Anime magic to put a spell on Scotland

A HIP YOUNG couple dressed in tartan kimonos lean against each other. With an umbrella held aloft, the figure on the left is trying to shield them from a downpour, not of rain, but of love hearts. This striking image, designed to look like a movie poster for an anime film, currently adorns a three-storey tall banner draped over the south-east corner of Glasgow’s Central Station.

If the bold simplicity of the image, its size and its prominence in the city make it seem like a statement of intent, that’s the point. The work of Japanese pop star and artist Kanon Wakeshima, its inviting presence thoroughly encapsulates the declaratory title and spirit of the film festival it has been commissioned to promote: Scotland Loves Anime.

Now in its second year, this mini festival celebrating Japanese animation – it kicks off today at the Glasgow Film Theatre with a full weekend of films and talks and concludes next weekend at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh – is already a big success story. Last year’s inaugural event welcomed 3,500 people through the doors and an additional 1,500 attended a splinter event at this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Those are great admission figures for an event of this size, though festival director Andrew Partridge prefers to judge its success in terms of the increased awareness of anime he felt each screening generated.

“Basically, what we found that was that whoever goes in comes out knowing a lot more about anime than they would have otherwise, even if you were a fan already.” Indeed, one of the most gratifying things about the screenings – and this was particularly so in Edinburgh – was that the audiences were vastly different depending on the film. “You’d see a core of about 25 people who were curious about all the screenings and were at every film,” Partridge says, “but everyone else at the screenings – which were packed – was different. And that’s remarkably unusual, actually.”

It wasn’t the only unusual thing. “Showing up on an Italian film blogger’s site,” says Partridge, “was one of the more bizarre moments of my year last year”, not least because it confirmed that people were actually travelling a long way to attend. Indeed, with visitors also making the journey from Germany, France and Spain (as well as from across the UK), Scotland Loves Anime already appears to be filling a rare gap in an otherwise overcrowded film festival market.

That’s something that is reflected in the prestige films the festival has managed to acquire this year. Top of the list is the UK premiere of A Letter to Momo, which only just received its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last month and won’t open in Japan until spring of next year, ensuring Scotland Loves Anime attendees will be among the first audiences in the world to see it.

Given that it’s only the second film from director Hiroyuki Okiura, who worked as an animator on Ghost in the Shell before making anime classic Jin-Roh in 1999, it’s something of a big deal: sort of the anime equivalent of a new release from Terrence Malick.

“It took him seven years to make it and it’s a really spectacular work,” says Partridge of the movie, which he likens to a leftfield Studio Ghibli production. “It’s a coming-of-age film, but one that treats everything in a serious light, so it’s something that people of any age could watch.”

Other talking point events include the British premiere of Armoured Troop Votoms: Pailsen Files, a political sci-fi film, the impenetrable-sounding title of which somewhat belies the fact that it’s basically a film about giant robots (the film’s veteran director, Ryosuke Takahashi, will also be making his first ever trip to Scotland to attend the event and participate in a Q&A session).

Then there’s Tekken: Blood Vengeance, which will be screened in 3D in Glasgow and 2D in Edinburgh. “That’s interesting, because it’s actually based on a video game franchise and was done using CG animation instead of tradition 2D animation,” says Partridge. “It’s interesting to see Japanese film-makers doing a different style of animation very well.”

These films will also be competing against one another in the newly introduced competition strand of the festival. With a panel of judges representing different facets of the film industry (among them Wallace and Gromit creative director Merlin Crossingham and author and anime expert Jonathan Clements), Partridge hopes this will help increase awareness of the critical merits of these films in the UK.

That also ties in with an ongoing remit of the festival: to reach fans of film and animation in general.

“That’s always been one of the long term goals,” says Partridge. “We want to raise the profile of the films and reach random people who may look at anime and be put off by the stereotypes of the genre. There are a large number of people who are curious about anime and haven’t tried it for whatever reason. That’s the real target audience.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues: “I’m glad our line-up satisfies those that already love anime as much as I do, but I hope we can find titles that cross that borderline, so people who are already interested in anime will go and see it and be happy about it, and people who are curious and would normally have been scared off before will come along and see it as well.”

• Scotland Loves Anime is at the Glasgow Film Theatre from today until 9 October and at the Edinburgh Filmhouse from 14-16 October, www.lovesanimation.com