Life in the Zashikiro: A Discussion with Hiroshi Harada

An in-depth interview with Hiroshi Harada of the independent Kiryukan production company: covering his filmography, personal history, political views and more...

For many years, Hiroshi Harada’s filmography has stood as a subject of mystery and fascination in the world of cult film. With long form independent animation already being a rarity in itself, his 1992 adaption of Suehiro Maruo’s Shōjo Tsubaki (known as Midori in the west) drew international attention with its immersive Terayama-influenced sensibilities and existence that practically required the viewer to search out the film to experience it as a part of its own world. Despite Midori’s extensive history of experimental screenings and troubled encounters with Japanese censors and customs, it’s only a piece of the broader history and themes of Harada’s filmography.

When he isn’t working at the Kiryukan atelier, Harada attends protests against genocide and war while also closely following news developments, regularly sharing articles about the internal politics of leftist organizations and the ongoing progressions and discoveries of modern science. This side of his life reflects in his essays about the politics of Japanese culture alongside his theories about animation. Those essays go on to reflect in the overarching structure of his newest film, Zashikiro, wherein the film’s namesake (a type of cell room that was constructed in Japanese homes) is depicted both literally and metaphorically with the film’s crossing of in-universe narrative with documentary sequences.

Harada’s animations are commonly described as being an antithesis to modern anime, a sentiment that’s true but comes with its own complex question in what it means to be that antithesis. For years the horror in films like Midori and The Death Lullaby were cited among popular audiences as said distinction, but films like Horizon Blue and Limitless Paradise share the same rebellion while having more in common with social dramas. The answer is something more complex and theoretic. Harada worked in an industry where he saw capitalist corruptions take over in real time with the rapid acceleration of neoliberalism, and working independently with no sponsors he sought to make films that fought back against the rapid commercialization of film and animation and the sociopolitical connotations that came with said commercialization. With this interview, I reached out to Harada wanting to cover that side of is work and more.

— Since Limitless Paradise onward, your films have demonstrated a unique style of structuring in your methods of mixed media montage. Outside of just the crossing of animation with live action, the sequences you construct intermix fictional scenarios with real life contexts, such as the way you used interview recordings in Limitless Paradise and Zashikiro, or the references in The Death Lullaby and Zashikiro to Japanese history with real images, newspaper clippings and scans of articles about political policies. How did you come to formulate your style? In addition, how do you commonly plan out the structuring of your films? Is it all firmly set before filming or do you leave room for some visual improvisation depending on what comes up during conception?

The mixed media montage technique was practiced by Japanese experimental filmmakers and some film directors in the 1960s and 1970s. They used this technique in their independent experimental films and ATG films. At the time, the Japanese film industry was full of experimental techniques, and they were also frequently used in some commercial films and commercial animation.

For example, as a drama progresses, it may suddenly change into an interview, a documentary, a newspaper article, or animation. You can get a good idea of ​​this by looking at ATG works from the 1960s and 1970s. I grew up watching them as a child, so I think I've been influenced by them. There's a film called A Man Vanishes “人間蒸発” (1967), an ATG film directed by Shohei Imamura. It's an example of a film where incidents occur during filming, and the film is interrupted each time, turning into a documentary, or fiction, and the structure changes constantly. I like that kind of film. I get bored easily, so if a movie or play has the same tone or structure for a long time, I get bored of it halfway through.

In Terayama Shuji's Pastoral: To Die in the Country, the film cuts off midway through, and the scene suddenly switches from the countryside of the past to present-day Tokyo. It's an experiment typical of Terayama, who has repeatedly asserted that "boredom is a sin."

I only saw one of Terayama's plays while he was alive. Then he passed away. However, Terayama's right-hand man, J.A. Seazer, continued to faithfully recreate the experimental theater of the Tenjo-sajiki era. For example, in one play, the actors lifted an audience member onto the stage, then put him in a box and carried him to a nearby station. A live broadcast of the scene in front of the station was then shown. When Terayama was alive, he did even more extreme things in his overseas performances. He would have sex with audience members during the screening, or kidnap them...

The list of experimental examples by Terayama and Tenjo-sajiki, and Seazer and Banyu-inryoku is endless. All of these ideas completely overturned conventional notions of theater. In my case, I roughly decide on the composition beforehand. However, my works take a long time to produce. Many things happen in the world while I'm creating them. I'm the type of person who can't remain uninvolved in these social events. So, if I decide something is necessary along the way, I ignore the balance of the overall composition and just keep adding more and more.

My mother passed away while I was making Zashikiro. She had saved a lot of old photographs. I used many of those photographs.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

Midway through Zashikiro, the film suddenly switches to a war scene. The script contained only one line: "Demonstrations and other events will be inserted when the film is completed." However, wars and massacres are occurring all over the world, and many people are crying out and crying for help. The Japanese government continues to prepare for war. There is no point in making a work that is unrelated to these things. So in Zashikiro, I added footage of Japan's ancient wars, modern military buildup, and even Syria and Gaza.

Therefore, for generations unfamiliar with the experimental works of the 1970s, the structure may seem strange and unsettling. But I don't make well-behaved commercial films. I make films independently. This allows me to do whatever I want, and there's no point in independent production unless I create with as much freedom as possible. So I express and present one after another what is welling up in my heart and body.

— As a person who was living in Gunma in separation from the subcultural activist scenes in areas like Tokyo, how did you discover Shuji Terayama's film and theater?

In the past, Doji Morita toured around the country with members of avant-garde theater troupes such as Tenjo Sajiki and Kuro Tent. (I heard this story from J.A. Seazer.) Before I saw Terayama, I saw a poster for Doji Morita in Gunma as a child. In the 1970s, when I was around 10 years old, Doji came to Gunma just once. However, photos of her show her wearing black sunglasses and a black jumper, and her concerts were held in black tents set up in vacant lots. It was mysterious, like an underground organization or a resistance rally. Because of this, I was too scared as a child to go. But it has remained in my mind ever since.

At that time, Terayama was writing many lyrics for popular songs. My first encounter with Terayama was a popular song, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, with lyrics he wrote that I heard on the radio. In 1969 (when I was 7 years old), Motherless Child, with lyrics by Terayama, music by Tenjo Sajiki's Michi Tanaka, and sung by Tenjo Sajiki's Carmen Maki, became a huge nationwide hit. I listened to the song alone at night on the radio in a dark room. (My mother worked nights, so as a child I was always alone at night.) I was shocked, as if I had come into contact with an entirely different world. At the time, I didn't know that it was Terayama's poetry.

The next film I encountered by Terayama was the commercial film The Boxer, which he directed for Toei. I saw the film when it was broadcast on TV. The music was by J.A. Seazer. I realized that Terayama had a different sensibility from other directors.

The year was 1981. I went to Tokyo for the first time at the age of 19. I found myself surrounded by a wealth of culture that wasn't available in rural Gunma. I bought many books by Shuji Terayama at large bookstores, and records with lyrics by Terayama at second-hand record stores. At the time, record stores also sold documentary records that contained audio recordings of shows called "Daidogei (Street Performances)" by Shuji Terayama and J.A.Seazer. It was around this time that I bought all of Morita Doji's LP records. Doji Morita's songs feature stories of campus protests and friends being arrested by the police.

In the 1960s and 1970s, politics were referenced in all kinds of works. Filmmakers at Tenjo Sajiki and the anarchic film company Toei made films while being arrested by the police. Filmmakers of the time made films while attending demonstrations. Kinji Fukasaku's intense handheld camerawork was inspired by the "Security Treaty Struggle."

But now, creators and the film media have come to ignore politics alone. Recently, a tweet saying "Musicians shouldn't talk about politics!" went viral on social media and caused a problem. I think this is the result of a combination of factors such as generational change, the fading of war memories, and neoliberalism.

When I moved to Tokyo at age 19... (In 1981) I was browsing a collection of plays called Terayama Shuji Experimental Plays in the theater section of a large bookstore. I had never heard the term "experimental theater" before, neither in Gunma nor on TV or in the media. I decided to read it. It began with the following lines: "When the stage curtain opens, there is another curtain behind it. When that curtain rises, there is another curtain. As this cycle continues, trouble breaks out between audience members in the stands."

I was surprised to be exposed to a world I had never known before.

In 1982, I went to see a Terayama & Tenjo Sajiki play and was deeply shocked. When I entered the theater, the events had already begun in a freak show-like style. Bright primary colored lighting, smoke, screams, complete darkness (all the lights in the theater were turned off), live Seazer drumming synchronized with the actors' movements...

In normal theater, the actors' performances take on a large role, and other elements are more like background effects that highlight the actors. In Terayama's plays, the actors' movements, music, sound, lighting, etc. all have equal weight and strongly assert themselves, clashing with each other (coincidentally, this is similar to the montages in Eisenstein's Attractions).

I also went to see an independent screening of an experimental film at an underground theater. It was a film screening, but Terayama and Seazer were in the operating room and I could see they were up to something. Actors were making sounds behind the screen in time with the film, audience members (who were actually staff members) were entering and exiting the screen, there was multi-projection on the door, and Terayama suddenly appeared unannounced to give a teach-in. None of this was announced in advance. As a result, the audience was suddenly exposed to these happenings without any prior knowledge.

There are countless examples of Terayama's experiments.

Shortly after I moved to Tokyo, my values ​​regarding film, theater, and life took a 180-degree turn, and my life underwent a major transformation. Just as Marx and Engels dramatically transformed our understanding of society, economics, and philosophy, Terayama completely overturned our understanding of film, theater, perception, and values. The impact of encountering Marx in high school and the impact of meeting Terayama in design school. It's only natural that these experiences would change the way you think and live. All of these experiences flowed into Midori.

From Midori’s Akanekoza premiere performance (1992) | Photo credit Mako Sakura, Kiryukan

— To dive into some further specifics, you mentioned Eisenstein’s writings about dialectic in film as being a significant influence to your approach to filmmaking. For people unfamiliar with Eisenstein’s politics in film, how would you explain the way you adopted Eisenstein’s theories to your works? And also how Shuji Terayama also incorporated Eisenstein? I recall one theme is the challenging of conventional film screening and theater in there being no concrete split between the work and the audience. With your three recent features you’ve spoken of how the film starts once the audience is made aware of the movie, and there being no concrete ending to the work either.

I first encountered Eisenstein when I was in high school. At the time, I was a little troubled by an inner instinct I had to depict violence. When I entered my films in 8mm film competitions, the judges commented, "Your depictions of violence are the problem. You're being influenced by the very bad effects of Gekiga." One day, I was reading a book by Eisenstein at a library in Gunma, and in it he wrote, "Violence is necessary in films. It's necessary to wake people up," and "After a shocking depiction, you should depict what you want to communicate." From that moment on, I began to like Eisenstein.

