A special, exuberantly designed biopic about a Japanese manga artist, his muse Miyoko who regularly posed nude and the Tokyo artists’ district where they lived in the 1970s. The young, unsuccessful artist suffering manga delusions clings obsessively to his girlfriend and the bottle.
The film is based on the life of the manga comic-strip artist Abe Shinichi and above all his legendary album Miyoko Asagaya kibun (also the Japanese title of the film). Miyoko was the girlfriend, wife and, not lastly, the muse of the manga artist. Asagaya is the district of Tokyo where they lived back then. The district had a certain artistic reputation because a lot of writers lived there. The title represents the feeling of living in Asagaya with Miyoko. The manga story was very autobiographical and hence a logical basis for this unusual biopic.
The life story starts in the 1970s. The young artist has no success at all and clings obsessively to his girlfriend and model. As model, Miyoko can only be described as an object of lust. The film is very licentious in the way she poses naked. So licentious that the film can be found on Web sites for pink pictures (typical Japanese narrative soft porn).
Apart from an inventive and exuberant production design (in which manga delusions and reality are mixed), the power of the film can be traced back to the actors who play Abe Shinichi (Mizuhashi Kenji) and Miyoko (Machida Marie). Demanding roles, because the artist occasionally is intoxicated by delusions and alcohol and his muse has to reveal all. Right at the end of the film, during the titles, the real Abe appears briefly on the screen. —Rotterdam Film Festival
