Reevaluating the Films of Hayao Miyazaki and the Anglophone Discourse Around Him and His Works

Promoting "Porco Rosso" in 1992

A few months ago I saw that a new version of the “Director Hayao Miyazaki's Works Collection” blu-ray box was being rereleased early July in Japan from Walt Disney Home Video. Previously released about a decade ago, this new edition was to include his latest film, “The Boy and the Heron (How Do You Live?)”. While I had the vast majority of Miyazaki’s films on DVD, I had not collected any of his films on blu-ray with the exception of “Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro”, of which I had bought the Japanese version which contained English subtitles. I got this version to avoid the existing English language blu-rays which completely replaced the credits with English ones.

From “Spirited Away (Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away)” onwards, I had started to find it more difficult to figure what he was trying to say with his works, and gradually became quite frustrated with him as a director. I felt that Miyazaki’s films had become rather surreal and a little nonsensical. I also noted his insistence on including odd black gloopy creatures, or similar, which seemed to inhabit almost every single one of his films since “Princess Mononoke”. But it was “The Wind Rises” which rankled me the most. I did not understand that film due to the fact it was trying to mesh two plots together unsuccessfully, jammed in a weird subplot about a German man who resists the Nazis, and quite frankly the subject matter was a difficult sell. It addition having the monotone Hideaki Anno voice the main character (and whose voice is very distinctive) was baffling to me. I didn’t even bother getting that film on DVD or blu-ray when it came out after watching it in the cinema.

The blu-ray box set

However, I went and saw “The Boy and the Heron (How Do You Live?)” and thought it was his best film in the last 20 or more years. With the deprecating yen, the blu-ray box set only cost me a little less than AU$600, which for 12 films plus a couple of bonus discs I thought was a fantastic deal. The only issue was “Cagliostro” wasn’t subtitled unlike the other films, which I was fine with as I had already had that one on blu-ray. Curiously all of the special features that appear on individually released blu-rays, like theatrical trailers, had been stripped out of the discs in this set. It also included the music video/short film of Chage and Aska's “On Your Mark” on a single disc, which seemed like a waste of a disc as it only runs for seven minutes. The box set also contains two additional discs; the first disc has the pilot film for an unmade TV series of “Yuki’s Sun” from 1972 and three Miyazaki directed TV episodes of “Akado Suzunosuke” from the same time period. The other disc has the full 90 minute 2013 press conference where he announced his retirement. Neither of those discs are subtitled.

Upon watching all 12 films again, I have changed my mind on a few of them and others I have confirmed my like or dislike for them. My absolute favourite films of his are “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind”, “Porco Rosso” and “Princess Mononoke”. That has never changed. The other films I love, but not as much as the first three; “Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro”, “Laputa: Castle in the Sky”, “My Neighbour Totoro”, “Kiki's Delivery Service”, “Howl's Moving Castle” and “The Boy and the Heron (How Do You Live?)” Maybe “Kiki” is the weakest of those films, because at certain points I found it really hard to figure out what was going on in Kiki's head or why she did the things she did. I had changed my mind on “Laputa” and “Howl” from the last time I watched them. I especially came to love the bishounen lead in the latter.

Ponyo

I’ve already talked about my bewilderment over “The Wind Rises”. As for “Sen and Chihiro”, it’s a well-made film brimming with great ideas, but it just left me cold. For some reason it doesn't do a lot for me. For “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea”, Miyazaki aimed for a very young child audience, but I don't think the film has the charm of “Totoro”. Everything in it from its artwork to storyline has been simplified way too much and a lot of it is a bit too surreal. I prefer the way “Totoro” is grounded in reality as such. I am clearly not the key demographic for this film.

Watching the films again, some which I last saw 15 years ago or more, I got to thinking about how anglophone fans of Studio Ghibli, as well as film critics and academia have put Miyazaki and the studio itself on a pedestal. It’s grown to mythical status and dare I say their analysis of his works barely resembles reality. For example, I have always disagreed somewhat with the critical and fandom analysis that Miyazaki is a feminist or shows feminist themes in this work. Or more accurately; I think Miyazaki isn’t as feminist as they make out. I suppose in comparison in western cinema it’s a bit of a low bar to clear. What Miyazaki does is put the female characters in his films on a pedestal. They are idealised versions of girls and women. But what also struck me watching these films again was how the vast majority of characters, male or female, barely stray outside some fairly rigid ideas about masculinity and femininity. In particular I was taken aback by how both Sheeta in “Laputa” and Sophie in “Howl” take on the “homemaker” role in the respective “households” where they do all the cooking and cleaning, without any real complaint, while the men of the households are messy, quite masculine and never help out.

