detective conan and the japan foundation touring film program.
usually I don't talk about movies or games unless there's a direct correlation to what I usually write about, like the resi movies or when I saw borderlands in the cinema, but I recently went to all of the local screenings of the Japan foundation touring film programme and I thought I'd talk about them all (plus some other stuff I wanted to talk about) I saw them at this amazing local indie cinema near me, I can't really say where it is but it's this cute little place ran by the university, it has a bar and you can get coffee there for the movie, they mostly show a lot of non English language stuff, indie films and sometimes even anime or a few bigger titles, like mickey17 was showing during most of the run of this festival, it's in a super nice area too, lots of trees and older buildings and a cute little park nearby, it's nice to just walk around. I'll rank the movies from my least to most favourite here just to make it easy to list.
the one i enjoyed the least was very easily 99% cloudy...always. this was a maybe biographical? story of a woman with autism who can't have kids and struggles with the pressure of it, it's a very depressing ride but it's super personal and there were some parts i did really like, the city shots are really nice and some stuff like the scene near the end where she invites the thief, the courier and the homeless guy in for curry after trying to arrest the thief, but i don't know, it was just kind of a slog for a lot of it and the way it patronised MC for her autism just felt super uncomfortable to watch, it just didn't reflect the experiences i have or of the person i went to see this with, neither of us were really enthused about it at all, but it might resonate with some people, so i begrudgingly recommend it a least if you think the idea sounds interesting, but this just was not for me at all.
up from this was the 50's musical carmen comes home, a movie about a cabaret girl coming home to the countryside from the big city just shortly after the war, i thought i would like this one a little more than i did but i did find it a little difficult to get into, the movie is very slow and it can feel a little meandering for its super short runtime, but it has a ton of charm, the music is good, it actually manages to be very funny and the story it tells is really interesting, plus it's so old and from a culture that's so distant in time and space that it really does feel like a portal right into another culture, something lost to time almost and i think that's a really valuable learning experience. it's really interesting, plus it's beautiful, full of really stunning shots of the Japanese countryside, totally worth a watch if you don't mind the very slow pace.
next up is hope, this was a drama about a family dealing with the aftermath of their son potentially being involved in a murder case and going missing and how the family copes with the spotlight and the fear their son might have been the killer. this was a really sad and depressing watch, it was the first one here to manage to make me cry (heck the whole cinema was crying) but i loved it! the setup was really interesting and it was heartbreaking seeing how the case destroyed the lives of those not even involved in it, the writing was great and it was really fascinating seeing how all the different members of the family dealt with the aftermath, plus it made me think a lot about how the media and people on the net treat the families of people like this and i think it made a lot of points that stuck with me a lot and helped me really manage to formulate my own opinion on the topic, it certainly got me thinking about about it at least, which was something i hadn't considered before so it did its job well, very highly recommended.
somewhere in the middle was penalty loop, which is surprising or me since this was actually the main one i wanted to see, it was the sole reason i decided to try and see all of the movies and i fully expected it to be a lot higher for me than it was, this doesn't at all mean it wasn't great, it really was, just it says more about just how good the rest of the movies really were! this is a dark comedy about a guy who gets stuck in a timeloop with the man who killed his girlfriend and how he just spends every loop killing this man, i went in expecting it to be a lot more lighthearted and comedic since that's how these movies tend to go, and it was funny sometimes especially in the latter half but it was really brutal and dark, you start to feel bad for both people pretty quick because there really isn't a winner here, just someone coping with their grief in the entirely wrong way and being consumed by it, it's a really rough sit but it's one that's really worth doing, it's one of the few movies about how "anger and revenge are not the answer" that actually managed to convey that well and in a convincing and meaningful way.
just above this was ghost cat anzu, the only anime featured in the programme. it's a really well made animated movie about a girl who gets abandoned in the countryside by her deadbeat dad where she then lives at a shrine with a ghost cat and a priest, it's super charming and with a super cool rotoscoped style and really well made character designs, with some of the best looking countryside shots I've seen in a long time, it reminded me a lot of the vibe of like a boku no natsuyasumi but with some supernatural stuff thrown in, it's super charming and i loved the cast, even the side characters were really well developed and fun, special shoutouts to the delinquent kids and the yokai who were all super funny any time they were on screen, and it has some amazing city shots near the end too and an amazing action sequence that almost comes out of nowhere, this one also managed to make me cry which is for sure a bonus for it, it's a very emotional movie and it's probably the one that's the easiest to recommend out of all the ones here to most people. it's also by the same studio that do doraemon and shinchan, if that helps sweeten the deal.
next would have been Sakura, a crime story about a police office clerk investigating the death of her best friend, a journalist she let in on a story. it starts out interesting and just keeps building, it has a cool mystery, some poorly disguised aum shinrikiyo goings onand a story that gave me serious reminders of one of my favourite otome games, collar x malice, which is as high praise as you can get for me, it's super pretty with tons of amazing shots of the Sakura blossoms blooming and it's set in a really nice looking suburban area, plus it's well paced and i *loved* the cult stuff and it all led to a twist i really did not see coming, very very highly recommended.
