Bullied students start returning to schools wearing masks. As the fad spreads, and increasing numbers of people wear masks, there are outbreaks of violence mixed with admiration of the bold fashion statement which allows people to be their true self. At the center of the story is a mystery about a supposed suicide, a murder of another student, and a strange young mask-maker with a troubled past. A spectacle of a movie which leans strange, but I find it worth a watch and am confused why it has been so forgotten.

Summary

Content Warning: LWk3s, PkdadRs, pkDDodiS. ms4o Dd11Ds Se4s. Pe5s ek1W4syv3 eQ hdeDsias Wk1 5e31Do 1y5s.

A student that had left school after being relentlessly bullied returns wearing a mask. After this initial stir, other students start picking up on the trend. Students are going to parties in masks and engaging in anonymous sex other acts of rebellion. Then one of the masked students commits suicide. Violence is breaking out.

Behind it all is a character known only as D.

Yuki and her classmate — along with a reporter/uncle-type — begin trying to crack the case when Yuki meets Akira Dojima: a troubled young mask maker. He might also be the masked model Toshi. But then who is Hiroko, the super-model behind the masked culture?

How does a society handle people letting go of social norms behind a mask of anonymity?

Review

The first thing that confuses me about Persona — Mask Academy, the more literal title might avoid some confusion — is why I did not hear much about it before it was released as part of the J-Horror Rising boxset.1

Note that I’m not even really talking about whether or not Persona is a good movie, because it can get quite clunky. Just other movies got bigger passes for the same flaws. It is at least as functional of a movie as Uzumaki and Suicide Circle are, and those got pretty open passes.2

I was on the part of the internet 20+-years ago that talked a lot about movies like Suicide Circle, Battle Royale, Versus, Tetsuo: the Iron-Man, and so many others. Folks trading text files of subtitles. You get the idea.

If it was a bit weird, Japanese3, and could be passed off as having any sort of message: there were folks talking about how to get bootlegs and how official subs were awful compared to DeathMan_Turtle_1987’s subs. Despite Turtle refusing to translate ありがとう because the English language does not understand “thank you” in the way Japanese does. 4

In that light, this movie should have had a bit of a moment. A movie about people wearing a mask and suddenly engaging in anonymous, risky behavior? A movie asking question about where a few bad actors justifies throwing aside all anonymous activities, even if it directly harms some people who started wearing the mask to protect themselves? One about how even the lack of a physical mask doesn’t prevent us from wearing a more metaphorical one just to live? All with a few moody set-pieces and a moody tortured artist kid? How did this not filter through, more?

I don’t think many can watch it now without assuming it was a big old “early”-Net metaphor. The important balance of not forcing people to give over personal data versus personal responsibility in the other space. That’s how I watched it. I don’t think it is precisely there, but it is there. At the same time.

It gleefully posits itself as a think-piece punching above its weight-class. It is adorbs.

You have Tatsuya Fujiwara in a relative newcomer role. Chiaki Kuriyama is in it. Both are well-received for Battle Royale and both still get regular roles. You have Yuma Ishigaki before his Gavan stint (which I loved, at least). A few more established actors like Akaji Maro whose face you will recognize. Do As Infinity popping off on the soundtrack to kick off the credits. The soundtrack, by the way, actually includes some relatively bold choices especially in the second half.

I remain baffled, Space Pilgrims.

The second thing that confuses me about Persona is what the hell was up with the ghost kid with his ghost mask? I don’t know. That was weird.

The movie is a bit of a mess in some places and makes sense only in a dreamlike way for the most part — and there is an important relationship between two characters that confuses me as much or more than the ghost kid — but it is fun.

Maya Kuroso does decent as the main, combining a bit of pluck with cute. The visual confusion between who is who while wearing masks. The early bully being later confused by the violence of the mask-wearers. The odd folklorish threat of the “mask hunters.” The sound design. Even the sillier bits like a would-be savior bouncing his head off a wall land pretty well for a short gag (just let me have that one, pun and all). It’s a mess but it’s a technicolor mess that dances around in its paints and ribbons.

I had a grand old time. Just wish I had known about it earlier.

  1. This goes without saying that I’m not going to hear about everything and not going to recall everything I have heard, but we are talking about a country + genre combination where stuff like Takashi Shimizu’s Marebito gets brought up from time to time as if it was a new discovery. The content-mill still grinds endlessly upon the 2000-2010 Japanese movie scene. ↩︎
  2. They also disprove the “Well, it needed a remake to get noticed” argument. ↩︎
  3. Some South Korean, Thai, and other Asian cinema got brought along for the ride which sounds reductive but trust me, the internet was very reductive at that time. Still is, but also was then, too. ↩︎
  4. While this is technically satire, it is barely satire. And I bet some of you will know exactly WHICH sub group I am joking about… ↩︎