new "youth film'?

[Michael Kerpan]

Jun Ichikawa's "Ashita no watashi no tsukurikata"
might be the best example of all of this hypothesized
"gentle youth-film" category.  For some reason, this
seems to have gotten next to no notice in the West,
however.

Another gentle film (albeit with a fantastic/science
fiction element) that hasn't gottewn sufficient
attention is the animated "Gril Who Leapt Through
Time".

One could even include Nana (part one) in this group
(though the characters are post-HS). Other
manga-derived films possibly relevant -- Touch, Rough,
Yellow Tears.

Then there are some fundamentally sweet films films
that feature girls with health problems -- Josee, the
Shark and the Fish and Midnight Sun.

I wonder whether some of the inspiration for these
films came from Korea. Jeong Jae-eun's 2001 Take Care
of My Cat starred BAE Doo-na -- who became the central
character in Linda Linda Linda.

Michael Kerpan
Boston, MA

--- David Desser <desser at uiuc.edu> wrote:

> I've been wondering if any critic or critical
> consensus, in Japanese or in
> English, has arrived at a genre classification for
> something like the sweet
> youth films typified (and perhaps begun?) by Yaguchi
> Shinobu with Waterboys
> (2001).  I can think also of Yaguchi's Swing Girls,
> Yamashita's Linda Linda
> Linda and Lee Sang-il's Hula Girls.  Are these, some
> based on true stories,
> kind of antidotes to the semi-horror (or actual
> horror) films that are also
> youth-oriented, from Suicide Club to Pulse (Kairo),
> etc?  And can anyone
> tell me if there are other of these gentler films
> beyond those I've
> mentioned?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
>  
> 
> David Desser
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>