after this would have been the movie tea friends. this is a sex comedy drama about the workers in an escort agency set up for elderly people and about the stories therein, it's based on a real life event and it's pretty interesting to think about just in a vacuum, about the stigma behind the subject matter and the fact the movie is laying bare so much of it, it's neat in that way because it is so open about it all and it is much more explicit than i thought it would have been, it did admittedly make it one of the most awkward moviegoing experiences of my life though. this one i was super interested in but because of my history with some of the subjects brought up in it, i was super worried about it glorifying things that i really don't feel comfortable with glorifying, an industry that really shouldn't be glorified and that has harmed, traumatised and exploited me and millions of others, but it doesn't really do that and it manages to present its subject matter while also being really funny and interesting.
it does start with that, showing things as quirky and fun and the cast all do a great job with each other, really seeming like a found family a lot of the time, helping each other grow and resolve arcs and conflicts together and much of the movie is just found family stuff with a seedier background, but then it all kind of comes to a head at some point and pulls the rug out from you, reminding you that this *is* an exploitive situation and the caring and friendly leader really isn't a good person in the slightest, both customers and workers are exploited and they do get hurt all for the gain of a few people at the top, sure they might be good and likable people at the top who deserve the money and help, but ultimately they're all gaining this money out of a pile of exploitation and misery and by the end it makes you feel like part of this loop, that you had looked at this and saw only the positives, possibly even coming away from those scenes with a sense of positivity towards this system of harm where you then realize that you too perpetuated, in some small way, this system that hurts vulnerable people, and i think that's really interesting and i hope it gets some people to reconsider their support for this industry, at least a little.
the best though was the one just before this, the day before it actually, the classic detective drama: the inugami family. this is a story of familial squabbling over a will, after a pharmaceutical tycoon leaves his fortune in the hands of an outsider to the family, rather than any of the families actual children. it's got some beautifully shot scenes of a rural Japanese town, it's by a lake and they make super good use of that, it has the best music featured in the whole programme, some super iconic imagery with things like the son disfigured from the war who has to wear a very bright white mask to cover his scars that gives him a downright scary presence, one of the other characters has a really cool look too, donned entirely in a Japanese military uniform and a scarf to cover his face (he is also my favourite character, he steals the show in every scene he's in and i teared up a little at the final reveals with him) and the movie has tons of super iconic scenes too, like the sons head being found on top of a doll display or the reveal of the sons scars, the mystery too is so good, full of really interesting and memorable twists and a final stretch that actually shocked me, this was where the otherwise a little bland detective really shined, it took this from a "really love" to a "new favourite", if you watch anything from this list, let it be this one, it's a must watch if you like Japanese cinema at all.
another thing I've been doing for a lot longer than this was watching an anime from its start, a very, very, very long anime, too long for most people, honestly, but one that really surprised me, I went into it just expecting to watch a few episodes before I went with a friend to see the *27th* movie in its series and have a decent time with, but nothing that I'd stick with, I was very, very, very wrong, not only did I love it, not only was that movie my favourite movie of last year, but I've watched dozens of episodes and it now is up there rivalling my favourite anime, it might even be my favourite anime depending on what day you ask (though usually I'll tell you that's sailor moon, mirai nikki or nana) and I've only seen two and a half seasons of it, it's that good, so I'll do my best to shill you on detective conan and hope you'll at least give a few episodes of the show a try.
so why is this show so good, for a start the characters, as early on in the show as i am you really only have a small core cast that carries over between episodes, you have conan who is the MC and a highschool detective who gets turned into a kid via poison and then has to spend his days tracking down the organisation that did it to him while also hiding the fact he's a kid, he's very confidant and cool and very often making funny expressions and making light of things, though he is actually seriously cool sometimes, he's one of the best MC's in i think any anime. ran who is more or less written like a shoujo protagonist, she's the strength of the group since she's able to easily beat people double her size in a fight. kogoro who is rans dad and a bumbling detective who can barely solve even basic cases, he's the shows highlight and steals most scene's he's in, he's constantly funny and the gimmick where conan knocks him out and pretends to be him to solve the case (where kogoro then takes all the credit and doesn't even question it because he's just that vain) is the shows best running joke and so far over 60 episodes in sill makes me laugh most episodes. the inspector who's just a device for the murders, really, but he has a nice presence and sometimes you'll see the detective boys, conan's child friends he sometimes stumbles into cases with, the professor, who just gives conan new gadgets to solve crimes with or heiji hattori, conan's rival and the first one to figure out who conan really is. it's a really good core cast, the main 3 alone can carry their own show super easily and they work together perfectly, they're just so nice to be around.
