Aru Nihon no Ekaki Shounen

An animated short film that depicts, through experimental methods, the first half of the life of a man who aspires to be a manga artist. The central character, Shinji, is a boy who loves to draw. In elementary school, he encounters Masaru, a strange young boy who also loves drawing, but who draws only masked wrestlers. The two become friends.

As they progress through their elementary school grades, however, they gradually grow apart. Years later, Shinji still remains true to his dream of becoming a manga artist, and goes on to study art at the university. When his work is selected for a Best Young Artist Award, he decides to move to Tokyo and soon gets his first breakthrough. What awaits him there, though, is something completely different from the manga artist’s life that he had imagined. One day, for the first time in years, the 30-year-old Shinji comes across some work of his old friend Masaru, who has remained true to his drawing style.

The story is a mockumentary ("mock documentary"), and the narration is interspersed with monologues by Shinji's mother. As the central character grows, the animation style evolves from juvenile drawings doodled on random pieces of paper to sketches drawn on specialized manga paper, thus visualizing the flow of time.

(Source: Japan Media Arts Festival)

Kawajiri, Masanao Director, Screenplay

Reviews

May 28, 2021

Keten

Recommended

Recently added to MAL, I'm shocked by how little it's been seen by others despite winning many awards in various animation festivals. "A Japanese Boy Who Draws" is perhaps the most personal and genuine thing I've ever watched, which makes sense given it's partly an autobiography.

This is however a review full of SPOILERS since it would be difficult to talk about an anime short without talking about what exactly it's about. With that said, I highly recommend it and it's only 20 minutes so give it a shot!


Review:
The most obvious trait of this short film is it's experimental art style and animation, having the style ... grow along with the protagonist as he ages and progresses more as an artist and mangaka. While this alone would make it stick out, it has an added charm of seemingly using the artists actual drawings from when they were a child, making it all feel very authentic and personal and all the better conveys the starting point of the protagonists journey.

Added on to this, there are a plethora of different art styles that are blended together, everything from pixel-art to paintings to deviantart shitposts, there's even an appearance of a Dada piece(Anti-Art) by one Marcel Duchamp. It acts as both an homage to various forms of art as well as gives us quick insight into how the protagonist feels about those around him, whether it be drawing some like muscular shonen protagonists or crude artwork indicating his distaste for them or even drawing teachers of art in classic painting style to indicate his respect for them and what he learned from them.

There's also another characters art featured, a friend from when the protagonist was a child who enjoyed drawing people with wrestling masks.

You also get to see insight into the kinds of titles and mangaka the protagonist takes inspiration from, particularly experimental titles such as Lain and Evangelion or big accomplishments like Akira.

This works into the story of the film nicely, as we see his passion for drawing leading him to become a mangaka himself and while he wants to follow in the footsteps of his heroes like Akira Toriyama or Osamu Tezuka, making something truly his own, he finds himself being brought down by the very industry he had such a passion for, slowly evolving in style to appease the crowd just to get by, leading him to art styles like Moe or Bishounen that you can clearly see his distaste for as he slowly loses the spark that he had when he was young.

This even culminates in a particularly powerful scene where we see the protagonist sit on a bench with various famous mangaka. Normally this kind of scene would evoke some kind of inspirational message but it instead subverts that by giving insight into just how far the protagonists passion has fallen, having the famous mangaka telling the protagonist to quit drawing. Eventually he puts down his pen, giving up drawing and the art immediately shifts to greyed out live action, brilliantly conveys the lack of color in his life as he moves back in with his mother and takes on a passionless life.

While all this is going on, we quickly move over to a character introduced earlier in the film, a friend from childhood who enjoyed drawing wrestling masks on people. While his skill has not progressed at all since then, the color of his artwork remained and upon hearing about the protagonists success and progression as an artist, sets up their old drawings in a museum. It's also of note that this character has down syndrome but it's never made out to be anything out of the ordinary, which I respected for not victimizing or treating it like some illness. Though I'll admit the character would have perhaps benefitted from some more screen time but works perfectly fine as a supporting character for a short film.

Eventually the protagonist receives a pamphlet for the museum from his mother, the pamphlet being partly colored, the only colored thing shown from his point of view. Upon seeing these old artworks, all colored in completely, they remind the protagonist of fond memories back when he had fun drawing and watches as the next generation have begun their journey into drawing themselves.

Seeing the pure love for what they do, the protagonist is reminded of what made him want to become a mangaka to begin with and so, fulfilling the desire of one of the kids by humorously drawing them "boobs", the color returns to his life and he goes on to continue his career, followed by credits featuring various drawings from what I assume are different times in his life that simply didn't make it into the film or perhaps drawings from his friends back in school.


Verdict:
I am not sure what could be changed about this film to make it any better besides perhaps a nitpick here or there or maybe a longer runtime but with the short time it had, it made me completely endeared to the protagonist, invested in his struggles and growth, rooting for his success and left me with a massive smile on my face.

This is an incredible example of what makes animation and artwork so wonderful as a medium, using visual storytelling to convey so much character, story and emotion along with an inspiring message about improvement through hard work as well as finding and keeping love with what you do in the face of the hardships of reality. This is as personal and genuine as it gets and I wouldn't change anything about it.

I hope to support the future works of Masanao Kawajiri.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 23, 2021

NextUniverse

Recommended

TLDR at the bottom.

