After The Quake.
10 Episodes. Starring: Yuko Sasaki, Regina Ueda & Tomo Muranaka. Director: Masaaki Yuasa.
Tokyo, 2020. This was supposed to be the year. Right now the capital city of Japan was meant to play host to something that comes around only once every four years. The five rings of the Olympic Games. Not since 1964 has this neon dream of a city held the games here and the already ultra modern city surrounded by traditional temples was being Tron transformed. This eager English writer even started a teaching job here, moving Far East upon a dream but what also seemed to be the perfect timeline for this guy who moonlights as a Basketball writer looking for gold like LeBron James and Team USA. But instead a cruel calender began with the tragic loss of Kobe and GiGi and all those who lost their lives on that fateful January day. The first night were I also came back here via a hotel in Yokohama forebodingly shaking at the foundations. If that wasn't bad enough people lost more even closer to home as COVID-19 made 2020 a year we wanted to forget, but will always remember like the names of those who lost their lives to police brutality that we shout in unifying protest like, "Black Lives Matter' again and again until we are really heard. Coronavirus cancelled everything from cinemas, to concerts and now Basketball back on court in a Disney World Bubble like Football...and that's the tea. Even the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo will be postponed a year later, we hope in 2021. Although merchandise and signage will still read the same. So doesn't Netflix's 'Japan Sinks 2020' seem like tasteless timing? Well this amazingly anime that is hauntingly and horrifyingly the most heartbreaking and terrifying thing since Tokyo's 'Terror In Resonance' may be what we all need right now, coming to terms with this brutal, but brave new world. Based on the 1973 science fiction novel by Sakyo Komatsu, this anime adaptation like a Haruki Murakami 'After The Quake' book report brings us all back together in a reuniting, emotional embrace, whilst some of us are still socially isolated, locked down in quarantine, staying safe at home. Just don't watch this on your phone as an actual real alert blares through (trust me, nothing seems as scary) and shows you lost in translation why you feel like you've been sleeping in a hammock for the last two minutes.
Earthquakes here and everywhere they are, are no joke even if kids nonchalantly play video games under the table of a position they assume like convenience store shopping routine. The blood and falling bodies tell another story here and it will stay with you like the sound of the crash. The first effects here are harrowing, even captured in animation which for this anime is as "slice of life" real as it gets. But oh how it breaks your heart-just when you thought everything was OK-when you go through another episode in the second one and its aftershock. Same song for Episode III like a 'Revenge Of The Sith', even if it is called 'A New Hope' like 'Star Wars'. This series of earthquake events grabs you by the lapels and won't let go as a 'World War Z' supermarket stock up for supplies turns into a Hawkeye like shooting gallery like when Clint Barton was lost in translation in Tokyo as Ronin. Then there's the utopia that's anything but a sanctuary that will give you 'Midsommar' vibes. A 'Life Of Pi' like lifeboat that lights up like a Coldplay 'Paradise'. But blindsiding you at any moment with heartbreaking and wrenching moments this will leave you shaken to the core. Just when you thought you'd had enough to bear, it claws you again like 'The Revenant', when all you want is the rapture. Quicksand sinking in on itself, like the hourglass running out before Mount Fuji explodes, this eruption of action picks-up to the back of a orange banded truck like the one Kurt Russell drove off the planet in 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2' for this escape from Tokyo. But the mere fact that it can evoke this much emotion from you-from stressful aggravation to perplexed sadness-shows you just how special a slice of animation it well and truly, really is.
Anime is already amazing artwork in itself, but how about the perfect pastels and pure white curtains that drape the traditional title sequence that ends with a 'Kafka On The Shore' like kitten, cutely looking on? Just an intro? A prelude to this chapter by chapter, episode by episode book translation and adaptation? No! It's necessary and needed, especially in a time where anime is for some reason going the C.G. Pixar route (however the same can be said for the cute Wall-E like robot looking a halfway house between a 'Short Circut' Johnny 5 with batteries not included or that office table bird from 'The Simpsons' that keeps drinking water ("IT'S DRINKING THE WATER")). From Netflix's very own 'Ghost In The Shell: Sac_2045' edition to God forbid the amazing art of the Studio Ghibli movies. But not this one. Or Netflix's cat tails 'A Whisker Away'. Still weathering with you in that department like 'Your Name'. There have been a fair few adaptations of Sakyo Komatsu's novel idea. From the fresh out the docks 1973 'Tidal Wave' movie in the same year the book debuted fresh off the page, to the 'Sinking Of Japan' 2006 remake to all of this. But nothing strikes the strings quite like 2020's 'Sinks' directed marvelously by Masaaki Yiasa. Just like some of the episodes cliffhangers from a cupids arrow to a helicopter pad at red blinking light sea level. And with the vocal talents of Yuko Sasaki, Regina Ueda and Tomo Muranaka on hand to elicit more motion you really do feel this in all its tremors as your nerves tremble as your hands shake like the thing we can't do anymore when we meet. So how about a nod of approval to something so close to the bone and foundations, but still holding respect like a bow? Besides in a 2020 bruised by brutality and terrorised by tragedy sometimes we need something in solidarity as we stay safe and socially distant, home alone. Even if it does gives us that sinking feeling. It still brings us back up again like the one thing that will never leave our side in this year of sickness and health...family and the one unit that says together when the world and its leaders fall apart. And this modern day adaptation-that makes use of everything from apps to social media-may show us just how different the world is, but it's still traditionally caught in the pages of the '73 novel in this e-reader age update of something that was Philip K. Dick ahead of its time. All the way to today and the elated ending that comes from the depths of the darkest depressions. All to rise again like an Olympic flame in the following years waving the flag like everything else that will fly again like the land of the rising sun. Like every single one of us. Together. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'Terror In Resonance', 'A Whisker Away', 'Earthquake Bird'.
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