With the recent announcements made by both Netflix Japan and
Amazon Japan that they will be putting out original locally made
content, the country seems to be moving further into the age of
internet-based TV. And it appears that the team at Netflix could be one
step ahead with the recent release of its latest homegrown show.
“Hibana” (“Spark”) became available to stream via the service on June
3, and the title is currently available in 190 countries and
territories — a first for Netflix Japan — and subtitled in 19 languages,
with the ultimate aim to have that number reach 24. The 10-episode
drama is based on the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel by comedian Naoki
Matayoshi, which has sold more than 2.5 million copies, and Netflix is
hopeful for a high viewer count both at home and abroad.
“It’s just a really good story, when it comes down to it,” Greg
Peters, president of Netflix Japan, tells The Japan Times at the
company’s office in Tokyo’s Aoyama neighborhood. “While it’s set in this
manzai (Japanese stand-up comedy) world, which can seem
extremely domestic in one sense, the core story elements are really
about the interaction between two people. And this human interaction is
set in a broader theme of what happens when you fall in love with an art
form and pursue it despite all rational reasons not to. I think that
these two elements have a degree of universality to them.”
The two characters Peters is referring to are aspiring comedian
Tokunaga (Kento Hayashi) and manzai talent Kamiya (Kazuki Namioka).
After a chance meeting, Tokunaga pleads with Kamiya to take him on as an
apprentice. The older comic agrees and their journey together begins,
but the pair eventually follow different paths.
“The mentor-apprentice, or
senpai-
kōhai
relationship, as well as the passion in pursuing something are also very
Japanese,” Peters says. “So it’s a great opportunity to present a story
that is authentically Japanese, but relatable to a much broader
audience.”
The production team on “Hibana” is also promising. Although the
episodes have been split up between five directors, Ryuichi Hiroki —
known for “Tokyo Trash Baby” (2000), “Vibrator” (2003) and “Yawarakai
Seikatsu” (2005) — is at the helm of the creative alliance.
“Basically, you can consider this a 10-hour Japanese art movie,”
Peters says. “The (leading) director, Ryuichi Hiroki, makes visually
stylized, emotional, atmospheric works, and people around the world love
his films. With this project we can give them a drama that has the same
sensibilities, and connect them to the story.”
And he’s positive that Netflix will even be able to reach out to film
fans that are new to Japanese content and culture. Peters believes that
“Hibana” will make its way to screens around the world, with a little
help from its ever-expanding user database.
“Because of the nature of our service, global availability and, more
importantly, our recommendation system (at Netflix), we can have people
who love French movies or art movies and have never seen a Japanese
drama in their life,” he explains. “But we know the kinds of stories and
treatments that they like, so we can recommend ‘Hibana’ to them, and
find a much bigger audience.”
But can the project appeal to a mass audience?
“I think the thing you don’t want to do is shift away from something
that is authentic to make it globally appealing,” Peters says. “It’s
about being authentic and giving the creators all the tools to tell the
story at a really high level of quality, both in terms of a production
and technical standpoint.”
Sure enough, Peters is confident that Netflix provides creators with
the necessary financial backing to make a quality production.
“We have around $6 billion to spend on licensing and production this
year,” he says, referring to a recent announcement by the head office.
“And our job is to find the places to make the best of that. In fact
with ‘Hibana,’ when there were opportunities to, we would spend more. We
didn’t want to be limited by budget.”
And with the production being led by entertainment conglomerate
Yoshimoto Kogyo, which represents the country’s most popular comedians,
there are no doubts with regard to the show’s cultural credibility.
“The things that make people laugh differ between countries,” says
Katsuaki Yamaji, the director of content business and production at
Yoshimoto’s creative arm. “So we put our effort in trying to make
something that is not forced to adapt to an international audience, but
to show that ‘Hibana’ is funny in Japan. Manzai is simply about talking
into a mic — it’s something that anyone can try their hand at if they
want to. It’s a job full of dreams and we want to express the appeal of
manzai to the world through this series.”
When it comes to quality entertainment, however, many internationally
minded film and TV show aficionados might be cautiously skeptical when
it comes to Japanese drama and mass-media entertainment in general. A
firmly established commercial tie-up system in addition to predictable
casting from the same pool of big-name actors and, in many cases,
tarento (showbiz personalities) and teen pop stars, are often seen as major detriments to the industry’s reputation.
“It’s important that the team has artistic freedom, and they’re not
restrained by what the sponsor is going to think or other
‘administrative’ people around them,” Peters insists. “So they can
realize the potential in their work, which I think makes something
globally attractive. Our job is to be ‘creator-enabling'; the team’s job
is to have a vision, and then execute it. Ours is to enable them and
then get out of the way. And I think the creators are excited by it and
enjoy the freedom.”
Indeed, Yamaji agrees that Netflix’ creative process has allowed for a solid adaptation of Matayoshi’s novel.
“We like the ‘creativity first’ attitude that Netflix has,” he says.
“We were able to express the story while staying true to the original
work.”
And when it comes to casting, the roster has a distinctly indie feel
to it — though there is the arguably questionable addition of Sayaka
Yamamoto, who belongs to mega-idol group AKB48’s sister unit NMB48.
Peters admits that Japan’s is a talent-driven entertainment world.
“We don’t know yet if it’s because this is inherent to Japan, as in
its viewer preference, or if it’s an artifact of the ‘structures’ in the
industry,” Peters says. “But I think what we’ll be able to do is
experiment and see how a great story told by unknown actors does, and
discover exactly what it is that people get attracted to when they want
to watch a piece of content.”
And again, when it comes to authenticity, the team paid special care to a certain linguistic criterion.
“We made sure that the cast could all speak in the Kansai dialect,”
Yamaji says. “With Yoshimoto productions, there sometimes tends to be
comedians cast for leading roles. However, with ‘Hibana’ we made sure
that the main characters were played by professional actors, and added
more reality by casting real comedians for supporting parts.”
The era of online television continues to grow overseas, but it’s
still too early to tell if it will be as big in Japan. “Underwear”
(“Atelier”), a series that was produced by Fuji Television for Netflix
Japan, received some good reviews from critics abroad but who knows if a
local production will be able to manage to create the kind of
international buzz a series like “House of Cards” or “Orange is the New
Black” has received.
“The global virtual audience that now exists spans all these
borders,” Peters says as he spreads his arms out. “Just as there are
fans of Hollywood in Japan, there are die-hard anime fans in France,
Brazil, the U.S. and all over the world. There’s this tremendous
potential in Japan; so many stories — the manga, the novels — and now we
have the opportunity to unlock this potential in a way that hasn’t been
able to be done before.”
