Indie darling Shunji Iwai actually had nothing to do with anime. Initial successes with his immigrant drama Swallowtail Butterfly were followed by two very different coming-of-age films: the experimental and disturbing All About Lily Chou-Chou and the gentle portrait of teenage girls Hana and Alice from 2004. All very far from fantastic otaku -Worlds.
Eleven years later, Iwai, who was gradually becoming an international household name, presented the associated prequel The Case of Hana and Alice and found an ingenious way to involve his two then teen actresses Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi again: rotoscoping, live animation -Action material. The result is one of the most beautiful youth films of the recent past, which even more people can now discover thanks to the surprising inclusion on Amazon Prime Video *.
The Case of Hana and Alice on Amazon: Coming-of-Age from the exceptional director
Both Hana and Alice films are snapshots of one authentic-looking girls’ friendship. Something like an action rustles up in small ways, but that’s not what we’re here for. Rather, it feels nice and even nostalgic to spend time with the two title characters and sometimes let it pass wastefully, like an afternoon without homework. The fact that a grown man put all this down on paper and film was only a little more surprising in the case of the live-action film Love & Pop by Evangelion director Hideaki Anno.
While the live-action film about Hana and Alice is about friendship, a school love triangle and an outrageous case of amnesia, The Case of Hana and Alice is actually about a kind of “case”. After Alice starts a new school at the age of 14, she learns about a boy named Judas who is said to have died under mysterious circumstances. During her research, the new girl finally meets Hana, who is supposed to know more about the mystery.
My mother always says: Nothing is eaten as hot as it is cooked – and in the end there is a very banal explanation for the supposed witchcraft. This might leave plot-obsessed people disappointed, but it contributes much more importantly to the charm of youthful naivety which this film sprays out like a generous lawn sprinkler that is probably slightly defective.
The Case of Hana and Alice was particularly offended by a completely different group…
The Case of Hana and Alice as an anti-anime
Animated films and series from Japan are now generally referred to as anime, which used to be a somewhat derogatory term for lesser-regarded TV productions and has been differentiated from Japanese animation as a term of art. The animated film of Hana and Alice seems to move beyond this discourse. In much the same way that no one would think of calling the artful experimental film The Tragedy of Belladonna an anime. Except perhaps to make a point about the diversity of Japanese animation.
Since the film is distributed via the same distribution channels as general anime, The Case of Hana and Alice is occasionally criticized by purists of the medium – because it isn’t correct Animation is because he only tell a slice of life story instead of a big adventure because of the animation wrong look. The wobbly, proportion-losing, almost expressionistic aesthetic is not a bug, but a feature that underlines the uncertainty of growing up.
Here is the trailer for The Case of Hana and Alice:
The Case of Hana & Alice – Trailer (English Subs) HD
In an interview with British label All the Anime, director Iwai revealed how American rotoscoping artist Ralph Bakshi (Cool World, The Lord of the Rings) inspired him to become one of the few Japanese in this almost forgotten area of animation and why he liked the art met:
It was important to me to use live actors because I’m used to making live action films. So instead of trying to explain every movement so that the animators can draw it, it was easier for me to create the movement and scenes together with the actors and then convert them into animation.
One of the few other rotoscoping projects from Japan is the short-lived series Aku no Hana – The Flowers of Evil, which appeared a few years before the animated adventure of Hana and Alice. An equally brilliant, but decidedly darker teen drama based on a manga that, apart from the way it was made, has little to do with the soft fooling around of Hana and Alice. Sometimes you just want to hang out a little… and maybe do a little ballet.
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