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Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc #01 » 16th Year of Meiji - Kamiya Dojo

Welcome back to my series analyzing the filmmaking techniques of the RK trilogy! Over the course of roughly over a year now, we’ve discussed how choreography can grant us insight into a character’s state of mind or even their philosophies as well as how costumes can help us keep track of the characters as they move throughout the screen. They have formed an exciting foundation and are instrumental in the grand scheme of a movie’s visual language: Production Design.

Production Design, like many aspects of filmmaking, is a nebulous term. In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that choreography and costumes can be useful tools to reveal a lot about a character and their environment. If that’s true, then production design is the world itself and its aesthetic presentation. People like set decorators and costume designers, art directors, prop makers, hair and make-up artists for anywhere between high fashion or blood or gore, and many other people all work hard to bring the vision of the director to life. Some properties of production design are so iconic that, not unlike costume designs, you don’t even have to be familiar with the film or franchise to recognize its aesthetic. See Star Wars for example. 

This essay, however, will be more concerned with the overall production design relating to the final aesthetic of the finished movie rather than breaking it down technically. Occasionally, I will comment on a specific aspect, but mostly we’ll be looking at the overall aesthetic presentation of the film and how it’s used to convey its story and of course, how it is an integral part of a fight sequence. As a result, it will be very generalized for reader convenience. 

This post, as all the others may spoil ALL of the live action films thus far, so if you haven’t seen them yet...seriously, why not? 

                                              CRAFTING A WORLD

Production design -sometimes called Art Direction-  is one of the most important aspects of filmmaking and it's the heart of any film’s aesthetic. Some cinematographers, for example, can’t even begin to light or plan shots and camera movements until the set or location is ready, making the production design absolutely essential to the production process. Think of it like the setting of a story; the set is where the audience is going to believe these events are taking place, and strong production design is necessary to have the effect of every scene maximized. 

Production design is really a series of decisions, much like cinematography and directing -decisions from things as small as what kind of lamps to decorate a scene with or what kind of chairs characters should sit in, to designing entire sets that transport us to a different time or even a different universe. These decisions are essential in creating worlds that are believable and weave seamlessly into the story, adding to it rather than distracting from it. And this brings us to the ultimate question: how does the RK Trilogy’s production design contribute to the fight sequences?

On the top of the food chain in the art department, as well as one of the most important people in making a film besides the cinematographer (Director of Photography or DoP), the Director, and the Producers is the Production Designer or PD, sometimes referred to as the Art Director. To simplify for the sake of brevity, the production designer’s job is to meet with the producers and/or director to discuss the visual aesthetic of the world they’re trying to bring to life in film, with regards to the script and story they’re trying to tell. During these talks, the production designer might provide sketches and designs, as well as lay out plans that take the film’s budget into account. Essentially, one of their responsibilities is to balance the needs of the story and the artistic vision of the director with the amount of money available to them and communicate to the rest of the art department to ensure those perimeters are met.

The man who shoulders this particular burden is named Hashimoto So, according to Variety. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a picture of him or most of the people I wanted to highlight in this section, which is a bit awkward, but please bear with it. 

                              THE WORLD OF RUROUNI KENSHIN

The setting of our film is obviously 10 years into the Meiji era for a majority of all three films, which means that there is a unique challenge the production designer faces: there’s a lot of integral details that need to be accounted for, such as making sure everything used existed either within the source material or belongs in that time period, otherwise, it can conflict with the immersion at best and cause distraction at worst. On top of that, they must also decide which parts of the historical setting they want to emphasize, with regards to the script/story.

Unlike the seemingly endless stream of huge budget films in Hollywood, most movies have a limited amount of money and audiences have even less attention span. Audiences more often than not are not willing to give movies second chances if it doesn’t grab them immediately or bores them. As a result, a movie needs to minimize details to the essential as to not overload the audience with useless information that doesn’t serve the narrative. The emphasis placed on aspects the story requires can cause movies that take place in the same time period to look very different. If you examine a movie that takes place in the Meiji era like, say, The Last Samurai, it looks very different from the Meiji era of Rurouni Kenshin. This is because the two films are completely different narratively and everyone, including their respective production designers, must make decisions that suit their stories.

