Masasski Yuasa is on my shortlist of modern directors that I’m eager to see their next project. When Mind Game arrived on Blu-ray in 2018, I was blown away by how the movie was so trippy and compelling. He kept up that spirit over his next four films even though each one had their own tone. The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl takes us on a downtown journey. Lu Over the Wall reworked the Little Mermaid so it wasn’t a rehash. Ride Your Wave brought a supernatural love story to the beach. His latest Inu-Oh brings ancient Japan to a rock and roll perspective. Yuasa creates these marvelous worlds on the screen. Masaaski Yuasa: Five Films is a retrospective in a boxset that gives us his feature visions. You can fully absorb what he’s accomplished so far as a director and an animator.
Back in the 20th Century there were animated films that were referred to as trip movies. People would get stoned in various ways and head down to the theater so that the images could get even wilder when the substances were kicking in and causing your eyes to hallucinate. The films including The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, Fantastic Planet, Fritz the Cat and even Disney’s Fantasia. Lately so much feature length animation has been so straight that you’re better off being sober in the theater chair. Writer-director’s Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game needs no outside refreshments to mess with your mind. It’s an amazing trippy film.
The film does have a plot, but quickly it goes into a strange space. Comicbook artist Nishi runs into his old crush Myon. Things are kinda looking good for the two finally hooking up until the Yakuza gets involved. They also have an interest in Myon. When Nishi gets in the wrong place, thing go bad very quickly since the gangsters aren’t up for his nonsense. That’s when even more weirdness starts as Nishi finds himself trapped in an alternate world where he meets God. This becomes a surrealistic landscape where the cowardly character must choose whether to try to return to the land of the living or stay dead.
The description makes things sound a bit normal, but Yuasa and his crew’s animation keeps things constantly off kilter. This is not an exercise in restraint and style. There’s various techniques at odd times. They mix augmented live action with harsh line characters. This is a bit too wild for an audience used to a certain level of restraint in their anime. The film has a bit of a Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat) feel, but goes even beyond Wizards with kinetic outbursts and abrupt shifts in approaches to the screen. The film treats the viewer like a character in Tex Avery cartoon as it demands your eyeballs to pop out of their sockets and wrap around each other. Ultimately you don’t need to do any drugs when watching Mind Game because your mind can’t keep up with the visual on screen orgy of colors and lines.
The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
Director Massaki Yuasa gives us a less violent vision than his previous Mind Game. This is a fun and strange vision of a night out in Kyoto’s entertainment district. This is a world of booze, dirty drawings, used books and a touch of love ruled over by a manic pixie dream girl.
A bunch of college students are out enjoying themselves on a weekend night when Senpai notices the “black-haired maiden” named Kōhai that he’s had a massive crush on. But he’s too much of a bumbling klutz to follow through with letting her know his feelings toward her. Instead he’s spent a lot of time appearing in the same places she’s at. In his mind, he sees this as a way to get her to notice him and how they seem to like the same places. Of course an ordinary person would see this as a stalker move. Senpai loses her as she hits the town and both begin a hallucinatory adventure. First Kōhai runs into a guy called The Pervert at a cheap bar. This is where we learn two things about her. First is she isn’t going to put up with a pervy guy. This leads her to hooking up with two other people who are going party hopping. At their first party, we learn the second revelation that Kōhai can pound down drinks like Wolverine without getting sick or blacking out. It’s all like water to her. She can’t out drink a demon. Senpai does want to impress her and discovers that she really wishes she could get a lost childhood book back. He freaks out when he finds out that there’s a copy at a used book fair in a park. The price of the book is outrageous, but he’s willing to do it for a chance to get her attention properly.
The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl is a joyful celebration of odd things that can happen when you just go with the flow on a Saturday night.
Lu Over the Wall retells the story of The Little Mermaid in a way that won’t get it confused by Disney or Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo.
Kai Ashimoto is stuck in a seaside town with his father and grandfather. There’s not much going on in the town since tourism is down and so is fishing. He feels like he’s going to be trapped. He seems to wish that he was with his mother after the divorce. He’s pretty introverted and doesn’t like to tell people what he’s thinking in His only escape is secretly recording songs and releasing them on the internet. After years as a solo artist, he’s asked to join a band that practices on an island. Their music attracts a curious fan named Lu. She starts dancing and singing along as they play. Kai finds himself getting out of his emotional shell when he’s around her. What he doesn’t realize at first that Lu is a mermaid. Turns out his family and the rest of the town are not fans of the merfolk since it means bad things on many levels including the local fishing industry. Kai is stuck between his number one fan and a town that he doesn’t quite love.