the stories it tells are also really fun and the structure is really well suited to it, each episode is set up like a monster of the week type thingy, but with a mystery! usually with a gimmick, sometimes that gimmick is a setting, like an isolated island, a cruise ship or some flavour of abandoned manor, though you get a lot of cool urban environments too, like driving ranges or office buildings or even a game convention. sometimes the gimmick is the why, like how a dog committed the murder or how someone committed a murder while being in an entirely different building, the little gimmicks and changes all make every case feel super fun and fresh, it's a nice formula, super comforting and it makes it a really nice watch during dinners, which is how i do it. the stories therein are usually pretty good, they'll be well set up and while the ratio of "able to solve with clues" to "how was i supposed to know the killer put a live grenade n the golf club" is about 50:50, which i think in some cases would be a negative, but here i think it works, if every episode was like that it'd get a little stale and i think the sillier episodes really add to the shows charm, i know later on one case involves a selfie stick, it gets kind of wild. don't expect a lot of overarching story though, I'll get to that a little later on.
the show is also beautiful, like really beautiful, especially this early on, the show still uses cels since it was during the late era of that style of 2D animation and it is a sight to see, every ep, even the off model ones that pop up sometimes, look amazing, the action scenes look super flashy and cool and the more normal scenes usually have killer background work, like sailor moon tier backgrounds, plus all the older tech because of the era it was from, it's just a treat to look at, plus the basic character designs are fun and super expressive! AND THE MUSIC, conan has one of the best original soundtracks in anime, any anime, the main theme is killer and even all the smaller atmospheric tracks are perfect, so cozy and nice to listen to, plus the OP's and endings? step by step is an all timer, as are nazo and Hikari to kage no roman, with feel your heart and mune ga dokidoki being great too, though the second ED, meikyuuu no lovers is a bit of a misstep, it just doesn't fit the show well.
even the movies are still good, a lot of shonen can struggle with he movies being a little bit bland and pointless, but here they're actually really fun and can even throw in major plot beats and revelations in there. I've seen two so far, the first movie "the time bombed skyscraper" and the 27th movie "the million dollar pentagram" and both were amazing, full of cool character moments, actual plot progression which is kind of rare for conan, super emotional beats and some of the best animation in the whole show, the first movie especially for that one, plus they're really fun, the latter movie felt very lupin specifically, calling back to how it felt for me watching castle of Cagliostro or the first time (which is my favourite Miyazaki), it's such a fun adventure and its action scenes have so much energy , it's actually by the same studio that did lupin so it makes sense why it feels that way, this latter one was my favourite by a little, the story felt more relevant with big drops like familial relations and moves in the shipping dept, it's all about swords that point to the location of a treasure which is a super nice departure from the usual murder cases the show tends to go hard on, it had some cool setups like with how it related to the shinsengumi, did some cool things with its setting and even had some really cool returning characters that I'm really excited to meet, like kaito kid and he ojousama girl, plus was super funny, the action was amazing and super well animated, it had some beautiful views and used Sakura petals really well in some scenes *and* it had a song by aiko, one of my favourite artists, it was my favourite movie of last year by far. the other movie isn't quite as good, but it's still really solid with a super good setup, that being a bomber that's set up bombs around he city and tasked conan's adult self with finding out the locations, ending in a seriously emotional final act which has the best writing in the entire show so far, super romantic too!
so with all this, why should you commit to watching over 1000 episodes of this, some will tell you that you shouldn't, either because it's not worth it (it is, trust me) or because you should just skip and watch only the important episodes, I don't generally agree with either of these, the first because this show is great and I love it and the latter because this isn't really a show about story, while the overarching story is good, really good even and it's full of great characters and fun mysteries, it's not really the focus, it's moreso than anything a show about the journey, about enjoying time with these super fun characters, seeing all the various mysteries, laughing at mouri failing each and every time or how conan manages to solve things behind the scenes, even during the filler TV episodes all of these *shine* and sometimes they can even be some of my favourite episodes, sure there are duds in there like the detective boys focused episodes, which tend to be a little boring and annoying, but these are super few and far between, plus a few of them are even really solid like the treasure hunt in the city or the assassin episode. my point is, skipping these episodes is missing a lot of the charm of the show, especially in these super early episodes, you miss so many great city backgrounds, fun jokes, like how increasingly ridiculous the sleeping mouri poses get or the fun time specific mysteries, like one involving a huge early 90's alarm clock computer, one about tv show timings or one with a karaoke box, these time capsule episodes are some of the most fun ones and by skipping around you miss these, plus the animation and art for these ones is especially beautiful, like seriously, every episode is a treat to look at. so yeah, the show really, really is worth watching and watching in its full, sure you'll be there a while, but it's worth the effort you put in, especially if the show resonates with you as much as it did me, and if it does then you have a ton to go through, with all these episodes and so far 28 movies, it's a big series and the popularity reflects that, with tons of games, one even being localised on the wii, merch and even a whole town in japan themed after it, it's just that good.