The air pirates volunteering to help Sheeta in "Laputa"

Gina in “Porco Rosso” is also interesting in terms of the way she is presented. While she is very independent for an Italian woman in the late 1920’s, it is really interesting to me that she pines for Porco and continually waits in her garden for him to come to her and confess. Putting aside the fact the film is set in the late 1920’s and the social mores were different, to me that doesn’t really feel all that feminist. In addition, when people make the feminist claim, they almost always state that these themes don’t appear often in most other anime and manga. This is of course a complete load of bollocks. It always amuses me that critics and academia seem to have so much trouble trying to apply the “F” word to Motoko Kusanagi for example. I’d suggest this is because they are overly concerned with her appearance than her actions or how her gender is a complete non issue in most of the stories she appears in. Then we have the elephant in the room that few people really want to address; Miyazaki’s love of young female characters; Clarisse, Nausicaä, Sheeta, Satsuki, Kiki, Fio, Chihiro etc. Dare I go on. It’s not often in his films that a boy or adult woman or man takes centre stage.

I remember when a certain section of US fandom was having conniptions over the moe boom of the 2000’s and almost refused to believe that the character Clarisse from “Cagliostro” was more or less ground zero for the “Lolita Complex” (or “Lolicon” for short) movement/subculture in fandom and in a certain group of mangaka in the early 1980’s (with lolicon having a direct influence on moe). Considering Miyazaki’s love for these kinds of characters in his works, the obvious question pops up; is Miyazaki a lolicon? And please note that I use that expression in the Japanese fandom sense, not in the weird hand wringing anglophone “concern for fictional characters” way. What struck me watching “Laputa” this time around is how the male air pirates, mostly maybe in their early 20’s, have a crush on Sheeta, who is about 13. Add in the anecdote in the 2004 book “The World of Hayao Miyazaki” where at a pub, a drunken Miyazaki proclaimed to Mamoru Oshii “What’s wrong with falling in love with a 12-year-old girl?”. In addition, Miyazaki has said his love for the young girl character Bai-Niang in the 1958 anime film “The White Snake Enchantress (Panda and the Magic Serpent)” was what changed his mind to move from manga into animation.

Future Boy Conan

Prior to watching this box set, a couple of years back I watched his 1978 TV series “Future Boy Conan” again as it had just been released on blu-ray at the time. Watching that series in conjunction with Miyazaki’s films, one theme constantly popped up that people seem to rarely mention; Miyazaki’s idealism around small towns and villages. In “Conan”, the way Miyazaki presents the mechanised Industra versus the island High Harbour is a little bit unsubtle in retrospect. The way the latter was presented initially as some sort of socialist utopia in complete harmony with nature was kind of laughable. This theme also appears in a more subtle way in “Nausicaä”, “Laputa” and “Mononoke”. In addition, you have really idealised homes, surrounded by blooming plants and nature as seen in “Totoro” and to a degree in “The Boy and the Heron”. I guess this ties in with his reoccurring themes of environmentalism and nature, but to me this feels more like a separate theme.

Lastly, Miyazaki is known as being anti-war and a pacifist. Many in academia and fandom alike note his anti-fascist themes. But yet again we have another elephant in the room; his love for war machines. Personally, I can reconcile the fact that you can be very anti-war but also have a deep interest in planes, tanks, ships, guns and other mechanised pieces of military equipment. And of course, everyone knows Miyazaki absolutely loves planes and other flying machines. Putting that aside, lets talk about the plot of “The Wind Rises”. It’s a film about the guy who designed the Mitsubishi A5M and the far more deadly and devastating A6M Zero (the Mitsubishi Zero). In the film, the growing fascism in Japan (and Germany) during the 1920’s and 1930’s is touched upon, but there seems to be no effort made to connect these events with Jiro’s work. There is practically nothing shown of the death and destruction the Mitsubishi A5M and the Mitsubishi A6M Zero caused, nor the fact they were built using slave labour. Compare and contrast how fascism was depicted in “Porco Rosso”. I found it rather astonishing that this was almost never mentioned in reviews or articles in English about the film.