From Limitless Paradise (1982) | Hiroshi Harada

When Japanese film researchers and educators think of Eisenstein, they tend to only discuss montage. However, Eisenstein's dialectics are an extension of the theories of Marx and Engels. I recommend the book Dialectics of Cinema by Eisenstein. His books also discussed Marx and Engels. Marx and Engels touched on all fields, but there was almost nothing about film. That's why it seems to me that Eisenstein took over and added to them. Even though Eisenstein's ideas were an extension of communism and scientific socialism, Japanese academia doesn't mention this. For example, I've spoken with several Norman McLaren researchers at Japanese universities. They know that animator Norman McLaren was a communist, but they keep that fact hidden in public. One university professor confessed to me that despite having read almost all philosophical books, "Marx is the only one I haven't read."

It's true that during the war, the Japanese government and police had a history of arresting, imprisoning, torturing, and killing communists and the Communist Party. Remnants of this remain in Japan to this day. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and conservative, right-wing elements continue to attack communism and the Communist Party. Conservative economists who are on good terms with the LDP continue to attack Marx. Perhaps that's why people are too scared to speak about him.

I first learned about Marx from my high school teacher, Nakajima. The details of this are explained in Paradise Rediscovered: The Truth of Limitless Paradise. In other words, I learned about Marx and Eisenstein at roughly the same time during high school. Their theories were very convincing and relatable, and they supported my instinct for expression throughout my life. The important point is that both Marx and Eisenstein were on the side of the weak.

At first glance, Eisenstein's dialectics could be replaced with the word "experiment." But its essence is different. Experiments are practices for confirming the unknown. An experiment can also be a one-off. Dialectics is not a one-off idea. It has the fundamental intention of transforming society into a more advanced and fairer stage. In other words, it is always closely connected to society. The "cutting editing technique" of films such as The Great Train Robbery (1903) belongs to a single film. However, "montage" is connected to social change.

Eisenstein expressed this idea (quoting the theories of Marx and Engels) in the term "social mission." Many people in the film industry forget the connection between "montage" and society, and only discuss the technique of montage. Eisenstein questioned and examined various established ideas, prompting people to think. For example, he asked, "Is horizontal screens really all that's needed?" In his later years, he conceived of a "stereoscopic film montage," but never realized it. It was an attempt to eliminate the boundary between the screen and the audience seats.

However, during his time directing plays on stage, Eisenstein conducted a variety of experiments that were not bound by preconceived notions. When he directed Strike (1925), his unrestrained experimental spirit was unfolding in the film. However, these were not experiments for the sake of entertainment; rather, they were permeated with a fundamental spirit of wanting to bring about profound social change. His spirit and practice took flight in the Soviet Union under Lenin. However, unfortunately, expression was restricted during the time of dictator Stalin.

We need to be aware that the Soviet Union was very different under Lenin and the post-Stalin era. Lenin was a pacifist, but Stalin arbitrarily called the country socialist without studying Marx much, and then purged and murdered many people. Stalin's shameful actions have nothing to do with the theories of Marx and Engels. This is clear from reading the writings of Marx and Engels.

Strictly speaking, later research has revealed that even Lenin was unable to fully read the works of Marx and Engels due to various historical and regional reasons. The complete works of Marx and Engels were published much later. Therefore, the world's Communist parties also embarked on this project without fully understanding Marx and Engels. Those in Japan who attack Marx today deliberately ignore these circumstances and use them all as ammunition for their attack. Marx is not even in Japanese textbooks, and most people have not read the works of Marx or Engels, so they are unable to judge.

Furthermore, Japanese people are easily fooled by simple, emotional language. They do not know how to scientifically examine history. However, Japanese education is merely a copy of military education during the war. European educators have visited Japanese schools and are amazed at the terrible conditions there.

- There is actually a crucial difference between physical education classes in Japan and Finland...! (Mikako Iwatake: November 23rd, 2023)
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I haven't read all of Terayama's works, but as far as I know, I haven't found any mention of how Terayama was influenced by Eisenstein or Marx's dialectics. However, Terayama is listed as a recommender of the complete works of Eisenstein published in Japan. I have also found writings in which Terayama makes statements that are New Left-leaning, rather than Left-leaning. The majority of intellectuals at the time were New Left-leaning. For an explanation of the difference between the Left and the New Left, please see Paradise Rediscovered: The Truth of Limitless Paradise.

In his own theatrical works, Terayama quotes Hegel's dialectics, rather than Marx or Eisenstein. Hegel's dialectics was groundbreaking, representing a major shift in previous values ​​and concepts. Marx and Engels acknowledged this. However, Hegel had one major problem (error). Marx and Engels clarified and pointed out this problem from a scientific and materialistic perspective, elevating dialectics to a new, higher level. I also see this as the final form of dialectics. (Eisenstein also wrote in his book that "Marx overturned Hegel.”) And it was the materialism of Marx and Engels that led to this dialectics. In other words, things are not based on ideas (imagination), but on thinking and verification based entirely on facts and science.

However, in Japan, both now and in the past, quoting Marx will result in attacks and ridicule from others. As a result, many people avoid Marx.

I believe there are similarities between Terayama's dialectics and that of Marx, Engels, and Eisenstein. One is that they question and pose doubts about everything in this world, encouraging people to think. For example, Terayama said, "Why is it that when plays depict the Paris cannibalism incident on stage, people applaud and praise it, yet real-life cannibalism incidents are met with disgust?" This leads to Terayama's dialectics. "So, how would people react if a play about cannibalism were performed not in a theater but on the street or in an apartment?"

It seems to me that through his experimental theater, Terayama is encouraging people to think outside the box, to question and examine a wider range of issues, and to think more deeply for themselves.

Another similarity between Terayama and Eisenstein is that (though it may be a coincidence) Terayama always attempted to eliminate the boundaries between the screen/stage and the audience. (However, Eisenstein, aging as he was, was unable to actually carry this out during his lifetime.) Terayama made a film in which a male audience member enters the screen during a screening and is sexually assaulted by the characters in the film (Laura). However, attempts to eliminate the boundaries between the stage/screen and the audience were also practiced in European experimental theater, and Terayama openly acknowledged its influence.

A photo of a live screening of Shuji Terayama’s Laura (1974) | Image Forum Film Festival (Source)

Terayama grew up in a single-parent household, just like me. When Eisenstein was a child, his parents fought constantly and divorced. Eisenstein hated his mother for abandoning him and leaving home. However, he later cast his mother in Potemkin. In that respect, Eisenstein and Terayama are somewhat similar. And while I hate my mother, I also use her in my works.

And in the 1970s, dialectics, experimentation, theory, and ideology were all over the city in one large, organic mass in Tokyo's cultural scene. If you watch Japanese films from the 1960s and 1970s, you can sometimes see Tokyo in turmoil and conflict. And at that time, the scars of war were still lingering in people's hearts, never forgotten. However, the government and Japan's conservatives repeatedly tried to erase people's memories of the war, claiming that the postwar period was over. The experimental spirit of artists declined with the rise of neoliberalism in 1981.

There are various definitions for the starting point of neoliberalism, but I define it as the 1981 “第二臨調/土光臨調/行政改革/Second Provisional Commission on Administrative Reform/Doko Provisional Commission on Administrative Reform.

In 1981, the government openly teamed up with the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) and declared the "corporatization of government." The Japanese people accepted this, thinking, "If the government is in the red, corporatization is inevitable." They then quickly forgot. No one even questions it anymore. However, this is clearly pointed out in the Japanese Communist Party's official newspaper, Akahata, and in a book by former Japanese Communist Party Chairman Fuwa Tetsuzo.

Since 2001, the LDP-led Koizumi administration, which blindly followed the US Bush administration, has been pushing ahead with structural reforms, including drastic cuts to welfare education and structural reforms to film and anime (turning them into national businesses). This accelerated the fading of war memories. This was around the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Terayama disliked people mindlessly following conventions, old habits, and tacit understandings. Terayama's plays always begin before the audience even enters the theater. And he never makes it clear when the play will end. Terayama said that it is up to the audience to decide. Terayama always encouraged his audience to think and act, rather than remain passive. As a result, Terayama's plays do not have openings, opening scenes, closing scenes, curtain calls, or stage greetings. Both Banyu-inryoku and Kiryukan follow this style.

Apparently, Banyu-inryoku sometimes receive complaints from audiences seeing a Terayama play for the first time. "The end of the play is not clear. I can't tell when it's over." In other words, without thinking for themselves, they simply want their plays to be in the same style as the plays around them.

There should be a variety of styles and expressions in creative works, but unfortunately, Japanese people prefer to do things the same as everyone else, and this is how they have been educated. Many Japanese people complain, protest, or attack when something different emerges. The reason for this lies in the school. At school, teachers intimidate and punish children who try something different or unprecedented, to silence them. If something different happens in a film or play, no one complains because it's something that happens on screen or stage, but if an unconventional experiment is carried out in a theater or in the audience, many Japanese people feel uncomfortable or reject it. Dialectical experiments are necessary to open the eyes of such people.

Dialectics Basics is not simply to entertain, but to encourage change and thought in society and people's consciousness. There are many ways to bring about social change. Terayama was once a member of the "Association of Cultural Figures Opposing the Security Legislation" under the LDP government. Tokyo was in the midst of a heated anti-security treaty protest. However, during rehearsal, Terayama told members of the Tenjo-sajiki theater troupe who were planning to march in a demonstration: "We're going to bring about a revolution through theater!"

Terayama felt the limitations of politics. At the time, avant-garde filmmakers and theater people all attempted to bring about social (consciousness) change through their works. Terayama actually engaged in a form of revolution, creating guerrilla-style happenings in the city through street theater and other activities. (However, this radical street theater was unpopular with the female members of the Tenjo-sajiki troupe.)

However, the forms of street protest in Japan, particularly in recent years, have been somewhat experimental in a sense.

From the Gaza Street Hospital in front of Shinjuku Station, Tokyo: June 22nd, 2024 (Video source, recorded by Hiroshi Harada)

From Protest Rave in front of Shibuya Station, Tokyo: May 6th, 2024 (Video source, recorded by Hiroshi Harada)

In particular, the forms of protest against the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the restart of nuclear power plants in 2012, and the war bill in 2015 were full of experimentation. In contrast, after Terayama's death, the theater world reverted to its previous conservative form, and the experimental theater and experimental screenings that were abundant in the 1970s have almost completely disappeared (with the exception of Banyu-inryoku, performed by Terayama's right-hand man, Seazer).

Nowadays, experiments are performed as entertainment, with large companies such as Disney spending huge amounts of money and charging high admission fees from audiences. The neoliberal policies of large corporations and the government immerse people in products and rob them of their ability to think and act. Until the 1970s, all Japanese people read books on the train. Since the 1990s, young people have started playing games. It was the government, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) that follows the government, and large corporations that encouraged young people to play games.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

— With the consistency your work has shown in both structure and theory since Limitless Paradise onward in alignment with the creative policies of the Kiryukan, were the concepts of said policies something you conceived through your research into Marx, Eisenstein and Terayama, or rather something you felt was inherent to your perspectives of artistic creation that you came to realize through your life experiences?

I think it was both.

