The What A Character Blogathon: Minoru Chiaki

Day 1 of the What a Character Blogathon can be viewed here

Day 2 of the What a Character Blogathon can be viewed here

Day 3 of the What a Character Blogathon can be viewed here

Born Katsuji Sasaki in Hokkaido, Japan on the 28th of April 1917, Minoru Chiaki was one of the most astonishingly versatile character actors to ever grace the silver screen.

Akira Kurosawa discovered him in the play The Abortion Doctor (which he would adapt into The Quiet Duel) and cast him in the film Stray Dog as a nightclub worker sweltering under the heat as he is questioned by Sato and Murakami.
Since then he went to appear in nine other Kurosawa films and became popular with both Toho and Toei.

Chiaki showed remarkable capability at both comedic and dramatic roles, from the noblest of men to the most unsavory of crooks. Tall and baby-faced, with large front teeth and a laugh like Marge Simpson, he was a memorable screen presence, even though he never truly stepped out from beneath Toshiro Mifune's shadow.

It's hard to put into words how astonishing Chiaki's range was: from playing the kind and gentle priest in Rashomon, the noble Yoshiaki Miki in Throne of Blood, and the jolly boatman Sasuke in Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island, to the scoundrel Tahei in The Hidden Fortress and the downright nasty Tono-sama in The Lower Depths, there was no "type" given to Chiaki's roles, except for the likeable screen charisma he bestowed on every one of his roles.
Sometimes his roles were more complex than they appeared, such as the well-intentioned Heihachi Hayashida in Seven Samurai, who teases Kikuchiyo to no end and whose jokes sometimes hurt people's feelings, and the concerned but bad-tempered Jiro Nakajima in I Live in Fear.

In each of his roles there is a different feel to them. This image is a testament to the scope of Chiaki's talent. The different expressions and their eyes and their body language convey a vast range of personalities.

Clockwise from top left: the priest from 'Rashomon', Heihachi Hayashida from 'Seven Samurai', Yoshiyaki Miki from 'Throne of Blood', Jiro Nakajima from 'I Live in Fear', Tahei from 'The Hidden Fortress' and Tono-sama from 'The Lower Depths'.

Chiaki is little-known outside of Japan but he had an illustrious career in both film and television.

The last of the Seven Samurai, he died in 1999 at the ripe old age of 82. One of his last films was Gray Sunset, in which he played a former University professor with Alzheimer's, and for that he won a well-deserved Japan Academy Prize for best actor.

The problem of "Nice Guy Syndrome" in children's cartoons

Lately there has been more awareness of the "Nice Guy Syndrome", and how shallow and toxic it is in classic and modern sitcoms. But it's not being addressed enough in children's cartoons.

Case in point: Bashful from The 7D, a mild-mannered dwarf with a crush on the Queen of Jollywood, Queen Delightful.

He doesn't look threatening- in fact, he's quite a catch- but he sends the wrong message to little boys.

I like Bashful most of the time, but his actions around Queen Delightful are problematic most of the time. Not particularly threatening but inappropriate, and gives boys the wrong idea about how they should behave around girls.
In "Free Teensy" he appears from behind Queen Delightful when she rings the Bing Bong Bell to call the other dwarfs. She reacts with a stunned "Oh. Hello". He declares to the other dwarfs, "She can't get enough of me". This reflects the behaviour of the entitled "Nice Guy" in fiction, from Frasier to Friends to How I Met Your Mother.
Now, like I said, Bashful isn't a threat because of how small and meek he is, (when he gets his way with staying with Queen Delightful in "Buckets", they clearly don't do anything except talk about who "Buckets" is).
In "The Jollywood Games", he wins a tournament fair and square and whispers his request to the Queen. She calmly responds, "No, that's not going to happen". When he whispers what his request was to Grumpy, the latter exclaims, "What is wrong with you?!" Soon after, Queen Delightful arrives and kisses Bashful, saying only this: "Request granted". This is an example of "lampshading" in fiction, where a problem is addressed but continues to happen anyway.
Oddly enough, the only time where he's alone with her and doesn't make advances on her in any way is in "Chicken Soup for the Troll", ironically when she's literally being weighed down (by a fishing line; her Yodel-Lady Flu causes her to float up into the sky).
Despite Bashful's redeeming qualities, this only means his flaws are even more harmful to children's perception of the world, and by extension society.

Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) has a crush on April O'Neil. His pursuit is much more obsessive and more threatening than Bashful's, but he's still show to be a charming "nice guy" whose behaviour towards his love interest is problematic. Again "lampshading" comes into play because the turtles are horrified at the chart that Donatello creates around April, but she still eventually reciprocates his feelings in the show's third season (even though he redeems himself at the same time when he realizes he's been stalking April).

And again, despite Donatello's redeeming qualities, his actions are harmful to society, since children watch his show.

And finally, there's Kowalski in The Penguins of Madagascar.

I like Kowalski most of the time, but he obsesses over his ex-girlfriend Doris far too much. His most appalling behavior is in "Loathe At First Sight", when he invents a machine that he wants to use to make Doris fall in love with him (He tries it out on several people, and then when he's told to reverse the effects again, he ends up making everyone hate him). Again, Doris eventually reciprocates his feelings in "The Penguin who Loved Me", but it's a good thing she didn't find out what he did in "Loathe At First Sight".
Once more, his "Nice guy" entitlement sends the wrong message to children.

Fiction has come a long way from women being a prize, but it still has a long way to go. It's fine to address this problem in sitcoms but more children's shows need to be examined, too.

Red Lion in the age of Brexit

"The only thing that's going to change is the flower on the Imperial crest."

I was blown away by Kihachi Okamoto's 1969 political comedy-drama Red Lion when I saw it. Beneath the veneer of broad comedy it had a strong political message that's relevant today. By the end of it you'll want to start chanting "Eijanaika, eijanaika, eijanai-ka!"

From 1600 to 1868, after a long history of clans warring with each other, the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled Japan, until the Emperor, along with several powerful lords, overthrew the shogunate after the Boshin war and started the Meiji Restoration.

Red Lion tells the story of a cheerful, not-too-bright foot soldier named Gonzo, who works under his commander, Sozo Sagara. Sagara's army, set up by anti-shogun forces, goes on goodwill missions across the countryside to rally people's support for the Emperor. Sagara tells his army that the new Imperial restoration will bring tax cuts to all, so Gonzo goes home to his village, sporting his captain's bright red wig, to proclaim of this wonderful news. There, he overthrows a corrupt official of the Tokugawa Shogunate who has been swindling the people and even tried to kill Gonzo ten years before, and he becomes a socialist hero among his village, feeding the hungry with stolen rice and freeing the women from the brothels, including the love of his life, Tomi. The people worship him like a god and declare him their "Red Lion" saviour.

However, poor, misguided Gonzo doesn't realize that he's being used, that his proclamation is a false promise to prevent an uprising from the working class. A cynical yojimbo named Hanzo who is sent by a Tokugawa loyalist to kill him tries to talk sense into him, but he refuses to believe it.
However, Gonzo isn't bad. He cares about his people and doesn't stop fighting for them.

As a result he is declared an imposter by the Imperial "White Lions", because the Empire's false promise was given by Sagara and his Imperial subdivision, the Sekiho Troop, which was denounced without Gonzo knowing about it. In a way, Gonzo is partly working for the Restoration and partly of his own free will, by giving away free rice, freeing the prostitutes and saving the lumberjacks, whether he knows it or not.

It can be said that Gonzo is the quintessential Brexiteer: someone who wants change but doesn't realize he's supporting a corrupt system which delivers false promises.

In 2016, politicians such as Michael Gove and former Mayor of London/current old-fashioned embarrassment Boris Johnson promised the masses that they would donate more to the National Health Service. However, this is a false promise, and the only tax cuts they aim to give are for the rich. They promise reform, but nothing will actually change, as demonstrated by the quote at the top.

