Having constantly tested my hand at writing think-pieces and reviews, I've slowly developed a knack for conveying my thoughts to others. Of course, there are still ideas that are hard to make tangible, but through constant diction retooling and communication with others, I've made strides in closing that gap. And for many, the dictionary has been an asset in aiding in this process. Well, that's what I would have said 15-years ago. Today, the dictionary—and by extension, a great deal of printed media—has almost been made obsolete by the internet and advancements in technology. Every possible definition, both contemporary and antiquated, is just a click away. But like anything that had a home in humanity's cultural development and upbringing, there are still those that cherish the ways of yesteryear.
As convenient as it is to have hundreds of books stored on a tablet, nothing beats the feeling of pages between your fingers as you flip through a good book. Any MP3 nowadays can house thousands of songs on the go, but there are still those that champion the personal touch of vinyl. Saving a moment is only one phone pic away, yet the Polaroid camera still has millions of hipsters and enthusiasts alike shaking images to life. But those are just the popular examples, ones that most outsiders looking in could still comprehend the sentimentality behind it. But what about content that doesn't register with most? Appeals, that, at first glance, feel very obtuse.
Fune wo Amu, The Great Passage, basically explores one facet of that kind of unique appeal, but instead of limiting it to the object of affection alone, in this case, the dictionary, it instead dials back to the core reason for why someone might cherish it, in the first place. An understandable position once you peer into the headspace of the main character Mitsuya Majime; a man who can barely mutter his thoughts out loud without clamming up, despite his devoted fascination for semantics.
A bashful man with an obsession for wording and their meaning, yet unable to utilize this talent verbally. A unique passion that runs contradictory to his very closed-off nature. I know what you're thinking, an awesome setup for a story, right? Well, almost. You see, as fascinating of an idea that this may have been, when it boils down to it, the subject matter was about as exciting as the subject itself. There's a passion for dictionaries that are clearly there, but like the actual object itself, this passion was sterile and lacking in emotional range. And for a story about words and the various expressions that it can convey, that's a crying shame.
But before we go any further, let's make this clear, Fune wo Amu is by no means a "bad" show, it's just a very lackluster one. In fact, it contained some of the more realistic character depictions in 2016's anime lineup, deciding to leave behind erratic personalities and commonplace archetypes for a more grounded performance in a world that's pretty much aligned with our own. Where portrayal of emotions in anime are usually capped off with exaggerated interpretations, this title instead chooses to substitute that with nuances in both their mannerism and body language, effectively defining the individuals on screen without degrading who they are. Even the changes in vocal inflections are accounted for, a detail that most shows neglect altogether. And as if that wasn't enough, to further sell these characters as proper representations of adults, the show adopted body models that are more anatomically accurate than what's usually given by the medium, recruiting the talented Haruko Kumota, the artist responsible for the look of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu's cast, as the original character designer.
For all intents and purposes, given this dedication to craft Fune as an adult-orientated slice-of-life drama, the final product should have been something I adore. It checks off all the boxes for things I seek out in works of this nature. Shouwa Rakugo was one of my favorite anime entries of 2016 for that very reason. So when I give Fune the cold shoulder, know that I'm doing so out of genuine concern for its lack of vision. For everything that Fune could have aspired for, it ultimately veers off into ho-hum territory.
Following the footsteps of an unimpressive, mild-mannered klutz named Mitsuya Majime, Fune gives us an insider perspective, as Majime makes his way through a crowd of disinterested faces. Each one of these people in the ever-shifting collective makes up the busy prefecture that hosts as the stomping grounds for Majime's unsuccessful business venture as a salesman under Genbu Shobo's publishing firm; a job he seems to be all at once perfect for, given his skill-set, but terrible at due to his personality. Passive to a fault and cumbersome in every verbal exchange he has with others, Majime is far from the ideal image of Japan's working class. With nothing to draw back on but his love for words, there are very few applicable situations where he's needed. What good is it to be a word-smith when trying to hold a conversation leads to awkward jibber-jabber? Trapped with a burning desire to express himself but not gifted with enough gusto or social tact to do so, Majime makes no reservations about his limited usefulness, as he willingly keeps his head down to avoid any further degradation. So when he's approached by Kouhei Araki to fulfill a soon-to-be-vacant editorial job for constructing a new dictionary, the stars couldn't have been more aligned.
With a task that's tailor-made for his dilemma, Majime was finally given an outlet to unload his passion constructively. And in the process of doing so, was also given a chance to warm up to people in a manner he thought was previously impossible for the likes of him.
With a setup that could carry with it the same potency as 2010s The King's Speech, while allowing for a more grounded backdrop due to its quaint, smaller-scale setting, Fune had all the makings of a humbling journey with promises of catharsis scattered along the way. It's the kind of screenplay that would go on to become Oscar-bait material in the hands of any veteran director, and for anime, another testament to its strength in crafting maturely handled stories. And in some ways, Fune does count as another entry in that category, just one that wouldn't register high on my list of exceptional examples.
