Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai (2015) Reviews

• Beautiful Anime

  alisonc-12015-07-25

  In 1814 Edo, Japan, a master artist Katsushika Hokusai, known as Tetsuzo, and his daughter O-Ei spend their time creating splendid paintings, some on commission and some just because. Tetsuzo lives away from his wife and younger daughter, who is blind, and he tends to have little to do with them, perhaps because he is afraid of illness and disability. Instead, he instructs O-Ei and others in his art, but in some ways his daughter outstrips even his talent. This lands them in trouble on occasion, for example when one of her paintings is believed by its owner to be enchanted by devils, but Tetsuzo knows how to make things right again. If only his daughter wasn't so hot-headed! This is a beautifully rendered anime based on a manga, Sarusuberi; having not read the manga, I don't know how faithful the film is to the source material. In any event, it looks lovely and the story of the artists' lives is very well told. It has more of an episodic feel to it than a straight plot-line, but since Tetsuzo was apparently a real person in 19th Century Edo (now Tokyo), that method of story-telling works very well. If you like anime, you'll love this movie.

• to fully enjoy MISS HOKUSAI, you must discard cultural blinders

  alerter2016-11-03

  MISS HOKUSAI (MH) is an ambitious and visually sumptuous anime interpretation of the Edo period historical manga _Sarusuberi_, written/illustrated by Hinako Sugiura. The film is a brilliant exercise in the Japanese Buddhist concept of "everyday suchness." When you look at a centuries old Japanese painting of a young girl in a garden, staring into a bamboo aquarium containing goldfish and bare accouterments, you think you know what you see, but can you really see what the artist experienced to create that painting, let alone the ideas underlying the image? The source manga is disconnectedly episodic in nature and it's a real stretch to claim that there's any main character therein, even though the historical figure Katsushika Hokusai pops up repeatedly early in the series. Hokusai's most famous historical work is a woodblock print series, yet, for all of MH, we never see him work on a woodblock. We do see Hokusai paint. Are director Hara, screenwriter Maruo and ProductionIG messing with us? No. Hokusai is not the point of this story. The Edo period is a time when chronic illness turns to death in the blink of an eye. Although Hokusai pays little attention to healthy living, he's highly adverse to spending time with his terminally ill youngest daughter, for fear of catching something that might prevent him from living to be 100. For reasons known only to him, Hokusai believes he'll achieve artistic mastery at that nice round age. It's another daring move to make Hokusai's daughter, Katsushika O-Ei, the seemingly central character of MH. Yes, she's in nearly every frame, beautifully and sparingly drawn. Yes, MH is a feminist tale. O-Ei is the chosen vehicle for telling the anime's story which is larger than just her. She, too, is a rather accomplished painter. Later in the manga series, O-Ei grows more prominent, without becoming central. Don't expect anything from O-Ei, but do be mindful/aware as you observe her context. If you relax in your seat, this happens naturally. The only obligation is to remember. As in real life, O-Ei's personality is very much like her father's, yet O-Ei is judged by many, on screen and in the audience, as being "harsh" and "unlikeable," while drunken and slovenly Hokusai is well admired by many more. O-Ei is a woman far ahead of her time, even as she willingly carries out "traditional" duties of assisting her father in his work. She knows that she is honing her own skills through the experience, while being far from subservient. Valuable lessons, harsh though they may seem, from Hokusai to O-Ei, about composition and balance, are literally and tersely depicted in the context of the story's moment. O-Ei's highly opinionated and suffers no fools. She's pursued by some for her beauty and by others for her art. O-Ei is devoted to her sickly younger sister, O-Nao, and gets along well with her mother. O-Ei's hardly maladjusted. MH shows us everyday Edo period life as an artist, who just happens to be O-Ei, experiences it. We learn that O-Nao is blind and that she "sees," with her mind's eye, that the goldfish pets given to her by O-Ei are having great fun inside their bamboo aquarium, which brings O-Nao equal joy and respite from her illness. MH includes many direct representations of how elements of everyday life become ukiyo-e prints and paintings, often emphasized in perfectly timed freeze frames that do not interrupt the flow of the film. Sisters in a riverboat, fingers trailing in the rippling water, speculating about the dangers of rough open seas. Ripples become waves, becoming an imaginary tidal wave about to engulf the riverboat, scene turning into woodblock print. Visual poetry. O-Ei walking at sundown, through the shadows/light between city structures lining her way home. She passes Hokusai ambling along in the opposite direction across the street. As they pass, O-Ei is aware. Hokusai might not be. Both are in shadows, neither acknowledges the other. Then as O-Ei passes back into light, we see her admiring the fresh rays of light streaming between her fingers. A scene brimming with symbolism. (The more you know about Hokusai's work, the more Easter eggs you'll find in MH.) Mindfulness/awareness/context, within everyday life, are what MH is all about. Not "character development." Not "plot." Don't let western cultural conventions/blinders keep you from absorbing and enjoying what MH shows us about everyday suchness. O-Nao manages to see so many things within the limits of what her young mind can comprehend. At every step and turn, we all face limits, but everyday suchness allows for that. Too much is made about how trivially O-Ei's "marriage" is narratively tossed off in an end title card. The real O-Ei was briefly married to a fellow art student BEFORE she became an assistant to her ailing father. She divorced, because she found her husband to be a comically poor artist. She never had a need to remarry. The anime treats O-Ei's one marriage as seriously as she did. We see the gist of that "relationship" play out in O-Ei's later interactions with her male contemporaries in the film. ... Now, what do you see when you look at O-Ei's painting of O-Nao in a garden admiring her goldfish? Perhaps you see a contented blind girl, intently focused on the joyous watery sounds of her pets. She's also surrounded by the dotted red beauty of fallen tree blossoms all around her. The little girl, in a peaceful garden, is surrounded by death. O-Ei's painting is a wistful remembrance/celebration of her dearly departed sister, for which words can do no justice. That's the context of that centuries old painting. That's a deep taste of everyday suchness. That's the point of MISS HOKUSAI.