First, I heard about the horrific experiences my mother had during the war. As a result, I developed a dialectical foundation from a young age, realizing that what adults said was wrong and therefore I didn't have to listen or obey them. Also, perhaps because of my experiences of violence, discrimination, and bullying as a child, I built up a lot of anger toward various injustices. Perhaps because of this, the works I created were always cruel, extreme, or bloody. Adults didn't like this. Adults would often tell me, "You're not acting like a child."

From The Weak Dinosaur (1976) | Hiroshi Harada

When I was in elementary school, my teachers sometimes put me in a special needs class (a class for children with disabilities) because they thought I thought differently from the other kids.

In high school, I was intimidated every day by several conservative teachers. I was lonely, and that's when I discovered Marx and Eisenstein. Marx and Eisenstein told me, "You're fine just the way you are." Marx may have had a great influence on me in choosing a political subject like Limitless Paradise. The first time I saw an Eisenstein film or a Terayama play was when I graduated from high school and moved to Tokyo.

— A small detail I wanted to ask about is the prevalence of fire in your work. You described how one of your early film experiments was projecting footage of fire against a variety of surfaces. It reminded me of one of Eisenstein’s sentiments about the use of fire as a symbol of life in animation. Is this parallel intentional?

Flame is an expressive impulse that always wells up naturally from within, without any conscious awareness, like an instinct.

For modern people, flames may also function as a proxy for anger. Fire is the brightest and sharpest phenomenon. Along with the red color of blood, I think it represents the very essence of humanity and life. Precisely drawn effects were the basis of Asian animation in the 1960s. Perhaps this is because they can express human emotion. Furthermore, Japanese people have long grown up seeing the fires of hell in Buddhist paintings.

— Most of your filmography is more outwardly personal in how it in some way or another calls back to your experiences. Midori and Horizon Blue are two exceptions in how they are adaptions of preexisting works rather than personal experiences. While parallels in Horizon Blue are now more present in the public eye in how you’ve spoken about your personal resonance with the manga’s subjects of trauma and therapy, Midori is still observed by some outsiders solely from a Maruo-adjacent perspective rather than as a piece of your broader filmography and what your own work represents. Was there anything in particular about the Shojo Tsubaki manga that resonated with you enough that drove you to adapt it over any of the other stories you were aware of at the time?

The first half of Horizon Blue is largely faithful to the original novel, but the second half in particular is a direct portrayal of my own experiences and my mother's war experiences. Horizon Blue was serialized in Garo. When I read it, I was amazed and thought, "This is about me!" From that moment on, it no longer seemed like something that was happening to someone else. I wanted to depict my own experiences.

From Horizon Blue (2020) | Yoko Kondo, R.H Anonymous, Kiryukan

The depictions of what happens inside the company in the first half are based on my experience working at an advertising agency in my 30s.

The scenes in the second half, such as going to the hospital and attending group meetings, are all based on actual experiences I have had.

A liberal female friend of mine was surprised when she saw Horizon Blue and found that "her mother didn't have a single book in her house." My mother wasn't a reader.

Midori was also published as a book by Seirindō, the publishing company that also published Garo. (After the death of its first president, Seirindō gradually fell into decline and changed, and is now a discriminatory, far-right publishing company. The Garo authors of that time have moved to Seirin Kogeisha, founded by a former Seirindō editor.)

When I first read the book version of Midori, I was shocked. It expressed all kinds of taboos. I thought there was no way a company could adapt this manga into a film. I instantly wanted to make this manga into a movie, to awaken people's eyes. I wanted to put into practice what Eisenstein said: "First show the audience the extreme depictions, and then convey your message." I wanted to wake up the conservative film and anime industries, as well as society at large.

From Midori (1992) | Suehiro Maruo, Kiryukan

— Maruo’s works are in certain ways a sociopolitical curio in how his surrealism holds an ambiguity to his possible motives, especially in light of how he depicted Japan’s imperial history as bluntly as he had in his earlier work. Some of his readers align with Terayama’s views while others hold reactionary and conservative sentiments. When adapting Shōjo Tsubaki, did you feel it had leftist potential despite Maruo’s vagueness? Or did you pursue it solely as a personal interpretation separate from Maruo’s intentions? In addition, when you were doing your ATG (Art Theatre Guild) pitch for a longer version of Midori, were there any political concepts you wanted to bring to the forefront?

From Harada’s storyboards for his proposed Art Theatre Guild version of Shōjo Tsubaki (planned between 1985 - 1988) | Kiryukan

To be honest, I didn't sense any clear left-wing leanings in Shōjo Tsubaki. However, the original work had an impact that woke people up. It was similar to the boldness I felt when I first saw Eisenstein's Strike or Potemkin. I made the film based on my own personal interpretation, separate from Maruo's intentions. As a result, I don't think Maruo was satisfied with the result.

I recently found the 8mm footage I had made to present to ATG.

I thought that including too much political depiction in Midori would create a departure from Maruo's world. However, I did include in the ATG version that Muchisute became a disabled veteran due to the war, and the poverty that followed the defeat. In the end, due to budgetary constraints, most of my original episodes were cut from Midori, As such, the film remains largely the same as the original. In a way, I think this gave fans of the original a sense of security and a good impression. However, the opening scene of Tokyo's slums is a remnant of the ATG version.

However, I have mixed feelings when I see young people in Japan today looking at a Muchisute with no hands and rejoicing that he is a fashionable man. Young people in Japan today do not know the cruelty of war. They have been brought up in a neoliberal society since they were born.

By the way, the reason I always write it as “Midori” instead of "Shōjo Tsubaki" is simply because it is easier to type on the keyboard than Shōjo Tsubaki. When Midori toured Europe, curators gave it various English titles, but we finally settled on Midori. When I went to a film festival in France, there was a Japanese restaurant called Midori.

At the time, film production using 16mm film and cels was incredibly expensive. The film, cels, shooting costs, sound recording costs, and developing costs were all expensive. Making a film longer than 50 minutes was impossible, both in terms of budget and the limited amount of animation work I could handle. With Horizon Blue, I was able to create the film on a computer, which didn't require the same huge production costs as Midori, so I was able to include plenty of original episodes of my own.

The setting of the film Midori is consistent with the post-war era. For that reason, I cut out the pre-war episodes that were in the original work. I felt that making Shōjo Tsubaki too political would stray from the original. Instead, I included photos of the emperor and left-wing code. I used techniques that would only resonate with those with an awareness of the issues. (Such metaphors and allusive political expressions are commonly used in Japanese films.) The projectionist noticed this when I screened it in Nakano.

From Midori (1992) | Suehiro Maruo, Kiryukan

However, in the end, only two or three people noticed the political message of Midori. Since 1994, Midori has been well-received in France, and later in Japan it has been seen as "an entertaining film that can be watched with peace of mind." That was different from my original intention when I created Midori.

—One of the misconceptions that sometimes comes up in western discussion around Midori is the concept of Midori being an OVA (Original Video Animation). Some points were discussed before about the rise of neoliberalism through the 80s and the significance of film screening as a form of artistry and political action. As someone who was an active animator during the economic bubble, would you want to elaborate on how Midori and the formation of the Kiryukan were in direct opposition of the neoliberal nature of media at the time? In particular with how neoliberalism and conservatism would’ve been present in the animation industry of the 80s and 90s?

I have not officially uploaded Midori or The Death Lullaby online. In both cases, the materials I sent to French DVDs and overseas film festivals were leaked. While uploading them online may have the advantage of allowing people all over the world to view them for free, it is painful to have everything judged based on an incomplete version. Even in Japan today, there seem to be many young people who think that Midori = OVA. There is nothing I can do to solve this problem.

From Midori’s labyrinth basement screening (1992) | Photo credit Mako Sakura, Kiryukan

Limitless Paradise was made before the idea of ​​gimmick screening was conceived, so it unfolds with just one image and one screen. The English subtitled version that Aaron made for me is very well done. That's why I'm happy with Limitless Paradise English Subtitles.

I'm from a generation that grew up on analog film. Which is why I haven't yet found an answer as to how to present my other works on the internet.

(This answer overlaps with previous answers, but) I define Japanese neoliberalism as beginning with the corporatization of the government by the government, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) in 1981. It's called the "第二臨調/Second Rincho" or "土光臨調/Doko Rincho." The LDP and Keidanren had had close ties before, but this was the first time they openly announced that they would be working together to run the government. Since then, the national railways, tobacco, telephones, and other services have been commercialized one after another. In Japan, different terms are always used to hide the true nature of the term. In Japan, it's called "民営化/privatization." However, these services are not run by ordinary citizens, but are ultimately run by companies, and their ultimate goal is profit. That's why I refer to them as "商業化/commercialization."

The LDP government always attacked this, claiming that "state ownership is a communist ideology." Later, the post office, pensions, and subsidies for poor university students were also privatized (officially called "独立法人/independent corporations"). They loan tuition fees to university students at high interest rates, and if they do not repay the loans, their assets are confiscated. Many have committed suicide. As formerly state-run functions were nationalized, prices continued to rise and services continued to decline. In recent years, pension corporations have been buying Israeli government bonds and shares in Elbit Systems, Israel's largest defense contractor, while pension payments have been decreasing year by year.

Whenever Japan's Liberal Democratic Party government implements major reforms, it always promotes a different approach in a package to deceive the public. In 1925, the "Peace Preservation Law," a law to crack down on leftists, was introduced at the same time as the "Universal Suffrage Law." When the LDP government corporatized various state-run functions in 1981, they touted the idea to "eliminate deficits." The public was easily fooled into thinking that "corporatization is the natural way to resolve deficits."

The Japanese public continues to be easily fooled by the LDP government.

When the government privatized public transportation, such as trains and buses, it portrayed labor unions as noisy and scary organizations, and promoted the idea that corporate management would result in improved service and station staff who would always greet people with a smile. It even sent station staff to department stores for training. However, fares continued to rise. From the 1980s to the 2000s, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party repeatedly stated that "labor unions are scary organizations." Even in recent years, Prime Minister Abe made derisive remarks about the Japan Teachers' Union (日教組/Nikkyoso) in the Diet. When a prime minister or other public figure slanders a particular organization in a public setting, many people will take that into consideration. As a result, they stop mentioning or thinking about that organization. They end up living in a world where political topics are excluded and surrounded by entertainment information. People begin to dislike people who talk about politics.

In any case, in 1981, the government joined forces with the Keidanren, a government member organization, and carried out large-scale development projects and businesses, squandering tax money like water. Welfare and education budgets were slashed rapidly.

- Cuts to public services: LDP and Komeito pass "administrative reform" bill. Communist Party opposes "abdication of national responsibility”. Democrats support four bills (Shimbun Akahata, April 20, 2006)
- The aim of the "people" is business: Criticism of the civil service reform bill: Representative Shiokawa (Shimbun Akahata, May 15, 2008)
- Many of the new LDP officials: Casino Diet Members (Shimbun Akahata, September 15, 2014)
- Banning amakudari is administrative reform: Yoshii, special committee member for administrative reform, said public works are "big government" (Shimbun Akahata, April 6, 2006)

Neoliberalism calls for the cutting of anything that isn't profitable. Welfare, in particular, was slashed drastically. However, since 2001, education has also been turned into a national business, with many corporations getting involved. Naturally, the secret meetings between the government and major corporations are kept out of sight. However, they are connected behind the scenes, and they regularly meet for dinner and talk. I have witnessed many simultaneous changes since 1981 in real time.