This means that we can potentially examine a film’s subtexts and themes through the backgrounds the characters traverse to. Production design is more than simply making a world feel alive, it can be used to tell a story, even just by examining extras. There is an enormous amount of thought that goes into extras, like making sure they all have costumes, closing down streets and dressing them to look like they turned the clock back, making sure every location and set is juuuuuuust right for the scene, and making sure it doesn’t run too expensively on the budget. 

                                           ESTABLISHING A WORLD

Before we can examine how production design services a fight sequence, we must examine the impact that it has on the story and what the director uses it for, and one of the ways Otomo uses the production design is to introduce the audience to two pivotal time periods: The Bakumatsu, and the 10th Year of the Meiji. So-san must work with the art department to decide how these worlds should look and what details about the time period should be emphasized. Because the central theme of the story is the turning of an era and the story stating that the Bakumatsu was a turbulent time in Japanese history, and the Meiji era was an era of change and modernity, So-San’s primary concern here is to create visual distinction between the two worlds, which we see in the first film’s opening act. 

The first things we see when the film first opens and the text crawl ends is a world draped in cold, January snow falling on the battlefield of Toba-Fushimi. The camera slowly pans like an invisible observer as we follow it through the bloody, war-torn battlefield. We’re introduced to a lot of important information in this scene: we see people at war, lots of explosions, dirt, and people dying before finally leading us into Kenshin at the height of his skills in battle. This also serves as our introduction to Kenshin as a character, or more aptly, his legend. Suddenly, he hears his comrades call out victory cries and he realizes he has been victorious. He has successfully won a battle to secure a new future for Japan.

Shortly after we see Kenshin put down the sword, we’re now in a Japan 10 years after that battle where we see bustling and lively streets, people running around and celebrating. Bright summer sun, people sweating, vibrant music... All of this persists, even after the corpse of one of Kanryu’s opium dealers is discovered with Battousai’s call sign. This expresses to the audience visually that this is the start of the Kenshin killed for. This is the world he wanted. When we see men like Kanryuu and eventually men like Jin-e, and Shishio, we begin to realize that they’re out of place. The world and the aesthetic Hashimoto So created contrasts against the main antagonists and serves to highlight how weird and outmoded Jin-e, Gein, Banjin, and the twins look in this world. It’s because they don’t fit in the Meiji Era that Kenshin helped create, and that contrast will boil into the conflict the film revolves around.

This visual motif is repeated even once more with even more to say in the Kyoto Taika-Hen film when we see modernity blooming in Tokyo. We see Caucasian men dressed in western clothing of their time period, Japanese people dressed in western clothing, jazz musicians, and a bustling trade opportunity. These introductory scenes give us the impression that this is a typical day in the Meiji, which reinforces to the audience the stakes Kenshin faces as he eventually goes to battle forces that seek to destroy this fragile new era. 

Already, we see a clear distinction between the nature of the two worlds, not just in the color grading, but in the framing itself. So-san takes advantage of his extras and reduces the space between them in both scenes to create a sense of chaos but to polar opposite effects. The opening sequences have chaos in violence, and the new era shots have chaos in celebration. Otomo and his cinematographer then shoot these scenes in medium to longer lenses, which put more emphasis on snippets and details of this world rather than the world itself, making the stakes feel very personal as we see individual people celebrating. Every single one of these people feels important to Kenshin, at least on a thematic level. It runs parallel to the theme that modernity wasn’t Kenshin’s goal: the happiness of the people around him was, and he felt modernity was the best way to achieve that, and that’s reflected in these scenes. 

This is the strength of So-san’s production design when directed by Keishi Otomo. Not only does it establish the world of the film, but it also visually reinforces both its central theme, and the most important thing to Kenshin as a character by creating a contrast between the two eras he’s is torn between.

