Main Feature: A Popular Animation - Showa Monogatari / Creator's interview: Kaichi Sato,Japanese Animation art Director
Main Feature: A Popular Animation "Showa Monogatari"
This time we feature Showa Monogatari, a ground-breaking animated film that targets the over-sixties! The story takes place in Tokyo in the Olympic year, 1964, just as the economy is booming. Its protagonist, Kohei, is a fifth grade primary schoolboy who loves baseball and manga and lives in Kamata in southwestern Tokyo with his father, who runs a small workshop. It is a very ordinary, 6-member household but the ultra-realistic, high-definition detail is fantastic. The creators took four and a half years to make this film, visiting genuine Kamata workshops that still use machines more than 45-years old and getting permission from the makers to use all sorts of items that were popular in those days. Every scene is a work of loving reproduction. Initially a cinema release, the TV serial also started in early April. We join TV director Masahiro Murakami on visits to an old factory and public bathhouse, asking him what was most important to him in making the film, why he chose this particular era, why he is targeting older viewers, and also why he chose to do this as a cartoon rather than using real actors. Showa Monogatari is a work that could change the future of Japanese animation, a must-see portrait of an old-style family for the baby-boom generation and above.
Creator's interview: Kaichi Sato,Japanese Animation art Director
Exciting animator Kaichi Sato has won diverse awards on Japan's independent film scene. In fact, he has never failed to win a prize so far! His works feature radical sets and images but are always richly entertaining as well. Sato wants to be unique and his films often have a rather un-Japanese, slightly Western flavor. We interview a top Japanese animator now enjoying high acclaim around the globe.
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