I already posted the
Coji-Coji credits in another thread. Since then I've discovered that Veoh has whole episodes available, though sadly without subtitles. Watching the first couple confirmed my recollection: this show was a bit like
Rocky and Bullwinkle (or indeed MST3k) in that it consciously had a level aimed at kids and another aimed at adults. This is actually fairly common in Japan, as they don't associate "cartoon" with "childish" as closely as Americans do.
Anyway, first off I'll post the credits again, as Veoh doesn't include them. One of these days I hope to run my translations by a native speaker to see if I'm anywhere close. After that I'll post the episodes if your curious, my synopses and then a few observations.
Front credits:
Rough stab at translation:
Near you, that's where you'd expect it to be
Still it's a pleasure to search for it (?)
Strange things are no accident
Not to go down looks foolish
Probably what you see surprises you
But that is
The difference between reality and meaning (
)
Soon now the cares will drain away and I suppose we'll realize
That it isn't difficult
Near you, that's where you'd expect it to be
Near you, that's where you'd expect it to be
Near you
End credits:
"Pocket Cowboy"
Come back cowboy
Come back cowboy
Come back cowboy
Come back pocket
Cowboy come back
Manly and shining cowboy
A lively posture splashed with color(?)
He hasn't got a horse but still it really suits him
Laughs with guns in both hands
(refrain)
Nihilistically cool, the great cowboy
Continues his long journey and grows prouder
Battered but still splendid cowboy
Parents thrown aside and wet with dew
(refrain)
Setting out at daybreak cowboy
Ponders things in the moonlight
Feeling lonely anywhere cowboy
But still he gets up tomorrow morning
Episode 1: "Coji-Coji is Coji-Coji"
www.veoh.com/browse/morelike/v15261962YWjaE9cf#watch%3Dv15697282HwwBSP57This opening episode begins with Coji-Coji walking along and singing (annoyingly) about what a beautiful morning it is, until reminded by a friendly worm that she'll be late for school. The teacher begins with a lecture on the importance of study, but the students point out that they are all cartoon characters in a magical world and ask why what he's teaching is relevant to them. He counters that they should want to become successful cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse. Coji-Coji has never heard of Mickey Mouse and asks to see a picture. After some discussion it's decided that that's impossible because Disney would be all over them.
Coji-Coji then manages to score -5 on a test (the deficit coming from misspelling her own name). She is quite pleased by the unique accomplishment of a negative score. Class is dismissed (the Sun King heads off to get Snoopy's autograph, which will figure in ep. 2) but Coji-Coji is called to the teacher's room. The teacher asks her what she does all day, and she replies that she flies in the sky, eats snacks in trees and visits friends under the sea. The teacher counters that there's more to life than playing, eating and sleeping. What about money? What about success? Finally he asks for only a single answer: what does Coji-Coji want to become?
I would translate her answer as: "Coji-Coji is Coji-Coji. Since birth Coji-Coji has been Coji-Coji. Coji-Coji's future lies in being Coji-Coji." The teacher admits defeat.
The snowman and Jiro (the chickenish kid) have been listening at the window and it's an epiphany for them. The denouement, however, comes with Jiro making a similar declaration to his mother and getting a bloody lip for it.
Episode 2: "Hang in there, Johnny!"
www.veoh.com/browse/morelike/v15261962YWjaE9cf#watch%3Dv157037887B5KcpDKThis episode provides the back-story of the "Johnny" character, who wonders why he is the only human in a world of magical cartoon characters. Aside from his name, all he knows about himself is that he's Bulgarian and therefore likes yoghurt.
A flashback shows Hare-Hare-kun feeling lonely because his natural reserve keeps him from laughing and joining in. An intensely masculine fairy godmother appears and promises to return with a perfectly suited friend for him. This turns out to be Johnny, but Hare-Hare-kun has since wandered away. The fairy godmother puts a plate on Johnny's head to block his memory so that he won't be homesick.
However, the actual result is that Johnny ends up morose and pleading for anyone to tell him who he is. The other kids try to cheer him up, but he is unable to get into their boisterousness. Hare-Hare-kun recognizes the similarity in their dispositions but is still too shy to approach him, especially as Johnny is now the center of the group's attention. The moral support really backfires when Coji-Coji writes him a note meant to say "cheer up" but -- through an inadvertent pun -- instead says he should be prohibited.