Miyazaki with Otto Carius

Then we have Miyazaki and his manga “A Pig’s Tiger” or “The Return of Hans, Tigers Covered With Mud”. Created as a part of a larger series of illustrated essays for Model Graphix magazine in the early 1990’s, the manga was based on the book “Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius”. This was a memoir of a literal World War II Nazi tank commander, known as a panzer ace, credited with anywhere between 60 and 150 enemy tank kills. Astonishingly Miyazaki met Carius before he published the manga for research purposes. While the manga depicts the Nazi soldiers as anthropomorphic pigs, the anglophone interpretation in some quarters seems to be that Miyazaki is depicting them as fascists. However, in Japanese culture there isn’t an association with pigs and fascists in the same way as there is in the west. Otherwise, how do you explain the depiction of the explicitly anti-fascist Marco Pagot (Porco in “Porco Rosso”)?

It was really nice to revisit Miyazaki’s films again after not watching them for the longest time. For some of these films, I hadn’t watched them for around 15 years or more. For the vast majority I hadn’t watched them since I had bought them on DVD. For me, the point where I started losing interest in Studio Ghibli was the mid to late 2000’s, as the studio and Miyazaki himself, was becoming more mainstream and a lot of critics and academics were overhyping him and ignoring other worthy films and directors. I also felt the studio had almost deliberately sabotaged itself by not nurturing new and upcoming directors. For example, the way Mamoru Hosoda was treated by the studio during the production of “Howl”. After a year of preproduction on the film and having his concepts for the film rejected several times, he left and went on to be a highly regarded director in his own right. The only director besides Miyazaki and Isao Takahata to make more than one film at the studio is Goro Miyazaki, and you could easily argue that he’s pretty mediocre.

Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki

Having said that, even if the studio never makes another feature film ever again, Miyazaki’s legacy is incredible. I have to admit he’s one of the best anime directors ever. No other anime director has won two Oscars, or even one. Or a BAFTA Award. Or a Golden Lion or a Golden Bear. Perhaps he is over hyped by western audiences and critics. But his films will always stick with me, especially “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind”, “Porco Rosso” and “Princess Mononoke”. He is as old as my mother now, 83 years old. And though he’s in far better shape than her, I kind of doubt we’ll get another feature film out of him. He’s also a flawed man. He certainly isn’t the squeaky clean, socialist, feminist old man that a lot of people promote him as. In particular I highly doubt his feminist credentials. However, I still have to respect the man for his body of work and highly enjoyed watching his films on this blu-ray box set.

I Finally Went to a Perfume Concert

I’ve made a few posts over the years about a group I have come to love; Perfume, a J-Pop trio originally from Hiroshima, who went from local idols to nationwide stardom, though this certainly did not happen not overnight. From their first local single release in 2002, it wasn’t until their tenth single release, “Polyrhythm” in late 2007, when they finally had a top 10 hit. In part this was due to change in style from being a purely idol type act to a more sophisticated pop act, more accurately in the electropop and dance pop genres. The success had to do with a change in producer and writer for all of their songs, Yasutaka Nakata of the electronic dance group Capsule, who would later become the writer and producer of all of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s songs. I always found it rather interesting that their management company would take a chance on this relatively unknown dance music producer to work with the group.

Certainly not a one hit wonder, the group followed up “Polyrhythm” with a double platinum album, “Game”, and their following five studio albums debuted at the number one spot (their latest album, their seventh album, only managed to reach number 3 in 2022). In addition every successive single since “Polyrhythm” peaked within the top five, including two number ones. The only exception being their last single which only reached number 9. In addition, they have toured dozens of times, including four small world tours. Nearly 20 of these tours were filmed and released on blu-ray and DVD, with the vast majority going to number 1 on the video sales chart.

Banners by mainland China fan group PerfumeTiebA

I began my love affair with the group after seeing their music video for “Spring of Life” on the now defunct music video show SBS PopAsia in 2012. It wasn’t love at first sight, but they piqued my interest, and after searching out their music videos on Youtube I was smitten. I bought their video clip compilation from Amazon Japan, then in 2015 when I went to Japan for the third time, I went to every single Book Off, Yodobashi Camera, Bic Camera, Tower Records, Kinokuniya and any second-hand record store I could find from Kumamoto to Sendai in order to get their back catalogue. Amusingly the only item I could not find was the “Spring of Life” CD single/DVD set.

