The makers of Shonen Merikensack, the rock ‘n’ roll comedy which I wrote more in-depth about here recently released a clip of Aoi Miyazaki filming some scenes. It’s not very long but you can definitely tell she’s fitting right in with the comedic pacing of director Kankuro Kudo, screenwriter of “Ping Pong” and “Maiko Haaaan!!!”.

Miyazaki first caught everyone’s attention by playing hard-luck kids from dysfunctional families in films like Eureka and Harmful Insect, but has since expanded her repertoire considerably and continues to show off her acting chops. Earlier this year she even played 2 roles in the same movie. Now with Kudo’s help she’ll be adding spaz-out comedy to her resume. Check out the clip below and see how she’s doing so far.

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With the recent release of The Machine Girl and the name Noboru Iguchi being thrown around on mainstream sites like Cinematical, I think it’s a good time to write about one of his projects that didn’t get nearly enough attention when it should have. Based on a Daijiro Morohoshi manga, Shiori to Shimiko no Kaiki Jikenbo (roughly “The bizarre case files of Shiori and Shimiko") is a horror/comedy series which aired Saturday nights at 12:50 AM - 1:20 AM on NTV from January 5, 2008 - March 29, 2008. During its 13-episode run I watched it religiously via torrents (sorry, don’t sue me) and it was always the undisputed highlight of my week.

The show stars Atsuko Maeda of the 48-member Jpop group AKB48 as Shimiko and current Victor Koshien poster girl Nao Minamisawa as Shiori. Shimiko is a quiet, shy girl who moves to a new town to live with an uncle. One of the first people she meets is Shiori, a tomboyish, self-confident girl who never seems to be phased by any dangerous or strange situation she gets herself into. The show was fairly formulaic; normally something odd or supernatural would happen in the town and Shiori would gather her group of friends for a meeting about it in the school bathroom. Then Shiori and Shimiko would venture out to investigate the situation and interview people. Something would usually place Shimiko in mortal danger until Shiori popped back in at the last minute to solve the entire mystery, giving an enthusiastic speech and finishing off with her customary thumb + index finger point of success. There were obviously many exceptions to the formula, but that’s the basic idea.

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As I posted here yesterday, this year’s New York Asian Film Festival features an impressive lineup of Japanese films - many of which will be screened for the first time in the US. Ryo Iwamatsu’s Then Summer Came will be screened for the first time anywhere, so I figured it’s as good a time as any to write about it. We first heard about this one last summer around this time when it was going by its working title “Soshite Natsu ga Kita” which actually does mean “Then Summer Came”. The Japanese title was then changed to “Tamio no Shiawase” which means “Happiness of Tamio”. The film is Iwamatsu’s first as a director since 1993’s “Ohaka to Rikon”. He’s more widely known as an actor, with roles in films like “In the Pool” and “Adrift in Tokyo”, but his work as a playwright and director has earned him a lot of respect within the industry.

The story revolves around a father named Nobuo (Yoshio Harada) and his son Tamio (Joe Odagiri). Both of them are kind of irresponsible - stuck in the trappings of their past, with neither seeming to be able to shed their respective roles as father and son. With Tamio’s marriage to his girlfriend (Kumiko Aso) rapidly approaching, both men are overwhelmed by everyone telling them what to do. The pair go to extraordinary and occasionally ridiculous lengths to make sure the wedding is memorable.

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Shingo Matsubara’s The Taste of Fish (Tsukiji Uogashi Sandaime) comes out this Saturday after already having premiered at Cannes back on May 15th, and with a sequel already in the works it looks like it will become a franchise of yearly films if it’s even moderately successful. It all seems a bit odd to me, mostly because I can’t picture Takao Osawa ever being known as “that fish dude” in the way Kiyoshi Atsumi became synonymous with Torajiro in the Tora-san series, but I guess time will tell.

The story is based on a 21-part manga series originally published in Big Comic. Osawa plays Shuntaro Akagi, a successful businessman who works in the human resources department of a general trading company. His life is going well both financially and personally, and marriage to his girlfriend Asuka (Rena Tanaka) may be on the horizon. One day Shuntaro’s superiors put him in charge of a large-scale corporate restructuring, and the list of people being axed includes an old boss who taught him the ropes. Shuntaro is extremely conflicted, but his attention is diverted when he has to help out at “Dragon Fish”, the fish trading company normally run by Asuka’s now-ailing father. Shuntaro is initially overwhelmed by both the characters he meets at Tsukiji Fish Market and the traditions that have been passed down through the generations of people that work there, but over time his sense of taste becomes more of an asset than his business savvy ever was and he starts to enjoy the quirkiness of his new job much more than the cutthroat nature of his old one.

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Even though The Machine Girl will be released on DVD here in the US tomorrow, it won’t be released in Japan until August 2nd. So in preparation for that date Spotted Productions has posted a new trailer on YouTube. It seems a little less stylized than the original and the new music has a 70s vibe. Here it is, followed by the old one after the break:

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