caught up in the enthusiasm; the offer was so awesome that turning it down seemed rude, so I agreed readily.

So, that’s one of the two characters in our story. What of the other?

Ufotable would later make ‘adapting Fate works’ into a steady line of work alongside popular shōnen like Demon Slayer. But at this time, they were a much more experimental studio. At sakugablog, kVin writes...

[Aniplex producer Atsuhiro] Iwakami had been ruminating about how to put together an adaptation for Kara no Kyoukai that actually lived up to the potential he saw in Kinoko Nasu’s world since 2004, and by the following year, the solution to his woes manifested in front of his eyes. Futakoi Alternative was an eccentric reboot of a milquetoast, twins-themed harem series. It reimagined everything about the original series into a simply indescribable mix of genres and crazy scenarios. The motto of ufotable’s founder Hikaru Kondo resonates throughout the whole series: if making as many things as possible is the way to ensure you’ll get some of them right, why not jump around from noir cinema, to sci-fi epics, then back to face some humanoid squids before some surprisingly earnest romance? For viewers like Iwakami, this irreverent spirit was a wake-up call about new ways to create animation. So, why not approach them when he was planning something grand that wasn’t quite like anything seen before in anime?

In fact, Iwakami’s original idea was merely a trilogy; it was Ufotable founder Hikaru Kondo who was like nah man let’s do seven. Within the studio were type-moon fans such as director Takuya Nonaka and character designer Tomonori Sudo, whose passion inspired Kondo to go big. Recklessly big. The initial plan was to release a new film monthly, but this soon proved predictably impossible. Even so, they managed to complete the series within two years, which is pretty astonishing in its own right.

As you can see from the clips in this post, the visual style of these movies anticipates - if perhaps in a cruder form - the studio’s later Fate adaptations: chiaroscuro lighting and gradients and filters on top of gradients and filters. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but as far as a house style goes, it’s worth acknowledging.

Internally, its direction was shaped by the flatter-than-usual hierarchy of Ufotable (whose name refers to a round table in the Arthurian sense). Each movie was assigned a different director without a structure unify the production as a whole beyond adherence to Nasu’s work.

I’ll pull in kVin to describe the resulting vibe of the project:

At its core, Kara no Kyoukai is a pretty cute love story that asks itself whether it’s possible to stray away from your fate; to put it plainly, Kokutou claims that he can fix her, even if the fixing involves getting over a pesky character flaw such as a predisposition towards murder. While not a groundbreaking scenario, its commitment to that relationship in spite of all the extraneous elements makes it work, and Shiki in particular is a slaughterer with very charming body language that evolves according to the major shifts to her character.

At the same time, these films are also highly atmospheric and committed to the sensorial experience in a way that no other Type-Moon anime is. While the expository worldbuilding and dense dialogue that Nasuverse works are known for are still very much present, the Kara no Kyoukai films are also willing to stay silent for minutes at a time. The mystery aspect to these films—Shiki and Kokutou work for Aozaki Touko’s detective agency after all—is honored with an appreciation for the mystique; even if you know that long-winded answers are likely to come, they tend to relish the opportunity to soak the viewer in the grim, mysterious atmosphere of its world. There is a quiet appreciation of the things that are yet to be known, and those that may not be spelled out.

At the time, he writes, the staff were intimidated by the idea of theatrical animation, which in the 90s called to mind Patlabor and Satoshi Kon - a tough act to follow, no question. But the dense image boards of art director Nobutaka Ike, who worked on those very same films, brought the confidence needed.

The films follow the same release order as the original novels, which is narratively non-chronological.

Nasu, for his part (link again), was anxious about his early works being adapted...

In Kara no Kyoukai, the first story, "Overlooking View" (俯瞰風景) is the clumsiest. I've always thought I wanted to do something about it, and I told a staff member, "If we're making this into a movie, I'm going to rewrite the first story; please let me do that." But he said, enthusiastically, "No, I want to work with it the way it is. I want to animate this!"

Then, when I read the finished script, they'd cut out over half of the unnecessary excess fat and had turned out something more interesting as a story, so I thought, "If it's like this, they don't need me to rewrite it."

In Nasu’s view, each film ought to stand alone, but the full picture can’t really be understood from just the first - but he claims that with all seven films, the viewer would have enough to understand the story without having to turn to the books. Which is lucky, because the only version of the books in English is a widely disparaged fan translation.

To support all this comes haunting music by composer Yuki Kajiura and her group Kalafina, who would later create the renowned soundtrack to Madoka. In fact these movies are the origin of Kalafina, with Kajiura putting together a new group with a couple of members of her previous project FictionJunction.

Anyway, please read the rest of kVin’s article (perhaps after the movies! x3) if you fancy a detailed retrospective on all seven films.