The Sun King is finally pushed to give Johnny his prized Snoopy autograph (something he's been trying to rationalize not doing). Johnny is overjoyed, but then Hare-Hare-kun points out that it must be fake because it's in Japanese and not English. I sort of missed the details of the link, but the upshot is that Johnny is immensely grateful and he and Hare-Hare-kun immediately become close friends.
When watching the show in Japan I had wondered if there was supposed to be a homosexual overtone to their friendship. The short answer is "you bet'cha."
My Own InterpretationsTo begin, I think it would be a mistake to interpret the first episode as an anarchic "we don't need no education" statement. Any fictional treatment of a social question (particularly a farcical one from a foreign culture) risks misinterpretation as it must restrict the aspects it treats for brevity and clarity. I'm reminded of such a charge I once saw levelled against the
The General episode of
The Prisoner, which I think is unwarranted as it is (in my view) instead questioning the distinction between education and indoctrination.
To address that for a moment, it is inevitable that the early stages of the two are largely indistinguishable. Pupils must initially accept facts from the teacher (at least provisionally), as any argument at this stage would be based on a primordial ignorance. The crucial distinction is that education uses this as a foundation only. Its goal is not the mere transmission of a body of beliefs but the construction of a system of critical thought, one that can absorb ideas, weigh them and integrate them, extend them and (crucially) re-interpret previous beliefs in light of them.
Now, all public education systems are to some degree indoctrinational. In Europe their birth was closely related to the rise of military conscription, and in the US they were meant to instill republican values in the children of immigrants. They are there to sustain society; indeed it would be hard to imagine any leadership consciously telling its youth to go forth and rebel. That said, Japanese education is notably so. It is rightly famous for its ability to instill facts in young minds but fails to suggest that anything beyond straightforward regurgitation of them is required. I think it's no accident that the teacher is drawn as a robot.
And now I think we're beginning to catch a glimpse of the ultimate point. It isn't a comment on the Japanese education system
per se, it's a comment on the social values that give rise to such a system. Tokugawa Japan has been called the world's first totalitarian state. "Citizenship" was a matter of learning the role one was expected to play in every situation and then being careful not to flub one's lines. Individuality is not a virtue in such a society; it is selfish and disruptive.
The sword is gone as the arbiter of social norms in today's Japan, but society still exerts a "sourceless authoritarianism" toward playing the part one is assigned. Coji-Coji is an ingenuous subversive in questioning whether it fits her.
Jiro's utter failure as a renegade is a reminder of reality as it stands. Don't try this at home, kids (or at least don't say we didn't warn you).
Episode 2 is dealing with the related issue of alienation. The importance of social roles already mentioned leads to a sort of "stage-fright" among many Japanese. Social missteps are acutely embarrassing to most of them. There is a tendency to become very reserved, to adopt a sort of "nothing ventured, nothing lost" attitude. Furthermore there can be a "wilderness of mirrors" feeling: wondering how much of what one gets from others is genuine, how much is what they think you want to hear, how much is what they think everyone else expects to hear. These can make it very hard to open up to someone else, particularly with anything at all unconventional. Japanese loneliness isn't that of the desert, it's that of a crowd of strangers.
Note that to some degree this is simply the human condition. The Japanese are made of the same snips, snails and amino acids as the rest of
H. sapiens, but different cultural emphases shape a lot of things quite distinctively.
Johnny is dropped into this situation with no compass. He is the quintessential
gaijin, having neither a local context nor even a vestigial one from his own world. This anomie leaves him so isolated from the others that even their best-intentioned efforts to bridge it go awry. Their antennae simply don't work on his wavelength.
I wish I could better follow the bit where Hare-Hare-kun reveals the forged nature of the autograph. One possibility is that it's his honesty that spans the gap. The Western attitude tends to be that even if the truth is unpleasant honesty is -- in itself -- a virtue. This is quite different from the traditional Japanese view which sees it as boorish and insensitive in such a case. Certainly the Western attitude can be a license to offend, but the Japanese attitude can leave things to fester when a bit of daylight would work wonders. It's interesting to see foreign values cropping up in Japanese fiction, sometimes with the suggestion that there might be something to them. It takes a long time to assess another value system.
Whether the homosexual angle is meant as a literal comment on Japanese attitudes toward it or only as another dimension of Johnny and Hare-Hare-kun's individuality, I really can't say.