I’m not sure if surrealism is the technical term to describe this unusual director’s vague yet distinctive style, but Yasuhiro Yoshiura of Eve no Jikan fame is undoubtedly an oddball in the industry.
And I say “oddball” with the most respect that the word can connote. Though I’ve spent less than an hour viewing his works, I’m already unquestionably entranced with his well-thought-out direction, delicious eye-candy, and ambiguous yet unpretentious storytelling.
However, the best part of it is that you don’t have to be an academic to figure out what he’s trying to say.
Surreal storytelling is not new to anime. Shows like Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg date back to the 80s, and that was arguably one of the most arthouse, abstract anime ever made. Bloggers like gaguri and the Anime World Order podcast have talked about the show (and many similar shows) at length, delving into the possible interpretations of the symbols.
However, there’s always something intimidating about surreal anime. It’s almost like the opposite of a stigma: most fans acknowledge these shows to be good, but many are afraid to watch them because of the inevitably incomprehensible plot that will follow. The recent Trapeze is a good example, and Omisyth isn’t the only one to note its lack of popularity (though according to the post, it looks like a case of judging a book by its cover). Anyway, it can be fun to use your brain and try to dissect the true meaning of these often obscure gems, but it’s also a daunting task.
This is where Yoshiura’s works feel completely different. Despite being outright odd in both presentation and content, nothing about the two shows I watched so far – Pale Cocoon and Mizu no Kotoba – felt incomprehensible to the average viewer. In fact, the stories explained themselves, albeit in a vague, indescribable way. I don’t think I could summarize either show and hope to do it correctly, but the feeling I got at the end of both was the opposite of the emptiness that some excessively abstract shows give me. Instead of feeling like I should track down a good blog post to explain what I missed, I felt like I understood the director’s message, even if I might only be fooling myself.
Without a doubt, this is what caused Yoshiura to win my attention after less than an hour of screentime. As a Twitter friend put it, it’s poetic. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the essence of poetry is in saying a lot with a little. Sometimes this can cause unnecessary ambiguity, as I’m sure many a lit major can attest to, but when done right, poetry can invoke thoughts and feelings without needing to paint a full picture and tell a full story. Nine minutes of Mizu no Kotoba got me thinking more than six hours of half of the anime I’ve seen, and there’s no question that it got me feeling something that I couldn’t describe in words. It reminds me of the first time I watched Makoto Shinkai’s Voices of a Distant Star.
Ultimately, I think only a show like one of the above could adequately describe my newfound attraction to Yoshiura’s works. In a word, though, his stories can be described as beautiful. Subjective as the word may be, it’s the only thing I can think of that captures the aesthetic – technical and visual, as well as simply intangible – and the poetic storytelling that invokes feeling in less time than it takes to shower. Whether you describe it with the technical details of fluid animation and unique camera angles or with the rose-tinted metaphors of a romantic, there’s no question that Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s surrealism is of a different category, and that even the most academia-resistant fans should spend a few hours of their lives to partake in some of the most original anime of recent years.
~ ETERNAL
つづく