And keep in mind, these are not real people. They’re probably just told to look like they’re having fun, but a costume designer dressed every single one of them. Set decorators designed this set or maybe even dressed up a street to look like Meiji Japan and because it looks so authentic, we believe it which is the sign of a production designer who knows what they’re doing. This plays wonderfully into a later section of this post.

                                        EXPRESSION OF CHARACTER

Have you ever noticed when watching a movie and we’re introduced to a character in their room, we always see other characters walking around as the camera slowly tracks them, revealing to us little details like their bookshelf, or maybe their wardrobe? Maybe the main character fidgets with something casually sitting on their dresser? 

The reason for this is because, even as we’re engrossed by the dialogue, our eyes are being treated to visual information given to us by the director and production designer. Much like our real lives, our rooms or personal spaces can carry a lot of details about us, and sometimes those details might be relevant to an audience. 

What does this room say about the main character of Black Swan? Can you tell whose room it is by the image? What kind of personality do you think she has?

What does this say about her character? What does it say about her mind and world view? Another example: 

Just by looking at the environment and the characters in this shot, who do you think this space belongs to? What does it say about that character? 

Now that we’re on a roll, how about this?

In this set, we’re introduced to the main antagonist of the latter two films and this set immediately establishes the essence of Shishio’s character. It’s dramatic and gaudy, we see old, decadent structures being consumed by fire, and an insane man and his posse standing behind him. In a lot of ways, it creates a parallel to the first film when we see Kenshin in the Meiji era for the first time, only inverted. This is the world Shishio seeks to create, and it is utterly horrifying. This parallel and contrast in production design also sets up the conflict between Kenshin and Shishio immediately as well as their similarities.   This warring ideology motif is echoed again later on in Kyoto Inferno when we see the same blue tinted war ground we saw in the first film’s opening, only this time at the end, we see a bright contrast of the orange fire against the blue-ish snow, symbolizing Shishio’s desire to rebuild the world through fire just as he was.

So how does this relate to crafting a fight sequence? Well, simply put, the essence of a great fight scene isn’t just two people hitting each other: it is the conflict between characters, themes, and environment expressed through the background is the true essence of production design. Each major battle/fight that takes place in the three films all occur in enemy territory since Kenshin doesn’t really have anywhere to protect except the Kamiya Dojo, which means that the main stages for the final conflict of each must express his opponents. He’s walking into enemy territory and the production design must reflect that. Consider the first movie. Each major fight in the third act of the first film takes place in Kanryu’s mansion except the final one. Observing each room, we can tell what kind of character Kanryu is and subsequently, what each of his henchmen is about.

Something unique to So-san is that he uses his production design and choice of location for each fight sequence to constantly remind us what’s at stake, both literally and narratively. The battle for the holy sword in Kyoto Inferno against Cho takes place in a shrine, like the manga. The shrine as the main battle stage could thematically sanctify the ideals of the Sakabatou as well as Iori, while two unworthy titans clash for the future of those ideals. The location for the battle isn’t simply cool, it’s thematically important to the fight sequence and subtly but constantly reminds us what Kenshin is up against and thematically reinforces the situation rather than simply being a cool area for characters to fight. It’s part of the statement the overall scene is trying to make.

Another example we should consider is the Rengoku as it is blasted into oblivion by modernity. This war galley, a symbol of the spark that ignited a revolution, goes up in flames much like Shishio himself. We watch Shishio and his empire crumble under modernity as cannons tear through the ships halls and decks, and Shishio himself exhausted to the point of combustion burns surrounded by the fires that consume his ship. 

These sets are not simply the battle stages of a fight, they are carefully and elegantly crafted to express the story’s characters and ideologies. They are important storytelling tools that are a necessary component in creating a compelling action sequence and good production design, through themes and tone, can create memorable and powerfully cinematic experiences when working together with the rest of the filmmaking team.

