Do you know the elephant man?

[nenena]

Ladies and gentlemen, a Japanese vision of Ganesha:



That is the cover illustration to Mizuno Keiya's bestselling novel Yume wo Kanaeru Zō ("The Wish-Granting Elephant"). The book is about an ambitious but lazy salaryman who one day discovers that the Hindu god Ganesha is crashing at his house. And "crashing" is the right word for it - In this story, Ganesha is described as a NEET whose major habit is "sleeping." But Ganesha promises to dispense advice to the salaryman to help him find success in life. The blurb on the jacket of the book sells it like an Odd Couple story: "The ambitious but failing salaryman and the good-for-nothing god! A fantasy story full of love and smiles!"

Although the book doesn't read like a coherent story at all, it's more of a series of pithy self-help speeches delivered by a chain-smoking down-on-his-luck elephant god who speaks in the dialect of a grouchy 120-year-old Japanese man.

And check out this excellent introductory animation. Excellent.

The best part? The book is apparently slated to become a TV drama sometime later this year. If this at all involves some Japanese dude wearing a giant rubber elephant costume, I am so there. I mean, it couldn't possibly be worse than dressing up a white British dude in a cardboard elephant mask and calling him God, right?

Aw, who am I kidding. The Japanese version of Ganesha will probably be CGI.

Comments

[goldenflames.livejournal.com]

The one good thing about the Peter Brooks Mahabharata is that in many ways, us Mbh fans can't be disappointed any more... I mean, Krishna magically appearing with his scarf tied to Draupadi's sari (instead of doing the whole magically beaming her new saris bit)? Seriously?


a series of pithy self-help speeches delivered by a chain-smoking down-on-his-luck elephant god who speaks in the dialect of a grouchy 120-year-old Japanese man

Now that I'm looking forward to.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite part in the film version of Peter Brook's Mahabharata is when Krishna carried Shikhandi's arrow, in slow motion, over to Bhisma's chest. That was priceless. I mean, I realize that some things have to be adapted in unusual ways in order to "work" in a stage production, but come on.

That, and the casting annoyed me to no end. Brooks goes on and on about how "diverse" his cast is, but it still breaks down along racially stereotyped lines: God is a white British dude. So is the dharmaraj. The kick-ass martial artist is a Japanese man. The super-strong childlike (and slightly savage) Pandava is a black man. There are only two other black actors in the cast, and they're both demons. The demons are marked as distinctly "African" and "savage." There's only one Indian man in the cast and he's RE-USED for multiple characters. The white actors are never recycled for multiple roles, but the Asian actors are. ARGH. There is NOTHING progressive or "diverse" about that casting. NOTHING.

Sorry, mini-rant. That's definitely the one thing that MOST pissed me off about Brook's Mahabharata. That, and I read some rather interesting articles about how much of a shithead he was during his "research" tour of India, and how badly he treated the actual Indian actors and storytellers that he conscripted to help with his research.

[goldenflames.livejournal.com]

-snicker-

I also loved the Arjuna-Karna duel... I mean, the chariots were going so slowly a small child could have run over and killed Karna.

The way they re-use actors confuses the hell out of me. I still remember being confused out of my mind when I saw the actress who played Madri, also play Hidimbi. Come to think of it, I'm checking IMDB right now, and apparently there's an actress who plays Virata's daughter and another who plays Abhimanyu's wife -blinks in confusion-.

I was watching the Behind-the-Scenes on the DVD, and while they were interviewing Mallika Sarabhai (famous Indian classical dancer who played Draupadi), she said that she actually had to make them change a bunch of things to be more true to the original story. It makes you wonder how trainwrecky things would have been if she didn't do that.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the recycling of actors confused me too. Like they used the same guy for Pandu, Virata, and Shiva. And I was like, bwuh?

The "diverse casting" thing also backfires when you're supposed to have characters related to each other. Especially when you have "identical twins" who look nothing alike. And a Japanese man (Drona) magically having an Irish kid (Aswatthama) for a son. I mean, I understand the artistic vision that Brooks was aspiring to, I really do. I understand how he wanted to make it a universal story by having a diverse, multinational cast. But there are some things - like having a Japanese man with an Irish son - that are just going to jolt people right out of the story, and cause more snickering among your audience than not.

The Arjuna/Karna duel is only awesome if you watch it on fast-forward. But then again, fast-forward makes everything awesome, so that's not saying much.

I remember watching that part of the Behind-The-Scenes DVD too. And I was also wondering just how bad things would have been if she hadn't intervened. I shudder to think how Draupadi would have been portrayed.

The one redeeming thing I will say about the Brooks version, though, is that it's really a fantastic portrayal of Duryodhana. Wonderfully deep and nuanced.

[goldenflames.livejournal.com]

As much as I love my Krishna, Arjuna, and Karna, I think Duryodhana totally stole the show. Now if only we could get an Indian actor to put forward the same dedication... but that'll never happen. Since Duryodhana's bad, naturally he must be played by a bristly-mustache-wearing villain-type (as much as I liked Puneet Issar in the B.R. Chopra version, I would prefer someone who didn't give off quite so many muahahaha-I-am-eeeeeeeevil vibes).

I completely agree with you on the casting issue. Recycling actors like that (combined with the plethora of loincloths) made me wonder whether he had budget issues. I mean, when my 6-year-old brother can design a better chariot, you know you've got issues.

[orthoflame.livejournal.com]

I have not seen Peter Brook's adaption of the Mahabharata, but I don't think I want to rent it after all. The Hindu god/goddess serials that'd run on Zee TV sound much better (in terms of quality).

Awwh, the Japanese version of Ganesh looks cute in an odd way. I don't get what's up with his chain-smoking tendency, though. :\ Regardless, I like the introductory animation.

The upcoming TV drama sounds pretty cool. I wouldn't mind Ganesh being a CGI, but I wouldn't want him looking like Krishna in that one CG-animation movie.