I also watched their live shows and collected the vast majority of them on blu-ray. As they progressed, their shows became more and more technically complex with specially shot backdrop videos, lasers, projection mapping onto semi-transparent curtains and even their own clothes and dazzling multi-coloured lighting set ups. Most of this technological wizardry is created and supplied by a creative collective called Rhizomatiks who have worked with the group for well over a decade. In addition, their creative choreography by long-time collaborator Mikiko Mizuno (PKA Mikiko) of the dance troupe Elevenplay (also the choreographer for Babymetal), completes their stage act. It is quite amazing that they can provide so much entertainment since essentially, it’s just three women in their mid-30’s lip syncing and dancing to prerecorded tracks on stage in high heels for two hours.

Ticket and bonuses for fan club members

I had thought about going to see them live in concert for years now. However, there were a couple of issues; it is really hard to get a ticket for their shows in Japan as you need a Japanese phone number and address, none of which I had, and they rarely performed outside of Japan. I felt it was a bit of pipe dream. But then in February this year, they announced the “COD3 OF P3RFUM3 ZOZ5” Asia Tour 2024. This followed on from their Code of Perfume shows in London in June 2023 and second show in Yokohama on New Years Eve to ring in 2024. I was hoping they would play Singapore again as they had played the country twice, once in 2012 and again in 2015. I previously wanted to visit Singapore a decade ago for a convention, which unfortunately didn’t eventuate. But alas, they only announced shows for Hong Kong in early June, and Shanghai, Taipei and Bangkok in July.

I thought long and hard about this, and in the end, it was a toss-up between Hong Kong and Thailand. I had wanted to travel to Hong Kong twice about a decade ago, but again that didn't happen. Both times it was in conjunction with the convention in Singapore. The first time it clashed with a holiday my boss was taking. The second time there were massive protests in Hong Kong, so I decided it was probably for the best that I didn’t go. It was announced that the concert was being held on Saturday 8 June at AsiaWorld-Expo, so I immediately booked the closest hotel, which was linked via a walkway to the expo complex. I decided to give myself some time to look around Hong Kong so I booked from Friday through to Tuesday. I then booked the plane tickets via Cathay Pacific. I also joined their international fanclub, World P.T.A. (with P.T.A. standing for "Perfume to Anata", or "Perfume and you" in English), as they were getting early access to tickets.

Set of stickers by fan group Team Perfume Hong Kong

But getting the tickets was a slight nightmare. While fan club tickets were released in mid March, Perfume’s management company obviously hadn’t made arrangements with the Japanese ticketing company, Pia, to accept overseas addresses and phone numbers, so none of the fan club members in Hong Kong or elsewhere, except Japan, could actually buy tickets. Fans weren’t happy, but it was fixed the following day with an apology from the management company. I booked my tickets that night, costing ¥22,220. It was a standing concert with no seating at all. I was in section A which was closest to the stage, with section B further behind. A month before the concert, I got a second email from Pia, giving me a serial number, 772, and instructions that patrons would enter in number order, and I could get my physical ticket from 1pm on the day at the P.T.A. booth at the venue. The number seemed rather high; I was concerned at how far back I would be from the stage.

June rolled around quickly, and I went up to Sydney for the flight on the Thursday, as it boarded at 6:55am on Friday morning. Way too early for my tastes. I got to the gate after making my way through security and was a little bit confused as most of the passengers were Indian. I later realised that Cathay Pacific has a second connecting flight from Hong Kong to Delhi, but I initially thought I was at the wrong gate. The flight was uneventful, the food not bad at all and I had two empty seats next to me so I could stretch out and not feel cramped. Coming into Hong Kong felt a bit hairy as the city was shrouded in cloud and mist and I could not really see anything but white out the window until we were really close to the airport. I arrived at about 2:30pm local time, and was pleased that getting through Hong Kong customs and immigration was a breeze. I got my Octopus travel card at the airport train station and it took only a five minute journey to next stop, AsiaWorld-Expo. From there it was about a 10 minute walk through the expo complex to reception at the hotel. Everything went so well.