                                   THE BATTLEGROUND AS A WEAPON

Here’s a mouthful: Verisimilitude. It is what drives all cinema and RK is no exception. For an experience to work and for all the lofty stuff we discussed in the previous sections to pay off, the most basic and crucial element must be secured: the audience MUST believe it.  We know it’s a set. We know the light is artificial in a lot of scenes, and we know that the sword Kenshin is smacking people with is just piece of rubber. We know the people falling are just actors. Hell, Kenshin isn’t even Kenshin, he’s just some dude in his mid-twenties playing pretend. But when the opening text pops up on-screen telling us about the backdrop, as the camera pans through a snowy battlefield, and as we see a single red-haired kid tear through a legion of soldiers without even needing to catch his breath, we’re sucked in. It *feels real, and we believe it despite ourselves. We believe it because we want to believe it. 

Arguably, the director’s job can be boiled down to them forcing us to want to believe it. They need to lull our incredulity into taking a backseat to anticipation and excitement, and that works, not necessarily by creating a realistic experience, but by creating an authentic one and that requires all of TeamOtomo to accomplish, including So-San.

They have plenty of techniques to accomplish this and to cap this long post off, I want to focus on just one thing TeamOtomo does incredibly well in conjunction with So-san: incorporating the battlefield into the fight by having characters directly interact with their environment. 

This involves all of the production team working in tandem. The costumes and actors get sufficiently dirty. The swords get damaged and whack at objects in the environment. The choreography calls for a moment where a character kicks a staircase and sends the splinters flying towards an opponent. The stunt team plans a sequence where Kenshin has to use a tree to maneuver and flank his opponent, and the production design is the hub that all of these decisions are based on.

So-San’ s decision making, choice of location, and aesthetic all play into crafting what amounts to a springboard, from which all of these ideas sore. The gif above can only work in that location because it is a decision Kenshin made BASED on his location. It’s a small detail, some might even say trivial as we’re too busy being dazzled by the high-speed choreography, which judging from the popularity of my choreography post is something a lot of the people notice immediately, but let’s take a moment to appreciate that the choreography is directly informed by production design, which is informed by the script, which in turn informs the cinematographer how to light and move the camera, which feeds back into the costume designs creating costumes and making sure the colors are good for the shot and so on.

When we consider this, we can see how So-San’s production design truly is the bedrock the film’s action sequences are built on, and I don’t think there is a more elegant or telling expression of this than when I see Kenshin run up a wall in Kamiya dojo to procure a bokken to fight with, or when Kenshin actually uses an enclosed area underneath the shrine to limit Chou’s swing to unleash devastating hand-to-hand combat on him. We see the world inform the fight because we see characters use the environment to gain an advantage or to compensate for a weakness. It makes the characters feel richer and alive, autonomous even in a tightly scripted situation, and maybe even real.The emphasis is never drawn away from the character, and the conflict feels real because it comes directly from them. Because of this, at least in part, the fight feels verisimilitudinous; it feels real and authentic. 

All great martial arts films do this since it’s an old technique. Jackie Chan, for example, is probably the greatest choreographer when it comes to working with the environment. That said though, Otomo’s Rurouni Kenshin films takes words from the vocabulary established before it and uses it to compose excellent fight sequences that will remain in our memory for as long as we can remember as well as employing old techniques in new ways unique to the story that we all love. Each decision from every member of this team is filled with hard work and faithful to the essence of what made the original manga so amazing. This wouldn’t be possible without men like Otomo at the helm, or men like Hashimoto So designing magnificent sets that bring the manga to life. That’s the magic of filmmaking, and pertinently, that’s the magic of So-san’s production design. Thank you for reading.

SPECIAL THANKS:

@whiteplum

for creating HYRK as well as providing most of the graphics of this post. 

@heckyeahruroken For giving all Rurouni Kenshin fans a place to congregate and providing a platform for me to share these posts with a larger audience.

Favorite Anime Series [3/?]: Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan (1996-1998, MAL)

Hello everyone and welcome to the first portion of a new 3 part series. I’d like to take this moment to explain precisely what this is and what to expect in the future! This is a project I am very excited about and one that I have been planning for a really long time. After months and months of research, I’ve finally have enough information (and confidence) to go ahead and carry out exactly what’s going on here! 

