昭和物語 ("Shōwa-era Story") - animated movie and TV series
Official site -
ANN movie listing -
ANN TV series listing
From the
ANN news article, slightly edited:
Quote:
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The production company THINK Corporation announced on Thursday that the Showa Monogatari (Showa-Era Story) film and television series will launch next year. The original story follows the human drama of the Yamazaki family in Tokyo in the year Showa 39 (1964) — the year that the city hosted the Summer Olympics. According to Think, the "TV manga" is "the world's first anime aimed at seniors," although it is also targeted at families. ... The film, which is about 100 minutes long, will open in Japan on January 29, 2011. The television series of 13 30-minute episodes will follow in April, although a television special will air at the end of 2010.
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Staff
Director:
Murakami Masahiro (movie) /
Kugimiya Hiroshi (TV series) / Tōkō Matsuhiro 東郷 光宏 (TV series)
Producer:
Takeuchi Hiroaki / 宋美善 (listed on the
staff page but I don't know the reading for the kanji)
Screenplay:
Hirano Yasushi /
Tomita Sukehiro /
Arakawa Naruhisa /
Maruo Miho
Character design / animation director:
Yanagino Tatsuo
Sound director:
Honda Yasunori
Animation production:
Wao World
Cast
Yamazaki Yūko (山崎 裕子):
Fukuen Misato
Yamazaki Kōhei (山崎 公平):
Chiba Shōya
Yamazaki Taiichi (山崎 太一):
Aoki Makoto
Yamazaki Yūzō (山崎 有三):
Matsumoto Yasunori
Yamazaki Kanoko (山崎 佳乃子):
Tamagawa Sakiko
Yamazaki Yoshi (山崎 ヨシ):
Kyōda Hisako
Tashiro Gorō (田代 吾郎):
Tsukada Masaaki
Takayanagi Ryō (高柳 良):
Takagi Wataru
Sawawatari Yūsuke ( 沢渡 裕介) :
Yoshino Hiroyuki
Although the TV series is due to air in April, the
broadcast schedule says four episodes will preview starting 2010-12-30 in the lead-up to the movie's release on 2011-01-29. It's not clear how the movie's storyline relates to the TV series, e.g. which one is set first.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. While historical family dramas are a staple of live-action TV in Japan, it's not often we see them animated. The cast and crew bring age and experience, and going by the target demographic it won't be out to push the usual otaku-centric buttons.
For those interested in such things, a few thoughts on the 1964 setting:
Spoiler for proof that brevity really is the soul of wit:
The Olympics were a huge event for post-war Japan, so for people old enough to remember them 1964 would be a significant year. Andrew Gordon's
A Modern History of Japan talks about them in the context of TV's growing influence on Japanese society at the time:
Quote:
Both ordinary programs and coverage of big events made it clear that Japan's post-war modern life was part of a global modern culture common to the advanced capitalist world. Several spectacles of the 1960s and 1970s were promoted as signs that Japan had reentered international society as a full member in good standing. Authorities used these occasions to boost social order and patriotism. ... [T]he first and most significant was the Eighteenth Summer Olympiad, held in Tokyo in 1964.
In some ways the event did not meet expectations. Controversy marked plans to finance the Olympics, and the numbers of foreign tourists fell far short of predictions. In another example of its impulse to manage society, the government used the event as an occasion for a variety of social reform campaigns. It called on citizens to improve public hygiene and sanitation and exhorted shopkeepers to curtail shady retail sales tactics. The Ministry of Education seized the moment to expand coverage of "patriotism" and increase the compulsory character of "moral education" or "civics" courses in schools.
But it was the mass media, television above all, that made the Olympics a high-impact cultural event. The games won unprecedented ratings: an 84 percent share for the opening ceremony and an 85 percent share for the women's volleyball finals. The Japanese team won the gold medal and became national heroes. ... [The Olympics] sparked a media-induced surge of national pride in peaceful collective achievements in economy, technology, sports and culture.
(pp263-264)
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Yet despite basking in this glow of national unity, it was only five years later that riot police were
battling student protesters on the University of Tokyo campus. Perhaps Japanese society in the mid-60s wasn't as uniformly contented as TV would have people believe? It'll be interesting to see if the anime is pure rose-tinted nostalgia or whether it goes beyond that.
Beside from the obvious parallel with Beijing 2008, Gordon's mention of the government's pre-Games social reforms caught my attention for another reason: 1964 was the year Tokyo introduced its "Healthy Development of Youth" Ordinance, which I have a notion has been in the news recently...
Enough rambling, I just hope someone subs this despite it being outside the usual fare.