Gachiban ガチバン

Finally. It looks really terribly bad but I wanted to have my hubbies up there in the header ^^
I really like them both as characters from the Gachiban movies.

The Gachiban movie-series is from the Yankii-Genre that did grow a bit since Takashi Miikes "Crows Zero" adaptions. Yankii are basically the japanese teenage badboys. Bleached hair, punky styles, motorcycles, alcohol, women, cigarettes, other delinquencies and a lot of fighting. Those are the annoying kids that skip school, are dumb as hell and noisy when on the streets. There are yankii-girls too though of course, and where japan is mostly perceived as a country with many gender-based differences which it is, yankii-girls are as annoying and noisy and delinquent as their male counterparts.
I have to admit that I am a huge fan of the Yankii-Genre.

Gachiban Supermax

I have watched the "Crows Zero" movies and some of the Gachiban Series, Badboys, Drop, and some other movies and dramas with that theme. Also I played most of the Yakuza or "Ryu ga gotoku" games and have seen some documentations too. I might do a list of all Yankii-related media I know of in the future.

But in the end I feel like some of the Gachiban movies are the portrayal of Yankii that I love the most. And as you might have guessed by now, the movies are the ones with those two hubbies in the header.

Kuronaga Hayato

Gachiban Max, Gachiban Max2, Gachiban Supermax, Gachiban Worstmax and Gachiban Ultramax are with the one on the right: Kuronaga, Hayato (there are more, but those are the best). He is more the fight-oriented yankii with a strangely idealized and oldschool idea of what a yankii is and how he should behave. That defines his actions and his understanding of honor. And as dumb and fight-oriented as he is, he is really nice and a loyal friend and may have a really healthy relationship to money and all that society-crap that's dictating our lives.


The one on the left is Kurenai, Leo (written Reo). He is introduced first when he meets Hayato in Gachiban Worstmax and has his own movie with Gachiban Tribal after that. He is, well he is not downright bad as we get to see from time to time, but he has had a really terrible life thus far, has been betrayed over and over and has to stand in for his fathers failures. He says that money is the only thing that has never betrayed him, so that is all he cares about. He grew up in a bad environment and learned the hard way, so being brutal is kind of normal for him. He really is not a good person, but you can see that he still is just a boy.

Kurenai Leo

I love that in both characters. They have their own backgrounds, their upbringings, their dreams, their ways of seeing things and that is all very human and real. They try, and sometimes they win and sometimes they fail. They are not good and not bad, they may be misguided about some things in life, but that's the way it is for many people on earth. They are not the comic-versions of yankii you see so often in movies. (But other characters in the movies are sadly).


There are two or three other movies from the Gachiban Series I want to mention. Gachiban Supermacy 1 and 2, and Gachiban Chronicle. In Supremacy1 Hayato tries to improve his life by learning and getting a job like a normal person (The portrayal of his character in this movie is just really really great!) and in Supremacy2 Leo gets to go to school and may find out that there is more to life than money. (I love his character in this one so much. I feared that he gets all nice and normal by the end of this movie but luckily he doesn't. Sorry small spoiler that was.) And in Chronicle the two of them meet again .... and they dance XD) although I don't really enjoy that movie because I feel sorry for Hayato.

Gachiban Worstmax

The bad thing about these movies is that another character is the protagonist or second protagonist in them, Mori Monji. I hate this guy. He is the ultimate comic-kinda-I-have-to-play-a-yankii-and-why-is-he-so-strong-anyway?-type. Hate him. He is the reason I skip the most part of those three movies everytime I watch them now. Since I know now what happens in the movies that is no big deal but I can't just watch them whithout skipping cause he is f*** annoying.


So ranted a bit about Monji and told you about some awesome movies. That should do it for today ^^.
You can watch some of them on youtube but sadly mostly without subtitles. I can understand them in japanese but it is not like I could translate them..sorry for that...so hopefully someone else did this or can do this...I don't know. If you can understand japanese or want to watch them anyways just to see what I was talking about, then do so. Watch them! ^^ They are the best Yankii-movies I have seen so far (I liked watching Crows Zero and Drop too though, and some others. I will tell you about them next time.)

Bye

Paranorman

A bit late, but I finally watched the movie "Paranorman" and it is great! I really enjoyed watching it. The character designer did a great job. And it is like "Coraline" a very spooky and sometimes downright frightening movie. Which you wouldn't really expect from stopmotion. And funny of course and disgusting - at least one scene was.

There are two things that annoy me though. First there was a scene in the movie that had the (for an outsider-movie) typical "Nobody ever listens to me" whining of the protagonist, which didn't feel like a natural reaction at this particular moment. If you've watched the movie you will know what scene I am talking about. The other thing was the morals it had. Sure movies tend to have something to tell you but I am generally no friend of morals in media. Sure it is necessary sometimes, but does it have to be in a fun and spooky tale about a zombie-curse. I mean, come on, people who watch this don't want to have that "this is a bad world but we can make it better if we are nice to each other and hug every day"fluffy we can do it kind of thing. At least that's what I thought while watching the end.
Nonetheless I would recommend you to watch this movie if you haven't done so already.