Just as the title mentions, this is the first part of a new three part series of posts centered around the film grammar behind the fight sequences of Rurouni Kenshin’s live action trilogy. If successful, I will launch into the largest project I’ve ever done, which would be a fully detailed analysis of everything RK in terms of filmmaking. I plan on releasing each part on a weekly schedule as I will go through an extensive revising and editing process as well as draft high quality gif files and explanations for each section of these breakdowns.

The goal behind doing this is to deepen the appreciation of the Rurouni Kenshin films, as well as film in general. After all, love it or hate it, Rurouni Kenshin has made a cultural statement for two years (2012-2014) in a row with three successful live action film adaptations of a manga series and has become an international phenomenon and this is partly due to the thing everyone loves: The action sequences! So what is there to talk about exactly? Here’s an overview of the next two posts in sequence:

         Filmmaking and the composition of an action sequence

This will be a breakdown of the various components that make up an action sequence in general and how to spot a good one by analyzing film techniques such as cinematography, direction, editing and so on, as well as be an attempt to understand Rurouni Kenshin’s fight sequence in film’s rich grammar. This will help us understand why they’re so appealing, as well as creating a contrast of why other films might not be as appealing.

An action sequence is more than just stellar choreography and crazy stunts, action sequences, especially fight scenes, have a very specific method behind them and certain requirements they need to meet. This will hopefully raise questions in your own mind when watching an action film: Is the fight choreography good? The lighting? How’s the directing? Is the action on screen legible? and so on. 

I will be defining each of these terms, describing an example, and try to remain as simple and direct as possible in doing so. I hope this enriches and enlightens many people who may not be “film literate” or otherwise extremely invested in the art that goes behind making movies, so we could see all the details and thoughts that went into the film that we might take for granted! 

  Narrative and how action sequences progress the story.  

The third and final installment of this series is how action sequences express the narrative and its place within the story. Can the story progress without conflict? How does RK lend itself to these action sequences? Do they make narrative sense? Do they express characters in any sort of meaningful and enriching way?

The idea behind this particular post is because writing one of the most important elements in filmmaking, and many writers in a lot of big action blockbusters seem to neglect that fact when it comes to action sequences. Conflict is one of the basic elements of any story and without it, a story might not be as grabbing or as interesting. It’s one of the corner stones of not only cinema, but storytelling in general. This segment will take apart the action sequences in a narrative sense and discuss how the conflict leads to action sequences, how the grammar discussed in part one portrays the conflict just as much as the writing, as well as different types of fight sequences pending on tone. 

I especially look forward to this post and I hope you guys love it. Let the fun begin and I’ll hopefully see you all here next week!

Hey guys! It's been a long time since I've updated Hiten Enecylopedia and it's time we start wrapping up the small fry for Hiten and start moving to the big fan favorites! For this one, I elected two smallfry techniques, based on the fact that they are both long range Hiten moves. Enjoy!

HI RYU SEN

Hiryūsen (飛龍閃, Flying Dragon Flash)

Every once in a while, we get a technique from Hiten that wows and dazzles us. We rave about it, some of us imitate it and people like me write about it and we all rejoice in the majesty of that technique. This is not one of those techniques. 

Hi Ryu Sen is easily the most impractical *canon* (wait til we reach the end of this series with Shogo Amakusa to see what I mean) technique in Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu, even more so than the Ryu Kan Sen variations. So let's take it from the top and determine why this technique is so impractical that it was only use ONCE in the entire series.

The Hi Ryu Sen is a technique that was used against Isurugi Raijuta in the manga and only the manga. It is generally (and loosely) considered a Battojutsu technique since it does involve the usage of a sheath. The Battojutsu stance is assumed and Kenshin prepares to draw the sword. His left hand grips the scabbard (Saya) and his thumb lightly pushes upward on the hand guard (Tsuba) of the Sakabatou to loosen it from the sheath. 

