Taiyou no Mokushiroku: A Spirit of the Sun

On August 10 2002, the eruption of Mount Fuji, as well as a series of large-scale earthquakes tsunamis inflict tremendous damage to Japan, sending the country into a state of emergency. Furthermore, another massive earthquake hit Japan on August 15, splitting the country into two. While Japanese refugees were taken in by various countries, the Japanese government accepted aid from China and the United States, which eventually caused China to govern the North, and the USA to govern the South. 15 years later, the Japanese refugees residing in Taiwan and the Taiwanese citizens find themselves clashing with one another, due to job competition and the unimproving conditions of the Japanese refugees. Genichiro Ryu is a survivor of the catastrophic events that took place in Japan, but was raised in Taiwan by a couple who adopted him. He gets himself involved in the situation between the Taiwanese and the Japanese, hoping that the two parties will be able to coexist with one another.

(Source: ANN)

Ryuu, Genichirou Main

Matsuda, Youji Japanese

Yang Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Kitaura, Hiroyuki Producer

Hosokawa, Osamu Producer

Kojima, Masayuki Director, Storyboard

Shimizu, Youji Sound Director

Reviews

Apr 3, 2012

lisnoire

Recommended

Wow. Talk about an under viewed, underrated wonder.

I'd been wanting to watch this since I noticed it as a "similar to" recommendation in relation to Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 but it took a long time to find it streaming and subbed.

Although the animation started off pretty stiff, I instantly recognized the hand of Kawaguchi, Kaiji, the creator of my beloved Zipang as well as a number of other sophisticated seinen manga. It doesn't take long for the impact of the story and the characters to overtake the rough animation, animation that does, by the way, show definite improvement in the second half ... of this two part TV Special.

Each episode is 77 minutes long. The first half focuses brilliantly on devastation, death, heroics, self-sacrifice, and survival as a series of earthquakes and volcanic activity literally tears Japan in half. Having experienced the eruption of Mt. St. Helens (yes, I'm that old) I found the way they illustrated the side blowing off Mt. Fuji interesting and the focus on the ash rather than streams of lava interesting and yes, quite realistic. I'd put it right up there with most any disaster film. The second part of the story is set 15 years later and centers around a less than comfortable Japanese refugee camp on Taiwan where new friendships and loyalties are formed, old connections are renewed and the struggle for survival continues but in a new but equally dangerous way.

The story and characters warrant a 10 but the art . . . . well, not the "art" but the animation, does drag it down. Just don't let it put you off. The story is worth it.

Apart from some good background music during the disaster scenes, I didn't particularly notice it so I'd say it does its job just fine.

There are no robots, no school festivals, no magic, no ecchi, etc. Taiyou no Mokushiroku: A Spirit of the Sun is solid Seinen. Kawaguchi deftly plucks bits and pieces from current headlines and weaves them into a gripping tale of geopolitics, economics, gangsters, street thugs, terrorists, racism, family ties, and loyalty that stung my eyes with tears more than once. As with Zipang, it is really pretty realistic if a touch "over the top" at times but in a good way. It stops in a good place but does leave you ready for the next installment but, seeing as how TnM was aired in 2006, I'm just going to read the continuation and conclusion in Taiyou no Mokishiroku Dainibu: Kenkokuhen . . . . if it ever gets translated . . . .

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 10, 2025

immosha

Not Recommended

A contrived argument on nationalistic politics by Japanese refugees in Taiwan, animated by Koreans.

The writing is not good. Most of the time you will end up bursting in laughter because every event is contrived and the direction is not generally good enough to convey seriousness when someone gets shot up or dies in a whirlpool. That said, there are very few anime that delve into Taiwanese politics like this movie series does, so I feel compelled to take it at face value.

Following a Japan Sinks or Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 take on a post-apocalyptic Japan, we follow the stories of Japanese refugees trying to ... eke out in an increasingly nationalistic Taiwan. The political thriller moves extremely fast and often jumps from genre to genre within the span of 20 mins, from Japanese trying to become Taiwanese, to terrorists attempting to nation-build, to... Taiwanese gangsters? Probably this is an allegory of refugees and stateless peoples across the world (Palestinians get a jumpscare shoutout here), but the ridiculous plot devices and caricatures that lead up to the in-universe political situation make this... very hard to take seriously. Maybe this was an allegory of Korea's partition by the Soviets and Americans, which would elucidate why so many Koreans agreed to animate genga for this Japanese sob story.

I will shout this series out for one incredibly specific prediction though - it successfully managed to predict a female DPP president named Tsai in the year 2017, which it managed to predict better than the Fukushima earthquake.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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