Rough Edition (working)

Ok, some things in my life are getting out of hand. I'll post up the Finished, Clean, Full Color Manga when I get a chance to sort through it. Sorry that It's gonna be so late.

Rough Edition

Ok, some things in my life are getting out of hand. I'll post up the Finished, Clean, Full Color Manga when I get a chance to sort through it. Sorry that It's gonna be so late.

Yojimbo, or Something about a Thirty-Something Mulberry Field

A nameless, wandering vagabond enters a city besieged by rival gangs. No, this isn’t an Eastwood Western flick. But it was the first of its kind. Kurosawa Akira directed the smash hit Yojimbo (Literally Bodyguard) puts Mifune Toushirou as a wandering rounin without name. This jidaigeki, or period drama, is the first movie in a series of two films starring Mifune as the nameless samurai. Yojimbo takes place in 1860 Japan, a time at which the Tokugawa Shogunate is challenged by the Satsuma-Choshu alliance, eventually bringing about an end to the Shoganate. This period of dramatic change spells the end for the samurai, yet their presence is still felt. During the movie, the crime lords manage to outwit the authorities, and keep their dirty little town under their dirty thumbs.

The Movie begins with thematic music, with high paced drums. The story begins with a brief overview of the time this story is set as the nameless rounin makes his way towards the town. The story is set that the rounin has nothing but his wit and his blade, and is quickly followed by the introduction of the main problem. The town’s young men are being drawn into the simpler life of a thug in the employ of either crime lord. The rounin is quickly placed at the center of attention, as people from either side peer out of their windows to watch him walk down the street. After a brief conflict with Ushitora’s thugs, he meets one of the only neutral characters in this decrepit town, the owner of a rest stop. Here he learns of the conflict. The first Crime lord, Seibei, wanted his son to succeed him and take all the power that his house had. However, his right hand man, Ushitora wanted to succeed the old man himself, and so the one crime group split. Eventually the entire town fell to one side of the faction or the other.

It is when he is first hired by Seibei that he gives an name, Kuwabatake (Mulberry Field) Sanjuro (Thirty years old). It is directly implied by his gazing at a mulberry field and his joke about being Sanjuro but soon to be Shijuro (Forty Years Old) that this is not his real name, and then later affirmed by his own words "Kuwabatake Sanjuro should be good enough. I'm a nobody anyway." Sanjuro then proceeds to lead Seibei's men into battle, only to quit as soon as he hits the street, seeing as he overheard that they were going to kill him after he won the battle for them. He quickly returns the money he was paid, and then climbs up to the lookout tower, to watch the battle unfold. The battle is postponed, due to an official's arrival at the town.

After the Official leaves, because one of Ushitora's men killed an officer in another town. Sanjuro finds the people who killed the officer, captures them and delivers them to Seibei, getting rehired there. He then goes to Ushitora, and tells him that Seibei's men captured his man. After a bit of antics, he frees a woman and her family, allowing them to leave the town in peace leading to counter strikes from both houses. However he is soon found out by Ushitora's younger brother Unosuke. He is brutally beaten, and only by his sharp wits is he able to free himself. However, as he retreats to recuperate, Ushitora and his younger brothers destroy Seibei's hideout looking for him. Sanjuro takes a short time to recover, and must return to end Ushitora's group to save the town once and for all. After a brief, spectacular battle, Sanjuro leaves the village, followed by the signature music which played at the start.

This film works itself into one of the first "Man without a Name" movies, and places Sanjuro as the lone hero. With only his wit, his will, and his blade at his side, he cuts through the tyranny and oppression of the two crime lords. This can be seen as a way to inspire the people in Japan to make a stand against crime. In Japan there is a well known criminal organization that is easily recognized, but nothing is actually done about it, called the Yakuza. Perhaps what they are trying to say is "if one man could save one town." If that is the message of the film, then perhaps evil things can be stricken from the country. Or in a broader sense, perhaps even a single man can make a difference in everything. If the audience is taking this message from the film, then the people watching could go out and work harder, try to do more, do better, and work harder. I just think that it's one of those all inspiring movies. I believe that Sanjuro is written to be an incredibly heroic character. He accepts no reward at all for his actions. In Yojimbo, Sanjuro gives the reward money he received for finding the Officer-killers to the poor family that needed to get out of the town. Instead of doing the smart thing and abandoning the man who helped him, Sanjuro braves the uneven odds and saves him. It is clear that Kurosawa was trying to make the Audience love and admire Sanjuro. Rather than fear him like many of the towns people did.

