Welcome to my first post of the Thousand Year Drama! I hope you enjoyed watching Millennium Actress! If you haven’t yet, that’s fine, because this week, before we jump into the movies and it’s greatness, we going to explore it’s creator. Satoshi Kon. But I highly suggest you watch the film before the next post and on, as those will be rife with spoilers. But for now, let’s talk about the man himself!
Part 1: Satoshi Kon
I am a HUGE fan of Satoshi Kon, he’s my favorite director of all time (though Brad Bird is pretty close). If this series goes well, and I enjoy it, I might do the same for some of his other works! And boy, would I have a lot more to talk about. But I’m getting on a rabbit trail here.
So, who is Satoshi Kon? Let’s start at the beginning.
Satoshi Kon was born October 12th, 1963, in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. Growing up, Satoshi Kon had three major influences. Katsuhiro Otomo, who would later mentor him, Yasutaka Tsutsui, whose book he would later adapt, and western movies, which he would later influence. In 1982 he attended Musashino (not the Shirobako studio... sadly) Art University with the hopes of being an illustrator.
In 1984 Kon wrote his first short story, a manga called ‘Toriko’ (Not the Toriko you are thinking of), which won the runner-up award in the 10th Annual Tetsuya Chiba Awards held by Young Magazine (Kodansha). Kon then found work as an assistant for Katsuhiro Otomo, and actually worked on the Akira manga with Otomo. Kon continued his work, he released a six-chapter manga called Kaikisen, or Tropic of the Sea, and wrote the script for Otomo’s World Apartment Horror, which he later adapted back into manga.
Kon worked on a myriad of other films, including Roujin-Z, Kanojo no Omoide, and Patlabor 2: The Movie, he then teamed up with Mamoru Oshii (of Ghost in the Shell fame) for Seraphim: 266613336 Wings, a manga that was sadly never finished. He also directed the fifth OVA in the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and wrote the script for Memories’ Magnetic Rose.
The final chapter of Kon’s rise to fame was during the 90’s. Kon began serializing his own manga, Opus, but before he could finish, the comic magazine it ran in was cancelled, and Kon was too busy with another project to finish it personally. That project was his first feature film, Perfect Blue, in 1997. This is where Satoshi Kon really became a household name. Perfect Blue took the world by storm. One of the few films since Ghost in the Shell and Akira to really take hold in the USA. Kon continued his successes, following up with my personal favorite, Millennium Actress (which, of course, is an amazing film), and then Tokyo Godfathers. At this point, Kon had yet to release a bad movie.
Kon then made Paranoia Agent, a 13 episode anime that was basically just all the leftover ideas after making the previous three films. And, in 2006, Kon’s fourth film, Paprika was released. The most beautiful and confusing Kon film, it inspired the 2010 movie Inception (who am I kidding, Inception is a rip-off).
In 2007 we got Ohayo, a one minute short film about waking up. Which is the last completed Kon film today. And then, on the day of August 24th 2010, five years ago, while working on his fifth film, The Dream Machine, Kon died of Pancreatic cancer.
That was it, Satoshi Kon, was finished. As fans, our only hope is that one day his last film will be finished. But until then, Kon directed only four films.
But enough about how depressing it is to be a fan of Kon. Let’s discuss what makes Kon unique. Satoshi Kon was known for two major things. The blending of two realities, and his seamless transitions. Let’s discuss the first one. Kon absolutely loved this concept. It can be seen in almost everything he’s ever been involved with.
Tropic of the Sea: Myth vs. Reality
Opus: Fiction vs. Reality
Magnetic Rose: Holograms vs. Reality
Perfect Blue: Onstage vs. Reality
Millennium Actress: Memories vs. Reality
Tokyo Godfathers: Coincidence vs. Reality [Annotation: Will make a video about this eventually]
Paranoia Agent: Paranoia vs. Reality
Paprika: Dreams vs. Reality
Unfortunately, we don’t know enough about The Dream Machine to know what realities would have been explored, but, this is Kon we are talking about, so it was definitely going to be addressed within the film. Heck, Tokyo Godfathers was his attempt at trying something different, and he still couldn’t avoid it! [A topic for a later series]
The last thing Satoshi Kon was known for, was his seamless transitions. Now, I am even more unqualified to talk about this than anything else. So I’m going to leave that to our Highlight. Speaking of Highlight...
HIGHLIGHT:
This weeks Highlight is Tony Zhou, from Every Frame A Painting’s video “Satoshi Kon - Editing Through Space and Time”
I absolutely adore this channel, and this video is one of his best. Tony does an amazing job going into the editing style of Satoshi Kon, a short and fantastic video. Link will be in the description along with the annotation on screen.
WARNING:
The next segment, FAVORITE MOMENTS, does have some spoilers for Millennium Actress, since this is the only episode without Spoilers in the main topic, I thought I’d mention it here.
FAVORITE MOMENTS:
My first favorite moment is Opening Credits in the first 2 minutes of the film. It does a great job of taking this empty space, the drive to Genei, and uses it as the opening credits. It also does quite a bit of foreshadowing. We see many bits from later on in the movie, including Chiyoko’s run to Hokkaido, the ending, and Manchuria, just to name a few. Seriously, the first three seconds of the Opening credits (when Genya rewinds the tape) covers every emotional moment in the movie. Giving you a heart attack of feels if you’ve seen the movie previously. All while giving us some amazing transitions.
And that’s it, next week we’ll actually dive into Millennium Actress. And I must say, I am super stoked to get this going. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will. See you next month!
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