Tag: Kenta Miyake

ChaO (Yasuhiro Aoki, 2025) [Fantasia 2025]

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Given the chance to achieve his dreams, a young man can hardly say no when he’s pressured into marrying the daughter of the king of the Mermen, but soon finds himself increasingly conflicted in Yasuhiro Aoki’s gorgeously animated fable, ChaO. Set in Shanghai, the film’s timely themes embrace an environmental imperative along with critiquing the capitalistic drive that is slowly devouring our world in its all-encompassing lust for profit.

But as Stephan’s father was keen to tell him, we live in harmony with nature and not everything is ours to take. You should leave it at the bare necessities and never take more than you need, which is ironically Chao’s approach to life while living with Stephan. She soon sells off her vast royal treasures and declares herself happy enough just with Stephan himself and life of simple pleasures. But Stephan does seem to want more, or more to the point, he can’t see anything past the achievement of his dreams in keeping a promise to his father to invent a new air jet boat that would be safer and kinder to wildlife.

His evil boss Mr Sea, however, points out that no one’s going to want to pay more just to be kind to sea creatures so seeing as his air jets won’t save them any money, the project’s a non-starter. He only gets a shot at it because of ChaO and the light she casts on the company who are now very keen to look good, especially as they’re currently negotiating with Merman king Neptunus about compensation for the sea creatures injured by propellers on their boats. It’s clear that this bothers Stephan, especially as he overhears a pair of co-workers making fun of him in the bathroom. They think he’s an idiot too and that he’s only being indulged because he’s ChaO’s husband and agreed to humiliate himself by marrying a fish.

Stephan too refers to Chao at times as a “fish”, hinting at xenophobic notions within the contemporary society. He sees her as “ugly” and alien, but is also captivated by her human form which is to say, he can only appreciate her when she assimilates fully and becomes properly human. For Chao’s part, she does her best to be what she sees as the ideal wife to Stephan by human standards but struggles to adjust to life on land. Stephan clearly expects her to fulfil a feminine role by cooking and cleaning for him, but only belatedly notices that she’s injured her fins in an attempt to cook food he might find more palatable.

His obsession with his quest prevents Stephan from ever really seeing Chao for who she is or noticing how difficult it’s been for her to adjust to life in a new culture while he’s given her very little in the way of support. But it’s precisely through her that Stephan begins to unlock the buried secrets of his childhood and reacquaint himself with the boy he once was. What he really wanted was to be a bridge between humanity and sea creatures, which is something he can do in a different way if he weren’t so hung up on air jets which themselves also have their own dangers. 

Nevertheless, it’s telling that Stephan eventually chose to make his life on the sea, simultaneously accepting a liminal place and implying it is not yet possible to live on land. He’s approached in the framing sequence by a hapless journalist, Juno, who was fascinated by their story as a child and keen to know whether the improbable fairytale is actually true in part because he’s facing a similar dilemma and can’t work up the courage to tell the person he loves how he really feels. What he learns is that he should tell them as soon he can while he still can so he’ll have no regrets for the future. Aoki’s backgrounds teem with detail, each packed out with whimsey that alternately paints Shanghai as kind of charming pirate village and captures a sense of the real city in rainy water colours hinting at its lonely streets. The message is clear that coexistence is never guaranteed and requires more of a respect for nature and the natural world along with the thoughts and feelings of others if we are truly to live in peace and happiness.

ChaO screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Trailer (no subtitles)

THE FIRST SLAM DUNK (Takehiko Inoue, 2022)

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Takehiko Inoue’s basketball-themed manga Slam Dunk is a ‘90s landmark that also spawned a hugely popular TV anime adaptation. A few attempts had been made over the years to produce a feature-length film, but Inoue had turned them all down until, that is, the production team were able to come up a unique look that matched the author’s vision and truly made it seem as if the characters were “alive”. Finally impressed, Inoue then agreed to script and direct the anime himself even going so far as to retouch scenes in both 3DCG and 2D to ensure they fulfilled his high expectations. 

Titled The First Slam Dunk, the film takes place entirely over a single game but switches its focus from the protagonist of the manga, red-haired former delinquent Sakuragi (Subaru Kimura), to “Speedster” Ryota Miyagi who makes up for his short stature with nimble manoeuvres. Inoue cuts between the championship match with rivals Sanno and the players’ private lives as they battle their demons and insecurities on the court and off. 

Originally from Okinawa, Ryota lost his father and brother in quick succession. Sota had been something of a mentor figure, getting him into basketball and encouraging him to keep playing even if others said there was no point because he was simply too small. When Sota chose to cut their practice short to go fishing with some friends, Ryota was of course upset and angry saying a few things he came to regret when Sota was lost at sea and never came back. “Cocky” as someone later describes him, Ryota uses bravado to mask his insecurity and struggles to redefine his relationships with his grief-stricken mother and younger sister while also competing with the shadow of his absent brother whose number he continues to wear even after moving to the mainland and joining a new high school team, Shohoku. 

As he later says, basketball was a means of dealing with his grief though it was difficult for his mother to support him because its associations with Sota. Showcasing the stories not otherwise told in the manga, Inoue taps into an adolescent sense of existential crisis and individual anxiety as filtered through the basketball game in which, as their quietly supportive middle-aged coach tells them, it’s only over when you decide to give up. Meanwhile, the guys from Sanno are experiencing something similar and most particularly Ryota’s opposing number, Kawata, even if the team is also given an edge of uncanny invincibility in the sometimes suspicious aura of their coach. 

Only by facing their individual anxieties can the guys begin to play a full role on the team, each of them as the coach says bringing their own unique talents and learning to play to each other’s strengths. In the end it comes down to willpower and self belief, continuing to play even when victory seems impossible and pressing for the final slam dunk even as the seconds tick down to zero. Inoue captures a real sense of tension in the game scenes, the dynamism of the 3DCG and the use of motion capture paying off along with some innovative creative decisions that really allow the game to come “alive” in the way Inoue seems to have envisioned with victory hardly assured as the guys go all out utilising not only their physicality but strategy and psychology in trying to claw their way back from 20 points behind with time fast running out. 

Very different stylistically from the average anime sports movie and particularly one following a previous TV adaptation, Inoue displays a truly remarkable sense of cinematic composition while he largely steers away from the kind of high school cliches common to the genre concentrating instead on strong characterisation and an otherwise poignant story of learning to live with grief as Ryota begins to become his own man while honouring his brother’s legacy. Often dazzling in its dexterity, Inoue’s directorial debut excels both on the court and off finding the small moments of doubt and confusion among each of its heroes and witnessing them achieve a psychological slam dunk that allows them to keep moving forward despite their fears and anxieties in refusing to give up even when it might seem hopeless. 

THE FIRST SLAM DUNK screens July 26 as the opening night gala of this year’s JAPAN CUTS and opens in cinemas in the US & Canada July 28 courtesy of GKIDS.