Like with the Sekiho Troop, the UK government denounces promises on the fly if they have to.

We all know a Gonzo somewhere, maybe even someone who takes it upon themselves to give to their community when the government doesn't approve of it. They're not bad, just misguided, and when they're betrayed they fight back.

There's a subplot where Tomi betrays Gonzo and gives money to the loyalist, not realizing where it's going. This is vaguely similar to people donating to Conservative causes without realizing what they're doing with the money.

The film is very cynical but it has a heart underneath, and Toshiro Mifune gives a powerhouse performance as the foolish but kindhearted Gonzo. He's a lot like Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai, only he has a stammer and he's not as much of a womanizer.

Anyway, I recommend it. The ending in particular is incredible.

The Mighty, the Article and the Censorship

On the 1st of August 2016, I wrote an article to send to The Mighty. It was about myself, my autism, and how The Good, the Bad and the Ugly changed my life.

Notably this part.

I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when I was about nine years old*. So that meant that I had more time than most autistic women to figure myself out and understand who I am. 

I’m one of those extroverts with Asperger’s who are never seen in TV or movies yet have existed for a long time despite a new study being found on them.

I’m one of the independent kinds of autistic people, who love to occasionally go outside and wander around on their own.

Though I keep myself to myself and have quiet, antisocial moments, I’m loud, opinionated, belligerent, clumsy, and forgetful. I have a furious and vengeful temper. I get easily distracted and don’t keep very good track of time. I also have a bad memory of faces and would all too often mistake someone for the wrong person. I am anything but a savant, though I had a few things in common with other, more introverted and “nerdy” autistic people, whom I have been able to make friends with.

I liked Westerns growing up. Though I hated the depictions of Native Americans, I loved the beautiful barren desert settings, and the sense of adventure. At the time I had no idea how different “Spaghetti” Westerns were different from Old Hollywood ones. Before May 2015 I had only watched ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ and realised that “Spaghetti Westerns” were quirky little foreign art films with a little more violence than what was depicted in Hollywood.

I’m a very talented artist, and went to study animation at Arts University Bournemouth for three years. I had an ambitious and daring pitch in mind and I was under pressure submitting the supplemental material into the course database. 

I’d had a bad month at University at the end of April 2015. My computer had gotten stolen, because I had left it to charge in the classroom and had gone onto a PC to scan artwork; my back had been turned to the computer, which was out of battery and had malfunctioned a bit. I went into a furious meltdown. I wanted revenge and instant recovery. Insurance wouldn’t cover the theft. The University wouldn’t take responsibility, and neither would Disabled Students Allowance. It seemed like nobody but the police were willing to help. 

And even worse, I had chosen to stay in a student flat during that second year of University, and my room had mould growing on the walls, which I had no idea about, and which my landlord and flatmates could only blame me for. How was I supposed to know? The landlord told me to open the window, but the problem was no sunlight came into my window so I kept it shut all the time.

So that’s me. I tend to act without thinking first.

Anyway, I decided to cheer myself up… with grit and violence!

On the 15th of May, 2015, I had a Dollars Trilogy movie marathon, where I would watch Sergio Leone’s celebrated trilogy- A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly- the latter two I had never seen before- on each day of the weekend. 

I had borrowed a laptop from the University and at first I watched the first two online, but then on Saturday 16th my computer kept crashing on me while I was watching ‘For A Few Dollars More’ online, so I thought, “screw it” and bought the DVDs of the latter two movies.

On Sunday 17th I decided that ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’ was the greatest movie ever. 

For those of you who don’t know, it’s about a bandit named Tuco (unfairly branded “The Ugly”, despite being played by the stunning Eli Wallach) who finds out that there’s gold buried in a remote military cemetery, but he only had one half of the information, and his former partner Blondie (Clint Eastwood), whom he had tortured to near death shortly beforehand, has the other half- in whose grave the gold is buried in, because Tuco had left behind his dying informant- the one who told him about the gold- to get him some water. So he and Blondie, once recovered, are forced to work together to find the treasure.

