The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji

Country: Japan

Original title: Mogura no uta - sennyu sôsakan: Reiji

Director: Takashi Miike

Year: 2014

I didn't like this movie one bit. But I'm glad I watched it because it made me clearly realise something I wasn't able to put my finger on for quite a long time - the fact that, in my personal opinion, there is a huge, almost intransgressible gap between Japanese manga & anime and Japanese live-action films. It may sound weird, but let me explain.

I love both anime and Japanese live-action films. Not all of them, obviously. I've seen many that were downright horrible but that's a natural thing. The point is there are plenty that I really love and I'm always happy to check out more. Many different kinds of them too. Different style, atmosphere, genre, pacing. But somehow I never enjoyed live-action adaptations of manga and anime. As is always the case, there are exceptions (review of one coming in near future) but in general, I find those kinds of production somehow... really lame. Anime and manga aesthetics just translates really poorly onto physical world and real people in most cases. The effect is very unconvincing and entire film feels like a bad mockup.

For a long time, I thought it's because I'm watching live-action version after seeing the anime. There's just no way in hell human actor can successfully don all quirks, mannerisms and even look of average anime character so knowing the animated version just makes me focus on how miserably he/she fails. If I haven't seen the anime I might not be bothered by it and just accept the craziness as it is. After all, I've enjoyed several quite eccentric and peculiar live-action films with a larger-than-life approach. That's what I thought. But The Mole Song disillusioned me completely.

I didn't know it was a manga adaptation. They mentioned something about 'crazy manga style' in the description but I didn't pay attention to it because it's one of those corny phrases they use to advertise most of Japanese stuff that aren't plain and deadly serious. I only knew it's a film by Takashi Miike. He hasn't exactly left a very good impression so far but I thought that it's a good opportunity to give him one more chance. So I chose The Mole Song as my closing film of Warsaw International Film Festival hoping that some whimsical and racy entertainment will help me get over all the artistic drama I was exposing myself to over the past few days. I didn't expect I will shift in my chair much more than in any of those existential and slow-paced movies.

Basically, the whole movie felt like it was trying too hard. As if the crew decided to set a new record of world-famed Japanese weirdness and was calculating all the time what will make it crazier than other crazy Japanese movies released in last 5 years. I can almost see them having a meeting in a committee to discuss how to achieve maximum gaudiness in costumes and outfits. It planned to be a whirlpool of sheer craziness but it failed on all fronts to pull me in. I just sat there, bored crazy, and thought to myself "were they seriously thinking I'm going to fall for that?". Everything was so unbelievably ridiculous I just don't have enough words to describe how I felt about it. Neither in English nor in my mother tongue. Every character, every plot twist, the entire setting was more irritating than the lonely mosquito buzzing in the darkness of my bedroom at 2 a.m. or my pants getting between my buttocks when I'm having a public presentation and can do nothing about it.

And when some time after watching it I've finally learned that The Mole Song was a manga adaptation I realised that if it was an anime I actually might have loved it. Or at the very least I would have accepted with ease all the things that annoyed me so much in the live-action version.

I'm perfectly aware that such things are extremely subjective. Generally, the more character something has the further from the safe zone it is. The line between brilliant and ridiculous is very thin and such movies are all about balancing on it. There is no way to predict if it will strike someone's fancy or quite the contrary. I'm sure many people will love this movie. It's not impossible that I'll watch it in 5 years and decide it's a masterpiece. Such things happened in the past.

Okay, this was probably the messiest review so far. But these are really the most important thoughts I wanted to share about this movie. The plot is really irrelevant. Reiji becomes an undercover agent who infiltrates the yakuza. A lot of crazy things happen. That's it. Acting is hard to judge. It's all overemoting and screaming.

Original craziness and manga/anime derived craziness are two different things and manga/anime aesthetics doesn't work for live-action films are both working theses. And a first thing I always do with working thesis is challenging it. If I've seen someone else writing such things I would immediately point out that not all manga and anime are over the top, many are very calm and realistic. Yeah, I pretended to forget about it. Generalisations are just bad. I promise to avoid them more in future and just focus on the film I'm writing about.