Tonight my plan is to screen the first four parts of The Garden of Sinners, namely...

I: Overlooking View - an introduction to the series. In 1998, Shiki lives alone in her apartment, occasionally visited by Mikiya, and working for an occult detective agency. She learns of a series of strange suicides at an abandoned building. Investigating, she finds the building is full of hostile ghosts. Someone is drawing the girls to the building by astral projection...

II: A Study in Murder - Part 1 - in 1995, Shiki and Mikiya are highschool students. A spree of brutal murders break out in the area. Mikiya discovers that Shiki (式) is plural, with a male alter called SHIKI (織) who is the inverse of her personality. But who’s doing the murders?

III: Remaining Sense of Pain - A teenage girl called Fujino is raped by a group of gangsters, and pursues revenge with her psychic powers. Shiki and Mikiya are pulled in to the case, and realise that Shiki once knew Fujino - a girl who could not feel pain. But that seems to have changed...

IV: Hollow Shrine - a direct sequel to the second film. Shiki ended up comatose, and now in the psychic void, confronts her alter. We learn about her backstory and how she got involved with the wizard detectives.

I think these summaries should convey the level of Content(TM) we’re dealing with here. Guards up!

Next time around, we’ll pick up with Paradox Spiral, Oblivion Recording, and then at last A Study in Murder - Part 2. Which will actually be longer, because PS and ASiM2 are two hours long. (There’s also an eighth movie, released in 2013, titled Future Gospel which is a new sequel written by Nasu for movie form.)

I think that will suffice for an introduction. Animation Night will be going live 7:30 UK time, about 40 minutes from this post, and at 8pm UK time we shall begin the movies! Join me at https://www.twitch.tv/canmom~

#animation night

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hottytoddynews · 8 years ago

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Piominko became friends with George Washington, protected the settlers of Nashville and sounded like Martin Luther King Jr

Sculptor Bill Beckwith’s Piominko statue graces the front lawn of Tupelo’s City Hall, across from a sculpture of Elvis Presley, the town’s other famous son.

The front yard of Tupelo’s City Hall proudly sports homages to the town’s two most revered heroes, men who could not be more different – rock ‘n’ roll king Elvis Presley and Chickasaw Chief Piominko.

The average visitor may wonder just how a short- statured Chickasaw man rose to the same level of celebrity as the King of Rock n’ Roll himself. After all, Piominko lived more than 200 years ago, a time when news coverage was sketchy at best, while Elvis’s every move was dissected daily by an adoring media.

Without Piominko however, this country and the Chickasaw Nation could be very different places today. He led the tribe through one of the most tumultuous periods in its history, as well as assisting a fledgling America when the country’s viability was still an open question. He helped protect the settlers who built Nashville, negotiated a treaty that established boundaries for the tribe’s lands, helped prevent Spanish influence in the new world from growing stronger and became a friend and battlefield ally of George Washington.

Unlike some chiefs, power was not placed in his lap because of birth or wealth. He rose through the ranks, a reminder that a man can become extraordinary by his actions alone. Historians describe Piominko as standing for morality and perseverance, and over the years this has gained him many fans.

George Washington was one of these fans, and he was a big one. He valued Piominko’s advice and friendship as much or more than any other American leader had previously valued a Native American. Washington had Piominko visit him and stay in his own home, an act unprecedented in American political leadership.

“[Piominko] appealed to people’s good and altruistic intentions. He was genuine in his dealing, loyal to his allies, and fierce to his enemies,” said Chickasaw archaeologist Brad Lieb, who is collaborating with historian Mitch Caver on a book about the chief.

As Lieb tells it, Piominko had the charisma needed to be popular but also mastered the skill of leading while listening. He could talk so well that people overlooked his less than commanding stature and atypical appearance. He was small and pale compared to most Chickasaws, but he made up for it with tenacity.

Piominko was born around 1750 in the Chickasaws’ main settlement of Old Town near modern-day Tupelo. Lieb said the chief’s mother was said to have been a refugee from another tribe but his father was Chickasaw. He first gained status through his battlefield exploits, earning more respect as he climbed upward through the ranks, even spending some time among the neighboring Cherokees.

Chickasaw from Oklahoma on a tour of the tribe’s homeland stop to examine a statue of Poiminko in downtown Tupelo.

In 1786, he negotiated the Treaty of Hopewell with the United States, winning the respect of the new nation’s negotiators. The treaty effectively recognized the Chickasaws as a nation, and established its boundaries. Piominko and the U.S. government agreed on 11 points, most of which reaffirmed Chickasaw control over their own land. At least theoretically, they could now punish American settlers if they trespassed. The 11th term listed was a promise of “peace and friendship perpetual.”

