Super Goss: Japan's fantasy films act as a buffer against the reality of the natural world

Japanese animators had tried to address fears of the force of nature long before last month's earthquake struck

In September 2008, Hayao Miyazaki, the author of Spirited Away, attended the Venice festival to present his most recent full-length film, Ponyo. In this city so closely connected with the sea, the Japanese director explained why he chose to end the film with a tsunami, and why the Japanese celebrate nature in spite of its destructive power.

"There are many typhoons and earthquakes in Japan," he said. "There is no point in portraying these natural disasters as evil events. They are one of the givens in the world in which we live. I am always moved when I visit Venice to see that in this city which is sinking into the sea, people carry on living regardless. It is one of the givens of their life. In the same way people in Japan have a different perception of natural disasters."

True enough, in Miyazaki's animated films nature dictates its terms on mankind. Ultimately the tsunami in Ponyo is beneficial for the country it wrecks, which with its ageing population and small coastal towns closely resembles the real Japan. But not all the pictures in Japanese films, whether animated or not, are underpinned by such environmentally aware animistic harmony.

In most feature films the sea round Japan is a deadly enemy, stirred by subterranean forces. Alain Schlockoff, who organised the Paris Fantastic Film festival for many years and now edits L'Ecran Fantastique, a specialist magazine, was particularly impressed by Tidal Wave, a 1974 science fiction movie that caused a sensation in Japan. Based on Nihon Chinbotsu, a disaster novel by Sakyo Komatsu, the story hinged on the disappearance of the archipelago due to tsunamis and volcanic eruptions caused by shifting tectonic plates. "Japanese film technicians are very good at building scale models and the pictures in the film were exactly like what we have just seen," says Schlockoff. It was remade in 2006, as The Submersion of Japan, testimony to the enduring appeal of such nightmares.

Since 1945 and the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the awareness of the threat from the natural environment has been compounded by fear of nuclear war. The manga Barefoot Gen in Hiroshima was made into a film, but most cartoons depict the cities' destruction without explaining the cause. A typical example is the 2001 anime Metropolis, loosely based on Fritz Lang's eponymous work. Similarly Steamboy, by Katsuhiro Otomo, is set in a parallel world where neither the internal combustion engine nor nuclear power have been invented. Technology does, however, represent a deadly hazard for the community.

The approach to these disasters is not so much premonitory. It is more a way of exorcising fears. Godzilla is the oldest instance, and the most famous. The monster was born in 1954, less than 10 years after the atom bombs, at the Toho studios, where a statue still stands. The giant lizard came into existence following experiments by American nuclear scientists. It was sufficiently powerful, tough and radioactive to destroy the whole of Tokyo and unlike King Kong prompted no sympathy at all, just terror.

The film was such a success that about 30 follow-ups were made. In 1998, Hollywood commissioned Roland Emmerich to shoot a remake. In this version the mutation was caused by French nuclear tests in the Pacific. Yet another remake is on the way.

Japan's nightmares are contagious. On 8 March, the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro announced that he was starting work on Pacific Rim, in which a fault in the ocean floor releases swarms of monstrous creatures that destroy Tokyo and Los Angeles. But some doubt the project will ever happen, given the fearful reality of the disaster that has now struck Japan. Watching the pictures on television Schlockoff admits to feeling "somehow ashamed at having enjoyed these films". They were, after all, a chilling premonition, not an exorcism.

Driven by destruction

Apocalyptic events, regardless of the form they take, are a central theme in mangas such as Ken the Survivor, Akira or Neon Genesis Evangelion. The threat of an earthquake or tsunami appears in many series, serving as a driving force in the narrative, a backdrop to romance or a remote starting point justifying the existence of a post-disaster world.

The theme is also tied up with the various forms mangas may take, depending on their readership, with seinen, for adult readers, addressing "serious" topics, shojo for young women, shonen for their male counterparts and a host of other sub-genres.

In Tokyo Mew Mew, a lightweight story for girls, the main character acquires magical powers and a feline appearance after an earthquake. At the other extreme Tokyo Magnitude 8 offers a realistic account of the consequences of a massive quake that devastates the archipelago. A fairly conventional rite of passage, the story centres on two survivors in the ruins of a man-made island wrecked by the tremor, but also describes rescue operations in considerable detail.

Spirit of the Sun, by Kaiji Kawaguchi, is an outstanding manga, which starts with a gigantic quake, so severe it breaks Honshu, the largest island of Japan, in two. A tsunami follows, devastating what remains of the country. Under the pretence of providing humanitarian aid, the Chinese army takes over what soon becomes North Japan, whereas the US army occupies the south.

Though at first sight a fairly typical example of the post-disaster genre, Spirit of the Sun offers a critical view of Japan in the 2000s, using its description of the living conditions of Japanese refugees in Taiwan to make barely veiled allusions to the strict immigration policies enforced by the government in Tokyo.

Although earthquakes and tsunamis are recurrent motifs in many books and films, they are far from neutral. Publication of X, a fantasy inspired by the Bible, in particular the Apocalypse, was suspended for several months in 1995. Its recurrent tremors, purportedly announcing the imminent end of the world, upset many readers at a time when Kobe had just been hit by an earthquake that claimed nearly 6,500 lives.

Several similar series are likely to be suspended in the near future. On television the rerun of an anime version of Tokyo Magnitude 8 has already been shelved, and other animes containing tsunami sequences have met a similar fate or are being rewritten. Damien Deloup

These articles originally appeared in Le Monde

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