Friendship and Jazz in Kids on the Slope

 

I asked my one friend, an avid anime viewer, what anime he’d recommend to me. He had quite a few suggestions, but he seemed particularly enthusiastic about Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon). So, I decided to watch it for this blog, and I’d say I made the right choice. A show full of emotion, it depicts high-schoolers coming together from different walks of life, drawn together by music. It has twelve episodes, each named after a jazz song. The anime takes place in the 1960's, in the city of Sasebo (4) on Japan's southernmost island, Kyushu. The music the characters play is recorded especially for the anime, with different musicians “playing” the characters Kaoru and Sentaro. (3) Watanabe Shinichiro directed, adapting it from the manga of the same name. (4) Kodama Yuki created the manga for the josei target audience, (4) made up of women older than shojo. (2) MAPPA and Tezuka Productions (founded by Tezuka Osamu (6)) made the anime, which came out in 2012 (4).

At the beginning of the series, the protagonist, Kaoru, has no experience in jazz, having only played classical music. His inculcation into jazz parallels his change in personality. The anime opens with Kaoru walking uphill to his new school. “I hate everything about this,” he says. He has nothing but contempt for the students around him. He had changed schools several times before, and loathed it every time. The anime baits us into thinking he’ll become friends with the nerdy kid next to him (who looks a bit like Tanaka, the sidekick from Otaku no Video). The nerdy kid warns Kaoru of the bully who sits behind him. Not long after, anxiety fills Kaoru with nausea, and he retreats to the roof, the one place he could find solace in the past. On his way there, he meets the “bully”, Sentaro, a tall boy with a cross-shaped scar. Surprisingly, Kaoru and Sentaro become good friends.

                Sentaro acts as a foil to Kaoru. Where Kaoru is uptight and methodical, coming from a rich family, the lower-class Sentaro has many younger siblings, and often acts spontaneously and gets into fights. Most importantly, Sentaro introduces Kaoru to jazz music. In one scene, Kaoru tries to play a jazz song for the first time. He gets annoyed when Sentaro tells him he’s doing it wrong: “I played it exactly right!” Kaoru says. But, as Sentaro explains, jazz isn’t about playing the right notes. It needs passion and spontaneity. It encourages riffing – adding unique variations on the existing notes. “If you play it without feelin’ it, it don’t sound like no jazz to me!” Sentaro says. This extends to Kaoru and Sentaro’s outlooks on life. Kaoru thinks he has that first day of school figured out: he’ll hate it, he’ll retreat to the roof like always, and in time he’ll move to another school. But his friendship with Sentaro and Ritsuko, daughter of the record shop owner, pulls his life in unexpected directions. They defy his rigid views, offering surprises. After doing some research, I found many fans agree with me. As one analysis says, "The line and idea that unexpected events are in common with playing jazz in the show is the running theme and reasoning for the many events that happen." (8) Spoilers: When Kaoru takes the train to see his mother, Sentaro invites himself unannounced. Sentaro likewise defies Kaoru’s initial perception of him when Kaoru finds out he and Ritsuko are Catholic, and later when Sentaro tells Kaoru he’s half-American. Some of that spontaneity rubs off on Kaoru, as seen in the episode where, on a whim, he kisses Ritsuko.

While that first scene shows Kaoru trudging glumly uphill, downhill images dominate the rest of the series. The opening ends with Kaoru and Sentaro laughing as they run down the slope. Another scene in the opening has Ritsuko, Kaoru, and Sentaro walking down the hill from school, with Sentaro playfully using his fingers as drumsticks in the air. To get to the basement of the record shop, where they hold their jam sessions, they must go downstairs. Going downhill is fun, easy, and carefree. It represents the happiness Kaoru’s friends give him. He no longer has to escape to the roof, which, as the highest point in the school, represents the antithesis of the downhill slope. As another commentator pointed out, "a roof represents flat stagnation." (1) It takes him nowhere, unlike the life-changing slope.

Kids on the Slope is quite different from the anime we’ve watched in class. A slice-of-life anime, it takes place in postwar Japan and uses real jazz songs and other American cultural references. The invisible presence of the Pacific War lingers in Kids on the Slope, as in some of the anime we’ve seen. In one episode, the gang plays at a bar frequented by American sailors. One drunk American complains that their music sounds “too black”, and demands they play jazz that sounds white. It reminds me of how Tezuka Osamu had to rework the Astro Boy and Jungle Emperor anime to appease American audiences’ tastes. The sailor’s outburst hurts Sentaro, who got bullied as a child for being the son of an American soldier, "the enemy". Sentaro wears a Rosary to remind him of his mother. Just as Tezuka Osamu incorporated Christian churches into Astro Boy to appeal to Western audiences, Sentaro’s Catholicism functions as an indicator of American-ness, “not exclusively a profession of faith” (qtd. in 4). It makes him an outsider. That ends up strengthening his friendship with Kaoru, who also feels isolated, because his parents are absent and he's not from Kyushu. Kids on the Slope depicts a Westernized Japan, but it’s not the utopian global society seen in Macross or Mobile Suit Gundam. This all ties into the theme of jazz. Nobody has a perfect, planned-out life. They improvise and get through it as they go.

                Although I’m not a musician, I’m really enjoying Kids on the Slope. At its core, it revolves around the way friendship can change a person, especially friendship among outsiders. Like musicians playing different instruments, their personalities complement each other and make them better than they are apart. I hope you check Kids on the Slope out. Who knows? I may have just introduced you to your new favorite anime.

 

 

 

Works Cited:

1 5 Aftershok. "Sakamichi no Apollon: Kids on the Slope Episode 1". Anime Instrumentality, 2012 Apr. 13. http://blog.animeinstrumentality.net/episodic/sakamichi-no-apollon-kids-on-the-slope-episode-1/

2 “Josei”. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josei_manga

3 “Kids on the Slope.” Crunchyroll, https://www.crunchyroll.com/kids-on-the-slope.

4 “Kids on the Slope.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_on_the_Slope.

5 “Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope).” MyAnimeList, https://myanimelist.net/anime/12531/sakamichi_no_apollon.

6 “Tezuka Productions”. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tezuka_Productions

7 Watanabe, Shinichiro, director. Kids on the Slope. MAPPA and Tezuka Productions, 2012.

8 What's Anime. ""Unexpected Events & Jazz - Kids on the Slope Analysis". Amino, 28 Feb. 2016, https://aminoapps.com/c/anime/page/blog/unexpected-events-jazz-kids-on-the-slope-analysis/x2t2_uB5EPJE0x5N7nNRNzbWbDVxRcB. 

Image/Video Citations:

Opening: waffleman1230. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibVB4hr62I

Kaoru and Sentaro: animeplanet.com

Jazz Session: pinterest.com

Kaoru and Sentaro on Piano and Drums: aminoapps.com

Bus: Crunchyroll.com