Karin Amamiya, Kamikaze Queen

[thomas]

"Glory to the Yamato race"

Japanese nationalistic hardcore punk, it exists. I just watched a feature about Karin Amamiya who is the female vocalist of a ultra-nationalist punk band called "Revolutionary Truth". Her life was documented by filmmaker Yutaka Tsuchiya. It's an insightful reflection of Japan's young generation, its problems, its political indifference, its void.

Leftist filmmaker Yutaka Tsuchiya turns his camera on the controversial life and politics of Karin Amamiya in this timely documentary. Karin reveals how the Nationalist movement gave voice to her anger and how she in turn gives voice to the movement. Tsuchiya's decidedly anti-Emperor stance is at direct odds with Karin who has lived her life without doubting the absoluteness of the emperor's status as a "God"...until now. Over the course of the film, Karin is transformed by her relationship with Tsuchiya and the video camera. Tackling such tough questions as how one finds one's own identity in the face of American hegemony and “suffocating peace,” Karin begins to question whether in fact it is the video camera, which records and reflects her every move, that has become the "New God" to her generation. In the tradition of documentaries such as The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, Tsuchiya unflinchingly explores the neo-fascist movement and its intersection with taboo topics like official worship of the war dead and Japanese nationalism in an effort to understand the cultural void it seems to fill in fin-de-siecle Japan.

=> http://www.uoregon.edu/~baskett/filmfest/NewGod.htm

Related links:

Karin Amamiya's Homepage

=> http://www3.tokai.or.jp/amamiya/

Review: The New God

=> http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/thenewgod.shtml

Below: Karin Amamiya (center), Yutaka Tsuchiya (right)

[den4]

huh....that link was for the UofO, eh? Used to go there for my studies.....learned japanese there to find out how much I didn't know when i finally got to japan....learned also that the admin office there were lazy bastards that kept losing my records....bleah..