We, as humans, aspire. There is a skill suited to us, or talent if you like, that we have the power to expand on, to expand against the great horizons of the Earth, some even going as far as to prove to humanity that they are the one with this amazing skill in their arsenal. But what does that road look like? I'd imagine people reading this (I'd actually be more surprised if anyone is reading this) consume media. Media has a tendency to exaggerate detail and flaunt aesthetics for the sake of engagement. It becomes unfeasible to decipher what works and ... what doesn't in our world, reality. The populace is known as "hidden gems", would like to contradict this train of thought.

The challenger of today, being "A Japanese Boy Who Draws" (abbreviated to Nihon Ekaki)

Nihon Ekaki is indeed a hidden gem in this medium, and I don't mean to throw that out there since I am sure countless titles do indeed come under the same populace. But Nihon Ekaki in particular is a lot different from anything I have seen. It first tells a story, one devoid of huge ambition, devoid of systematic drama, devoid of perplexing ideas, but still manages to set sail with watered-down versions of such dangers presented, just enough to warrant its praise in a high calibre. The pacing is well, and there is no poor writing. It really is a simple story about a boy, Shinji, and the growing up in his life with his talent of his. As I have mentioned earlier, media creators love to exaggerate, there is no blame there, however, Nihon Ekaki doesn't commit to what can be considered such treacherous behaviour. It truly is something of a genuine piece. That is to say the same for these characters as well, they behave like normal humans, with zero exaggeration for the purpose of engagement, that is to say, the engagement of realism is something in itself too. Characters like such tend to have an understanding of the what, the why, the how, diverging to a connection with the viewer, one devoid of any facade, as real characters should be. These guys are great characters overall.

The visuals aren't just great, they are clever. As time changes, so do the style. When people give up on their ambitions, so does their style. Everything here is played in relativity, and it isn't clunky either, a good amount of what is seen isn't just there for the sake of it either, so there is no worry in visually broken visuals. I don't see quite a lot of creativity like this, though I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't original, it just doesn't look like something that has yet to have been touched upon prior to this movie. That is just intuitive thinking though. OST was pretty good, pretty sure it was just a piano for the most parts, which in itself merited for a good synergy in the movie, but I suppose it wasn't enough to be called the utmost best, it was fine of what it is though. Seiyuus sounded very human too and not like something out of a professional, very fitting for a movie like thin in all honesty. Great audiovisual here in all.

I enjoyed this. I will admit, I liked the idea, a lot, but I didn't enjoy it as I think I would have, I just didn't I suppose. The concept is great and everything here is indeed masterful, however, it didn't correlate to my enjoyment. I still very much liked this, just not to reflect a 1:1 ratio between the idea (and how it was made) in respect to the reaction. That isn't to say you won't enjoy this, however, since I would imagine this a piece to be universally enjoyed.
- ( . )( . )


TLDR: Great short movie with a clever artistic presentation about the realism in one's life and choices that can affect down the line.


Overall - 8.6 (9)

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So I haven't been reviewing seriously in god knows how long, I am not entirely sure if anyone even cares about me or what I am doing, but I am going to do some more stuff here on MAL.

Anyways, I have been meaning to write a review on Nihon Ekaki for some time now but was super lazy in doing so. Finally got to it as of this upload date and it was something of a good rewatch to it too, not a lot to take out a second time other than this is pretty damn good for a short. In any case, that is me finished for now in this moment of time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 24, 2021

Robinne

Not Recommended

Depicting the life of a man aiming to be a pro mangaka from his birth to his adult years, A Japanese boy who draws has gained about a dozen awards at various festivals and is the first independent animated film created by Masanao Kawajiri.

Semi-autobiographical and using of some of his own drawings from preschool and grade school, this movie feels unique by the fact that its aesthetics adapt to the age of the protagonist, starting with doodles and scribbles when he's a kid to a more conventional and polished look in his late teenage years to finish in live action in his disillusioned adult years.

While ... I like the prospect of reconnecting with your childhood and going back over your early inspirations and seeing the special kind of creativity you have as a kid that you often lose as you grow up, I feel like all these elements are severely lacking in this film.

Despite having been praised a lot for its ability to blend a plethora of different styles and being a very creative experimental movie, it's a bit far from what you would expect. While it does have a coherent progression throughout its runtime, it never showcases his talent or his imagination and only goes from shitty scribbles to the most painfully generic comic artstyle ever. It only has a short segment inside an exhibition which actually blends styles with characters made in pixel art, paintings and cut-out photographs coexisting together that I enjoyed but aside from that, it ends up being something anyone could have done.

It's also a bit strange that we also don't see our main protagonist being passionate about drawing nor about anyone in the industry, or actually we do see some of them but they're the ones literally every kid from the 90s knows about: Dragon Ball, Lain Eva, Akira... it really makes him bland and the textbook cliche of the kid drawing in the classroom and continuing in this path because he doesn't know what else to do in life. There isn't any wrong in trying to craft a "relatable" character but and it doesn't give us anything to root for and it seems like a story that has already been told a million times before.

Aside of Shinji himself, it is also about his friendship with Masaru who's autistic/mentally disabled and the thematic contrast to the lead that he's used for could've worked if he had more than the one scene establishing their relations but his inclusion acts as a poor emotional device that we're supposed to feel empathetic about for the sole fact that he's retarded and the sad piano music playing is pretty laughable.

Aru Nihon no Ekaki Shounen had plenty of ideas but simply missed fleshing them out, a slightly lenghtier movie could have fixed a lot of them and make me more invested so I will still look out for Masanao Kawajiri next project, Cherry and Virgin.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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