He then turns his body, much like he would in a regular Battojutsu strike except this time, his left hand, still gripping the sheath, thrusts forward with enough force to send the sword flying out of the scabbard and, ideally, striking the opponent who is several meters away from him with the sword's buttcap (kashira). While it functions very much like the poor man's, non-lethal Gatotsu Zeroshiki, this technique is far less practical and even more so implausible. 

Pros (if any)

This is one of the few long range techniques of Hiten Mitsurugi and arguably a very powerful one if it lands

It shows how good Kenshin's aim is?

      2. Cons

First and most glaringly, Kenshin is THROWING HIS SWORD at someone. The longer the range, the higher the risk Kenshin faces of missing and even If he doesn't miss, he is effectively disarmed and loses a major part of his offensive/defensive capabilities. 

While it could be argued that he could use the sheath for defense, Aoshi has demonstrated that with enough power, a sheath can be cut to ribbons. It doesn't even require a full length katana: Aoshi does it with a single Kodachi.  

While there is a lot of things in RuroKen that require suspension of disbelief, this really pushes the envelop: It's almost up there with Fuji's existence and takes an artistic license with physics. The strength required to actually send the sword flying like that is staggering, and even if it were to happen, the sword itself is freaking curved, which makes it's trajectory difficult to predict AT BEST. While Kenshin manages to hit him on target, realistically, this technique would be hilariously comical. 

This technique is the only RuroKen technique that is actually completely unnecessary. Kenshin has the Dou Ryu Sen, which functions better as it doesn't require losing the sword. Better yet, he could very easily close the distance with his godspeed and use a regular Battojutsu strike against his opponent or lunge forward with the Ryu Kan Sen Tsumuji if one is so determined to close the distance. 

In general fighting, especially with someone like Raijuta who has ranged techniques, it's generally not a good idea to give them too much space, strategically speaking. If you've given them enough space to actually warrant the use of this technique, you're already at a disadvantage. It's more effective to remain in the area and control their space as much as you could while keeping enough distance to dodge any incoming attacks like Raijuta's Izuna or close enough to prevent him from using it. 

Anyway, the sheer uselessness of this technique outweighs its impracticality, making this one of the most illogical moves done in RuroKen, unfortunately. But the Do Ryu Sen will be better, right? Right...??

DO RYU SEN

Doryūsen (土龍閃, Earth Dragon Flash), much like Hi Ryu Sen, is a long ranged technique and is mostly used to quickly counter opponents who prepare techniques of their own. Kenshin dips the sword into the ground, preferably when it's rocky, compacted dirt, and lifts with great speed and power, sending rocks flying at his opponent as the shockwave travels through the ground and causes them to fall, or large rocks traveling at incredible speeds to strike them.

This technique isn't as impractical as Hi Ryu Sen. Mostly because IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. The best Kenshin, in a real life or practical setting like the LA, could hope for is to hit someone in the face with a pebble. But let's go over some pros and cons as if it were possible.

       1. Pros

This technique, as used in the anime and manga, can provide a shield for anyone who is trying to shoot Kenshin with guns or projectile based weaponry. 

It can cause a loss in balance, which Kenshin can easily utilize to his advantage and close the distance between him and his opponent. 

Cons

This technique is PURELY situational, meaning it can only be used when certain conditions. If he's fighting in cement or wood, or if his opponent has the high ground or elevation to their advantage, this technique will not work as well or at all.

Hitting jagged stones can stress or damage the blade. Japanese swords are made of tamahagane, not adamantium; It CAN be broken, as Soujirou so willingly proved. Worse yet, if performed often enough, can rust the blade. The moisture in the ground could remove the oils from the blade and cause oxidation. This technique in real life, even if possible, would be horrible for the blade.

Shockwaves realistically do not travel in straight lines. 

The range would be drastically limited as well, considering the fact that the further Kenshin wants the rocks to fly, the harder he needs to slash. This once again, creates a stress problem on the sword. 

Overall, all though these are the only ranged attacks in Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu, they are both incredible disappointments;  not only are they awkward, clumsy, and impossible but even in a universe where they DID work, they are greatly eclipsed by other techniques in our Rurouni's arsenal. All in all, neither of these are good techniques.