Aldnoah.Zero

Country: Japan

Director: Ei Aoki

Year: 2014 (first cour) / 2015 (secon cour)

In an alternative universe part of humanity colonized Mars in the 1970s and turned against their home planet shortly after. In 2014 young Martian princess visits Earth as a goodwill ambassador, but right after her arrival she becomes a target of a terrorist attack. Outraged Martians immediately break a 15-year old ceasefire and attack Earth with all they've got. Which is a lot, since they're in possession of superior technology far surpassing anything forces of Earth can send against them.

I'd say it's a decent premise (though technically any premise is decent if one can handle it) and after watching the first episode I thought that maybe Aldnoah.Zero actually deserved all the attention it was getting. It didn't seem like it will be really mature and serious, but there was a big chance it will be quite intense and entertaining. Plus I haven't seen anything putting good old Mars to use in a while, so I liked the idea. 

After two or three more episodes, most of the main cast was introduced and I found it really promising. Well, maybe the characters weren't really interesting on their own, but they had a potential and there was plenty of room for development. And most importantly they were interesting as a set – bunch of people with various backgrounds, involved in the outburst of war in different ways, with different goals and priorities. They were gathered by chance and had to cooperate, at least temporarily, in order to survive. From the start, there were some hidden tensions and promise of interesting relationships and interactions.

But then the show creators decided that it would be really cool if Aldnoah.Zero was actually all about two arch enemies and their inevitable clash and started pushing the action in that direction, against its natural flow. This is what made this otherwise promising anime end up as quite average and hardly exciting – forcing upon it a formula it had no resources to realize. 

Kaizuka Inaho is an introvert but a very reliable Earthian boy in a final year of his military training. Slain Troyard is also an Earthian, but he has been serving the Martian princess for the last few years. His father was someone important and was doing important stuff and had important friends and something important happened, so Slain had his life saved by the princess, but nobody cared to properly explain what was all that about. Anyway when those two were just parts of a bigger story, it was really fine. Slain, in particular, was quite intriguing with his potentially conflicting loyalties and every time he made an appearance I got excited, anticipating how his presence will influence the situation. But none of them had what it takes to be the main protagonist in this kind of show. Placing almost entire weight of the story on them was a huge mistake.

There's nothing that makes pitching them against each other particularly appealing. They aren't natural enemies. They don't really have any conflicting interests or radically different ideals. The only reason they didn't end up in the same team was because Inaho didn't feel like making friends with Slain when they first met. Well, okay, he actually acted like a total asshole and Slain had all the right to be seriously pissed about that time. But they didn't even used that. They were put in opposing camps by 'tragic' circumstances. But since they weren't allies or friends to begin with, parting of their paths wasn't very thrilling either. To put it simply, there wasn't even an ounce of the chemistry great rivals are supposed to share. It was just dull and totally unnecessary.

Basically, everything about this show goes wrong after Inaho and Slain meet which is frustrating because it was quite an anticipated moment. The shift isn't immediately evident, and the first cour is really decent till the end, but it eventually takes its toll. The second cour is just weak and while I certainly wasn't forcing myself to watch it, I didn't really care what will happen to anybody either. Everything that was really interesting about other characters was resolved in the first cour and after that they were all degraded to plot devices and comic relieves. There is some talk about what really brought the enmity between Mars and Earth and why the war started, but it's just for the sake of appearances. It's supposed to make You believe that this show actually addresses some serious matters, when, in fact, entire conflict, political and social issues behind it remain a background as flat and unconvincing as a landscape painted awkwardly on a sheet in amateur theatre. We never even get to see Mars.

Overall Aldnoah.Zero is a show above average, but only because average isn't actually good. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy it, but I neither had particularly great fun watching it (especially the second cour) nor will I remember it for too long.

And now a closing quiz:

Why Mizusaki cannot get a date?

a) because she's a freaking soldier and an officer and she doesn't have time

b) because she has a bitch of a superior who never misses a chance to lower her self-esteem

c) because she's a closeted lesbian masochist and has a crush on her superior

Post the correct answer in comments to win Martian invasion.