I know offhand of no fleshed out, long-term post-apocalyptic entries from Japan, but the theme of disaster causing social collapse is a rich one, given the archipelago’s predilection for natural as well as manmade disaster. I’ll try to suggest their gists without too many spoilers, as many are excellent.
I know offhand of no fleshed out, long-term post-apocalyptic entries from Japan, but the theme of disaster causing social collapse is a rich one, given the archipelago’s predilection for natural as well as manmade disaster. I’ll try to suggest their gists without too many spoilers, as many are excellent.
Most are movies, but I’ll begin with the novel [i]Nihon Chimbotsu[/i] 「日本沈没」(Japan Sinks), Komatsu Sakyo’s 1973 story of Japan’s reaction to the discovery that in a very few years the islands will be tectonically subsumed. It will surprise few that fatalism runs through all of the works in this list, and initially the government considers the possibility that saying nothing may do the least harm. I am FAR from fluent enough to have read the original Japanese, but the translation I read was a good one.
A movie adaptation was made the same year that I find excellent, but as is the case with many on this list, its US release—as [i]Tidal Wave[/i], featuring Lorne Green—was heavily redone, and I’d recommend searching out the original. A Japanese remake in ’06 I found needless—though it did spark the interesting parody “Everything But Japan Sinks”—and in checking dates I just learned that there is now also an anime version.
Japan’s experiences with nuclear weapons and testing fallout unsurprisingly led to films like “Black Rain”—about the bombings and their [i]hibakusya[/i] survivors—and of course even [i]Gojira[/i] was a metaphorical bomb story, but I know of two movies explicitly portraying global thermonuclear wars: [i]Sekai Daisensou[/i] 「世界大戦争」(The Great World War) from 1961 and [i]Dai-Sanji Sekai Taisen: Yonjuuichi-jikan no Kyouhu[/i] 「第三次世界大戦 四十一時間の恐怖」(The Great Third World War: 41 Hours of Terror) from 1960. These two are hard to disentangle, each variously being called “The Last War” and “The Final War” in English. Indeed, even having seen each of them several times, I tend to confabulate their details.
Each has ordinary Japanese characters in it, but they go into great detail about the unfolding crises, with said characters—indeed their entire nation—along for the ride. One such character probably explains the lack of home-grown “Mad Max” type worlds (though I imagine there are anime examples) by observing that he sees no reason to join the panic exodus because Japan is too small to hide in.
Thematically similar but more phantastical is 1974’s [i]Nosutoradamusu no Daiyogen[/i] 「ノストラダムスの大予言」(Great Prophecies of Nostradamus). Again, I would not bother with the US release as “The Last Days of Planet Earth” as it is hopelessly re-editted. As a product of the Club of Rome era it stresses environmental degradation more heavily and thus depicts a more gradual but again inevitable crumbling of social sanity. It does have the most explicit—albeit quick—view of a long-term post-apocalypse in Japanese media I know of: two nightmarishly mutated human descendants scrabbling in refuse.
Of course, even without the atomic bombings, Japanese society was arguably on the point of dissolution from strategic warfare against their economy when the war ended, and especially older films when this remained fresher in living memory explore that.
I have yet to read Ooka Shohei’s 1951 novel [i]Nobi[/i] 「野火」(a reference to burning field stubble, called “Fires on the Plain” in English), but I have seen both Ichikawa Kon’s 1959 and Tsukamoto Shinya’s 2014 movie adaptations (I prefer Ichikawa’s, but both are excellent). It follows a Japanese soldier on Leyte in 1945 after the army has atomized into panicked individuals braving hunger, guerrillas and each other get to Cebu, where there is still order and a functional logistical system.
Kinoshita Keisuke’s [i]Shitou no Densetsu[/i] 「死闘の伝説」(Legend of a Fight to the Death) from 1963 is fascinatingly disturbing. Set in a remote mountain village in the closing days of the war, it explores the overlooked (even by the Japanese themselves, sometimes) fissures within a society that likes to think of itself as monolithic. The locals progressive resentment and “out-grouping” of a family of evacuees from Tokyo eventually spirals into violence.
A bit of background is needed on Suzuki Seijun’s 1964 [i]Nikutai no Mon[/i] 「肉体の門」(Gate of Flesh). Nikkatsu Studios were turning out cheap “pink eiga” (i.e. softcore), but young auteurs like Suzuki were breaking into movie-making with them, making films like this one that now get Criterion releases. It follows a young girl coming to 1946 Tokyo, which in voiceover she describes as a city where one eats or is eaten. Forced into imaginatively stylized visuals by a microscopic budget, Suzuki’s characters go through the brutal process of forming previously unimagined social bonds while sometimes wistfully recalling lives that made sense.
I’ve saved my absolutely favourite Japanese film about the war for last: [i]Nikudan[/i]「肉弾」(The Human Bullet) from 1968. It is a black comedy set in the last days of the war and comparable to [i]Catch-22[/i] in its theme of sanity being no asset in a mad world. But while Yossarian is angry, [i
Nezumi-san[/i] (Mr. Rat) is bemused at being told that his class of officer candidates have the honor of becoming [i]Tokkou[/i]—anti-tank suicide bombs to defeat the coming invasion.
I consider this film such a masterpiece that I aggressively searched out more Okamoto Kihachi movies, only to find that they varied from “meh” to “unintentionally humorously bad”. Go figger. I gather that it was a passion project, and perhaps everything else was just him being an uninspired director for hire.
