by Chris MaGeeWhile a new film about teen angst and young love is not really unique the origin of the upcoming film "Akai Ito (Red Thread)" is. The story of the trials and tribulations of a teenage girl (first love, an ill father, a friend using drugs) is based on a "cell phone novel", a new literary form that's come out of Japan in the past few years.
Starting with the 2003 "novel" "Deep Love" written by an author named simply Yoshi cell phone novels have become a phenomena with college students in Japan and China. The chapters, usually only 70 words in length, are text messaged on cell phones, plus there are websites where people can download these novels directly to their phones. Any of you who are familiar with hypertext fiction or micro fiction will see how this new novel is a natural progression from those two movements.
"Akai Ito" was written by an author who uses the pen name Mei and had over 36 million hits after it appeared online in 2006. Upon its paperback release the following year it sold 1.8 million copies. Seeing potential for a film the folks at Shochiku have tagged director Shosuke Murakami, who brought the online diary of an otaku in love "Densha Otoko" to the big screen in 2006, to adapt "Akai Ito" into a feature film... but the story of "Akai Ito" doesn't end there.
"Akai Ito" will be released in Japanese theatres on December 20th, the same day that an "Akai Ito" TV series will premiere on Fuji TV. How's that for cross-promotion?
Check out the teaser trailer for "Akai Ito" below, and thanks to Variety Asia Online for the story.
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1 comment:
I was really fascinated by the progression of "kettai" novels and so I'd like to read Akai Ito. Since I don't know japanese do you possibly know where can I get an online translation of the novel? That would be really apreciated and thank you for the article!
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