The movie is simply beautiful. The comedy is perfect (I was laughing harder than I would at most comedies), the music is gorgeous beyond belief, and there’s a sense of atmosphere which drew me into this world.

I lay there in a trance, with stars in my eyes.

The more I thought about the movie, and its protagonist, the more I realised:

I was Tuco. 

Despite being a thief instead of a victim of theft, he had more in common with me than I realised. 

He’s funny, feisty, and flawed. He’s clumsy, he’s impulsive, he’s poor at planning ahead, and he’s a loner, and he’s tenacious. He often acts without thinking first, such as when he cheers for a bunch of Confederate soldiers, only to see instead a group of Union soldiers covered in dust. He doesn’t always say the right thing, because, in his words, he doesn’t know the right thing. He tries to be crafty and manipulative, but it inevitably blows up in his face. He can even be a hypocrite at times. And the world he lived in was mean, and harsh, and, he seldom received help from anybody. All of these things I realized I have in common with him. 

Sure, despite getting into countless amounts of trouble at Primary and Secondary School, I haven’t had a rope around my neck, lucky me, and there are still quite a few differences between us. The fact that he’s done terrible things in his life, rather than merely foolish ones, are a reason why the world is so cruel to him. I’m not a nice person, but I’m not a criminal either.

But there are still enough similarities between us, enough for me to have cosplayed as him a couple of times, enough for me to feel a special sort of connection to him, almost as great as Leone’s notable affection for the character. 

Since then I have thought of him, again and again and again, when dealing with all my insecurities, and forgiving myself of every single dumb mistake.

But more importantly, he’s been a huge inspiration to me in my artwork, (I’ve done a ton of drawings and paintings of him already) and even in my fashion style. You can say that I express my autism through him, even though he has none, he’s just a jerk. Whatever you may think of this scroungy bastard, he’s very special to me. I’m very proud to be a fan of the character, especially since he’s helped me to discover myself. 

For those of you who don't know, The Mighty is a website about disabilities of all kinds, and they have a section on autism that people can submit articles to.

After a few conversations with the correspondent, Vicki, she'd offered me an edited version, which took out the details about the computer, and the part about me being a victim of theft. 

And then she read about Tuco.

"Some of his actions". Sure, I didn't kill, or steal, or anything like that. But I was a troublemaker, I had a violent temper which has cost me socially and professionally and during that difficult period I was treated like I was the bad one (or "ugly inside", rather.)

I think because the readers are parents, she didn't want them to think that their children would turn out like me. 

This was an uncomfortable truth about autistic people that she didn't want on The Mighty.

I told my mother about this and she wrote an email to Vicki defending my actions. I was amused that she defended Tuco, too, even before she knew anything about him.

Then Vicki and her editor tried tiptoeing around the whole Tuco issue.

Then I told her why the character was particularly important for this article.

That's the thing. People like Blondie. They like Clint Eastwood, because he's the tough, gritty action hero of the 60's and 70's. They don't mind the fact that in the film, Blondie kills the most people on screen (11 to be exact). He's a little better than his opponents, but not much.

I wonder if Tuco is judged for his short temper by audiences, too?

Finally Vicki understood.

However, after all that, my article still wasn't published, and the topic wasn't revisited "at a later time". Go figure.

Fortunately, I made Force of Habit soon afterwards and I was pleasantly surprised that the film was not only shortlisted for Autism Uncut, but I was interviewed for it about a month later.

I didn't mention Tuco's name in my article for Autism Speaks, but I did refer to him as a bandido from a Spaghetti Western. I don't know if they didn't catch that part, or they were totally okay with it, but that article still got published which I was happy with.

* This was a mistake. I was five, and I was told at nine.

Behaviour and Therapy in Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) is the first part of Hiroshi Inagaki's classic Samurai Trilogy. It tells the story of a man named Shinmen Takezo, played by Toshiro Mifune, a passionate young villager who goes to war for fame and fortune. Unfortunately he ends up on the losing side. He tries to go home but is faced with a travel ban. And even his best friend's family wants to kill him because he was on the losing side of the battle. So Takezo becomes an outlaw to survive. Now the priest Takuan must capture him...

