Tokyo's bubble economy: From literary giants to great entertainers

Today is the first day of school. The gymnasium is full of students standing in rows, and the principal is giving a speech on the stage.

Honestly, every time I see a scene like this, I think of the scene in "Crows Zero" where the headmaster is kicked away as soon as he speaks.

However, it's obvious that such a thing couldn't happen at the Japan University of the Arts, and he's not paying attention to those things right now.

"Hey boss, are you sure the script you wrote this afternoon will actually be accepted by someone? This script doesn't seem that great."

In a crowded corner at the back of the gymnasium, Shuichi Kanbara sat in a chair, legs crossed, scribbling rapidly in a notebook on his lap. Beside him, Kento Kaku held up a page, looking at it with suspicion, and asked...

"Don't ask so many questions, just watch it carefully, especially the character of Mitsuhashi Takashi."

Shinbara Hide answered without looking up, continuing to write with his head down.

"From Today, It's My Turn!!" is essentially a work that "shows off skills".

Yes, it's a display of skill.

The plot and content of this drama are not particularly outstanding.

It doesn't delve into human nature, nor does it have any narrative ambition. It lacks profound philosophical reflection or social critique; it's simply a lighthearted and silly comedy.

but...

It is extremely difficult for this type of work to succeed.

As a famous sketch comedy actor once said—why does comedy have to start happy and end sad?

Ultimately, creating a comedy that can make the audience laugh throughout the entire show is far more difficult than creating a formulaic comedy with a forced, over-the-top ending.

This is actually similar to many short videos in later generations. For example, after Rocks appeared in "One Piece," various short videos of a few dozen seconds each "revolutionized the world..."

What kind of content do those short videos, which are only a few dozen seconds long, contain? What narrative techniques do they use? What are their clever plot rhythms?

There was nothing there.

It relies solely on background music to artificially elevate the audience's experience. Once the audience's emotions are stirred, the emptiness and crudeness of the short film itself are completely masked.

Humans are driven by emotions. Just like a boy deeply in love, when he's emotionally charged, he unconsciously ignores all the flaws of the girl he likes. Movies and television shows are similar.

For a comedy to keep the audience laughing from beginning to end, it needs an extremely strong ability to control the pacing. If a joke fails or the pacing goes off, allowing the audience to catch their breath and realize what's happening, the entire work falls apart.

However, because of this, unless you are a top industry expert who can immediately grasp the subtle rhythm of the script, it is difficult for others to understand the brilliance of the show just by reading the text.

For example, Kento Kaku at this moment would hold the script, stand there reading it for a while, squat down to read it for a while, scratching his head and looking like a monkey.

But at that moment, perhaps because the opening ceremony was indeed too boring.

As the two classmates standing in front of him were laughing and joking in hushed tones, their elbows accidentally bumped into his arm, causing the page of the script in his hand to fly out and slide towards the wall of the gymnasium.

"Baka! Watch out!"

Kento Kaku immediately crawled through the crowd like a dog, but just as he reached out to pick up the script, an old hand picked it up first.

Kento Kaku got up and saw a very stylish old man wearing brown sunglasses and a baseball cap standing in front of him, holding the script in his hand.

"Sorry, sorry, this is mine..."

Kento Kaku scratched the back of his head and stretched his neck nervously.

The old man glanced at him, then at the script in his hand, a hint of appreciation flashing in his eyes. "Learning a script at the opening ceremony? There aren't many young people as obsessed with scripts as you are these days."

"Eh... I'm sorry, senior, I didn't write this, he did."

Kento Kaku gave an awkward grin.

"oh?"

The old man looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a handsome young man sitting quietly in the last row of chairs, intently sketching.

The stadium was very noisy at the moment, but the noise seemed to have no effect on him at all; his young eyes shone with excitement and focus.

Seeing this, the old man was slightly taken aback, and the image of the day he first enrolled at the Japan University of Arts decades ago subconsciously surfaced in his mind.

"Come to think of it, I also found the opening ceremony boring back then, so I hid in the last row and secretly wrote a script."

As people get older, they tend to reminisce about the past. A smile flashed in the old man's eyes as his gaze returned to the script in his hand.

At first glance, his eyes still held only a nostalgic smile, ready to return it. But as he subconsciously scanned the first three paragraphs, his aged and cloudy eyes narrowed slightly.

"This is..."

He unconsciously tightened his grip on the corner of the paper, ignoring Kento Kaku's quiet calls beside him, and instead frowned as he carefully read through the entire script again.

After a long while, he finally raised his head, a smile playing on his lips.

Meanwhile, the boy who was hiding in the corner writing a script seemed to have finished writing the pages of his notebook and was rummaging through his bag for a new notebook, but it seemed that he didn't have any extra notebooks, and he had a bit of a headache.

Seeing this, the old man slowly walked over, took out a small notebook from the pocket inside his vest, and handed it to him along with the script.

"Young man. If you don't mind, you can use mine."

"Huh?"

Shuichi Kanbara looked up blankly, his eyes unfocused, and subconsciously took the small notebook.

He was still completely immersed in his own world at this moment—admittedly, he wrote the script for "From Today, It's My Turn!!" based on his memories of what he had read, but the problem was that he hadn't read the original script.

Therefore, he completely followed his own understanding, breaking down the images he had seen in his mind bit by bit, carefully considering the rhythm and meaning of each plot, and finally restoring these images into a script.

Anyone who has studied reading comprehension knows that breaking down an article is sometimes more difficult than creating one, let alone breaking down scenes from a TV series.

This reverse deconstruction requires working backward from the performance, editing, dialogue, and camera language to deduce the story structure, character motivations, and pacing, and finally painstakingly reconstructing these fragments into a script text suitable for filming.

It is extremely difficult, and he is now 200% focused.

The old man seemed to sense his current state, and his admiration deepened, but he didn't linger. Seeing that Kanbaru Shuichi had accepted the notebook, he smiled and left with a "Good luck, young man," before turning and leaving with his hands behind his back.

"What a strange old man."

Seeing that the old man had walked away, Kaku Kento scratched his head in confusion.

At that moment, Shuichi Kanbara also turned to the first page of that little notebook.

Kento Kaku curiously approached. The small notebook was clearly the old man's personal notebook for jotting down inspirations; it was only about the size of a palm and rested perfectly against his chest.

Many directors and screenwriters of this era had this habit, so he wasn't surprised. But when he saw the small signature in the upper right corner of the title page, his eyes widened instantly!

"Fukasaku Kinji???"

Kento Kaku immediately stood at attention!

Who is Shinji Fukasaku?

The pinnacle of Japan's second generation of postwar directors!

A national-level cinematic giant in Japan!

The founder of gangster realism!

A revolutionary in ensemble narratives! A pioneer of dystopian allegories!

He is also the internationally recognized standard-bearer of violent aesthetics in this era!

A world-class master of genre films!

Although he knew that Kinji Fukasaku was a senior alumnus of the Japan University of the Arts, Kento Kaku never expected to run into him!

not to mention...

"It seems like Fukasaku-senpai really appreciates this script?!"

Kento Kaku was immediately excited, his heart pounding wildly.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Shuichi Kambara, in his haste to write, didn't notice the signature in the upper right corner of the booklet. But...

[Kinji Fukasaku's newly purchased portable sketchbook]

[Quality: Green]

[Effect: Moderately enhances the ability to create three-dimensional characters in group portraits]

[Introduction: "A single page encapsulates the identities, obsessions, and critical choices of forty-two ordinary high school students—his writing has no extras, only protagonists yet to speak."]

[Exchange: For every three items obtained, you can exchange them for an item of the same level in the shop without any cost (2/3)]