Last night I joined Girdy for a showing of Blue Giant at the Cameo in Edinburgh. Girdy’s mainly been the one covering the Scotland Loves Anime festival (it’s his thing), so this was my first ever experience – and it wasn’t a bad one!
Aside from reading the synopsis, I knew absolutely nothing about Blue Giant before going in – and I know very little about jazz (can’t even read sheet music, in fact). But that didn’t stop this from being a very enjoyable film.
Author of Anime: A History, Jonathan Clements, kindly gave a little introduction to the film (which is based on a mega popular manga by Shinichi Ishizuk) and told us what the main character Dai’s name meant in Japanese.
I was very glad he did, as it meant we were able to understand one of the jokes following a toilet scene.
The story
Dai wants to become the greatest jazz musician of all time, and he’s willing to put in a hecka lotta work to get there – as the apparently huge callous on his hand can attest to! From playing out in the snow in the middle of nowhere, to moving to Tokyo and playing under a bridge most nights, he’ll do whatever it takes.
He wants to see some real jazz, so starts tracking down jazz bars. From there, he meets Sawabe, an immensely talented, smooth and ultra disciplined piano player.
The two of of them soon realise they can reach great heights, so who do they choose to be their drummer? None other than the never-drummed-before (but exceptionally kind) lifelong friend/roommate/landlord of Dai’s, Tamada. It seems like a bit of a misstep, but okay.
So, to sum it up, Dai wants to be the greatest jazz musician of all time, Sawabe wants to use him as a ‘stepping stone’ to get to the top. Tamada… just wants to play drums with his friends and to fit in.
And the band’s name? It’s, ummmm… JASS. Which, again, might be a questionable choice, but apparently everyone gets on board with it and that’s history, folks.
It’s actually quite an endearing story, full of heart and friendship… but it’s also oh so very much about JAZZ. There’s no annoying subplots or unnecessary romances, so the story stays on track throughout and there’s no shortage of JAZZ JAZZ JAZZ.
If you’re a fan of jazz, I certainly hope you’ll love this. I’m not, aside from the occasional visit to Edinburgh’s Jazz Bar (just to feel fancy), but I still found it a great watch that had my attention all the way through.
Look and feel
Got to say, as a complete anime n00b, I went into this film thinking ‘oh, it’s anime! That’s pretty. I like how they did that part’ etc. but I didn’t question how it was done, or why.
It was actually Girdy that brought to my attention the mix of animation styles in use throughout the film, and it made me decide to do a little bit of research.
Blue Giant‘s director Tachikawa has made some controversial decisions to replicate and accurately represent the look and feel of jazz, by mixing it up heavily in his materials and animation methods. At times, the film goes from hand-drawn 2D, to ToonShaded computer animation, straight over to full-on 3DCG.
Here’s a quote I managed to find from the director that explains it better than I can:
The main reason that led us to use 3D for concert scenes is the camerawork. I wanted to be able to reconstruct the most dynamic visual language and camera movements possible. It is more difficult to represent scenes of musical performance with traditional drawing, it requires a lot of time and a particular effort. It’s really very long and delicate, so it also allowed us to keep control over the quality of the image.
In my (amateur) opinion, it’s masterfully done and feels very much like ‘yes, this is jazz’.
As Girdy particularly pointed out to me, the saxophone playing parts of the movie were all based off the recordings of professional sax player and musician Tomoaki Baba, who found the most challenging part of the whole thing investing his music and performance into Dai’s character, and playing as Dai, rather than himself.
I find that really interesting, and something to ponder. Musicians aren’t trained actors, after all, so ‘becoming’ someone else is a bit of an ask – even to someone who’s intermediately trained up, like I am.
Check out the official trailer below:
Overall
I really enjoyed Blue Giant – more than I thought I would – and that’s just as well, as it’s the only Scotland Loves Anime movie I’m seeing this year. It’s an endearing tale of friendship and jazz, sprinkled with a bit of jazz, and with an extra side of Jazz.
Not only was the film very entertaining, and kept me interested, but the conversations I had afterwards meant I got to research more about this film and now I feel a bit more educated, too.
I highly recommend this film to anyone, whether you like jazz or not.
