Eiko Mizuno: Chinese Animation and Dramas

2022/12/13

I entered university in 1977, the year after the Cultural Revolution ended in China. Since I liked classical Chinese and had decided on a Major in Chinese Literature, I took an elective Chinese lab class at Hiyoshi where Professor Chen Wenzhi of the NHK TV Chinese Course showed us the latest post-Cultural Revolution short animations, "Bamboo Shoots Growing in the House" and "The Cowboy's Flute." Since I couldn't understand spoken Chinese yet, she probably showed us animations with almost no dialogue. The cute, paper-cut-like illustrations of the former and the poetic atmosphere of the latter, resembling a beautiful landscape painting, left a deep impression on me; they were the first Chinese films I ever saw, long before I made a living translating subtitles for Chinese cinema.

Forty years have passed since then, and I am deeply moved to have had the opportunity to translate "The History of Chinese Animation 1922–2017," published by the Commercial Press in China. Most of what I learned about Chinese animation was new to me, and I discovered that the two animations I saw in my freshman year are known as "paper-cut animation" and "ink-wash animation," and are highly acclaimed not only in China but also abroad. Last year, the 2019 animation "White Snake," for which I translated the subtitles and the Japanese dubbed script for its theatrical release, was also a work that evoked the tradition of ink-wash animation. The Japanese edition of "The History of Chinese Animation" was published by Juritsu-sha on November 25th.

In recent years, production costs for Chinese films have soared, leading to fewer theatrical releases by Japanese distributors; instead, streaming for films and satellite broadcasting for dramas have become the mainstream. The drama series "The Golden Eyes," which I am currently translating and which has been airing on BS12 since November, is a modern drama likely purchased due to the popularity of its lead, Lay Zhang, a Chinese actor and former K-pop idol. I wasn't initially keen on an "idol drama," but the story follows a young man with eyes that can see through the authenticity of antiques and raw jade; set against the backdrop of China's recent antique boom, it proved to be a work well worth an adult audience's time.

Like many long-form Chinese dramas, this series consists of 56 episodes, each 40 minutes long. Since it airs twice a week, I have to translate eight episodes a month. However, because the content is so interesting, it isn't a burden at all, and I find it very enjoyable to translate the detailed knowledge about antiques. The protagonist, a Peking University history graduate with mysterious clairvoyant powers, is described in the drama as the reincarnation of Feng Quan—a figure with a supernatural eye for appraisal from "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" (Liaozhai Zhiyi), a collection of ghost stories by Pu Songling of the Qing Dynasty. Every day, I find myself reconnecting with the world of Chinese classics, discovering stories I never knew existed.