In 1981, the conservative commercial broadcaster Fuji TV declared the slogan, "If it's not fun, it's not TV." It became dominated by frivolous comedy and variety shows. Until the 1970s, television also aired documentaries dealing with social issues and war, but these have since disappeared. The scary thing is that humans have a tendency to respond to huge temptations and be swept away in the direction of fun and pleasure. In the 1980s, movie theaters all began showing television and corporate commercials in their cinemas (partly because the widespread use of video software made them financially struggling). A movie is most effective when it's experienced for the first time in a dark space, where a valuable, lifelong encounter is born and remains in the audience's mind as a lifelong memory. Watching loud advertisements (which nowadays can last nearly 30 minutes) before a movie is enough to drain your mind, taking away that fresh, sacred encounter with the film.

It was around this time that I noticed something strange about Hollywood movie soundtrack records. Since the 1980s, soundtracks have only included pre-existing popular songs used in the film, rather than the original music from the film itself, with only one or two tracks from the film itself. This was unthinkable in the 1970s. Until the 1970s, films and music were unified by a single theme. My decision to match the lyrics of songs like The Death Lullaby and Zashikiro with proper nouns from the film is a rebellion against this trend.

From 2001 to 2004, the LDP administration under Koizumi passed a law that combined film, anime, and games into a single category of national media arts, defining them as "content" (a term coined by the government in this context). Major video companies were on the review committee for these laws. These two laws, which first significantly changed the status of film, anime, and video games in Japan, were supported not only by the LDP but also by liberal lawmakers. These laws were presented in a format and with beautiful rhetoric that no one could oppose.

- 2001 Media Arts Act
- 2004 Content Act

Prime Minister Koizumi originally turned his attention to anime after learning that overseas exports of Japanese anime, including Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, had surpassed steel exports. As part of this neoliberal government structural reform, the LDP Koizumi administration, along with its blind followers the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and major corporations, announced a policy of commercializing the profitable aspects of film. Many up-and-coming companies that had previously had no connection to the film industry ignored the industry's accumulated experience and history and, under the cover of the law, boldly entered the film and anime industries.

Information about this process was made public on the websites of the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry at the time, but was deleted 10 years later. In Japan, it is common practice to erase or conceal records to prevent them from being examined by future experts.

At this time, only a small section of film media known as "Cool Japan" was eligible for business use by the government, government ministries, and corporations.

First, METI subcommittees and large corporations urged companies to sell film theme songs separately. Their documents read: "Use film theme songs (for business) first!" Until the 1970s, film music and theme songs were created to follow the flow and theme of the main film. All of that fell apart.

The METI under the Koizumi administration proposed a new business producer system. Until then, film producers were people with experience on the set of the film. Suddenly, businessmen from large companies, wearing nice suits, entered the film and anime industries with their shoes on. Making money from films and encouraging excessive consumption became the primary goal. I attended hearings with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the proposers of this law, and expressed my opinion just before it was enacted, but it was no use.

The result of the neoliberalization of manga, anime, and games:
- Cool Japan Fund on the brink of collapse: government-backed fund runs into huge cumulative deficit (Asahi Shimbun, November 22, 2022)
- Results for Cool Japan on Anime Report, the Japanese Animation Labor Union’s blog

As a result of the enactment of the Media Arts Act in 2001, tax money was only allocated to certain types of manga, anime, and games. For a while, I worked on government events that took advantage of this law.

- Are demonstrations noisy? Manga titled “Oppose the ‘anti-XX’ demonstration” wins award in Gunma (Anime Report, February 28th, 2016)

The structural reforms to the film and anime industry under the LDP’s Koizumi administration from 2001 onward left many harmful consequences. Local superintendents of education repeatedly recited the provisions of several new laws (such as the Media Arts Act and the Content Act). Universities also underwent a transformation. “Content = Sellable Works = Good Works” - Takarazuka University. Even a liberal member of parliament tweeted, “Art is difficult to understand, so I’m glad the law was passed.” So-called “moe” (geeky) anime fans, deemed useful by the government for the Cool Japan policy aimed at overseas audiences, rejoiced at their “official recognition by the government,” and some even became LDP supporters. This is how enormous amounts of tax money have been wasted on pointless projects, leading to the present day. The government, large corporations, and government ministries and agencies cut welfare and education budgets while intervening and exploiting every sector they could use to make money, pouring taxpayers’ money into them and creating even bigger deficits.

However, the above were not the direct reasons why I quit my job and started making Midori. I was being harassed by a man at work (the son of a huge corporation). Also, at the time, work for Japanese TV anime had drastically decreased, and the company I worked for only did subcontracting for foreign anime. Since foreign anime wasn’t broadcast in Japan, I had no motivation to make it. I also felt a sense of crisis that I would end up spending my whole life commuting between my small company and my home. Working in the anime industry meant no days off, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So I had very little free time. I wanted to see more of other worlds, different worlds. For many reasons, I quit my job and created Midori.

In the 1990s, the hawkish policies of far-right LDP prime ministers and lawmakers further expanded. LDP lawmakers skillfully exploited the collapse of the Soviet Union to continue their attacks on communism and labor unions. In the 2000s, the LDP government, which had blindly followed successive American presidents, took advantage of the confusion and fear following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States to implement a number of reactionary policies. They also ideologically intervened in education, while at the same time continuing to commercialize it.

Black University Waseda (Anime Report, March 3rd, 2015)

I was a member of the Japanese Communist Party for a while, so in real life I protested against such far-right conservative ideas. I also visited the Diet many times, observing sessions and participating in rallies. I had been a labor union member for many years, so I was also involved in labor and civic movements. However, these were not yet directly reflected in my work. At the time, I still believed that liberals and leftists would resist power, even though they had weakened. Rather, the experimental plays and films by Terayama that I saw when I was 20 years old were always in my mind, and I had always wanted to realize them using animated footage.

Midori does not include direct political messages or expressions, but rather inserts them in the form of metaphors, similes and montages. At the 1992 shrine screening, we handed out leaflets from labor unions and civic groups. But I don’t think any audience members connected those political aspects with Midori. In the 1980s, a hawkish conservative named Nakasone was prime minister, but at that time, citizen and labor unions were still powerful and rivaled him. Liberals and left-wing citizens repealed several bad laws, including the Anti-Espionage Act and the State Secrets Act.

However, these laws were later easily passed under the Abe administration. Citizen and labor unions became weaker every year.

From Hiroshi Harada’s ongoing production, Underground Labyrinth Secret Picture Book: Boo (originally planned out in the 90s after Midori’s completion) | Kiryukan

After completing Midori, I planned a work called Boo, with a factory worker (a teddy bear) as the main character. However, I wanted to make another Misemono film using the karakuri I had researched during Midori, so I began production on Zashikiro, Even after that, LDP lawmakers continued to make worse revisions to the law and destroy welfare. I couldn’t sit still. At the same time as Zashikiro, which has strong elements of fiction and is set in an older era, I began production on Horizon Blue, set in Tokyo in the 1990s.

In 2010, the ruling LDP in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly passed an ordinance to crack down on sexual scenes featuring minors in creative expression. Even if it’s fiction. It prohibits depictions of sexual intercourse involving minors. Zashikiro falls into this category, so I lost the energy to continue working on Zashikiro and had to put it on hold. That’s why I’ve been making only Horizon Blue since 2010. In 2011, the Fukushima nuclear power plant exploded, scattering large amounts of radioactive material throughout Japan. I frequently participated in demonstrations and street protests.

I participated in almost every protest at the time, including this video. Even so, the LDP government’s reckless behavior continued. In 2013, the National Secrets Protection Act was passed.

In 2015, the Abe administration passed the war bill in the Diet, which was held late at night and early in the morning.

Then, in addition to real-life protests, I began to feel the need to portray these far-right conservative trends more strongly in my work.

In 2014, my mother fell ill. I placed her in a hospital and nursing home in Gunma. I commuted between Gunma and Tokyo, worked on TV anime, taught at a university, engaged in anti-government and anti-war activities, treated my chronic illness, and independently produced Zashikiro. In 2018, my mother passed away. I interviewed her about her war experiences, and quoted them directly in Horizon Blue and Zashikiro.

The war-denunciation scene in the middle of Zashikiro was originally intended to be shorter. However, I have seen footage of wars and massacres not only in Japan, but also overseas. When I see people being killed, I cannot sit still. I am no longer able to create joyful, peaceful works. It brings back memories of the violence I experienced as a child. The driving force behind my creative drive is always anger, frustration, and resentment.

— The theory of dialectic has always held prominence in your work. You’ve mentioned as well how dialectic and other political philosophies reflect in the nature of your film screenings. Some outsiders with less insight misread the nature of performances like the Red Cat Tent or Underground Labyrinth of Midori as being horror spectacles rather than forms of cultural political action, a detail you mentioned playing a role in how you chose to change your screening methods in the 2000s. For those outsiders, how would you explain the ways you incorporate dialectic into your screenings? In relation also, with the smaller scale screenings you perform now, how would you say dialectic influences the nature of those screenings as well?

First, I’d like to explain the dialectics and materialism that I follow.

The concepts called dialectics and materialism have existed for a long time. However, the dialectics and materialism that I follow is the one developed by Marx and Engels. Engels was Marx’s lifelong partner. The two wrote and researched together, and supported each other. After Marx’s death, Engels put his own research on hold to organize Marx’s vast posthumous writings and complete the second half of Das Kapital. For this reason, I support both Marx and Engels.

Even in Japan, there are many people who ridicule or shun Marx, but it seems that these people also have little knowledge of Engels.

Marx focused on writing on economics, while Engels focused on writing on dialectics. The two men consulted each other, kept in touch, and maintained a family-wide friendship. Engels’s Dialectics of Nature is truly impressive. Their true value is realized when their dialectics and materialism are combined. One alone is insufficient. Dialectics and materialism are concepts that have existed since ancient times. Marx and Engels established their final definitions after extensive research. This is important. Dialectics was advocated by Hegel and was groundbreaking at the time, but it had one flaw. Marx and others discovered, clarified, analyzed, and proposed this flaw.

What is the dialectics of Marx and Engels?

Engels wrote Dialectics of Nature.

(1) - See things in their interconnectedness, not in isolation.
(2) - See things in their changing, moving, and developing state, not as fixed and unchanging entities.
(3) - Do not recognize fixed boundaries, but see the totality of opposing aspects within things.