Piominko’s success in protecting Chickasaw sovereignty during the Hopewell negotiations brought him more attention as he continued to show skill on the battlefield. The Spanish were allying with rival tribes and Piominko knew his people would need help if it came to war.

He and what Lieb described as a “motley crew of Chickasaws, some wearing tailored suits and some shirtless, bearing their war tattoos” traveled to Philadelphia to visit President Washington in 1794. A young secretary named John Quincy Adams documented the visit. Both sides were nervous, but the Chickasaws called President George Washington “father” and they all smoked a pipe together to establish kinship.

Washington granted Piominko’s request for American help in pushing back the encroaching Spanish alliance with the Muskogee Creeks in the South.

In 1795, Piominko weathered an internal power struggle involving Spanish encroachment on Chickasaw land along the Mississippi River. Another Chickasaw minko (chief) named Wolf’s Friend was wary of the growing friendship between his tribe and the Americans. He saw the friendship of the U.S. as “the caress of the rattlesnake around the squirrel, before consuming him,” said Lieb. He gave the Spanish permission to set up a fort on the Chickasaw Bluffs at present-day Memphis on the Mississippi River.

When Piominko found out, he immediately led a band of warriors to the river, where they stood the Spanish down.

His leadership became critical when American Gen. James Robertson came over the Appalachians into Indian Country to found a settlement that would become the city of Nashville. These settlers were the first to successfully hop the Appalachians from the old colonial settlements in the East, and were unprepared for the constant attacks from disruptive tribes.

Piominko and the Chickasaws protected the settlers as they established their community along the Cumberland River. Eventually, Robertson became a federal representative to the natives. Lieb said Piominko’s “relationship as the savior of the founders and settlers of Nashville” was useful in later negotiations. Piominko reunited a fractured Chickasaw government and redefined the role of chief as a military leader and ambassador to the United States. Washington awarded him the Presidential Peace Medal for his constant assistance. The two great leaders died in the same year, 1799. Washington’s grave is protected and revered, but Piominko’s is unmarked, and not even in the tribe’s possession.

The Chickasaws believe Piominko’s grave lies in the yard of a Tupelo home, where a developer once unearthed tribal artifacts. The artifacts are now believed to be in the hands of a collector in Canada. The tribe would love to one day have these back, and also to properly mark his grave.

Tupelo’s Rotary Club erected the city’s Piominko statue, sculpted by noted Mississippi artist Bill Beckwith of Taylor, in 2005. It shows the chief in a Washington-style military coat with the oval Washington peace medal around his neck. An inscription at the base quotes Piominko as saying, “Could I once see the day that whites and reds were all friends it would be like getting new eye-sight.”

“Piominko dreamed of a time when ‘red and white children’ could live together, which is very reminiscent of what Martin Luther King said much later in the 1960s,” said Lieb. “He was certainly a forward thinker; he paved the way for other leaders in both geopolitics and civil and human rights.”

Piominko had a vision for a progressive and budding Chickasaw nation, and fought to make it real. He remained humble until his death. According to Lieb, Piominko recognized the important role of Western-style education, even asking the President to provide higher education for his daughter. As minko, he never took pay and never became a wealthy man. He did not believe in good luck, but rather thought that men benefited from being pure spiritually and in their intentions, he said.

Without Piominko, the Chickasaw might not have stayed afloat so long in the seemingly inexhaustible flood of white settlers. Just as important, America’s founding might well been much bloodier.

By Slade Rand. Photography by Ariel Cobbert.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Ariel Cobbert, Mrudvi Bakshi, Taylor Bennett, Lana Ferguson, SECOND ROW: Tori Olker, Josie Slaughter, Kate Harris, Zoe McDonald, Anna McCollum, THIRD ROW: Bill Rose, Chi Kalu, Slade Rand, Mitchell Dowden, Will Crockett. Not pictured: Tori Hosey PHOTO BY THOMAS GRANING

The Meek School faculty and students published “Unconquered and Unconquerable” online on August 19, 2016, to tell stories of the people and culture of the Chickasaw. The publication is the result of Bill Rose’s depth reporting class taught in the spring. Emily Bowen-Moore, Instructor of Media Design, designed the magazine.

“The reason we did this was because we discovered that many of them had no clue about the rich Indian history of Mississippi,” said Rose. “It was an eye-opening experience for the students. They found out a lot of stuff that Mississippians will be surprised about.”

Print copies are available October 2016.

For questions, email us at [email protected].

Follow HottyToddy.com on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat @hottytoddynews. Like its Facebook page: If You Love Oxford and Ole Miss…

The post Unconquered and Unconquerable: The Forward Thinker appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

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