The story of this dictionary taking form was ultimately just a container to help examine the cast of characters in various stages of growth in their lives. Because of the daunting 10-year production cycle needed to create a dictionary, this time allowed the viewers the opportunity to pick apart the things that made the individual characters tick, as well as a chance to examine the small pockets of interactions that occurred among themselves, including how they all chose to deal with certain situations along the way. So in essence, Fune wo Amu, The Great Passage, was quite literally "the great passage" of these regular peoples' lives.
Instead of following the accomplishments of someone destined for a space in the annals of history, Fune shifts its focus to an industry that gets no standing ovation from anyone. The unsung "heroes" in their publishing field. But despite that angle, it's never really about applauding their efforts, as it's more about showing unison of the ways of old with the changing times of new. And with a dictionary used as the vehicle to express that idea—with a young, soft-spoken protagonist who's out of touch with the rest of the world being used as a conduit to deliver it—the initial message became far more significant than any single person involved by the time we reached the final resting stop.
Now, if the show had translated this idea as well as it sounded on paper, I would have been here today singing its praises, but as I've expressed before, that's not how it worked out.
If I wanted a maturely handled cast of adult characters who expressed various emotions and understood their situation with sobering clarity, while at the same time being genuinely engaged with what was being displayed on screen, there are animated movies like Only Yesterday or TV series like the aforementioned Shouwa Rakugo around to fulfill that need. Both of which operated within a familiar playing field like Fune but done so in a way that any person of intended age could take seriously. Fune doesn't share in that quality in the way that you'd expect it to, coming off more milquetoast in a miscalculated attempt to be adult in quality. So despite its ability to demonstrate restraint to allow for natural human behavior in its cast, the actual content itself felt unrealistically lopsided—an issue that's easily identifiable once you key in on the kind of agenda it's trying to push forward.
Fune wants its content to remain within a limited operating capacity of expression, as if it's afraid of being too playful as to lose the audience's respect. There are attempts to alleviate this problem, with characters such as Masashi Nishioka, who's the "life of the party," constantly prattling to entertain the group while also using it as a defense mechanism to keep from having to express his concerns truly. Or even with the tack-on middle sequences in every episode, that saw the series use chibi dictionary caricatures as cut-scenes to help alleviate the monotony of the constant unassertive tone. Personally, I found it distracting but the intent behind it was still understandable. When the show was in danger of being too dull, this became its defense tactic, but when it came time to demonstrate any other kinds of real emotion, it diverted from having to do so in ways too apparent to truly ignore.
For example, when our main character found himself infatuated with a woman, instead of using it to explore facets of himself—as what usually occurs when we find ourselves attracted to others—it chose to take the easy route by having a romance predicated on one word of cluttered dialogue exchange and a letter chock-full of convoluted word passages. This robbed the chances for any genuine relationship to blossom over a period of time. Yes, he took the initiative to get to that point, but for a show dealing with adults in a somewhat realistic setting, the conclusion was only viable in something pumped out by a sappy Disney/Pixar production. The show has the humanistic aspect nailed down but skittishly avoids the endeavors that truly make us humans, human. The essence was missing. The struggle was removed by diverting the content away from it or by skipping any natural rough-stage altogether. Would The King's Speech win the Oscar for Best Picture by avoiding the uphill endeavor of the main character to express himself out loud? Probably not. Where other titles would display the gradual growth that molds the main character, in Fune, that struggle, that humanity, was quite literally time-skipped away.
And as a result, we get content that's more suited to pacify the audience than something that you could fully take seriously. The investment was gone. All emotional range removed. A bad mixture of realistic characters given escapist solutions, making all conflict rendered pointless, no matter how much it tried to dissuade the audience from taking notice. It being so maturely handled wasn't to its benefit, it became the problem, because, at the end of the day, it wasn't realistically portrayed in all facets of adult growth. Instead of presenting the full-color spectrum of life, it chose broad monochromatic brushstrokes of melancholy and tender passages of satisfaction to box all of its content within.
The only time the show doesn't suppress itself was at the very end, where it had scenes that loosen the vice grip on the characters' feelings to freely exhaust that pent-up emotion that should have been there all along. And even then, these moments of cathartic release are still registered with halfhearted resolve since the momentum to them was practically nonexistent.
And again, Fune is not a bad show. It's all of its strengths that make the weaknesses too hard to look away from. You really want the best for it. You really want to put it on the pedestal as the exception to the rule. But with content that only half commits, it's frustrating to have to give it a back-handed compliment instead.
From using the Ferris wheel as a motif to express the connectivity of life in a slow cyclical motion, to the very earnest appeal of its cast, Fune was a show that I wanted to fully get behind. Clocking in at 11-episodes, it's something you could finish in just one sitting. With Amazon Prime's abysmal marketing of this series, it has mostly gone unnoticed by many. And despite all of my qualms, I would still like it to receive a far bigger viewer base than it currently has. It didn't accomplish as much as I wanted it to, but the show was still able to muster up all of its efforts in the end. This all culminated towards an uplifting conclusion that sees life going on with words bringing connection from one generation to the next. This may not be much of an endorsement given how much I've put the title down, but I still think Fune has something that shouldn't be so quickly discarded. And if only for that reason alone, Fune wo Amu gets a light pass from me.