Engels said, “Look at the natural world. Everything is interconnected, moving, and changing.” Matter has an infinitely hierarchical structure from the microscopic to the macroscopic, and each level is interconnected and constantly changing. To put it simply, dialectics says, “Everything in this world (the natural world, including the universe) is interconnected.” He argues that we should consider things from that perspective.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

When I was in elementary school, I wondered, “All humans live in the universe, so why do we all live our lives without being aware of the existence of the universe?” When I said this to my parents, they told me, “Your current life comes first.” But I thought it was important to know what the world was like before the Big Bang (later research revealed that its root cause was “quantum fluctuations”), which created that life and created humans. At the time, people around me treated me like an eccentric.

I was happy to learn that Engels was connecting the birth of the universe with our current life. And now, Webb and several other space probes and high-performance space telescopes are conducting observations of the time immediately after the Big Bang. What exactly was the structure of the world before matter was born? I believe this is a question that deeply relates to all kinds of thought, philosophy, and life. For example, in recent years, most people think of subculture and the underground as separate from politics. In his experimental play Lemmings, Terayama depicted the “disappearance of walls.” To me, this “disappearance of walls” seemed like dialectics.

In the end, it was neither my parents nor school who resolved the many questions I had as a child. What saved me were Marx, whom my parents hated, as well as Engels, Eisenstein, and Terayama, who was considered an eccentric by society at the time.

It may seem obvious, but humans unconsciously think about things in a disjointed way. In recent years, people have also been influenced by unfounded discourse on sites like YouTube. Marx and Engels cited metaphysics as the opposite of dialectics, and idealism as the opposite of materialism. They objected to lifelong blind belief in things that had been decided once, and to talking about things (especially history) based on imagination and random thoughts. The basic idea of ​​dialectics is that by using its perspectives and ways of thinking, we can move society as a whole to a more just and higher level. Therefore, it is different from considerations and thoughts that are not closely related to society (politics, etc.). I do not call them dialectics. Materialism means “discussing things from all facts.” This includes scientific history and all matter. It does not include delusions, imagination, or ideas that are not based on facts.

From Midori’s Akanekoza premiere performance (1992) | Photo credit Mako Sakura, Kiryukan

Midori was not simply a nostalgic work; it was always made with a conscious connection to society and politics in mind. It also used a variety of political keywords and appealed to and posed questions to the audience. This is what makes it so different from a simple experiment. For example, in line with materialism, I included explanations of ancient Genjutsu (ancient magic) and the history of Misemono, and at a 1992 screening at a shrine, I handed out leaflets for civil movements and labor unions. In Japan, we are taught at school to obey those in power and groups, and to shun politics. So when politics is brought up, most people dislike it or get angry. Some of the staff, who are fans of Midori, reacted suspiciously to the historical commentary that is not in the original Midori novel, but I went ahead with it anyway. I think I was able to achieve this because I’m not working for a company, but an underground producer.

In 1992, I had collaborators who understood my ideas. The person in charge of screening Midori in 1992 was a politically active person involved in civic movements. However, mainly in the late 1990s, after Midori gained recognition in Europe, more and more people began to rely solely on that praise. The political nature of Midori gradually faded. In 2001, Kiryukan switched from its early collective productions to individual activities. Although our activities became smaller in scale, it became easier to use dialectics and make political comments. I felt a sense of freedom.

An image excerpt from footage of the Kanazawa Film Festival screening of Zashikiro (2025) | Photo credit Hiroshi Harada, Kiryukan

Subcultures have been popular since the 1980s, but they lacked a political perspective. They were simply about enjoying the content hedonistically. However, the world and the universe are all connected. The easiest way to understand this is that we share the same substance. The reality of large-scale wars and genocides taking place in other countries, our lives, and, for example, our enjoyment of erotic and grotesque content are all organically connected. Therefore, we need to be aware of all elements, and we must not ignore or remain silent about absurdity.

I believe that perspective runs through all of Kiryukan’s works. Dialectics is not a one-off, short-sighted experiment. At its core is a desire to elevate society to a higher level of fairness. For example, if you try to look up information about Kiryukan’s latest work on the official page, you will also be shown information about the genocide in Gaza. This is also a dialectical experiment using urban space. At the screening, too, we did not blindly accept or mindlessly imitate the many examples and practices of Japan to date, but rather examined each one one by one, sometimes adopting them and sometimes using different options. This is what Terayama and Eisenstein have done in the past.

In Japan, doing something different or outside of conventional practice is seen as heresy and attracts complaints. However, the important thing is to put the results of your thinking into action, even if it’s on a small scale with only a few people. However, talking about this has recently proven difficult to gain understanding. In contrast, in the 1970s, the streets were filled with theory, practice, and experimentation (and struggle). However, especially with the rise of neoliberalism, all of this was lost, and people became corrupt and lazy. And now, companies and independent artists alike are doing the same thing as everyone else, repeating it over and over again. Original, cutting-edge approaches have disappeared. This atmosphere makes young people submissive to authority, while at the same time suffocating them with an unidentifiable sense of suffocation. Currently, one in four young people in Japan considers suicide. Those in power and the wealthy work every day to prevent young people from scientifically understanding the reasons for this. The flood of massive amounts of new information, genuine products, and provocative advertisements is one example of this.

— With your upcoming film Boo, you described how you planned to make the animation in such a way that it would be the first Kiryukan animation made for the era of the internet. How do you intend to go with this new method, and are there any ways you'd intend to incorporate dialectics to a modern era with Boo's release?

A concept illustration of Harada’s ongoing production, Underground Labyrinth Secret Picture Book: Boo | Kiryukan

I appreciate you reading my comments so carefully.

I'm very sorry, but my thoughts have been changing rapidly over the years. It's true that I originally thought of Boo as a children's film that could be distributed online. However, during production, many cruel wars and genocides occurred around the world, and I couldn't continue to make a peaceful film. And my anger toward those in power who promote war and genocide grew day by day.

At the same time, the content of Boo became more and more extreme, and it was no longer something that could be distributed online. Furthermore, I was permanently suspended by YouTube, which prohibited me from creating a new account or logging in. I don't know of any other medium other than YouTube where I can upload long works for free.

For 33 years, I worked on Japan's dark and cruel stories with Zashikiro, producing 60,000 illustrations. So, even after Zashikiro was completed, I didn't have the energy to create another work on the same subject. So, in 1992, after completing Midori, I decided to create Boo, a work whose main character is a teddy bear with an incurable disease. In Boo, there's a scene in which the crown prince arbitrarily selects his bride from among the general public. Although the woman who will be the bride expresses her displeasure, those around her say, "It's a happy occasion. It's an honor. Become the bride for the country!"

When I was in my twenties and working part-time at a TV station's news center, I had the opportunity to hear all kinds of secret information. One of the stories I heard from a reporter was that the crown prince uses a computer to select his bride candidates from among the general public. It reminded me of the Ooku, or inner palace of the shogun. During the Edo period, the shogun kept around 1,000 women in the depths of his castle to provide sexual services. Unfortunately, at the time, some women considered it an honor to give birth to the shogun's son. During and after the war, the Japanese government created sex slave booths for soldiers.

Men in power treated women like tools. This thinking is still carried on by the current ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

From Harada’s ongoing production, Underground Labyrinth Secret Picture Book: Boo | Kiryukan

At the same time, I added to Boo a story called The Dark Ship, which I had planned around 1992. This is a story about a young girl who is imprisoned, kidnapped, and becomes a refugee. However, if I were to realistically portray any of these stories today with human characters, there is a risk that I could be arrested or attacked by conservative groups. So I decided to represent all the various elements using teddy bears. Would that still violate the law? However, the Japanese police prioritize preconceptions and emotions over fairness in law enforcement. That's why, during the war, not only communists but also anyone deemed to be a communist sympathizer, even without any evidence, were arrested, tortured.

There are records of teenage boys and girls being tortured as well. In recent years, testimony has come to light that the police at that time sexually assaulted women they deemed to be communists.

I intend to practice dialectics for the rest of my life. Broadly speaking, there are two dialectics. One is the dialectics of cinematic expression. The other is the dialectics inside and outside the theater where the film is screened. Eisenstein conceived of fusing these two, and Terayama made it a reality. (Again, I have yet to find any direct evidence that Terayama used Eisenstein as reference. However, since Terayama is one of the people who recommended the complete works of Eisenstein, there's no doubt that he read Eisenstein.)

I haven't yet decided what specific form Boo or Maze will take. But whatever subject matter I depict, I'm sure it will be in relation to ongoing global wars and social issues. However, due to declining physical strength and health due to aging and chronic illness, as well as Kiryukan's accumulated deficit, I sometimes consider sticking to regular film screenings. Alternatively, the idea for theatrical dialectics may gradually solidify.

However, whatever work I create, I always base it on the dialectics of Marx, Engels, Eisenstein, and Terayama. I will never deviate from that.

— Going more into the Kiryukan itself and how you prefer to credit your work to the Kiryukan as a collective rather than just yourself, is there anything you’d like to mention to elaborate on the collaborative nature of the Kiryukan’s work? While you work on the animations on your own, you’ve mentioned the participation of other artists, some of which being friends you knew since high school. Are there any particular roles they help provide with production or the planning of your work? With Horizon Blue in particular, the direction credit is to R.H. Anonymous. Is this in reference to a collective?

A photo from the October Cinema House Otsuka screening of Zashikiro (2025) | Photo credit Mana Uchiyama, Kiryukan

Strictly speaking, my works are not the work of a single person. Midori and Horizon Blue in particular were made possible through the support of many collaborators. With Midori, many people helped build the freak show tent for the screening venue, free of charge. That's why it was possible. If it had been just me, we wouldn't have been able to produce such a large-scale screening. That's why the credits are not with my personal name, but with the name of the organization "Kiryukan." This also conveys the idea that there were many other collaborators besides me.

Midori and Horizon Blue are based on original works, so they were not 100% made by me. So at the time, I didn't feel like using my name as the director. For that reason, I used the pseudonyms Hisaaki Edu for Midori and R.H. Anonymous for Horizon Blue. (Overseas, these are my real names.) Kishu Fukao, one of the music composers for Horizon Blue, is also my pen name. However, another reason is that it's easier to write “Kiryukan” in the copyright field than “Hiroshi Harada.” Also, Midori is easier to write than Shōjo Tsubaki.

— You’ve spoken before about the role your family history has played in the path of your work. It lends an interesting factor in the partial documentary aspect of your movies in how over the years they seem to represent certain stages of your life in the realization of details that weren’t present in prior works. One notable detail is how your mother characters shifted over time as you came to confront the abuse and conservative sentiments in your family, comparing the way the protagonist’s family is depicted in Limitless Paradise in contrast with the story in Zashikiro around Sakichi and his mother. Likewise how you’ve come to depict the war in light of your father being involved in WWII. In retrospect, do you feel there’s a certain narrative that can be read in this awareness that formed over your works as the reality of your upbringing came fully to light, or do you feel traits of awareness to that familial abuse and political conflict were always present in your past work?