The accommodation was nice, but kind of basic. The only issue was how isolated the hotel and expo complex were; the hotel was out in the boonies, a cement paved carpark wasteland. There is a new shopping mall called 11 Skies which is attached to the expo centre and hotel via a connecting walkway, but there are no tenants at all in the building yet. As such, there weren’t many options for food. The small number of restaurants in the expo complex were mostly only open for events only. There was a 7-Eleven which was open only until 6pm and didn’t have much outside junk food. There were three restaurants in the hotel, so I picked the cheapest one which had a mix of fusion Chinese and Japanese food with western dishes mixed on the menu. It was still quite expensive though. Breakfast was buffet style with a mix of western and Chinese food and was decent enough.

Saturday arrived and I decided to take it easy and not go out in the hot and humid weather (plus it had rained on and off in the morning). I did get a bit bored in the hotel room, so from around 11am I hung around in the expo centre and saw a couple of people milling about in Perfume t-shirts, taking photos of some of the signs promoting the concert as well as concert staff walking about and setting up the P.T.A. booth in staff tour t-shirts. I really wanted one of those. In addition, I saw some young women in white, some with wedding veils, walking about. I literally had no idea what that was about until I figured out they were here to see K-Pop star Baekhyun from boy band Exo was playing in a larger hall over three nights until Monday in the same venue. I still can’t figure what the white dresses and wedding gear was about though. As well as those fans, there are conventions happening each day in smaller halls and rooms. A small group of old ladies attending one of them sat down next to me and started eating lunch, cracking hardboiled eggs on the wall behind them, yabbering away in Cantonese.

1pm rolled around and it was time to collect my tickets from the P.T.A. booth on the level above the halls. I was surprised that only around 25 people had shown up to get their tickets, including fans who came all the way from Japan. There were about four tables with respective ranges of ticket numbers listed where you would get your physical ticket from. I lined up and got mine which came with a bonus keychain; a “P” in the style of the Code of Perfume logo font. Directly across from the P.T.A. Booth was another booth where you could get another bonus for P.T.A. members; a magnet in one of two randomly given out styles. In total everything took about 10 minutes to get. I could hear the sound check / rehearsal in the hall in the level below booming though the floor. I decided to have a look downstairs and discovered two large banners outside which I thought were officially advertising the concert, but were actually created and bought over by mainland Chinese fan group PerfumeTiebA. As we were advised that there was no point lining up early as we were going in by predetermined serial number, I went back to the hotel to relax, have dinner and change into my Code of Perfume t-shit and some shorts. At this point, I still could not believe I was finally going to see Perfume even though I had the ticket in my hand.

I went back about 5:15pm as doors were opening at 6pm for a 7:30pm concert start. It was really busy with the line for merchandise desk snaking outside the venue. The merchandise wasn’t my thing; two t-shirt variants, a towel, a baseball cap, a tote bag as well as DVDs and blu-rays of their latest live show release, which I had already bought. I had a quick look inside the hall they were holding patrons in before there eventually ushered into the actual venue next door. A young guy from local fan group Team Perfume Hong Kong came over to me and gave me a set of three stickers with each member of the group, and a coloured glove I was to wear during the final song, “My Color”, in order to surprise Perfume when they asked the audience to join in. I do find the fandom really nice and welcoming of everyone. PerfumeTiebA was also giving out homemade fans and other merchandise, but I missed seeing them, though I did see the merchandise floating about.

I eventually went inside the hall, but kind of hung around the back so I could go to the toilet. Several areas had been fenced off making out sections A and B and in lots of serial numbers. I was surprised that not all that many people had come in yet. I was a bit apprehensive as I didn’t quite know what to expect from the crowd or the experience. I am really not used to pop concerts as I am far more into alternative rock, and usually go to smaller venues like pubs or the local university bar on the few occasions I go to live performances. After hanging about a bit, I went to the loo and got into the “pen” that related to my serial number on the ticket (blocked off in lots of 250). Slowly it filled up some more at 6pm grew closer. Most people had come in late, after when the doors were meant to open. A while before they did open, the Japanese fans tried to make sure people were going in via the correct serial number. A member of the staff whizzed by with a camera for promotional footage of the crowd lining up.