Here's one scene that really sticks out.

Takuan is out to hunt Takezo, not for the bounty money but because Takezo is the descendant of a prominent line of samurai and wants to fulfil the man's potential. He sets out with Takezo's best friend's fiancee, Otsu (Kaoru Yachigusa), and they set up camp in the hills. Otsu plays her flute, which lures the nervous, desperate, hungry outlaw out to the campfire.

Takezo asked why Takuan is here, and Takuan replies to capture him. Takezo tells Takuan that he will never surrender.
"Are you trying to defeat yourself, too?", asks the priest?
"I don't mind dying in a good fight. But before I die, I will have some blood!", says Takezo stubbornly.
"What about your relatives", Takuan goes on.
"What relatives? They all hate me!", Takezo rages, close to bursting into tears. "Better off dead, all of them!"
"Even the women... and their children?", are Takuan's questions.
"I don't care! Let them all..." Takezo is unable to finish sentence, and is so ashamed that breaks down into heavy, healthy sobs, which is Takuan's chance to capture him and bring him into the village.

Even though he's exaggerating, and saying cruel words about his family. we sympathise with poor Takezo's plight. He's come back from war to find that his family and friends have betrayed him. Is it no wonder he goes on the run?
If you've ever been in a therapy session like I have, you'll end up saying some irrational things, too. And you'll have the therapist asking these very simple but very powerful questions, like Takuan's. Of course, unlike Takuan, no therapist has ever beaten me, nor suspended me by my hands from a tree, but the rest of this scene is familiar to my experience of being autistic.
I, like Takezo, am stubborn and hot tempered, and I don't listen to advice easily. So I sympathise with him all the more.

Later in the film, Takezo escapes with the help of Otsu, but Otsu is captured and brought to another castle. Takezo, grateful for her rescuing him, climbs up the castle wall to do the same.

Takuan appears behind him, and tells him that Otsu is safe in the castle. He takes Takezo there, but of course it's all a trick, and locks him in a room with a bunch of books to read. Takezo collapses in tears on the floor, and that's the last we see of him as we know him.

Three years pass, and when we next see Takezo, he is calm and restrained, more like Kyuzo from Seven Samurai than Kikuchiyo.

Behaviour is a theme and a coding of the film.

Part of what Takuan was doing when he captured Takezo the first time was analysing the consequence of his behaviour, which causes Takezo to start crying in shame , and is the reason why Takezo becomes so easy to capture.

Of course, it's not quite that. Takuan uses Otsu as bait, and forcibly locks Takezo away, which may have caused poor, lovesick Takezo to lapse into a serious depression for a few days. It's not as though he changed overnight. Knowing him, logic wouldn't set in so easily, whether or nor he knew he'd be killed if he escaped.

At the same time, Otsu is suggested as positive encouragement for Takezo to change his behaviour. She's a reward for him to become more 'civilised'. "She will wait", says Takuan before leaving Takezo for the next three years. Takezo is convinced that Takuan is lying, so what made him finally believe the priest? What made him stop doubting him?

What exactly caused Takezo to stop being so emotional? Especially a man of his temperament?

In a way, his reform is for the purpose of him being more acceptable to society. Although he's calmer in later movies, the old Takezo shines through as he is forced to make difficult decisions.

Takezo's previous behaviour is seen as 'abnormal' for a man, especially a man of his class. This therapy is both helpful and harmful to him. It stifles his feelings, which are healthy and appealing, but also helps him to become more disciplined.

I'm curious about this.

In the original text, Takezo reforms of his own will after learning that he is descended from noblemen, which humbles him almost immediately and facilitates his transformation. He reads the texts and reflects on his past, and on his own behaviour, and lets out his feelings, in private, before becoming a stoic years later. Plus he was not forcibly locked away like in the film.

This would be interesting for therapists to analyse.