Introduction

In 2016, after studying filmmaking in New York and Los Angeles, Takafumi Sakabe returned to Japan. The last few years, he has been busy making music videos and Tv/web commercials. Luckily, he also finds the time to express his creativity in his own shorts. Can he charm us with his shorts as much as his music videos have?  

Review

Several days have after a Kaiju has kaiju emerged from Tokyo bay and lay waste on the cityscape of the metropole, Himika (Himika Kondo) learns from her friends that Mizuki (Mizuki Miyahara), a misfit in her class, is obsessed with kaiju and has refused to go to school even since the kaiju appeared in Tokyo.

The next day, Himika visits Mizuki’s shack in the forest and confesses that she dreams about the monster ravaging their town. Much to her surprise, Mizuki tells her she has the same kind of dreams.

Kaiju Girl is not only a narrative about friendship, but about finding a desire that can animate the subject and his body. How does Sakabe visualize the treacherous field of adolescence where fear and emptiness can inhibit a person in the process of coming into being as a subject

To visualize this field, Sakabe exploits the discrepancy between the destructive presence of a Kaiju around Tokyo and the failure of such reality to truly disrupt the mundane rhythm in the countryside. Most students continue to go to school, just as the societal Other demands from them. Ayano can express, without any worry concerning the future, that she wants to become an Agricultural Cooperative Worker.  

It is within social field marked by such a discrepancy that the subjective element of the dream appears. So, why do Himika and Mizuki dream about the Kaiju coming to her town? If we follow Freud’s theory that every dream offers the dreamer a wish-fulfillment, we can immediately reformulate our initial question: why do they wish that the Kaiju ravages their rural town?

Mizuki indirectly reveals the truth of her dream when she tells Himika that she wants to show her kaiju creations to SFX companies in the hope of becoming a Kaiju sculptor. What her dream, in our view, stages is the desire to efface the rural Other she is subjected to, the rural Other that, despite not accepting her, confines her. If the Kaiju can unshackle the claws of this societal field, Mizuki would be ‘free’ pursue her own desire. Yet, is the Other truly imprisoning her or is she merely projecting her own fear of failing to realize her desire onto this Other? Does she wish the destruction of the Other by the Kaiju or does she desire to be a fearless kaiju herself, destroying her inner fear?  

In the case of Himika, it is less clear what her desire is. The only thing we can assume is that she hopes for the destruction of the rural Other, that she hopes to be set free from this societal field to be able to embark on a journey to find her own desire. Yet, the same question needs to be posed. Is the Other inhibiting her or is she, as subject, inhibiting herself with respect to the Other she is subjected to? Can she find a wish or desire to fleetingly animate her subject?  

Sakabe, by fluidly concatenating static and dynamic shots, delivers a composition with a pleasant rhythm. While this rhythm is, of course, function of how Sakabe utilizes the cut, it is enhanced by the elegant use of musical accompaniment.   

The beautiful musical pieces, moreover, infuse a certain emotionality into the visual and narrative fabric. To put it more concretely, the music within the narrative aims to emphasize the beauty of friendship – of doing things together with each other.  

Kaiju Girl is a pleasant short about the need to find a desire to be able to give direction to one’s subject. What makes Sakabe’s narrative so enjoyable – and raises it above many other similar shorts – are the charming performance and the nice visual rhythm.