When I made Limitless Paradise as a high school student, I portrayed my mother as an ordinary person. That was still how I felt about her at the time. My mother worked in the alcohol industry at night, so I was always alone in a single-parent household. As Limitless Paradise was nearing completion, my teacher Nakajima introduced me to Marx and I became interested in Communism. For more on this story, please refer to Paradise Rediscovered: The Truth of Limitless Paradise. Shortly after that, the first major rift appeared between my mother and me.

My mother hadn't read a single page of Marx, but she began attacking Marx, the Communist Party, and Teacher Nakajima. Her reasons were, "If I talk about the Communist Party, I'll get arrested by the police!" and "The neighbors will look down on me!" But at the time, I didn't have the technique to incorporate such episodes into the film. The same could be said for my father, who went to war and had a wife and family besides us. I didn't have the ability to portray those things on film at the time.

What gave me strength was the story of Shuji Terayama and his mother, who, like me, grew up in a single-parent household. My mother bore a striking resemblance to the mother in Terayama's Pastoral: To Die in the Country and the mother in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre. I was struck by how Terayama's mother once laughed and said, "I don't know how many times my son (Terayama) has killed me in his films."

From Horizon Blue (2020) | Yoko Kondo, R.H Anonymous, Kiryukan

Some film directors have said, "You need to get older to be able to depict war, society, and family. If you depict those things when you're young, they won't be authentic." The mother's account of her experiences at the end of Horizon Blue is a direct depiction of what my mother told me. It was only then that I was finally able to calmly portray the complex feelings I had toward my mother. I wrote the script for Horizon Blue in 1995 (when I was 33), and recorded the lines around 1999. The film was completed in 2019 (when I was 57). The voice at the beginning of Zashikiro talking about Japan's murder of Koreans came directly from a tape of my mother being interviewed and used in the film. However, creating the scenes with my mother and the flashbacks to the war was mentally difficult, so I was unable to complete the animation and editing of either Horizon Blue or Zashikiro until the very end.

— What served as the initial influence for Zashikiro? On one end the film is drawn significantly from your introduction to women's struggles through the woman who served as Reiko's influence, but there are also an assortment of other prominent themes including the societal use of zashikiro prison rooms. With its prominence in the story, did you conceive the narrative around the concept of zashikiro rooms, or did you come across the zashikiro concept later on and find it to be a fitting thematic parallel for the sociopolitical themes you already wanted to depict in the film and fit the story around that?

Hiroshi Harada drawing frames for Zashikiro, excerpted from a documentary that was shot around the film’s early production in the late-90s.

At first, I wanted to create a work based on "Karakuri," one of the Misemono symbols. When I was making Midori, I did a lot of research into the history of Misemono, but the "Karakuri" part just couldn't find a place to use it in Midori. I remember that I added the concept of "Zashikiro" a little later.

The protagonist of my work must always be someone who has been oppressed, marginalized, a victim of violence or discrimination, or who has a physical complex. There are still many people who suffer from the same worries as my protagonist.

The keyword "Zashikiro" is posted in large quantities every day on social media and other platforms. To them, modern society, or the environment in which they live within it, is "Zashikiro." If we read the works of Marx and Engels, we can easily understand why we are alienated and live in such a social structure that resembles slavery and imprisonment. However, in Japan, Marx's works are not even included in textbooks, and even mentioning his name will draw attacks from those around us.

Above all, during the war, communists and those who sympathized with them were arrested, tortured, and killed. That fear is still exploited by Japan's far-right today, and it has been passed down subconsciously among the people.

A frame from Zashikiro’s “Feast of Flowers” sequence, a musical montage that in part showcases Sakichi’s internal struggles in a toxically masculine society as he experiences pressure on both sides from the alienation of his peers and the control of his mother. The sequence bursts with emotion with its crossing of symbolic imagery with an impactful score.

In rural Japan in the 1960s, where Zashikiro is set, most people were unaware of the contradictions in this social structure. That's why, in the film Zashikiro, young Sakichi is repeatedly told by those around him to "live like a man!" Conservative men also insist that "women should obey men!" I wanted to depict a man escaping from this Japanese structure of "Zashikiro" into a new world. "Zashikiro" was originally an old Japanese system of isolating the mentally ill. However, today, there are many people who suffer from mental burdens, whether mild or severe.

In recent years, official survey results have shown that one in four young people have considered suicide. And there are a lot of suicides in Japan. However, the protagonist of Zashikiro tried to live until the end, despite facing extreme violence and discrimination. I want you to see that.

— Zashikiro in particular really puts to the forefront the complex nature of your approach to filmmaking. While there are elements of horror, the way the narrative verges into history and sociopolitical contexts separates it from horror to something that can more accurately be described as a sort of theoretic epic about the human condition in relation to politics in the film’s sense of scale. Would you agree with this sentiment?

I completely agree. However, in Japan in recent years, socially conscious films, violent films, pornographic films, historical films, etc. have become separated into one category. In the 1970s, there were many films that combined various elements. But now, serious, sensible people dislike violent scenes, while people who like violent and horror films don’t seem to be very interested in historical or socially conscious films. I try to pack many elements into my works. However, when violence, sex, or horror elements are included, many general audiences exclude them from their interest. Furthermore, people who are tolerant of violence, sex, and horror often only react to the extreme parts and do not publicly discuss historical commentary or depictions of social issues.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

The “wall” that Marx, Engels, Eisenstein, and Terayama spoke of exists -- a barrier to consciousness. This is a politically constructed subconscious. However, this time, Zashikiro attracted an unexpectedly large audience of young men and women I didn’t know.

Because Zashikiro is three hours long, I initially considered cutting the documentary-style section at the beginning. However, as I suffer from several chronic and incurable illnesses, I thought this might be my last feature-length film, so I screened it uncut. Contrary to my expectations, young people watched the documentary-style section at the beginning intently. I was glad I didn’t cut that part. I hope that Zashikiro’s portrayal of society will be passed on to young people. This may be difficult in closed, totalitarian Japan. But in reality, although still a minority, young men and women are speaking out against reactionary politics, discrimination, customs, and gender issues in Japan.

Judging from what I see on social media, many young men and women overseas are taking action against the genocide against Gaza. This seems to be our only hope. Times may change, but there are still people who resist power, violence, and dictatorship.

— A detail I know many audiences (American audiences in particular) would be curious about is the nature of Sakichi and Reiko’s relationship. As you’ve mentioned in prior blog posts, the basis of Zashikiro’s premise is a personal one in how it draws from your interpersonal discoveries with the woman who served as the inspiration for Reiko’s character. It’s presumed that Sakichi represents an extension of yourself in that context in how he meets Reiko after a life of alienation. It seems that in the film though that their intimacy is handled in a taboo manner, namely in how Sakichi is a child and the way he and Reiko address each other as being like siblings (if I understand the text correctly). It seems to be a taboo that is directly addressed in the story itself in how it serves as the basis of the twist near the ending of the film and how the whole story is penned as being a forbidden bit of folklore. Is it intended to be taken metaphorically, or as a challenge to complacent audiences who are accustomed to simple stories, or something else? I recall there was the Kiryukan policy about creating stories that are avoided by the commercial industry.

Zashikiro is based on my past experiences. The first woman I loved was a former member of Terayama Shuji's Tenjo Sajiki theater troupe. The first thing she said to me was, "Let's become sister and brother." At the time, I lacked confidence in relationships, so it was a sweet and idealistic proposal.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

The following is my theory...
Japanese people are small and weak, and because of this, they have a strong inferiority complex. Historically, they have been dominated by and followed the strong. (This is because they could not escape from their island nation.) At the same time, Japanese people have always admired the strong. This has been expressed in creative works for decades. Japanese men have a strong inferiority complex, so in real life, they are unable to feel confident and openly love the opposite sex. I think this is true for most short, weak men.

Because of this, I think they seek pseudo-romance with older sisters, younger sisters, or sometimes imaginary young women. Old Japanese folk tales often depict sisters and brothers, or older women and younger men, in pseudo-romantic relationships or pseudo-families. The same is true in movies.

Japanese men may sometimes seek the kindness of a mother or older sister in a woman. Of course, those with good looks, wealth, and power engage in adult romance, and sometimes use it as a game. However, there are some Japanese who seek the ideal pseudo-family rather than an independent member of the opposite sex. It's Tough Being a Man “男はつらいよ”, directed by Yamada Yoji is an extremely popular film series in Japan. The main character, a yakuza, falls in love at first sight and has his heart broken repeatedly, but for both him and the director, his eternal love is depicted as his half-sister.

This Japanese culture may also be a vestige of feudal society. It is said that since Japan's defeat in the war, Japanese women have become stronger than before. Meanwhile, in recent years, young men have become quiet, gentle, and timid. (They are often called herbivore men, rather than carnivorous.) There are many creative expressions of pseudo-romance in Japan, including relationships between male and female siblings. These pseudo-romantic relationships often develop into sex, both in reality and in fiction. Young people in particular often express this desire in mini-comics and other creative manga. Director Akio Jissoji directed the film Mujō, ​​which depicts incest between a sister and brother, for ATG.

I am attracted to platonic forms and relationships between men and women, or pseudo-family and pseudo-romantic relationships. I believe that platonic and stoic relationships are the most erotic, stimulating, and lifelong friendships, and that they are a lifelong adolescence.

Your question made me realize something for the first time. I wanted to give an example of a foreign film in which siblings of the opposite sex fall in love, but I couldn't find any. There may be foreign films in which a man falls in love with an older woman of the opposite sex. But is it a phenomenon unique to Japan that the love interest is often an older or younger sister?

When I was in my 30s, I worked as a telephone counselor. At that time, I received a call from a woman in her 20s living in Tokyo. "I had sex with my younger brother. Isn't that wrong?" she said to me. Staff member U says:
"In foreign films, Louis Malle's film 'Curiosity' (known overseas as Murmur of the Heart) depicts incest between a mother and son. Roman Polanski's 'Chinatown' depicts incest between a father and daughter. 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' depicts incest between a brother and sister (with supporting characters Riff Raff and Magenta). However, I think the way incest is portrayed is quite different from incest in Japan. Japanese critics have commented on incest in Japanese manga, but I think they're all different. In Japanese films, the roles that men assign to women they are romantically attracted to often seem to be "motherly" or "innocent = younger sister-like.” - U

My impression is that women like this aren't portrayed very often overseas. I think women also project their father figures onto the men they are attracted to. However, I think that it's mostly male writers who express such relationships in their creative works. Certainly, I think male writers often unconsciously project maternal or sisterly traits onto their romantic interests.

A Swedish porn actress who visited Japan in the 1970s said, "The reason for the distorted sexual orientation of the Japanese is a lack of knowledge due to a lack of fair sex education."

Sex education is virtually nonexistent in Japan, and conservative politicians have a history of obstructing its implementation. Fair sex education may be an obstacle for conservative and right-wing men in maintaining a male-dominated society.

The police also view female nudity as lewd and are passionate about cracking down on them. As a result, in Japan, the topic of sex, along with politics, is taboo.

