TV Review: ‘Hibana’
Making people laugh is no joke in “Hibana,” a profoundly reflective and achingly tender look at Japan’s vibrant yet cutthroat comedy scene. Adapted from Matayoshi Naoki’s bestseller and helmed by five filmmakers, the 10-episode Netflix Original Series chronicles the decade-long trajectories of two manzai (comic double act) artists, whose careers are strewn with more tears than laughter. Revealing enthralling insider details of the profession while encapsulating the fragile beauty of youthful dreams, the story blends offbeat personal sentiments with a wistful backward glance at Tokyo’s hip-grunge millennial culture.
Made with an exquisitely cinematic eye that doesn’t conform to the roller-coaster beats of popular Asian TV soaps, this is a polished, classy product that targets a discerning audience from among the 190 territories where it aired. Given its quality and the book’s high acclaim, “Hibana” could potentially pioneer a new creative model for Japanese filmmakers.
The series was shot in chronological order, covering one year per episode, with festival regular Ryuichi Hiroki as supervising director and contributor on three episodes, including the first, while the remaining duties are split between helmers Kazuya Shiraishi, Shuichi Okita, Yasunori Mori and Shinji Kuma. Despite the directors’ diverse repertoires, the work boasts remarkable continuity in style and storytelling, giving the Netflix-Fuji TV collaboration greater artistic cache than their previous popcorn productions “Atelier” and “Terrace.”
Dating back to the Heian Period (794-1185 A.D.), manzai is a stand-up comic art form based on the interaction of boke (the fool) and tsukommi (the heckler). In light of its systematic popularization since 1912 by Osaka entertainment giant Yoshimoto Kogyo (which aided in the production), a new style evolved and contemporary manzai is often performed in Kansai dialect. The 36-year-old member of manzai duo Peace, Matayoshi made waves when his novel won the Akutagawa Prize, a prestigious award for serious literary works. Encapsulating the bittersweet tone of its source, “Hibana” makes everything about manzai absorbing — the creative process, their performance styles, their chemistry with audiences — even when few of the jokes are actually funny. In so doing, it raises a serious question about the function of art and whether it should please or provoke.
The title “Hibana” is Japanese for “Sparks” (pronounced “Su-paa-kuzu”), the name of the titular manzai duo, but the Kanji characters are also an inversion of “Hanabi” or fireworks, which shapes the destiny of the protagonists from their humble beginnings in 2001. Sparks, the rookie manzai duo formed by childhood buddies Tokunaga (Kento Hayashi, “Lesson of the Evil”) and Yamashita (Masao Yoshii) wait their turn at a summer festival in Atami, Shizuoka prefecture. When the fireworks steal eyeballs away from the outdoor stage, Kamiya (Kazuki Namioka) from the duo Ahonandra grabs the mic and curses spectators with such jaw-dropping bile, Tokunaga begs him to be his mentor. He agrees, on condition his protégé writes his biography, which becomes the story’s framing device for the younger artist to thrash out his own ideas about comedy and life.
After the first episode, the scene shifts to Tokyo, where Sparks have ventured for the big game. They sign up with Hyugo, a small agency whose efforts to promote them are lukewarm to say the least, packing them off to don cow costumes for supermarket campaigns. Incidentally, Ahonandra has also relocated here, and the first four episodes are devoted to Tokugawa’s forlorn fumbling around the cold, glittering metropolis, as well as his hero worship of Kamiya, who never stops expounding on esoteric theories of mirth in boozy rapture.
When Kamiya introduces his protégé to roommate Maki (Mugi Kadokawa, radiant), an atypical triangle is formed, revolving around the hot-pot dinners she rustles up. Rippling beneath these convivial, unguarded moments is a queer undercurrent of love Tokunaga could be harboring for his guru. Kamiya’s relationship with Maki is also ambiguously platonic, culminating in wrenching consequences in episode six. Impressively, director Okita manages to interpose a situation of great agony with the bawdiest gag imaginable.
As Sparks’ career picks up, each time they perform live or enter a tournament is orchestrated with hand-wringing tension, as well as mordant observations on how wannabe comedians ingratiate themselves to succeed. The focus gradually shifts to Tokugawa’s bumpy collaboration with Yamashita, whose selfish impulses add a bitter but realistic edge to the film’s unsentimental portrayal of professional partnerships. Manzai artist Yoshii plays his role dead straight, with a nasty edge, yet his committed performance elicits understanding, if not sympathy over time. The last few episodes pop some surprises that illustrate the fickleness of the manzai world as well as the transience of human connections, culminating in a finale that seems to hit every tragic-comic note.
Namioka, a veteran supporting actor in numerous films, including Takashi Miike’s “Crows Zero” series, possesses a kinetic aura that not only embodies Kamiya’s increasingly unhinged psyche; he conveys humor as a dangerous thing, since he deliberately makes audiences uncomfortable by pushing the boundaries of what’s considered “funny.” His image of a comedian is one who teeters on the abyss of horror and has the guts to laugh death, fear and sadness in the face. Equally atypical of a showman’s image is the sensitive egghead Tokunaga, who’s too shy to speak from the heart, so he channels it into painstakingly scripted and rehearsed gags. An upcoming talent who already displayed acting chops in his debut “The Battery,” Hayashi’s pretty-boy looks may prevent one from taking him seriously in the first two episodes, but after that, he warms to his interactions with a whole galley of colorful roles, and fully blossoms into a full-bodied personality with fire in his soul.
The serial format allows screenwriters Masato Kato, Miyuki Takahashi and script consultant Itsuji Itao (a top comedian-director) to weave in numerous offbeat and often heart-tugging motifs to mirror the protagonists sentimental journeys, such as Tokunaga’s memories of his working-class childhood, or his and Kamiya’s changing hair color, perms and length, all of which symbolize their various stages of success and self-identity. Most importantly, the duration not only allows the two leads to mature but also places them within intersecting or standalone orbits of human relationships, from the tough love of Tokunaga’s quirky management agents (Taguchi Tomorowo, Shota Sometani and Nahana — deadpan, eccentric and waspish, respectively) to a barista (Kaoru Kobayashi) who offers him soul caffeine. The liberal smattering of Osaka dialect also adds authenticity and flavor to the dialogue.
Atsuhiro Nabeshima, who shot several of Hiroki’s films, deserves highest kudos for his gorgeously limber lensing, which gives the work its markedly cinematic quality. Shooting around districts along Tokyo’s Chūō subway line (Shinjuku, Ogikubo, Koenji and Kichijoji) where the protagonists hang out, his camera lingers on Bohemian haunts of Tokyo’s contempo floating world of standup comedians, buskers and others outside the straitjacketed routines of salarymen. Recurring scenes of Tokugawa staggering out of a bar and walking home alone are captured by beautiful single-take traveling shots that evoke both freedom and loneliness as he basks in Tokyo’s seductive nocturnal milieu.
Craft contributions, which benefit from Netflix’s generous budget, are simply superb, especially Koji Ueno and Toru Ishizuka’s music, which changes gears from a mellow folksy base to full-throttle hard rock. The theme song by psychedelic garage rock band Okamoto’s closes each episode on a dynamic, exhilarating note.
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