• Simple heartfelt celebration of art and era

  quincytheodore2016-04-14

  Miss Hokusai is a "slice of life" animation, it portrays the characters' at their daily lives in briskly light mood. It may set in one of the most romanticized eras, yet it's mostly a few short stories about artists, especially the heroine Oei, woven together. This is a tribute to Japanese classic painting ukiyo-e, the tumultuous time told in different light and appreciation of the artists themselves. Oei is the daughter of talented painter Hokusai, who has a knack for painting herself. She can be crude at times, but she gives of warm subtle kindness, especially with her drawings. There's no great dilemma or adventure, although it presents a few strange mysteries. The animation is more of a method to appreciate the art as it changes constantly when the characters do narrative or monologue. It uses classic touches on the tales, which can seem supernatural yet bizarrely fitting for that particular era. The setting is made with great care, details like the street corner or dimmed room with faint light of candles provide fine atmosphere for these characters to play in. Occasionally, they would talk in vague words, it's not a drama where people yell at each other frequently, there's a restrained on their mannerisms. Miss Hokusai is a nice homage to early art works, celebrated by modern Japanese animation, it's quaint, unimposing and warmly colorful.

• Wistful window into life in Edo

  otaking2412016-10-24

  While lacking in plot and character development--generally what most people look for in a film--Miss Hokusai is a lovely and wistful look into life in Edo, which was Tokyo before the Meiji Restoration of 1867. The film centers on the painter Hokusai, whose Great Wave off Kanagawa is probably the most well-known Japanese artwork, and his real-life daughter O-Ei, of whom little factual data remains. They live together in a squalid flat and are completely devoted to producing art, while Hokusai's wife and blind younger daughter live elsewhere. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes featuring well-known works by the artist, some of which the film posits may have been painted by his daughter. There is a visit to a brothel in Yoshiwara to see a geisha who has out-of-body experiences at night, dealing with a haunting caused by one of O-Ei's paintings, a ride on a boat where the great wave is reenacted, and various other scenes. Two subplots round out the film, one involving O-Ei's unrequited love for her father's disciple, and the other the younger daughter's worsening health and eventual death. The short film is capped with O-Ei telling how her life played out after the events and a text crawl at the end relating her own death. With the exception of the younger daughter's death no single plot line in the film is fully played out, which leaves something of a sour taste in the mouth. But the film is nonetheless enjoyable for its visual beauty and the window it grants into life in Edo. The scene where O-Ei follows the alarm to a fire was especially fascinating, the firefighting companies holding their standards, getting doused with water and tearing down the surrounding structure to prevent the fire from spreading. The character designs are somewhat simplistic, maybe even a bit crude, but they're deftly animated and with the exquisite backgrounds the team at Production I.G. have created another masterpiece visually. Worth watching, and if you're intrigued plan a visit to the Edo Tokyo museum in Tokyo for a more in-depth look at life in this fascinating time.

• Great art, no plot or character development

  cguldal2016-10-15

  The art, as well as the way the making of art is portrayed in the film is great; however, there is no real story arc or character development to speak of. Perhaps not much is known about the daughter of Hokusai, but even so, historical fiction is fiction for a reason. Though the film is narrated by the daughter, it is not about her at all, which is misleading (title, trailer all suggest the film will be about her). Her character does not develop much, though there is ample room for it to develop. Just when she may go beyond her immature, mean self, beyond her father's shadow, the film ends with a few narrated summary lines conveying what happens in the next 30 years without actually showing it. The film seems to focus on the period in which the blind daughter of the famous painter (the narrator's sister) is young, falls sick, and dies. It is not clear how and why Hokusai is separated from his wife, why his eldest daughter draws and paints with him (though she resents him plenty)... None of the romantic interests develop during the film, yet the summary in the end tells us she married once! It is hard to imagine her marrying, so this would be a great story, but it is not the subject of the film. At one point, we learn that she has a passion for fire, but have no idea how, if at all, this affects her paintings, her art... All in all, the art is great, especially the parts where painting and drawing itself is discussed. But the story is severely lacking and aimless.