On your mark

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Movie
Original title On your mark
On Your Mark Logo.svg
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1995
length approx. 7 minutes
Rod
Director Hayao Miyazaki
script Hayao Miyazaki
production Toshio Suzuki
music Chage and Aska
cut Takeshi Seyama

On Your Mark (to German  On your marks ) is a music video for a song by the Japanese duo Chage and Aska . The well-known anime director Hayao Miyazaki was responsible for the film released in 1995 with a length of six minutes and 40 seconds. The work is completely without dialogues, the sound consists only of the music and some added sound effects. The two main characters, two police officers, are based on the appearance of the two performers.

action

At night in a futuristic city, troops from several airships storm the base of a sect. A bloody fight between the cultists and the police begins . Two men from the combat units find a chained girl with wings who looks like an angel under the bodies that have already been piled up . Then you see these two men in an Alfa Romeo Giulietta driving down an empty street and holding the hands to help the girl fly.

In the base of the sect, the men free the girl and decide to take care of her. But she is brought to a laboratory by scientists in protective clothing . There the two men who found her break in and get her out. They flee in an armored vehicle through the city built in a deep crater and the police are chasing them. But the bridge over which they want to escape collapses and they fall into the depths. The girl refuses to let go of her rescuers and rushes with them.

After the girl has been found in the sect again, the two men attempt a second time to free the girl. Now the bridge collapses again, but the refugees activate the jet propulsion of the escape vehicle. It crashes into a building and the three take a nearby Alfa Romeo for their further escape. They leave the city through a tunnel, past signs warning of radiation and danger to life. Driving through the open countryside on the road, the men let the girl out of her car, help her to fly and finally she flies away.

Emergence

The short film was made at Studio Ghibli as a music video for the song On Your Mark by the vocal duo Chage and Aska . The song appeared on the album Heart in 1994. Hayao Miyazaki was working on his next film, Princess Mononoke , during this time . To overcome writer's block , he devoted himself to the music video for a change. He wrote the script and directed. The non-linear, enigmatic and not directly accessible narrative was deliberately chosen by Miyazaki in order to stimulate the audience to reflect and to interpret. According to Miyazaki, the story takes place on a contaminated earth of the future. People live secluded underground, while the surface is being reclaimed by nature. For this story he deliberately misinterpreted the lyrics and designs a world plagued by disease and radiation and people's reactions to this fate.

The character design was created by Masashi Andō , who also directed the animation work. The artistic direction lay with Yōji Takeshige , who was active in this area for the first time. Responsible producer was Toshio Suzuki . However, according to him, the studio invested little effort or attention in the short film, as it was not given great importance. In production, Miyazaki experimented with computer animation to complement the hand-drawn cel animation . This work was outsourced to the studio CG Production Company Links because Studio Ghibli did not have the equipment for computer animation. The production there took place under the direction of Hideki Nakano .

publication

Chage and Aska have screened the film several times during their appearances, the premiere was on June 29, 1995 at a club concert in Chiba . On July 15, 1995, On Your Mark was released in Japanese cinemas together with Voice of the Heart - Whisper of the Heart . On July 25, 1997, the short film was released in Japan on VHS and laser disk , along with information on and insights into the production, the storyboard and a real-life version as additional material. In 2005 it appeared together with other short films from the studio on the DVD Ghibli ga Ippai Special Short Short , but the release of Walt Disney Studios Japan was withdrawn in 2014 and the film was not included in further collective releases after the singer Aska was arrested for drug possession. In the same year, this decision was changed so that those who ordered the new sets also received On Your Mark .

analysis

Author Dani Cavallaro sees the figure of the winged girl as a symbol of hope and that hope can be said to be protected, to lead her “to where no one can attack”. Hope keeps its purity and authenticity only when it is incomprehensible, small and fleeting. Hope can lead to exhaustion and pain; to deny it denies the possibilities it offers. Regarding the video, Cavallaro interprets the lyrics as a theming of change and renewal, unclear whether they are imposed by fashion and economy or welcomed as a real change. In the depiction of the oppressive city in contrast to the open landscape, he sees parallels to tears of memory - Only Yesterday , a 1991 film by the studio.