Satsuo Yamamoto, a film director and member of the Japanese Communist Party, directed The War Without Weapons, a film about a prewar left-wing politician who opposed the Peace Preservation Law. The opening scene of the film begins with an illustration of male and female genitalia. That left-wing politician, Senshi Yamamoto, was a real person, a former university professor, who was murdered by right-wingers. He argued that Japan's poverty and lack of scientific knowledge about sex shared the same root.

Director Satsuo Yamamoto incorporated violence, nudity, and bed scenes into his films. Yamamoto says, "By doing this, ordinary people get interested in the film. Then I put the message I want to convey. If it were just a serious film, no one would want to watch it.” Placing the message after these provocative scenes is the same as what Eisenstein said. Naturally, Yamamoto is one of the people who recommended the complete works of Eisenstein, and he has said that he studied Pudovkin's film theory. Pre-war filmmakers and artists all traveled to the Soviet Union on their own and came into contact with Soviet films and music.

— Your films have always involved certain elements of the taboo, from sociological and political taboos to outward depictions of physical and sexual violence. It’s a fascinating detail to me since extremities and taboo themes in art are far more complex in history and motives than many would assume. One example is the 1899 novel The Torture Garden, Octave Mirbaeu wrote the novel as an open criticism of the French government, depicting scenes of eroticized colonialist violence while mockingly dedicating the story to French priests and judges. In 1976, the book was adapted as a film where the narrative was expanded to cover anticommunist violence while also being filmed as grotesque pornography. In relation to your own animations, you’ve given some comments before on the significance of violence in art with your writings about the Japanese filmmakers of the 60s and 70s who grew up during and after the war in how that violence was real to them, and how that sense of violence was real to you as well with your familial history in connection to the war. Many of your animations depict scenarios with murky moralities and characters with complex histories, such as how the boy in The Death Lullaby starts to seek out violence against others, like the scene where he fantasizes about raping a woman. When it comes to the overall taboos you depict in your stories, do you feel there’s an exact ideological dismantling that can be given for the taboo subjects in your movies like Zashikiro and The Death Lullaby or do you stand more by an essential freedom to depict extremity in art as a reflection of history? Or are there other personal philosophies you hold in relation to taboo themes in art?

Ever since I was a child, my mother would tell me stories of the grotesque violence and murder she experienced during the war. This had a major impact on me. Also, having been subjected to violence from others since childhood, I have a deep anger inside me. That anger naturally and inevitably manifests itself in violent expressions in my films. The hurt, anger and trauma that reside inside me cannot be contained unless I express them through violence.

Of course, I am non-violent in real life. But reality is different in the world of creative work. Japan's ruling party and conservative right-wingers equate fiction with reality, and continue to legally restrict expression. Meanwhile, those in power around the world openly carry out mass murder, including air raids. Yet these powerful people never face justice.

From The Death Lullaby (1985) | Hiroshi Harada

This leaves young people in particular feeling suffocated and stifled. Because adults have deprived them of the means to scientifically explain the reasons for this, they quickly turn to suicide. Anarchist film directors of the 1960s and 1970s have also had a major influence. They channeled their anger into the violence in their films. Kinji Fukasaku felt intense anger toward the war, as well as toward Japan's false economic growth after the war, and these feelings were reflected in his violent films. At the time, ordinary people who were dissatisfied and angered by society would watch such films to vent their frustrations and relieve their sorrows. The more strict the regulation of creative expression, as in recent years, the more frustrated ordinary people become, and the more they have no outlet for their anger. And with no outlet for their emotions, they commit indiscriminate murders in real life.

Men in particular have an aggressive instinct. Sterilizing society and expression through legal or public opinion will not help control aggressive desires. I believe that one of the factors behind the recent increase in brutal incidents in Japan is the weakening and decline of creative works since the shift to neoliberalism in 1981. I can understand that people who wish for peace and abhor conflict would not want to watch violent or pornographic films. But human beings are made up of very complex structures, and this problem cannot be solved by simply wiping out all that is dirty, ugly, cruel, or lewd.

When I was in high school, I also went through a period where I struggled with my urge to express violence. But Eisenstein's writings taught me, "It's okay to be just the way you are. First, shock the audience with shocking depictions, and then present your message." In other words, I don't think that real-life violence can be stopped by just making well-behaved educational films or clean-cut peace films. Since 1981, I have witnessed in real time how the underground and avant-garde works of the 1960s and 1970s have gradually weakened and tamed, becoming spoiled by neoliberalism.

With each passing year, the ruling party and other parties have tightened their restrictions on expression, and the allure of the large corporations that are allied with them has also cleverly expanded. They have groomed creators by praising them and bestowing national awards. At the same time, independent filmmakers who once made radical films have gradually become more tame. It's true that if you make a radical work today, you could be arrested or face public criticism. So if you want to live a peaceful life, you'll probably choose the safe option. When my mother was alive and I lived with my partner, I was afraid that my radical activities would cause them trouble. But fortunately, I'm single now. I don't cause any trouble to anyone.

In Japan, some people have even set themselves on fire in the streets in protest against the evil of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. But we have the means of creative expression. In 2004, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party legally defined films and animations as "content" (a Japanese term that is slightly different from the original meaning of "content"). But works of art are not content.

Even if no one praises or values ​​them, you should continue to create the works you want to make. Somewhere in the world, there are people who need them. Works of art can provide comfort to those who are oppressed, discriminated against, and victims of violence.

1960s-1970s. One man happened to see a movie before committing suicide, which stopped him from doing so and he became a film producer. Many people have found hope in life after watching this movie. Even today, some young people watch films from that time and are amazed at how free films were back then. They may think, "But times are different now, so free expression is impossible," but if you look at history scientifically, the changing atmospheres of each era are artificially created by politics.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

In the 1970s, memories of the war still lingered, and war veterans were making films. Life and death, politics, sex, poverty, and violence were familiar elements, always an integral part of everyday life. Destroying the natural environment of cities and towns, building huge concrete structures, concealing inconvenient history, and uniformly suppressing or regulating political, violent, and sexual expression will not solve the problem. Even when laws and public opinion suppress ugly things like violence, anger, resentment, and frustration remain in people's hearts. This is particularly true among the Japanese, who are among the shortest and weakest in the world.

That said, Japanese people are not entirely good people; some target and discriminate against minorities, such as Asians and Middle Easterners. And in the past, they invaded China and Korea, killing many people. In recent years, the number of people who criticize street demonstrations as "nuisances" and "obstructing traffic" has increased. Meanwhile, some people support violent governors and emerging political parties, and even obstruct antifa counter-protests. What's more serious is the growing number of people, regardless of conservative or liberal affiliation, who label all demonstrations, counter-protests, and political discussions and actions as "nuisances" and reject them. This is also because of the way education is conducted in schools.

However, such a phenomenon was unheard of in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were still strong and constantly resisted authority. Of course, I'm not approving of everything that happened in the 1960s and 1970s. There were many problems back then. But compared to the 1960s and 1970s, the present feels much more suffocating. We have witnessed firsthand how this has been structurally created. Young people today have lost even the ability to analyze it, so they could be said to be the biggest victims. To repeat, within humans there exist complex violent and destructive impulses. If films become tame (especially independent films that become tame by imitating the films of big corporations), the desires and impulses that burn fundamentally within humans will have nowhere to go.

Fortunately, Kiryukan is essentially just me, and the screening format is extremely independent, so I can take a free approach. So I hope that other independent films will not be swallowed up by power or corporations.

— Another detail about your films is the amount of research that goes into them. You’ve shared before some insights on the research you’d done in preparation for films like Midori and Zashikiro, and even certain materials that were referenced in some of the imagery from The Death Lullaby. Is there any insight you’d like to give about the research you’d done for your past work? In addition, are there any topics you’re planning to research or incorporate for your upcoming film, Underground Labyrinth Secret Picture Book: Boo?

Many of the newspaper articles that appear on screen in The Death Lullaby and Zashikiro are from Akahata, the official newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party. While mass media has its taboos, Akahata has none.

During the production of Midori, Harada wrote a chronology of historic events to frame the film’s 1950s setting | Kiryukan (c. 1985)

When I made Midori, I researched and studied the extensive history of Misemono. This information was primarily used in the performance at the 1992 screening. However, the only part I couldn't quote in Midori was the "Karakuri" (a show featuring devices, gimmicks, dazzlement, and optical illusions). So, I wanted to create a work based on "Karakuri," and thus Zashikiro was born.

Until 2000, most of the information I found came from books available in libraries and bookstores. Since 2000, the internet has become a convenient way to research materials and documents. The internet makes it easy to find documents and literature. However, I noticed something. Books, mainly from up until the 1970s, could no longer be found online. This is an important issue in grasping historical justice, and one that we will always be aware of.

From Zashikiro (2025) | Kiryukan

The main character of Zashikiro is the "Dougu-kaeshi" (an ancient spectacle in which a painted board is moved freely up and down, left and right, and in front and behind. It has been passed down in the Awaji region since ancient times). I went all the way to Awaji Island to see the real thing. I asked many people, but its origins were unknown. They all said, "It was already there when we started living here and noticed it." I was unable to find any old documents or materials documenting the Dougu-kaeshi. Also, compared to more common spectacle shows like freak shows, Dougu-kaeshi are not very well known. I suspect many people are unaware of them. In any case, when creating something, I believe it is necessary to understand all the historical facts surrounding the subject matter. Otherwise, the story will end up being shallow.

My mother got rid of her belongings before she died, but she left behind her old photo albums. I used those old photos in Zashikiro.

A screenwriter active in the 1970s said, "The most powerful films are those that depict events that the author has experienced himself."

Boo is based on my own experiences, but it has been adapted into an unprecedented large-scale piece of fiction, and the setting is in a fictional country. So I only did a little research into reference materials. With this film, I wanted to use my imagination in a way that I hadn't done before.

— Some of the research includes certain political policies and historic incidents that are rarely covered or essentially unknown in broader Western discussion. Are some of these facts hidden in Japan or are they more like inconvenient truths that are generally ignored?

I think it's both. Those in power in Japan hide anything that is inconvenient for them. After Japan's defeat in the war, many records were burned in preparation for the US military occupation.

The current ruling Liberal Democratic Party and bureaucrats who blindly follow the government are repeating the same thing. As a result, many people have become victims, and some have committed suicide. Even now, lawsuits are being brought by bereaved families regarding government cover-ups, including the Moritomo Gakuen scandal, but hidden documents are not easily revealed.

- A clear summary of the Moritomo Gakuen case: How the Osaka High Court ordered the government to "revoke the non-disclosure decision" (Shūkan Bunshun: January 31st, 2025)

Furthermore, Japanese mass media immediately deletes articles uploaded to the internet. In particular, deletes articles after a week. At one time, there was a setting built into its pages that prevented the archive function. Much of Japan's mass media does not criticize the government, but serves as its public relations agency. Media executives have frequently dined with former Prime Minister Abe.

