4-2-3 SPOILER: Show
“I know the answer/ But I’m looking for the question.”
-Duran Duran, “The Skin Trade”
Love And Pop, based on the novel by Ryu Murakami (several of his books- although not yet this one- are published in English through Kodansha) is Hideaki Anno’s first feature-length, live-action film- and the project he id between his Eva and his current anime TV show, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo. The film itself hit the Japanese theaters on January 10, 1998, was released to the rental video market later that year, in September, and then in November, again, in a much cheaper “sell-through” edition (a standard practice where a video comes out first in an expensive edition meant to be bought by stores so they can make money for a time renting it out, and then later a less expensive version comes out meant to be bought by individuals). Anno made over 20 television appearances associated with the premiere of Love And Pop, but some special measure of the public interest in how he was going to follow up on Evangelion is that Japan’s best-known anime magazine, Animage, ran a cover story on its February ’98 issue (which hit stands on the premiere date) featuring Anno and the film’s cast of four teenage girls: Asumi Miwa, Kirari (one name), Yukie Nakama, and Hirono Kudo. It was the first time ever in the 20-year history of Animage that the magazine didn’t have an anime on its cover.
Hideaki Anno is in a transitional period right now as a director. To put things in perspective, when Hayao Miyazaki was Anno’s age, Miyazaki was making Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (and watch for its re-release from Manga Entertainment this March, in a brand-new dubbed and subtitled edition, because I can’t give Cagliostro a high enough recommendation). But superb as Cagliostro was, just think of this- all his classic Studio Ghibli films were ahead of him, and a generation later he would make his best film, The Princess Mononoke. There may be as much ahead for Anno; especially after the cathartic effect of Evangelion, there is great curiosity as to where he is headed next. Anno seems curious, too, and they may very well be why, beginning with Love And Pop and continuing with the current Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo (or KareKano for short), he’s made two significant changes in his approach.
First, unlike Anno’s Gunbuster or TV series Nadia and Evangelion, both of these new works are adaptations of someone else’s fully-developed story (Nadia was based on a story concept originally developed for Miyazaki in the late ‘70s; while Miyazaki used the concept as the basis for his 198s film The Castle In The Sky- out this year from Disney/Buena Vista- Gainax took it very much in their own direction). Second, and likely related to the first, is the fact that Love And Pop and KareKano are quite different from previous Gainax productions in that they are set entirely in the present day, involve “ordinary” teenage characters, have no robots- and no fan service. The last point is especially worthy of mention, as Love And Pop is about a contemporary form of casual quasi-prostitution practiced by some Japanese schoolgirls called “enjo kosai”- “subsidized dating.” Like out own, Japan is a society today that views itself in moral drift, and Tokyo, like New York City, is a cosmopolitan city full of material temptation and grown-up pleasures. It’s not the kind of place parents think of as “a great place to raise kids,” yet, of course, it’s a place full of parents and children. For a number of otherwise quite normal Japanese schoolgirls, going to a hotel with a businessman on the weekends means quick cash, and a way to buy into a little of that glamour and fashion they see all around them.
Love And Pop, in face, portrays- if in a more subtle style- a situation of youth not unlike that portrayed in Larry Clark’s 1995 film Kids, And like Kids, Love And Pop seems to suggest that no guidance will be forthcoming, and that the “right answers” for this generation may relate more to psychological and even physical survival, which will hopefully teach a moral sense- because they’re not going to get one from their elders. Anno (who, of course, has used the sex appeal of teenaged girl characters as part of successful anime for years) seems to have been given considerable pause by the notion of real-life teenagers, driven by pop desires, selling themselves, often to men of his age- one of the “clients” in the film is a character who could certainly be taken as an unflattering self-portrait of Anno himself. Love And Pop is also unusual in that it is shot, not on film, but with a small video cameras- whose size Anno takes advantage of to get some unusual shots, such as mounting the camera on a model train! No American distributor has yet announced a release of Love And Pop, though it may certainly happen. For now, you can buy or tent as an import through Starchild/King Records. It’s 6600 yen, order number KIVA-410 (VHS), KILA-410-411 (a 2-LD set [T/N: Laserdisc]; the film is one hour and 54 minutes long).