A bit after 6:30pm, they started ushering people into the actual venue. I was really surprised that I was fairly close to the stage on the left hand side, maybe about 12 metres away. Most of the crowd were locals, with a fair number being Japanese fans. I noted that I was one of only a handful of Anglo attendees. Most had Perfume t-shirts on, from various eras including some as far back as 15 years ago. I saw one fan in cosplay as member Yuka Kashino (known to fans as Kashiyuka) in the outfit the group wore for the “Spending All My Time” music video. Luckily no one was pushing and they let people have space around them. It was also a rather comfortable temperature with mist coming down and air-conditioning controlling the temperature. I had bought some Loop ear plugs especially for the concert as I already had tinnitus from a bout of flu I had a decade ago and didn’t want to make it worse. There was some calling out of member names, but not as much as you’d hear for a Japanese concert. The clapping did get a bit louder towards 7:30pm, but I have to say it was rather inconsistent.

Finally, the lights went down and the crowd roared in anticipation. Like the previous Code of Perfume shows, this one started off with a video projection which cumulated with a CG exploding moon. These segments have the members preforming a scripted dialogue running over the top of the footage in Japanese, but I was surprised to see it subtitled at the top in Chinese. Then all three members appeared on stage accompanied by wild cheers from the crowd, and performed the first song, “Flash”, then immediately on to “Electro World” with the crowd joining in on various points of the choreography. After two more songs, “Laser Beam” and “Polyrhythm”, which for these concerts now has a new longer, extended opening, they addressed the crowd in English saying it had been a long time since they had a concert in Hong Kong (the last one being in 2012). Ayano Omoto (known to fans as NOCCHi), began addressing the crowd in Cantonese, before forgetting her lines half way though, but then managed to remembered them (I assume they fed them through her earpiece). For the next song, a semi-transparent curtain came down (it was very dark when it happened, so it was like magic) which had video projected onto it in addition to the video screens behind it, as they performed “Mugen Loop”. Half way though they disappeared and changed into to new costumes from the “Spinning World” music video, which they performed next.

Then it was time for another costume change for “Android &”, with the curtain coming down previously. It was caught on some equipment on the left hand side of the stage and I could see one of the staff trying to pull it off. Next came a trio of full on, pure dance music songs from their catalogue, starting with “Fusion”. Afterwards was “Edge”, an absolute fan favourite which is also my favourite Perfume song ever. The crowd went bananas when  it came on. The third song in the set was the live show only track “Code of Perfume”, which included another costume change. This is a spoken word track and the accompanying visuals act like a transition piece into the next set of songs. These included three recent singles including a B-side; “Moon”, “Love Cloud” (which included yet another costume change) and “Sumikko Disco”, which is the theme song of the latest “Sumikko Gurashi” animated film.

It was then time for “P.T.A. no Corner” (or P.T.A. Corner in English), which is more or less the group interacting with fans over a drum machine beat. It’s very much a call and response part of the show, though previously only limited to their Japanese shows, perhaps because the group didn’t feel they could do this in other languages. Ayaka Nishiwaki (known as a-chan to fans), who is the unofficial group leader, did this in simple English, asking the crowd questions like “are you guys having fun?” and getting people to respond if anyone was wearing Perfume t-shirts or had glasses or contacts on. The format is pretty much identical to it's Japanese counterpart but much shorter. They then went straight into “Fake It”, a non-album B-side to their 2010 single “Nee”. Quite atypical to their pop hits, this one is very much in the dance music category with a quite noisy section after the choruses. And yet is an absolute fan favourite with the audience going bananas, jumping up and down. At this point a-chan had a towel around her neck which she had on at the start of “P.T.A. no Corner” and was still dancing with it on. At some point during the song, it vanished but it was so quick I didn’t see when.

Next up was the latest digital single for the group, “The Light”, which had been released a few weeks prior. In social media posts from the group’s management, it was suggested that audience sing the “woh-oh-oh” parts of the chorus, which of course they did. The background video for this song was rather controversially AI generated. Most fans didn’t seem to mind, though online I could see some felt a bit troubled by it. It was then on to another fan favourite, “Chocolate Disco”, which is one of their earlier songs, released prior to “Polyrhythm”, which gave them some initial success when it nearly cracked the top 30 in the singles chart. This is another song where there is fan participation with the crowd partly mimicking the choreography. A-chan was surprised that the audience immediately did this without any prompting.

