Questions re Manga-based Japanese Live Action Films

Michael McCaskey mccaskem at georgetown.edu
Wed Aug 16 17:49:38 EDT 2006


Thanks to everyone for so many answers re manga-based films. I had not thought too much about them before, but recently Sanchome no yuhi, Azumi 1&2, and Nana particularly attracted my attention, and then I thought of a few more.

This year I will have a new unit in my contemporary Japanese film course, on manga-based live action films, focused on White-Collar Worker Kintaro, Yokai Dai Senso, Nana, Azumi, Onmyoji, and Onmyoji II.

I wanted to get an idea of how many major films of this type have been made in recent years, since I thought I might be overlooking some significant ones. A lot of my students are real fans of manga, and some have an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, so I wanted to try to anticipate their responses and reactions in the course.

I had no idea there were so many of these films. You have truly given me a very great deal of good information, which I will collate into a master list over the next week. I hesitate to post that list, since there may then be yet more postings wanting to add many more titles. I will present the list to my students, and I will credit all of you.

If anyone would like to receive a copy of the collated list, please send me a request directly, in a week or ten days from now, and I'll send it back to you directly.

It really might be good for someone to consider writing a book on the history of these films, in light of the long history that Aaron Gerow has pointed out.

Thanks very much, once again, to all of you. This list is really a wonderful information resource.

Michael McCaskey

 




----- Original Message -----
From: Aaron Gerow <gerowaaron at sbcglobal.net>
Date: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 10:50 pm
Subject: Re: Questions re Manga-based Japanese Live Action Films

> > I haven't been paying much attention, so I hesitate to ask, but 
> is 
> > there any 'thoughtiness' (thanks due here to Stephen Colbert) 
> behind 
> > this seemingly interminable thread? I've heard that there are 
> people 
> > who collect empty beer cans, and evidently there are lots of 
> people 
> > who collect titles of films based on manga. So what?
> 
> When I woke up this morning I was very surprised to see over 30 
> pieces 
> of mail in my KineJapan box. I think that sets a record for mail 
> at 
> KineJapan. Either that communicates how much people are interested 
> in 
> the topic or, which is just as likely, how there are literally 
> hundreds 
> of live-action films in Japan based on manga spanning back to the 
> prewar era. It sure would be nice if someone could accumulate a 
> list of 
> all these, but I can understand the frustration of some on the 
> list 
> getting lots of mails many of which only add one or two films to 
> the 
> list. We have not had this problem at KineJapan, so I don't see 
> any 
> need to intercede, but I have seen this problem arise on other 
> film-related lists. Right now I don't think this is an issue, and 
> I do 
> not want to stop people from asking the list for film suggestions 
> since 
> that is an important role of KineJapan. But in the future if you 
> do 
> foresee a lot of responses (and I think it's only necessary in 
> such 
> cases), you might want to ask that responses be sent directly to 
> you. 
> Since I think many on the list are interested in the responses, 
> the 
> original poster can then send a final list of the films to the 
> list a 
> while later. In the meantime, people are certainly free to discuss 
> the 
> issues behind the call for a list of such films on KineJapan.
> 
> For instance, I thought it was interesting that almost all the 
> responses came up with films from the last 20 years or so. That 
> certainly may have some historical backing (it probably is true 
> that 
> the number of live-action films based on manga has increased since 
> the 
> 1970s), but there is a danger of concluding that this is either a 
> new 
> phenomenon or easily represents some shift in Japanese popular 
> culture 
> or the status of film. These are all issues to discuss, but only 
> after 
> recalling the large number of films based on manga before the 
> 1970s. 
> Here are some examples:
> 
> There were Nonkina tosan films made in the 1920s. Many films were 
> made 
> of works by Okamoto Ippei before the war. Yokoyama Ryuichi manga 
> were 
> made into live action films both before and after the war. 
> Ichikawa 
> Kon's Pu-san from 1954 is based on a manga, and Hasegawa Machiko's 
> Sazae-san was adapted into film a dozen times in the 1950s. Comedy 
> stars like Enoken and Shimikin and Kingoro sometimes had manga 
> gensaku 
> for their films (Kingoro had the Otora-san series). Some films 
> even had 
> manga in the title, like the Manga yokocho Atomic Obon films 
> (great 
> title!). A lot of these were based on manga by artists mostly 
> forgotten 
> like Akiyoshi Kaoru or Sugiura Yukio or appeared in now defunct 
> manga 
> magazines, so it is understandable that they don't easily come to 
> mind 
> today.
> 
> Some of these films were based on 4-panel manga, but the 1950s saw 
> many 
> film adaptations of popular kids story manga, especially Akado 
> Suzunosuke, Gekko kamen (these are pretty fun!), etc. Do remember 
> that 
> until the animation industry got on solid footing with Toei Doga 
> in the 
> late 1950s, it was much easier to adapt some popular manga into 
> live 
> action films than to do them as animation (this was the same on 
> TV: 
> Tetsuwan Atomu was first a live action TV show before it was an 
> anime). 
> But even after that, popular kids manga like Iga no Kagemaru and 
> Akakage (Yokoyama Mitsuru), Maguma taishi (Tezuka), Watari 
> (Shirato), 
> Attack No. 1, etc. were made into live action films. It's also 
> interesting that not a small number of gag manga like Dame oyaji, 
> Harenchi gakuen, and even Tanioka Yasuji's stuff were made into 
> live 
> action films. How many people have seen the live action version of 
> Lupin from 1974 (it is pretty weird!). Genre also probably had 
> something to do with it as one could argue that until jidaigeki 
> really 
> declined after the 1970s, it was more likely for a jidai manga to 
> be 
> made into a live action film than an anime. Some tokusatsu films 
> also 
> found a good source in manga like Kamen Rider.
> 
> It is important to look at these films because in is in these that 
> some 
> of the relations between film and manga--some of the rules of 
> adaptation or the ways films recalled their manga sources--were 
> laid 
> out, to be used and/or altered by later films. The mediation of TV 
> is 
> also very important given that, especially with the kids manga, a 
> TV 
> version often existed before the film one. A lot of these works 
> are 
> hard to get a hold of, but some are not, so there is material for 
> research out there.
> 
> Aaron Gerow
> KineJapan owner
> 
> Assistant Professor
> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
> Yale University
> 
> For list commands, send "information kinejapan" to
> listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Kinema Club: http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Markus/Welcome.html
> 
> 



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