Talking about inspirations, this film has several well noted inspirations. One of main influences to Kurosawa while creating Yojimbo, were western movies made by John Ford. Kurosawa has even stated that he took inspiration from the noir film The Glass Key, a film adaptation on Dashiell Hammett's novel. However, Yojimbo didn't just take inspiration. It became inspiration for a number of different films, including an American remake starring Clint Eastwood called A Fistful of Dollars, which follows a Man Without a Name (Eastwood), as he goes about destroying two rival families in a little wasteland. The Movie has since inspired both films and even television shows on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

This movie was incredibly entertaining. While I watched it, I enjoyed how little force Sanjuro had to use to destroy the evil crime lords. He only actually ever kills about 10 to 15 people in the entire movie, while in the sequel/continuation Sanjuro, Sanjuro is forced to kill 15 people at once, making the movie very different in character, even though the rounin himself is clearly the same person in both movies. This shows more of Sanjuro's intelligence taking part in his plans, rather than relying on his impressive sword skill. Because in Yojimbo the violence is used only at times when it is incredibly necessary, the film flows from scene to scene very fluidly, rather than dealing with multiple, however brief, battles. This is starkly different from Kurosawa's Shichinin no Samurai in which the entire second half of the movie spans four days, and is basically one long yet amazingly spectacular battle. This grand final battle is mirrored in Yojimbo however the climatic battle itself lasts an amazing one minute.

In conclusion, I advise anyone who hasn't seen Yojimbo to go out and see it. For me it sealed the deal that watching Shichinin no Samurai opened, and lead me to want to watch many more Kurosawa films. Watching the movie made me feel like there was something else to be had with this Sanjuro, who at the end of the film just walks off into the distance. And he does so again in the sequel Sanjuro. It was like this guy was just roaming the country side looking for wrongs to right. Kurosawa truly captured the ideal hero in this roaming Thirty-something rounin.

Edit: Much Love for the Wikipedia. Without you, Mizenko and I would probably waffle on history. I'd also like to thank my homies at North, You know who you are, and finally, my dear fluffy lord.

Gojira Vs. Shichinin no Samurai

Movies, as a form of art, take much of the world at large to create. Whether intentional or not, directors and writers alike take images and ideals of their time period and enter them into their work. With such poetic sense, movies can be classified once more, beyond their stereotyping as a genre. With this thought in mind, I will take two very different movies, set in two very different time periods and show how the share the same common goal. These movies are both Icons in the Japanese Movie Industry, the original Kaiju Monster Movie “Gojira,” and the Epic Historical Drama of “Shichinin no Samurai.” These eight beings alone are a terrible force to match, yet we find that they are of the same goal, and for this we should look into the times at which these movies were produced closely, as well as the relationship between the two directors of these movies, “Gojira”’s Honda Ishirou and “Shichinin”’s Kurosawa Akira.

First, I will take a stab at giving my own personal impressions of the meaning of each movie. First up is the titanic titan Gojira. As we watch the course of the movie, it is brought to our attention almost instantaneously that this giant mutant lizard was awakened, and subsequently enraged by H-bomb testing out at sea. This brings up the first hint of my meaning, that humankind’s aggressive existence is unsightly. Then Gojira himself starts to appear on land, no longer content with attacking sea vessels. It is now when the true villains of this movie show their rotten faces. These men and women, all wanting the destruction of Gojira, wanting to kill the living fossil before their lives are threatened. While it can be argued that, this movie rallies the nation with a sense of a unified Japanese Nation, with the Japanese Self-Defense Force mobilizing to take on the giant creature. Yet these foolish human weapons do nothing to deadly giant, as he demolishes Tokyo unimpeded by Electrical Fences, Artillery Strikes, Tanks, and Bullets. Nothing could stop Gojira’s vengeance upon these warmongering people. I argue that the movie’s point was to show that military might means nothing in today’s world. Instead, it was the brilliance and self-sacrifice of Dr. Serizawa, who originally did not want to use his inventions as weapons. In addition, he alone stopped the beast. With this, we can see that Ishirou put in a more pacifistic view into Gojira, making the Military powerless, and instead put science in the highest seat.

