My home country Japan

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Anime movie
title My home country Japan
Original title ふ る さ と -JAPAN-
transcription Furusato Japan
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 2006
Studio Wao World
genre drama
Rod
Director Akio Nishizawa
script Akio Nishizawa
music Makoto Kuriya
synchronization

My homeland Japan ( Japanese ふ る さ と -JAPAN- , Furusato - Japan , German "Heimat - Japan") is an anime cinema film from 2006. It was directed and based on an idea by Akio Nishizawa at the Wao World studio and has been translated into several languages. The plot revolves around the life of a group of high school students in post-war Japan in 1956 .

action

Elementary school student Akira Yanagisawa lives in the poor harbor district of Kiba in eastern Tokyo. His father is a carpenter and makes doors and windows, but he can't quite keep up with modern times. His customers are demanding that he finally get a phone. Akira's school is known for having some problems precisely because most of the children are poor. Akira is the class representative in his class and has good grades. Soon Shizu Miyanaga is new to school and the pretty girl who can sing well is soon popular in the class. In addition, the school is getting a new music teacher, Rieko Sakamoto. She wants to take part in an elementary school singing competition with the children and ultimately chooses Shizu, Akira and his friend Hakase, among others.

But in their free time, with which they don't know what to do with, friends Akira, Hakase, Yoshio and Teru go stealing in the neighborhood shops under the guidance of the pub's son Gon. It doesn't take long to get caught doing this and get into trouble with their parents and at school. Participation in the singing competition is canceled by the school. Many students and especially Shizu are very sad about this and Ms. Miyanaga is also disappointed. During the vacation Shizu drives away and shortly before sees Akira who doesn't know how to apologize to her. During the vacation, Shizu dies while bathing.

The whole school is shocked by the death of the student. After a while, Akira gets up - motivated by Gon - to enable the students to take part in the competition. He collects signatures and finally succeeds in convincing the rector, also because Shizu wanted to take part in the competition. The group takes up the singing exercises under the guidance of Ms. Miyanaga and sacrifices every free minute for it. Ms. Miyanaga explains how she got into singing and her job as a teacher: Her brother died as a pilot in World War II . Before that he wrote her how much he loves Japan and especially the Japanese folk songs that he wanted to protect. Ms. Miyanaga wanted to fulfill this wish of her brother as a teacher after his death. The students enter the competition out of competition and it seems to them that Shizu is with them as they sing. Meanwhile, Akira's father decides to sell the family's samurai sword in order to buy a phone so that his business will go well again.

Production and publication

The 96 minute long film was made at Studio Wao World , which belongs to the education service provider WAO Corporation. Directed by Akio Nishizawa , who also wrote the script and runs WAO Corporation. The inspiration for the film was Nishizawa's encounters with the music of Tsutomu Aragaki and Kokia. They both also produced the anime's end credits song. As with his first film, NITABOH , Nishikawa wanted to teach children about values ​​and Japanese culture in a fun way. The animation film is particularly suitable for this. The fictional plot was also inspired by Nishikawa's own childhood in Kiba, where he went to first grade in middle school in 1956. The stories of a new classmate and the death of a classmate are based on real events. The year 1956 was also chosen because Japan became a member of the United Nations and this represented an international awakening for the country. However, since then, Japan has lost its wealth of tradition and culture, according to Nishikawa, and he wanted to remind the audience of these in the form of Japanese songs. He put another message of the film into the deaths of two people. Both live on through the memories of their loved ones and friends.

The storyboard is by Keiichiro Furuya and the artistic direction was by Tadashi Kudo . Soshi Goto was responsible for the editing . The character design comes from Hiroshi Kugimiya . The composer of the film music is Makoto Kuriya and the sound direction was by Yaku Shioya. The Japanese folk and children's songs are the main theme of the film. While the music is still holding back in the first third, it then takes up more and more space until the songs finally dominate the film in the competition between the children's choirs. The songs are highlighted with matching images from traditional Japanese everyday life or landscapes. In addition to the singing, the music consists of smaller Dixie pieces in everyday scenes, piano and string interludes and orchestral pieces.

The film premiered at the 12th Lyon Asian Film Festival in November 2006. It was shown to a select audience at the Pusan ​​International Film Festival in October. The anime then hit Japanese theaters on April 7, 2007. It was later translated into French, Italian and Chinese. A German dubbed version was released by Anime Virtual in 2008 .

Voice actor

The German version was created by Elektrofilm after a translation by Simone Gisler.

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
Akira Yanagisawa Naoya Sekine Maximilian Artajo
Shizu Miyanaga Maika Kawaguchi Laura Elßel
Gonji "Gon" Abe Subaru Kimura Yoshij Grimm
Rieko Sakamoto Sayaka Hanamura Julia digit
Yoshio Kawabata Seigo Kuwabara Jan-Nicklas Beeck
Kazuteru "Teru" Yoshimura Tetsuya Kannami Adrian Kilian
Hiroshi "Hakase" Sugiura Kengo Kumagai Sami El-Sabkhawi
Hikaru Goto Nana Takada
Genji Yanagisawa Takaya Hashi
Fukuko Yanagisawa Hikari Yono
Reiko Yanagisawa Nagashima Canon
School President Ikeno Yasuo Iwata Peter Reinhardt
landlady Sayuri Sadaoka

reception

At its premiere festival, the Lyon Asian Film Festival, My Homeland Japan was awarded first prize for Best Animated Film and Best Youth Film. According to the German magazine Animania , Nishikawa managed to "create a thoroughly touching work". The anime is reminiscent of The Last Fireflies by Studio Ghibli , but does not come close to this and is an independent work. The character designs are simple but memorable and the animation quality is comparatively good. The film is not supported by the animation, but above all by the fate of the characters and the music. The German synchronization would do justice to the template. The fan magazine Funime praises the well-chosen historical background. In the plot, the tension between the tradition of the old generation and the impetuous youth who do what they want becomes clear - similar to the novel Season of the Sun from the same time, which probably also provided some inspiration. The film's weaknesses lie in the connection between the music and other Japanese traditions. this sometimes seems arbitrary and forced, as the songs were often only written at the beginning of the 20th century. And for the beauty of the music, it is said that it is traditionally Japanese. It seems like a Japanese person is downright obliged to like the music. Such instrumentalizations and connections between music and place of origin seem to be the reason for uncertainty about one's own values.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Booklet for the German DVD, Anime Virtual 2008. pp. 9–11.
  2. ↑ Interview with Akio Nishizawa. In: Booklet for the German DVD, Anime Virtual 2008. pp. 19–21.
  3. ↑ a b Animania 05/2008. P. 16ff.
  4. ↑ Information about the film from the film homepage. Retrieved December 26, 2017 .
  5. ^ The 12th Lyon Asian Film Festival. furusatojapan.com, accessed December 26, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Funime No. 53. p. 16.