[KineJapan] Akira remake and flat characters in Japanese films

[Jim Harper]

My verdict: Akira, yes. Japanese culture, an enormous 'no'.

As popular as it is, I've never found Akira to be particularly entertaining, partly because of the characters.

However, that's hardly a failing specific to Japanese cinema etc, and it's definitely not a Japanese cultural issue. It sounds more like an assertion based on certain other equally spurious notions about the so-called Japanese  national character.

At best, it's probably the result of a failure to recognise the difference between strong characters and aggressive characters, although personally I suspect it's more a case of cultural stereotyping, as above.

Jim Harper.

On Thu, 14/4/16, Jun-Dai Bates-Kobashigawa <jd.kinejapan at kurutta.net> wrote:

 Subject: [KineJapan] Akira remake and flat characters in Japanese films
 To: "Kinejapan" <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu>
 Date: Thursday, 14 April, 2016, 19:26
 
 Hi all,
 I hope this doesn't count as trolling :-/
  While reading about yet another attempt to get a Hollywood
 version of Akira of the ground, this comment really stuck
 out to me:
 > Nobody’s interesting. Tetsuo’s
 interesting because weird sh*t happens to him, and Kaneda is
 so two-dimensional. That’s part of the Japanese culture,
 they never have strong characters. [1]
 This seems fairly offensive, and also makes the
 director seem like an incredibly poor choice for working on
 this material (not that a Hollywood remake of Akira sounds
 promising to begin with). Luckily, it looks
 like Collett-Serra is not going to be working on Akira, but
 I'm curious if anyone knows what he's talking about?
 Is it total nonsense, or has Mr. Collett-Serra captured
 something essential about Japanese film/literature that has
 until now escaped me? Are the characters in Akira (or
 Japanese films/literature in general) any flatter than, say,
 Hollywood?
 Yours,  Jun-Dai
 Bates-Kobashigawa
 
 [1] source: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__comicsalliance.com_akira-2Dlive-2Daction-2Dremake-2Ddirector-2Djaume-2Dcollett-2Dserra-2Djapanese-2Dculture-2Dstrong-2Dcharacters_&d=CwIGaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=e7qMG9KFq7WNnPQWULWHJA&m=Sv-K-1jw5BzVhpg_oT91-6lPC2DLia8OsVBbPy_jXGk&s=iY5eJIBNHvrTOWNtaPIsvOS5ooQBFCHXyrimhqbqKV8&e= )
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