Pamela Gossin, Professor at the University of Dallas, and Marc Hairston draw parallels between the plot On Your Mark and Miyazaki's Nausicaä from the Valley of the Winds . Both works deal with environmental pollution and a flying, female main character. The beginning of the production of the short film also coincides with the publication of the last chapter of the Nausikaä manga in January 1995. Cavallaro also sees parallels, Miyazaki described both characters as "bird-man", but one could say the winged figure in On Your Mark do not call feminine unequivocally. You could also be sexless and stand outside the usual order.

Helen McCarthy sees various references to other films and events in the short film. The cityscapes could refer to Akira or Blade Runner , the storming of the sect reminded of the raids that took place in the same year after the attacks by the Aum sect . The protective suits of the scientists are similar to the eponymous hero of the film Porco Rosso and the rescue scene refers to the Princess Leia in Star Wars . A box-shaped structure seen in the film could refer to the sarcophagus that was built around the reactor after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster . Seiji Kanō is noticeable that the urban landscape resembles a typical China Town and is reminiscent of the depictions in Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell . The film was still in production at the time, the manga was released in 1989. Miyazaki may have borrowed the figure of the winged girl from the manga Seraphim: 266,613,336 Wings , a collaboration between Oshii and Satoshi Kon , which appeared in series in 1995 in Animage magazine .

Reception and aftermath

The short film was popular with fans of the studio and received primarily positive feedback from the critics. Science fiction writer Patrick Collins called the work a perfect science fiction short. EX Magazine's McCarter praised On Your Mark for the richness of detail that brings the world of film to life. The Anime Encyclopedia calls the film “ nicely done ”, but because Miyazaki's usual topic of environmental protection is pressed onto the inevitable brevity of the music video, the result seems “ a bit artificial ”.

The techniques used in production to use computer animation were later applied to Princess Mononoke .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Dani Cavallaro: The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki . McFarland, 2006, pp. 112-113, 196 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy: The Anime Encyclopedia. Revised & Expanded Edition . Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley 2006, ISBN 978-1-933330-10-5 , pp. 464 f .
  3. ↑ a b c Helen McCarthy: Hayao Miyazaki Master of Japanese Animation . Stone Bridge Press, 1999, ISBN 1-880656-41-8 , pp. 211-214.
  4. ^ Miyazaki interview about On Your Mark. Animage, September 1995, accessed December 29, 2015 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Seiji Kanō: ジ ブ リ 実 験 劇場 ON YOUR MARK (Ghibli Experimental Theater On Your Mark) . In: 宮崎駿 全書 (The Complete Miyazaki Hayao) . 2nd Edition. Film Art Inc., Tokyo 2007, ISBN 978-4-8459-0687-1 , pp. 180-185 (Japanese, filmart.co.jp [accessed January 4, 2014]).
  6. ↑ Jason Sondhi: On Your Mark. Short of the Week, November 11, 2007, accessed January 12, 2014 .
  7. ↑ FAQ // On Your Mark. Nausicaa.net, accessed August 29, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Dani Cavallaro: The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki . McFarland, 2006, pp. 112-113, 196.
  9. ↑ On Your Mark (1995) [PCLP-00652 ] . Laser Disc Database. Retrieved January 3, 2014.
  10. ↑ Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Ed.): 日本語 タ イ ト ル: ジ ブ リ が い っ ぱ い SPECIAL シ ョ ー ト シ ョ ー ト / ア ニ メ (Ghibli ga Ippai Special Short Short) (DVD) . November 16, 2005.
  11. ↑ 'On Your Mark' Pulled from Miyazaki Box Sets After Aska's Drug Arrest . Anime News Network . May 21, 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  12. ↑ '「On Your Mark」 特別 デ ィ ス ク を 配 布 し ま す. . Studio Ghibli . October 27, 2014. Retrieved October 27, 2014.
  13. ↑ Material and information about Miyazaki, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, and anime for the Spring 1999 A&H 3300 class "Natural Wonders" at the University of Texas at Dallas . University of Dallas. April 1999. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  14. ↑ Material and information about Miyazaki, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, and anime for the Spring 1999 A&H 3300 class "Natural Wonders" at the University of Texas at Dallas . University of Dallas. April 1999. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  15. ^ Helen McCarthy: Hayao Miyazaki Master of Japanese Animation . Stone Bridge Press, 1999, ISBN 1-880656-41-8 , pp. 211-214.
  16. ↑ Dani Cavallaro: The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki . McFarland, 2006, pp. 112-113, 196.