The great and evil Lord Kato returns to wreak vengeance on Tokyo, and the only thing standing in his way this time is Tadashi, an elementary schoolboy. Tadashi is small for his age, bullied by his schoolmates, and deserted by his parents after a divorce and living with his senile grandfather in a village far from Tokyo. Nevertheless, in the village festival the kirin dragon picks him to be the Kirin Rider who will protect the people from danger for the next year.
Visions of Harry Potter will immediately pop into the mind, especially after Tadashi is rescued one evening by a mysterious bus that appears from nowhere, but this is Japan and The Great Yokai War is directed by Takashi Miike, so we’re in for a much wilder ride than even Harry was on. Tadashi, as the Kirin Rider, is supposed to go to Tengu’s cave and draw the sword, but he is afraid to do this until he is lured there by Shojo, a red demon who helped the kirin choose Tadashi, imitating his Grandfather’s voice. Aided by a motley crew of yokai – Kawahime the river Princess who saves him from drowning, Kawataro the kappa, a wandering flame, and the cuddly little Sunekosuri. A great deal of damage is done to Tokyo before Tadashi and his crew finally arrive to defeat Kato, but eventually good triumphs, as we would expect.
In Yokai Monsters, the evil that brought out the monsters was disrespect. The Great Yokai War has a different perspective, for the yokai have now been all but forgotten in the rush to modernity. As in Summer Days with Coo, which dealt with the last kappa, they are merely legends or cartoon characters to be merchandised. Tadashi even visits Sakaiminato, the town where the great manga artist Shigero Mizuki grew up and which is full of statues of the yokai characters he drew, like the kappa statues and regalia in Tono. Kato is building his army from all the items that have been thrown away – toasters, microwaves, shoes, TVs, everything tossed out in a modern consumerist world. He wants to convert the yokai into the souls of his killing machines and has captured many of them already.
The usually prolific Miike apparently spent a year on the project, which also has his name in the writing credits, and he and his design team have more visible fun than I’ve seen in any of the similar big budget CGI movies from any country. Every mechanical monster is made from bits and pieces of everyday materials, walking and fighting in improbable ways, menacing and yet somehow playful. Live action, puppetry, wire work, and CGI all blend together.
There are plenty of jokes. Kawataro is the smart-aleck character, the one who says “this is the bridge where you almost fall through” and then does it himself, or “This is where you have to run away from the big rolling rock” which then flattens him. Tokyo denizens are not worried when Kato’s giant floating world appears overhead, thinking “it’s just Gamera.” A cooler of Kirin beer just happens to appear at a crucial moment. The gigantic walking jaws suddenly throw Sukenosuki into a discarded microwave, which still rotates but fortunately doesn’t nuke him. Though the title promises us a yokai war, the yokai do not rally around Tadashi or Tokyo. They appear en masse because they think the destruction of Tokyo is part of the country’s biggest festival which no one would want to miss, fighting Kato’s machines because they think they have come for wrestling matches and the drunken brawls that go with festivals.
After reading some of the very negative comments on IMDB, it would seem that this is a movie you have to be in the mood for. Yet, part of the mixed reaction in the overseas market is the unfamiliarity with the yokai concept itself. Yokai are very specific spirits, often found only in a particular place, but they are not local demons as such; they are not monsters who haunt a particular place, like Daimajin, but rather a folk-spirit who has grown up around the little things of life. For the most part the humans can’t see them and they bring no particular harm to the humans around them.
They represent very specific and sometimes odd feelings. The Sunekosuri, for example, is the spirit that rubs your shin, possibly a minor distraction in the home but very unnerving in the woods in the dark. A critical companion for Tadashi who is literally catapulted into the action is the bean washer, who does exactly that – sit in the corner with his back turned and stir the azuki beans before they are added to rice or turned into red bean paste. The umbrella yokai is the spirit of lost umbrellas, but all he does is lick passers by as a joke. The shape-shifting tanuki just want to have fun, especially if it involves drinking. They do not frighten people on a regular basis, they just help explain natural events that seem inexplicable.
Kato’s mechanical creatures are fed by their rage at being discarded thoughtlessly. This presumably includes the old spirits and customs and could be interpreted as similar to the militarist ideas that were beginning to resurface in Japan in the early 21st century, a demand that Japan return to its old unique social system that not only valued the physical world but made Japan superior to other nations. But the yokai refuse to be angry about this, so that he is forced to hunt down the yokai and melt them into his creatures against their will. For the most part, they are not actually interested in the humans around them. The River Princess often saves people who are drowning, not because she likes humans but because she wants them out of her river. She has refused to join Kato’s army because he wants revenge, and revenge is a human emotion not suitable for a spirit creature. But any social or environmental message is handled lightly.
The 11-year-old Ryunosuke Kamiki provides a suitably small hero. His tiny size would make him a subject for the school bullies even without their disdain for his Tokyo background. He is frightened of almost everything, but he does eventually take up the sword when he thinks his grandpa is in danger. Bunta Suguwara appears briefly as the senile grandpa who has to be led around with a sash and who confuses Tadashi for the son who died years earlier. But of course, the real stars of the movie are the creatures and the special effects around them. Most of the yokai are portrayed by human actors, as were the pond creatures in Demon Pond or many of the yokai in Yokai monogatari, though the cuddly Sunekosuri is a Muppet-like creature. Despite its two-hour length, the movie zips along, at least after Tadashi meets Sunekosuri. Miike completely suppresses his penchant for outrageous violence and gore, though of course Kato’s machines are deadly, and the result is over-all one of Japan’s best live-action family films. The movie was successful in Japan, though nothing like Howl’s Moving Castle or the Harry Potter movie released in the same year. This perhaps explains why it would be 2021 before Miike and the producers would return to it with a not-quite-sequel, not-quite-re-make.
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