One eyebrow, four names

[imomus]

I'm not quite sure why I like this peculiar unibrowed man so much. He's a Japanese character actor. This is him in the show-stealing role of the eccentric grandfather in the excellent 2003 film The Taste of Tea. Even if you don't know his face, you'll know his voice if you've seen the Japanese versions of Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" (where he's the green frog) or "Howl's Moving Castle" (where he's the fire).

Why the big empathy for Big Eyebrow, though? It could be his cool, tousled hairstyle (and no, it isn't a wig, as he once proved on TV). It could be that he looks like a Japanese Stanley Baxter. It could be that unibrow. It could be because I feel solidarity with a fellow musician. Or it could be that I am destined to face a midlife crisis as severe and strange as the one he did.

But before I tell you about his midlife crisis, we have a not-unrelated problem. What do we call this man? He's changed his name so many times it's hard to keep track. His birth name is unrecorded -- all we know is that at 18 he became Sakura Ippei and launched himself as an enka singer. When that failed, he changed his name again, to Wakata Akira, and made a living playing music in cabarets. After that he made his name impersonating pop idol Go Hiromi (despite not looking very like him -- Go Hiromi doesn't have a unibrow). With some other famous impersonators he founded a mimic group called Monomane Daimao, but the association was short-lived.

Then, in 1991, our hero got lost. He'd gone on a fishing trip to Atami when suddenly he disappeared. For three days, nobody knew where he was. The press reported it, the police and rescue services hunted along the clifftops, combed the beach. People were beginning to think he'd committed suicide when suddenly he turned up in Odawara City, Kanagawa, 40 kilometers away, just squatting on the ground in the middle of the street. He couldn't remember his own name.

Some thought the actor was faking it. Others believe to this day that he was kidnapped by agents, taken to North Korea, brainwashed, then released when the agents realised he was a famous actor in Japan. A psychologist from Tsukuba University diagnosed "memory erasure syndrome".

In 1993 our man changed his name again. He asked a Buddhist priest to choose what he swore would be his last name. The priest selected Tatsuya Gashuin from a Buddhist sutra. For a while he worked again in cabaret, arranging songs to make ends meet. But in 1999 things took a turn for the better when film director Katsuhito Ishii cast Gashuin in a film called "Shark Skin Man and Peach Bottom Woman". That led to energy drink commercials, chat show appearances, and a starring role in a Smap video. Then Studio Ghibli brought him in to voice characters in Miyazaki's two greatest films, and he was cast in a string of comedies, including Ishii's The Taste of Tea (check out the Gashuin video interviews at that link).



If I do have a midlife crisis, I hope my "afterwards" is as good as the one enjoyed by "the man with one eyebrow and four names".

Comments

[saidai.livejournal.com]

Crazy story!
How can he become a famous actor (again!) after a memory erasure syndrome??

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Wow! His hair even *looks* like the flame from Howl's Moving Castle!

Looks

[(Anonymous)]

He looks like you !

Re: Looks

[pyrop.livejournal.com]

I thought the same thing over and over again while i was watching Densha Otoko.

Stanley Baxter

[(Anonymous)]

That "Stanley Baxter" photo is uncanny!

--
Stuart Mudie
http://blethers.com

[tundraboy.livejournal.com]

Question: Do you recall a late-90s Japanese film that won all sorts of awards, in which an older gent (Ken-something?) runs a Hokkaido train station? Supposedly pretty sad but great. I'd like to watch it but forgot the name.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

do you have a middle name?
do you know of any other artists subject to a dissociative fugue?
how many re-inventions have you had?

[bricology.livejournal.com]

Great post, and what a fascinating backstory you told!

I love this guy; his body language is so unique, so identifiable. And "Shark Skin Man..." and "Cha no Aji" are two of my favorite films of late. I'm rather surprised he wasn't in "The Happiness of the Katakouris"; he would've been perfect.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

those are 2 of my favourites as well. though cha no aji always soothes me to sleep.

[kairo.livejournal.com]

for those of us in the states, the film is referred to as
"Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl".
He's also in Katsuhito Ishii's "Party 7"
That's a really interesting story about him.
the only google link for "memory erasure syndrome" is some
strange supposed letter to the UN secretary general, with mentions of the Illuminati (they seem serious though?).
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/v/shea.htm

Now I see

[instant-c.livejournal.com]

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Great post.

I still really want to see Taste of Tea. Wait... when I search on Amazon for Taste of Tea, I get Shark Skin Man...

What's up with that?

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

Dear King Momus,

I officially challenge you to a blog-off. I bet I can get more eyeballs on my thinking than you can get on yours. by tomorrow 1800 pst. that's west oaklnad to you guys. I can get more eyes on my stuff than you can get on your stuff despite the clear fact that you are from the future. am I stalking you yet?

I work undercover for the police. believe me yet? don't cross me or I will call in my favors and go ballistic.

(dear harriet, please slow down they don't know you're just causing trouble for all the best intellectuals on the planet also quit bragging about how important you are only insecure people disccuss importance, really important people have paparzzi tailing them.

momus, i will get a call from a dark lawyer soon, s/he will want to know why i have your tm i will say because he is an important leader is that okay? are you okay with being an important leader? because if not i will return to saying boring things about hollywood drivel.
best always
harriet

the official challenge

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

put me beind a door with a closed laptop. put momus behind an internet resource with all the net libraries at his disposal. ask me a question. i will pretendd to nbe imomus, he will pretend to be himself, you will not be able to tell from the writing whether it's me or him, i'm just thining aloud now, they say i'm stalking him but that means nothing when i'm stalking someone much more important.

summary: imomus sits behind a terminal, i sit behind the net, you ask questions, he answers, I answer, I beat him at his own game. I know imomus better than he knows himself.

NOT STALKING. just kidding. but basically, here's how it works. I think it, momus writes it, other people do it. i'm good at getting others to do my unpleasant taskss.

telle me to shut up momus and you will not see the door hit me on the ass as I exit your wor.d

Re: the official challenge

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Good morning Harriet, I hope you voted early and often in the congressionals. To celebrate the return of the Democrats after 12 years in the wilderness -- and the fact that America is now significantly more friendly and comprehensible to pantywaisted Eurotrash -- I here post a little file of Toog and Flo Manlik (with help from John Talaga) singing Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Our Land". (http://imomus.com/tooguthriemix1.mp3)

Re: the official challenge

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

[armoredbaby.livejournal.com]

BTM picture -- are those camoflaged tuxedos?

That brow IS quite formidible.

[xishimarux.livejournal.com]

That guy has natural anime-style hair. So awesome. i love the DX7 in the background. Mmm FM.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

But what happend when you turned 40, Momus? Didn't you have a crisis back then?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

No, I moved to New York. But then New York had a midlife crisis.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved the Japanese voice for Calcipher! I never would have guessed it was this guy, but at the same time it makes so much sense.
You think Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away were Miyazaki's best? Hm... They're definitely the prettiest, but I hated how rushed the ending was for Howl's Moving Castle.

"whay are you a triangle?"

[8bitpixelrobot.livejournal.com]

I wanted the crazy old man in 'cha no aji' to be my grandad.

I could listen to his crazy songs all day.