After that song, the house lights came up and Perfume bowed and began taking to the audience. For international concerts, typically the group asks for a volunteer to translate their messages into the local language. After NOCCHi asked the audience in Japanese who can speak Japanese and who could translate into Cantonese for them, a young woman in the front row was chosen and handed a microphone. As I don’t speak Japanese well at all, and zero Cantonese, this part of the concert was at times a bit of a mystery to me. I do know they talked about what they saw in Hong Kong the night before and talked about getting tapioca (bubble tea). With some of the back and forth on stage you could see a-chan laughing her head off. All three individually thanked the crowd for coming to the show. When it came time for a-chan to address the crowd herself, normally she gets very emotional speaking to the crowd, and she started to cry, which is normal for her. But this this time, unusually for her, couldn't even speak. The young woman translating for the group said “don’t cry a-chan” in Japanese to her. After a-chan finally managed to talk to the crowd and thank them, it was time for the final song, “My Color” and people all around were putting on their coloured gloves for the audience participation part when they mimic the group’s hand choreography. Beforehand, a-chan asked in English for everyone to join in and said they had “one heart, one chance” to get it right. As everyone put up their hands, a-chan immediately noticed the coloured gloves and thanked the audience. During the song, a-chan teared up yet again.

Afterwards, all three bowed and waved goodbye, thanking the crowd. Much like recent shows, there was no encore, though some in the audience were expecting it. Security was already trying to herd us out of the venue the second it ended. Most complied though some stayed hoping for an encore. As most of the crowd were leaving the main hall, a-chan’s voice appeared out of nowhere on the PA system saying “thank you so much Hong Kong”. Some people rushed back in thinking there would be an encore or that they would see the group on stage again. This of course didn’t happen. Security moved the crowd out of the hall and outside. I could see that the merchandise tables immediately crowded selling t-shirts and towels to the crowds. You had to leave the expo centre entirely to exit the hall, which was slightly annoying for me as I had to come back in again to get back to the hotel.

I really loved every minute of it. It was easily one of the best things I have done in a long while. Unlike other live shows I have been to, I felt comfortable, wasn’t sweating like a pig to the point of exhaustion, and wasn’t deafened. The Loop earplugs really made the experience far more enjoyable. I did notice a guy in front of me plugging his ears with his fingers at points where the music, especially the bass, boomed and shook the hall. I initially thought I might get overwhelmed with emotion seeing them in person and cry like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert, but I was surprised that didn’t happen. I had such a good view of the stage and could see all three really clearly. It really surprised and pleased me at how close I got to them. The fans, both the locals, the Japanese fans who flew in for the concert, as well as others who did the same from other countries like me, were fantastic, well behaved and really enjoyed themselves. The vibe was really friendly and fun. Judging from the size of the hall, the fact the show did not sell out, and going off what was written online, the crowd size was around 3,500, which is nuts for a group that has close to zero record label support outside Japan. What strikes me most about Perfume is the relationship between the group and the fandom seems really genuine. All three seem to love what they do. In a recent interview they said get upset when people suggest they fake their friendship between the three of them for the public. It is quite incredible they still friends nearly 25 years on from when they first met. I do love this feeling of everything surrounding the group being genuine and from the heart, being positive and optimistic, and all with a complete lack of cynicism, which I don't get from other groups and fandoms.

The only issue for me with the whole experience was the concert was way too short. In total the concert only ran about 95 minutes. But that set list was quite amazing. So many dance numbers, a surprising lack of the big hits and so many songs that the fans just loved. And it was such a great mix of songs from their entire career dating back as far as 2006 to a song released the previous month, pretty much in line with the set lists for their prior Code of Perfume shows. Despite the concert being a stripped-down one compared to their Japanese shows, visually it was still excellent, even being reduced to a few video screens and the six smaller vertical video screens moving around the stage and the group.

Summing up, Perfume were great, the lighting crew, video crew and F.O.H. sound crew as well as all of the other staff involved did a great job too. It all flew by way too quickly and I really wish I had bought tickets for the Bangkok show as well. If they had played all three nights I was in Hong Kong, I would have gone each night. I really, really want to see them live again sometime down the track. I suspect a new album and a tour will be happening in 2025 as the name of the tour is kind of hinting something like that will be happening, so I am going to try and plan that for next year.

Set List:

1. Flash
2. Electro World
3. Laser Beam
4. Polyrhythm
5. MC
6. Mugen Loop
7. Spinning World
8. Android &
9. Fusion
10. Edge
11. Code of Perfume
12. Moon
13. Love Cloud
14. Sumikko Disco
15. P.T.A. no Corner
16. Fake It
17. The Light
18. Chocolate Disco
19. MC
20. My Color