Lu Over the Wall is fun film and reflects it the animation style which goes from a realistic town to inflated memories. The film also deals with the over commercialism of thing when after Lu’s true nature is exposed. The town goes overboard with a theme park and stage show to bring attention and quick tourist cash. This is Little Mermaid meets a marketing department. There’s a fine moment when Lu realizes she’s being used by all the wrong people. But even with such adult messages, the film is still fine for kids who enjoy mermaid tales and dream of starting a rock band.
This a heartbreaking romance about love, sacrifice, illegal fireworks and surfing.
Hinako (She-Ra And The Princesses of Power’s Merit Leighton) has moved to a beach view apartment as she starts college. Although what she’s really cares about hitting the waves with her surf board. Taking notice of the new girl in town are two young fireman. Minato (Monkey King: Hero Is Back’s Joey Richter) and Wasabi (Zak Storm’s Michael Johnston) are pals who are learning the ropes and hoses to battle blazes in the coastal town. Both enjoy seeing Hinako tackle the waves during their breaks on the training grounds. But only one has a chance to make a major entrance into her life. A group of kids decide to launch illegal fireworks in the neighborhood. These aren’t the usual bottle rockets bought at a roadside stand. They’re got small town 4th of July fireworks and aren’t caring about aim. This leads to Hinako’s apartment building catching fire. She escapes to the roof where one of the two firefighter pals saves her and her beloved surfboard. This leads to a passionate whirlwind romance and a stunning end. Hinako is devastated until she begins to sing their song and finds her lost love floating in the water. Can they make this relationship still work?
Ride Your Wave is a bit of a supernatural love story after the first third being a bit of a conventional young romance. Even with Hinako getting a chance to reunite with her firefighting lover, it’s strange when she carries his aquatic spirit in a water bottle or an inflatable whale. The ending is action filled when the illegal fireworks comes back into play.
This is a tale from 13th Century Japan about a musician and a dancer who revolutionize their art and upset the wrong people.
Young Tomona and his dad are hired by agents of the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu to dive deep into the ocean to retrieve a box from a boat wreck. When they come back up with the treasure, the agents don’t tell the father that he’s carrying the Grasscutter Sword, a legendary blade. When he pulls the sword out of its sheath, something very bad happens to him and leaves his son nearly blind. The child goes searching for the men since they grabbed the sword and split without even paying. On his journey, he encounters an elderly Biwa player. This is a musical instrument similar to a lute played with what looks like a large pick. Tomona learns the biwa and the traditional songs from the master. Around the same time as his struggles, Inu-Oh is also going through a lot of issues. He was born so horribly disfigured that his father forces him to wear a mask and live with the dogs in the yard. His father is a famous Noh performer who reportedly made a supernatural deal to achieve this talent and the son was cursed as a result. But one day, the son begins to dance and his limbs get normal. The duo meets up and Inu-Oh can’t stop moving when he hears Tomona’s music. The blind musician can’t see his friend to be shocked, but he does see the spirits of Heike warriors that had died while fighting against Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s ancestors. The duo begin to work up a new act based on the stories of the dead soldiers. Tomona has let his hair grow long and plays his biwa in a way that sounds like a metal band. Inu-Oh comes up with dance routines to match this new sound. The crowds flock to them. The one person who doesn’t Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu since the songs don’t paint him in a favorable light. He’s out to stop the music.
Visually Inu-Oh captures the supernatural elements of the story. The animation draws you into what look like ancient artwork and then transform the moment. Tomona becomes a heavy metal messiah when he gets deep into his songs.
Masaaski Yuasa: Five Films celebrates how the director has been able to always to push his animation style as much as the film’s narrative.
Mind Game
The video is 2.39:1 anamorphic. The transfer brings out the details in the animation. There’s a sharpness in the dazzling imagery. The audio is Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1. The movie is subtitled in English, Spanish and French. The sound mix matches the visual insanity.
Production Artwork Galleries includes Background Designs (2:33), Character Designs (3:04) and Mechanics and Props (2:23) to give a sense of how things were drawn together.
Trailer (1:44) does a fine job in giving a taste of the weirdness.
Scenes with Director’s Commentary (31:25) lets Yuasa speak about the moments in the film that are essential. He speaks in Japanese, but all is subtitled.
The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
The video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer brings out the details of the various spots around Kyoto. You can order off the drink menu. The audio is 5.1 DTS-MA HD in Japanese. There is also an English dub which wasn’t part of the original Blu-ray release. The subtitles are in English and French so you can follow along.
Interview with Masaaki Yuasa (6:35) has him discuss revisiting the animated Kyoto and making it into a Theatrical film instead of a TV series.
Trailers (6:37) includes the full US trailer and the Japanese trailers. They made sure people know that this is a sweet film that isn’t for kids.
Lu Over The Wall
The video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer brings out the beauty in the background paintings of the seaside town. The audio is 5.1 DTS-MA HD in Japanese, English and French. The subtitles are in English and French.