I know offhand of no fleshed out, long-term post-apocalyptic entries from Japan, but the theme of disaster causing social collapse is a rich one, given the archipelago’s predilection for natural as well as manmade disaster. I’ll try to suggest their gists without too many spoilers, as many are excellent.
Most are movies, but I’ll begin with the novel [i]Nihon Chimbotsu[/i] 「日本沈没」(Japan Sinks), Komatsu Sakyo’s 1973 story of Japan’s reaction to the discovery that in a very few years the islands will be tectonically subsumed. It will surprise few that fatalism runs through all of the works in this list, and initially the government considers the possibility that saying nothing may do the least harm. I am FAR from fluent enough to have read the original Japanese, but the translation I read was a good one.
A movie adaptation was made the same year that I find excellent, but as is the case with many on this list, its US release—as [i]Tidal Wave[/i], featuring Lorne Green—was heavily redone, and I’d recommend searching out the original. A Japanese remake in ’06 I found needless—though it did spark the interesting parody “Everything But Japan Sinks”—and in checking dates I just learned that there is now also an anime version.
Japan’s experiences with nuclear weapons and testing fallout unsurprisingly led to films like “Black Rain”—about the bombings and their [i]hibakusya[/i] survivors—and of course even [i]Gojira[/i] was a metaphorical bomb story, but I know of two movies explicitly portraying global thermonuclear wars: [i]Sekai Daisensou[/i] 「世界大戦争」(The Great World War) from 1961 and [i]Dai-Sanji Sekai Taisen: Yonjuuichi-jikan no Kyouhu[/i] 「第三次世界大戦 四十一時間の恐怖」(The Great Third World War: 41 Hours of Terror) from 1960. These two are hard to disentangle, each variously being called “The Last War” and “The Final War” in English. Indeed, even having seen each of them several times, I tend to confabulate their details.
Each has ordinary Japanese characters in it, but they go into great detail about the unfolding crises, with said characters—indeed their entire nation—along for the ride. One such character probably explains the lack of home-grown “Mad Max” type worlds (though I imagine there are anime examples) by observing that he sees no reason to join the panic exodus because Japan is too small to hide in.
Thematically similar but more phantastical is 1974’s [i]Nosutoradamusu no Daiyogen[/i] 「ノストラダムスの大予言」(Great Prophecies of Nostradamus). Again, I would not bother with the US release as “The Last Days of Planet Earth” as it is hopelessly re-editted. As a product of the Club of Rome era it stresses environmental degradation more heavily and thus depicts a more gradual but again inevitable crumbling of social sanity. It does have the most explicit—albeit quick—view of a long-term post-apocalypse in Japanese media I know of: two nightmarishly mutated human descendants scrabbling in refuse.
Of course, even without the atomic bombings, Japanese society was arguably on the point of dissolution from strategic warfare against their economy when the war ended, and especially older films when this remained fresher in living memory explore that.
I have yet to read Ooka Shohei’s 1951 novel [i]Nobi[/i] 「野火」(a reference to burning field stubble, called “Fires on the Plain” in English), but I have seen both Ichikawa Kon’s 1959 and Tsukamoto Shinya’s 2014 movie adaptations (I prefer Ichikawa’s, but both are excellent). It follows a Japanese soldier on Leyte in 1945 after the army has atomized into panicked individuals braving hunger, guerrillas and each other get to Cebu, where there is still order and a functional logistical system.
Kinoshita Keisuke’s [i]Shitou no Densetsu[/i] 「死闘の伝説」(Legend of a Fight to the Death) from 1963 is fascinatingly disturbing. Set in a remote mountain village in the closing days of the war, it explores the overlooked (even by the Japanese themselves, sometimes) fissures within a society that likes to think of itself as monolithic. The locals progressive resentment and “out-grouping” of a family of evacuees from Tokyo eventually spirals into violence.
A bit of background is needed on Suzuki Seijun’s 1964 [i]Nikutai no Mon[/i] 「肉体の門」(Gate of Flesh). Nikkatsu Studios were turning out cheap “pink eiga” (i.e. softcore), but young auteurs like Suzuki were breaking into movie-making with them, making films like this one that now get Criterion releases. It follows a young girl coming to 1946 Tokyo, which in voiceover she describes as a city where one eats or is eaten. Forced into imaginatively stylized visuals by a microscopic budget, Suzuki’s characters go through the brutal process of forming previously unimagined social bonds while sometimes wistfully recalling lives that made sense.
I’ve saved my absolutely favourite Japanese film about the war for last: [i]Nikudan[/i]「肉弾」(The Human Bullet) from 1968. It is a black comedy set in the last days of the war and comparable to [i]Catch-22[/i] in its theme of sanity being no asset in a mad world. But while Yossarian is angry, [i
Nezumi-san[/i] (Mr. Rat) is bemused at being told that his class of officer candidates have the honor of becoming [i]Tokkou[/i]—anti-tank suicide bombs to defeat the coming invasion.
I consider this film such a masterpiece that I aggressively searched out more Okamoto Kihachi movies, only to find that they varied from “meh” to “unintentionally humorously bad”. Go figger. I gather that it was a passion project, and perhaps everything else was just him being an uninspired director for hire.
Apologies for being new to the formatting.