- Why Asahi journalists who repeatedly criticize the government continue to dine with the prime minister (PRESIDENT Online: March 8th, 2020)
- Why don't media executives stop dining with the prime minister? Over 500 active journalists and others call for media reform (Yahoo Japan News: July 22nd, 2020)

Japan's powerful people and large corporations are not only destroying Japan's ancient history, but also old buildings one after another, and building huge concrete buildings.

Japanese people are taught in school to shun politics and obey those in power and groups, so they show no interest in politics. 50% of voters have abandoned the right to universal suffrage that their ancestors worked so hard to achieve. And there have long been many taboos. Discrimination against burakumin, criticism of the government, mental or physical disabilities...

If an individual were to mention any of these things in public, they would be ridiculed, slandered, and shunned by those around them. For this reason, people don't speak out about them. If you go to Japan and ask about these issues, most people will probably answer, "I don't know." However, up until the 1970s, some film directors addressed these issues. This gave me the opportunity to learn about Japanese history that I wasn't taught in school. If film were to abandon this function of exposing these issues, people would lose the opportunity to confront them.

— One detail I’m curious about since you made reference to it in some recent blog posts is how you feel about the way subculture is addressed by modern audiences. With the internet there’s been a rise in popularity in the subculture of the 70s and 80s, including angura theater and Terayama. Despite much of the original art being rooted in politics however, a lot of it now is drawn mainly from aesthetics rather than themes. You described running into this issue with discussion around Midori in how people don’t want to speak about politics. Do you feel this issue was always prevalent in how said art was interpreted by the public, or is it a recent product of cultural commodification?

As you say, in Japan, subculture audiences ignore the political aspect altogether. However, in all other fields as well, politics is ignored, silenced, and avoided. This is also the policy of the ruling party and large corporations, and children are taught to follow this policy in schools. The commodification of culture since 1981 and the introduction of neoliberalism has also contributed to this.

My impression is that ruling party politics, media control by large corporations, and the commodification of culture have all progressed simultaneously. In other words, one of the reasons the Liberal Democratic Party government and large corporations give the public masses of goods every second is to prevent them from paying attention to domestic politics.

From Hiroshi Harada’s The Death Lullaby. A boy is shown running down a street that is densely packed with advertising, where catchy phrases for toys and popular media (Animation is love and romance!) are contrasted with increasingly propagandistic phrases (You go to the battlefield and fight the enemy!).

The Ten Strategic Commandments of Dentsu, a major advertising agency that also works for the political world, include lines such as, "Make people buy more products! Create confusion!" In the 1970s, many people and cultures could not be discussed without considering politics. Television broadcast documentaries on social issues, and films often featured political themes. There were also protests over the security treaty, and at the time, there were many war veterans in the film and television industries. In 1981, as if cooperating with the government's ulterior motives, large corporations provided the public with large quantities of entertainment, robbing them of their ability to think. "If it's not fun, it's not TV!" declared the TV stations.

Especially from around 1997, both the audience and new staff at Midori increasingly wanted to set aside the political aspects and enjoy only the pleasures, without worry. I felt that metaphorical political expression like that in Midori was no longer resonating with anyone. That's why Horizon Blue, Zashikiro, and Boo often contain more direct political depictions.

— In relation to the prior question, in modern popular culture there’s a distinct idealization of the 1980s. Many people in the west look to commercially produced anime from that period with a romanticized lens in relation to the economic bubble. In consideration of your prior writings about dialectic materialism in animation alongside the Cool Japan phenomenon, would you consider this a deliberate motion to have people idealize neoliberalism or a social product of generations being raised on neoliberal consumption?

I think there was also an intention to idealize neoliberalism. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party works with major advertising agencies, which carry out various analyses and strategies. In 2005, the advertising agencies backing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was a sycophant to Bush, conducted detailed analyses and predictions to develop their strategies. They decided that an image strategy that didn't explain specific policies would be effective against Japan's uneducated voters.

Koizumi further promoted neoliberalism and proclaimed the survival of the fittest. He cut welfare, supported large corporations, intervened in education, and cooperated with the Iraq War. People followed suit. Japanese people have a strong inferiority complex. Koizumi is tall and handsome, so I think many people followed him because of that. Japanese people used to be kind to the weak, but since Koizumi's structural reforms in the 2000s, they have become particularly vilifying the weak.

Humans are fundamentally prone to corruption. In the past, Japanese people were said to be hardworking, but because they were so earnest, when the ruling class officially gave them permission to indulge in pleasure and tempted them, the majority of them gave in. It feels like this intoxication with pleasure has accelerated from 1981 to the present. Nowadays, many of the people taking on difficult jobs are Asians. At school, students are taught not to think as individuals. At school, they are taught to obey those in authority and the group. They are punished if they speak or act independently. Students are constantly forced to compete with each other, which prevents them from thinking.

From 2001 onward, the Koizumi administration lumped together movies, anime, manga, and games, officially recognizing them as a national strategy and even enacting a law to that effect. (Source 1, source 2)

Soon after, the law was used by large corporations and schools. Students didn't question it, they celebrated it, and indulged in the officially recognized pleasure. In that sense, as you say, perhaps there's an element of it being a product of that generation. All of these elements were promoted simultaneously, like the shock doctrine. It feels like the strategies of the giant state and big corporations have taken over Japan, leaving no room for argument. That's why the LDP has continued to win elections for decades. The BBC analyzed it.

— Alongside your posts about Boo you've started to share ideas for a new possible film that would follow the completion of Boo, Maze. You've described the basic idea of Maze as being a film that would include your experiences in Tokyo while being in the style of automatic writing. How do you intend to adapt automatic writing to animation? Would it be in the spirit of how the surrealists utilized automatic writing?

A test shot for the film concept Maze | Kiryukan

At first, I didn't have a strict storyboard or script for Maze, and instead wanted to draw whatever came to mind, like automatic writing. I also planned to depict my everyday experiences in Tokyo. However, recently I decided to change it again. The political situation in Japan and around the world has worsened, and many casualties are being suffered all over the world. I just didn't feel like making a calm, mundane work.

For me to empathize with the protagonist and the story, it had to be an indictment of social contradictions, and express the hurt and anger felt by individuals. So I changed it to a story about a young man and woman who have been violently oppressed, seeking revenge against those in power who are the source of great evil. Once again, I made the protagonists' relationship like that of an older sister and younger brother. Only movies can relieve the resentment and anger of ordinary people and those living at the bottom of society on their behalf.

Up until the 1970s, all of my favorite films were based on these elements. There's a famous Japanese play called Chūshingura, which has been adapted into a film many times. It's a story of revenge. Since ancient times, common people have been treated roughly by powerful rulers. Deep down, they harbor anger and resentment toward these perpetrators. If people don't exact bold revenge in films, they may resort to crime in real life. Since the 1980s, with the rise of neoliberalism, Japanese films have become more well-behaved and docile. This, in turn, can be suffocating for children and young people.

If I had been tall and muscular, I would have avoided making films and instead indulged in real-life dating games. If my parents hadn't fought in a war of aggression and witnessed mountains of corpses, I would have turned a blind eye to the wars and violence in other countries and enjoyed myself for fun. If I hadn't been bullied or abused, I wouldn't have been able to understand other people's pain. If I had been strong, I would have sided with the strong and influential, rather than the weak. If I had grown up in a happy family, I would have become a company employee and gotten married. If I hadn't suffered from an incurable disease, all the characters in my films would have been healthy. If I hadn't met courageous filmmakers, I wouldn't have thought of using my own shame as a subject. If I hadn't met Shuji Terayama, I would have thought of film and theater as separate things. If I hadn't met Marx, I wouldn't have been able to speak out so confidently.

I have several chronic illnesses, and my intractable diseases in particular worsened at times. The only reason I'm still alive and well is because new medications have been developed one after another in recent years. Still, I often thought I would die while making Zashikiro. Fortunately, thanks to expensive new medications, I was able to complete Zashikiro.

The Japanese government has gradually discontinued subsidies for medical expenses for intractable diseases and switched to patients paying for them themselves. However, I managed to survive thanks to some of the old subsidy system still in place. If I had to pay the entire cost of expensive medical expenses for intractable diseases myself, I wouldn't be alive. But I'm at an age where I really don't know how many years I have left to live. Independent writers, animators, manga artists, and the like are constantly working themselves to the limit, so many of them die early.

From Limitless Paradise (1982) | Hiroshi Harada

When I was a child, time passed very slowly. However, from around the age of 30, time began to pass at an incredibly fast pace with each passing year. After I turned 50, a year really does fly by.

The reason I'm able to concentrate on creating films now is because I sold my family's land after my mother passed away. I could not possibly live on the government pension alone. However, after selling my family home, I often have nightmares of being back at my old house. My mother was wheelchair-bound in her later years, but in my dreams she was always walking freely. My mother died at the age of 89.

At that time, I was busy with TV animation, university work, anti-government demonstrations, and independent productions, so I left most of my mother's care to the nursing home. My mother wanted to live with me at my parents' house, but we were always at odds, so if we had lived alone, I might have killed her in a fit of emotion. To prevent that from happening, I put her in a nursing home. As my mother was dying, she was struggling in her bed, still in a coma. It looked like she was being attacked by many people and was pushing them away.

Gunma has beautiful nature, but I had many unpleasant memories from my childhood, so I had no hesitation in leaving my hometown. I now live in Saitama, near Tokyo. Looking back, I regret the enormous amount of time I've spent working as a slave to large corporations. Due to revisions to Japan's Film Copyright Act in 1971, I no longer own the copyright to films I make for a company. If I had been able to devote all those years and long hours I spent working for a company to my own projects, I could have produced many more Kiryukan films. However, various unpleasant experiences from the past, such as the violence I experienced as a child, have accumulated within me as anger and frustration, and this resentment also becomes the energy that drives my work. In Limitless Paradise, The Death Lullaby, Horizon Blue, Zashikiro, and Boo, I have depicted and used up all of the painful experiences of my past. That's why I think Maze will have many creative elements that are not part of my own experiences.

Life ends in the blink of an eye. That's why we must not waste a single day. That's especially true now. I am grateful to be alive even for one more day. And so I have turned down work and friendships and sit at my desk alone in my atelier every day.

It feels like I am heading towards death while creating a work of art every day. It's like the final scene of Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. A director consumed by illness approaches a beautiful demon. A human life really does end in the blink of an eye. I will never work for a company or organization again. I will continue to create only my own works.

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At the time of the interview, Harada was in the process of preparing for the then-upcoming Cinema House Otsuka screening of Zashikiro, which wrapped the film’s 2025 tour around Japan from the Summer into early October. Before its October screening it was also performed at Neo-Shobo Jimbocho and the Kanazawa Film Festival, which had also previously featured Midori and Horizon Blue. After attending one of the Zashikiro screenings a student of Harada’s invited him to give a lecture at an art university. According to Harada, some of the subjects he discussed here were also touched upon in said lecture. Information and updates about Harada’s current and upcoming works can be read on the Kiryukan’s website and Kiyubaru Underground Museum blog.

- Aaron Dylan Kearns (Originally written September 17th, 2025)