Audio Commentary With Filmmakers is in Japanese, but English subtitles appear on the screen so you can follow along. There is talk about how they were marking Lu at the same time as Night Is Short.
Interview With Director Masaaki Yuasa (28:14) is in Japanese with English subtitles. Yuasa talks about how he approached Lu differently from his previous projects so more people could enjoy it.
Trailers And TV Spots (4:41) has the fear that mermaid are attracted to music.
Ride Your Wave
The video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The animation brings out the motion of the waves when Hinako is on top of her surfboard. The audio is DTS-HD MA 5.1 in both English and Japanese. Either mix sounds fine. The movie is subtitled in English, French and Spanish.
Interview with Producer Eunyoung Choi (8:43) is the co-founder of Science SARU. She talks about discovering talent. There were only five people when they set up the studio and began working on Lu Over The Wall. Their script meetings were a table in the kitchen. The studio has grown to 80 people as they work on a feature film and 3 TV shows. The TV show allows young animators and artists to move up to working on the feature films at the company.
Animatics (3:48) shows how the scene develops from storyboard art to the finished form.
Still Gallery (3:07) has the character gallery for what the animaters used for reference sheets.
Theatrical Trailers (4:31) has a sample of the beach action.
Inu-Oh
The video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfers brings out the artistry in the various animiation techniques and styles used in the film. The audio is 5.1 DTS-HD MA in both English and Japanese. There’s also an English DVS 5.1 track. The subtitles are in English and Spanish.
Interview with Masaaki Yuasa (12:02) has him discuss adapting the book. He talks about his unorthodox approach. He shaped the animation around his research on the outfits worn by the people of the time period. There is discussion of working with his crew.
Q&A at US Premiere (13:48) is from the Aero Theater in Los Angeles on August 5, 2022. Yuasa talks about how the film is about how we remember the songs sung from all those centuries before, but the singers are forgotten. He was happy to hear laughter in the audience during the screening. An audience member asks the director about the process of casting voice actors.
Yuasa Draws Inu-Oh (12:13) has him break out the pens and paper to draw Inu-Oh. He talks about how the drawing reflects elements of the character.
Scene Breakdown (24:03) has Yuasa go into the elements of “The Whale Song.” He uses a tablet and pen to underline the actions and drawings.
Trailers and Teasers (5:39) includes English language trailer from GKIDS, the announcement teaser, two 30 second teasers in Japanese, a 60 second trailer. The trailers are all about the musical element of the film.
Bonus Disc
Mind Game: Scene Breakdown (23:08) has Masaaki Yuasa get into the Whale escape scene.
Lu Over the Wall: Scene Breakdown (11:32) lets Masaaki Yuasa get into the details of an underwater scene. He compares Lu to Dracula in their inability to be near sunlight.
The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl: Scene Breakdown (16:24) allows Masaaki Yuasa to revisit the school festival scene. He gets into the moving backgrounds.
Ride Your Wave: Scene Breakdown (20:00) puts Masaaki Yuasa into the date scene. He describes the couple as uncool.
Mind Game: Character Drawings (7:43) has Yuasa draw Yan-chan using markers.
Lu Over the Wall: Character Drawings (6:17) gives us the way to make your own Merdog. Yuasa takes it slow so you can sketch along.
“Happy Machine” (15:02) is a short film. A baby discovers the horrible truth about the dangling thing over his crib and mom.
“Kick-Heart” (12:44) is about a masked wrestler who has a crush on his masked female opponent. Things get weird when he delivers a bunch of dolls to an orphanage along with a magazine he got out of one of those vending machines. This is a sensational short that would have been great to see at a Twisted Animation festival.
Mind Game: American Cinematheque Q & A (12:14) gets into making his first feature film.
A Night Out with Masaaki Yuasa (26:22) has him hitting the Los Angeles bar F&Bar to talk about the film. They get served unique cocktails that also include oysters and caviar from Chef John Gladish. He admits he doesn’t have much of a night life. This is a fine conversation. He gets into how he thinks too many people are fearful of creating art that others might dislike. I really want to go to this bar.
Shop Talk with Masaaki Yuasa (21:33) talks about animation from the perspective of art and filmmaking with live action. He gets into his role as a director in his films and the directors he worked under. There’s reflection on his use of music in his movies.
60 Page booklet with Yuasa’s sketches and an essay from Emily Yoshida.
Poster that’s suitable for framing.
GKIDS and Shout! Studios present Five Films by Masaaki Yuasa. Directed by Masaaki Yuasa. Boxset Contents: 5 movies on 6 Blu-ray discs. Rating: Rated PG & PG-13. Release Date: December 19, 2023.
