Many people think of Japan as a homogenous country – one robot next to the other, everyone eating from the same cultural pie. Yet, such image of Japan is deceptive as it washes away the cultural differences that mark the prefectures – it is a problematic reduction of Japan’s diversity in the mould of its capital. In 2019, Takeuchi cracked the consistence of this image by bringing Fly Me To The Saitama (2019) to life on the silver screen. Four years later, Takeuchi takes the hammer again to crack this fiction once more.  

Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love consists, just like Fly Me To The Saitama (2019), of two different narratives spaces: the narrative of the Sugawara family on the grounds in Kumagaya where the first Saitama Tug-of-War contest is being held and the anachronistic narrative space brought to life in the special radio broadcast.

While the former introduces a few surprising elements in the narrative – exploring the difficulty of naming a child and the tension between cities within prefectures, the special radio broadcast offers a more familiar affair. While new prefectures (Osaka, Shiga, … etc.) are comically exploited, the continuation to the events depicted in the first movie does not offer anything narratively or thematically new. For spectators who just desire more of the same, Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love will deliver. Yet, even those spectators will sometimes feel that they are watching a mere remix of the first narrative.

The narrative of Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love takes place three months after the Saitama Liberation Front forced the abolishment of the visa system in Kanto. Rei Asami (Gackt), Momomi (Fumi Nikaido), and their comrades are planning to pursue an even greater peace: the Saitamafication of Japan, the eradication of discrimination. Yet, when Rei tells his comrades that the first step in his plan is to connect all the cities in Saitama with a new train line: the Musashino line, he is met with resistance – they have no desire to partner with rival cities.  The representatives of the railways, on the other hand, refuse to fund the Musashino line as they desire to erect a direct line to Tokyo Mousey-Land.

While Rei succeeds in unifying the cities in no time by introducing his idea to create a sea in Saitama, the task to get white sand from Wakayama prefecture will not not be as easy as it sounds. Akira Kashoji (Ainosuke Kataoka), the governor of Osaka, has Shirahama beach under his firm control and rules by systematically exploiting ‘criminals’ from neighbouring prefectures for Osakans’ enjoyment in the Appolon Tower. Momomi, on the other hand, is tasked with the seemingly impossible task to convince the railways to halt their strike and fund the train line. Rei and Momomi, while separated, must try to defeat the same Osakan evil – Takoyaki-brainwashing-torture, white-powder slavery and addiction – and put a halt to their all-Japan Osaka colonization project.  

Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love, just like the first narrative, comically exaggerates the idea that one’s birth-prefecture determines one’s subjective preferences and sensibilities, instilling an innate form of ‘patriotism’ (e.g. people from Shiga prefecture have an aversion to breaking Shigaraki stoneware) (General-note 1). Takeuchi rightly implies that such determination gives rise to a desire for what is Other – i.e. for what other prefectures have and one is deprived off (e.g. the right to jump in Dotonbori canal).

Within this anachronistic fantastical realm, criminality means that one has not acted in accordance to one’s prefectural origin, to one’s nativity. The transgression is twofold: one has betrayed one’s own cultural origin as well as acted, without having the right to do so, in accordance with the image of the desired prefectural Other. To eradicate such criminal insolence, the governor of Osaka organizes a witch-hunt to round up all the subjects who commit such despicable act of ‘cultural’ appropriation – when in Rome, one is strictly forbidden to do as romans do.   

During the sequence in Kyoto, the spectator is light-heartedly introduced to the difference between Tatemae (social face/facade) and Omote (silent ego, the unsaid conscious discourse). The Kyoto-ite is presented as the prime example of a subject who pleasantly maintains a social facade, a deceptive friendliness and acceptance, yet, harbours an unvocalized discourse of hate towards any kind of Otherness, as conditioned by one’s place of birth.

Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love thus offers an ironical tale that illustrates how ridiculously misplaced the fight against diversity and ‘cultural’ or prefectural intermingling is. Or, to formulate it in positive terms, Takeuchi’s narrative offers a comical celebration of Japan’s prefectural diversity and a pleasant uncovering of the mendacious nature of homogenizing Japanese culture – a fabricated tale of homogeneity both addressed to the Japanese as well as the foreign subject. While many comical references and puns will be missed by the non-Japanese spectator, he will, at least, get an inkling of the cultural differences that characterize the prefectures that form the whole of Japan.   

The composition of Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love is very similar to way Takeuchi brought the first narrative alive on the silver screen. He relies heavily on subtle dynamism to bring the eclectic and colourful visual mash-up of Japan’s feudal past, capitalistic present and future topped of with some European ‘renaissance’ influences. Takeuchi offers the spectator a visual tapestry of historical and cultural references (e.g. pearl-divers, school uniforms, department stores, capsule toy machines, Nara’s deer, the Koshien Stadium, Noh-masks, Osakan oba-sans, manzai-comedy, … etc.) and many well-known local products (Shigaraki-yaki, fermented carp sushi, Takoyaki…etc.).

This crazy visual blend does not only ensure that the narrative feels fantastical throughout, but makes the many silly turns and strange twists in the narrative easier to digest – the narrative silliness is foreshadowed by visual craziness. The anachronistic space, riddled with contradictions, works and succeeds in keeping the spectator engaged from start to finish.

While Fly Me To The Saitama (2019) could have used more cinematographic ridiculousness to heighten the impact of the comedy, such extravagance is not missed in the second narrative. As Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love does not need such supportive cinematography as it lacks a pun-like structure and the comical references are only able to elicit giggles or smiles. Instead of relying on comical timing to impact the spectator, Takeuchi structures his comical narrative around a few crazy and silly set-pieces.  

Fly Me To The Saitama: From Biwa Lake with Love is a great narrative – those spectators who loved the first will enjoy this one well. While the more direct delivery of comedy is traded for a few moments of outrageous visual silliness, Takeuchi’s end-product is not all that different: a fun romp that works well as an introduction to the cultural diversity that enriches the Japanese archipelago.

  

Notes:

General-note 1: However, the spectator should not forget that the ridiculous tensions and comical conflicts that structure the narrative are a tongue-in-the-cheek references to rivalries that truly lingers within the Japanese societal field and the mind of many – e.g. the rivalry between Osaka and Tokyo.