So the militarists were stopped/stomped soundly in Gojira, but is that the same idea in “Shichinin no Samurai?” I would argue that it is indeed the same basic premises. We have the Bandits that look upon the tiny village to pillage, these men arriving in their Ouyoroi armor (whether stolen from dead Samurai or if the head of the bandits was a ronin is not really explained, though the former is more likely). These men are obviously men of war, and as they ride off their mere appearance sends the town into a state of deep mourning and depression. Then, they go and bring back Samurai. These honorable men of war are not like the bandits. The Samurai are smart, able to quickly build traps and defenses to confound the bandits. The Samurai are brilliant leaders, able to rally the poor farmers to battle for themselves, unlike the bandits who resort to killing deserters. The Samurai destroy nearly half the enemy forces in a tactical victory, slaughtering them in a surprise attack. It is clear these Samurai are not your average military men. In fact, the entire half of the movie dealing with their recruiting shows that all the Samurai, in one way or another, are farthest from the Militaristic Warmongering bandits.
However, this alone is not enough for them to be totally free of the evil militarist meaning of their role. Yet then we have Kikuchiyo. In a scene, directly following the discovery of a weapons cache, the Seven are disenfranchised after finding out that the villagers hunted wounded Samurai, killing them and taking their weapons. Yet this non-Samurai looks at them and spits in their face. Yet, what is the reason why these poor farmers turned to cruel practices? Because the Samurai (Military) had raped, pillaged, and defiled farmers’ villages. This chastisement brings forth a new view, that these brilliant, saviors - These Samurai are dirty. Just like the Bandits. Just like the Farmers. These military men, no matter how noble they claim, have lived in a life style that is truly low. Then, after a spectacular battle, we have finally reached the end of this movie. The meek, weak, and defenseless villagers have risen up, destroying the evil bandits, and ridding themselves of the terror they had felt time and time again. And we have an image, perhaps it was meant to be there, perhaps it was just coincidence. Katsushirou, a novice of a Samurai, is found watching the villagers. As if he is Longing to stay with them. To give up the warrior life he barely started. Yet he cannot, and goes to join the other two remaining Samurai.

The question now is, “Why are these two very different movies so very similar in message?”. For that, we need to take a look at the times they were made in. Of course, these two movies were both created in 1954, nine years after Japan lost World War II. This is incredibly important to their meaning. These two films make a play to strike a heavy contrast between the Militaristic Nippon and the new Democratic Nihon. The country had lost a war, lost their ability to wage war, and even heavier, were told that all that they have been taught all their lives was wrong. And these movies were there to ease the nation into the new country, as it pulled itself up from the ashes of the fire bombings. In both movies, the hero(es) destroy the Military, which had been personified as evil for the first time in the nation’s history. And not only did this warmonger side die, both movies give morals that are complementary to one another. Dr. Yaname mused that if humankind did not give up on their deadly weapons race, another Gojira will appear to crush them, urging the country/world to give up their deadly nuclear weapons research. Kanbei mused that it was not the Seven’s victory, but truly the victory of the villagers, reminding the people that they had the power to change their world. Both lovely messages are delivered with no other chance to change the character’s opinion, making them the strongest emotions listed in the respective films. It is very interesting that Shimura Takashi is the actor who portrays both Yaname and Kanbei, both very compassionate characters whose wisdom stands above those around them.

And upon the last point, the directors of the movies. Honda Ishirou, the director of “Gojira,” actually started his movie career working as the Assistant Director to Kurosawa Akira, the director of “Shichinin no Samurai,” working on the movie “Stray Dog.” Honda was a soldier in the Imperial Army, and a prisoner of War, which could easily be the main reason that he put in many anti-military symbols in “Gojira.” However, Kurosawa didn’t have that sort of experience like Honda. However, he was directing films during the war. The Militarist Regime strictly supervised his movies, culminating in the creation of the propaganda film “The Most Beautiful,” a movie about Japanese Women working in an optics factory, manufacturing parts that would eventually find their way to the Imperial Japanese Military. Then Kurosawa’s first film after the war was a movie called “No Regrets for Our Youth,” which was inspired by the story of Ouzaki Hotsumi, a spy for the communists during World War II. In that movie, he was finally able to lash out at the corrupt Militarist Regime, and it was one of the first movies to promote a Pacifist Ideal in Japan after the War, which Kurosawa followed up with numerous other titles, including “Stray Dog,” that took a deep look at his Japan. And as a fitting end, both Directors ended their careers working together on their last five movies, Kurosawa on his own volition, however Honda had died in the same year of their last movie, “Madadayo.”

And it is in these ways that the Kaiju movie “Gojira” and the historical drama “Shichinin no Samurai” are alike. They both carry a heavy anti-military, anti-war message, and urge the audience to learn from the mistakes made in the films and by the Militarists who had controlled Japan through the War, and to never do them again.