I wouldn't say it's "going strong" even though it's what you mostly see. I know that as far (recent? I dunno) back as Final Wars, Ryuhei Kitamura had to deal with the idea of making Godzilla CGI. That was one of the reasons he didn't want to take on the project at first. He was under the impression that, even in Japan, the use of practical effects is only really appreciated by film buffs and people who work on films. This is a quote of his from an old issue of Otaku USA in 2007:
"When they first asked me to do Godzilla, I said the same thing I did with Midnight Meat Train, "Why me?" I told them, "Sorry, but I'm an honest man. I don't go see Godzilla movies anymore. They were great back in the day, but after the 80s, they're all ****. You guys forget to update and you just keep doing the same thing again and again. And now even kids don't want to go. They've seen The Matrix and Lord of the Rings. You can't fool them. Of course it looks like a man in a suit! You shoot everything with that bright light! Why can't you just shoot it more like a Matrix kind of thing? I'm sorry if that's the direction you guys want to stay in, but I have to tell you that I don't like it. I never say to my girlfriends, 'Hey, let's go check out the new Godzilla movie.' But if you ask me, that's the kind of movie I want to make. I want guys 17-20 to say to their girlfriends, 'Hey, this time Godzilla looks cool. Let's check it out.'" "
Little by little, I think that deference to tradition and the supposed culture attached to it is going to fade away because American films do have the global and influential reach. There's always the ideal that the American market and imitation of it and its films is something to be striven for in the Japanese film industry. (that debacle with the recent Space Battleship Yamato comes to mind) Anno is very close to the medium, and as much weight as what he says might have, he's not going to be the most objective person in the world regarding the subject.
Aoi, thank you for the reply. I'll have to hunt down a copy of the issue of Otaku USA as I've never seen that particular Kitamura quote before, and I've read a lot of interviews with him. That really seems to sum up what he was doing with GODZILLA: FINAL WARS.
That said I didn't once see him mention wanting to make the kaiju CG. He simply says the suits need to be shot differently, without bright light, like "The Matrix."
But I get your point. Perhaps an even better example would be Keita Amemiya whose early films (
Mirai Ninja [88],
Zeiram [91],
Kamen Rider ZO [93],
Mechanical Violator Hakaider [95]) all featured a dazzling array of practical effects work including notable scenes done with stop-motion animation. Then starting in the late 90s/early 2000s Amemiya begins replacing some of the practical effects with CG ones (
Moon Over Tao [97],
Iron Armor Mikazuki [2000],
Garo [2005]) and most recently with
Garo: The One Who Shines in the Darkness [2013] we've seen a complete replacement of all practical effects - aside from some wire work - with CGI.
But does that mean Amemiya has gone Hollywood and is no longer making Tokusatsu? I don't think so. Again I don't see this as a fight between practical and CGI SFX techniques as both parties - Japan and America - use both. Again I think this is about a difference in philosophy about how they are used; that "presentational" vs. "representational" dichotomy that Ritchie talks about. In a way Amemiya's use of CG in the current Garo series reminds me quite a bit of older tokusatsu shows like Tsuburaya Pro.'s
Dinosaur War Aizenborg and
Pro-Wrestling Star Azteckaiser which used sequences of traditional cell animation for scenes they couldn't do with practical effects. In some cases this involved just a fight scene, in other cases whole characters.
Also you mention the cross cultural influence that the American film industry has had on Japan. This is true. But it's a too way street and the Japanese have influenced us a lot as well. In my first post I cited Erik Davis' article
Half Japanese which he wrote back in 1994 about the popularity of Power Rangers. In the article Davis makes an interesting prediction which is that Power Rangers would reorientates its child viewer's aesthetic sensibilities in such a way that by the end of the decade he wouldn't be surprised if the kids who watched Power Rangers later came to embrace other forms of Japanese pop-culture art, in particular anime. Low and behold the American "Anime Boom of the early 2000s.
Ann Allison and David Kalat are two other scholars who agree with Davis about this re-orientating effect and have argued that movies like
THE MATRIX, which Kitamura is so found of, and
KILL BILL would not have happened if not for the wider acceptance amongst the public of Japanese film making ideas and conventions which these two landmark movies embrace.
THE MATRIX would not exist if not for Mamoru Oshii's
GHOST IN THE SHELL and the Wachowski's have admitted as much.
Even now there seems to be an ever growing interest in Japanese film genres and this year will see WB release two major tent pole films based around such genres: PACIFIC RIM [July 12th] and 47 RONIN [Christmas]. One is a kaiju/mecha movie and the other a samurai-fantasy film. The former has a mostly American cast with Rinko Kikuchi as the sole Japanese face in the film. 47 RONIN is the exact opposite featuring a primarily Japanese cast - Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Hiroyuki Sanada, Kou Shibasaki, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi [again!] and Jin Akanishi - with Keanu Reeves being the only white guys in the movie. Neither film, of course, have Japanese directors. So yeah that's definitely an example of that cultural syncretism you're talking about that in the future may obliterate any and all cultural markers.
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