PinkuBentoBox

There are a few series running this season which are gathering a lot of attention. I myself am watching quite a few of them. However, since I hardly ever update this blog I thought it was probably worth concentrating on some of the stuff that’s a little less popular, but deserves some more attention. Glass Mask is one such series.

First off, I want to be very clear that this is a shoujo series. If you don’t like ‘girly’ anime, then you probably won’t be interested enough to read any further. Go watch Naruto or something.

Glass Mask is a bit of an anomaly, really. It’s a rarity in Anime, a remake of an old series. It’s an interesting observation you can make with anime: sequels aren’t uncommon, and recycling the same plot and situations is commonplace. Just look at the whole harem style, or the Eroge adaptions. They’re basically recycling the same plot with slightly different characters and possibly a different gimmick to make it slightly different from the other stuff floating about. It’s rare however to find a series actually getting remade.

The original Glass Mask dates back over twenty years to 1984. I can’t say much about it, as I haven’t seen it. It ran for 23 episodes and was I believe generally rated fairly highly. The story has been pretty much left alone, as far as I can tell. The character designs as well have been left pretty much as they were in the original series, though a bit more streamlined and modernised. You can tell that the original work upon which this version of Glass Mask is based is dated, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It does mean however that certain scenes have a slightly dated style to them, to the point that they can feel a little cheesy.

The setup is pretty much stock anime / manga stuff really. Thirteen-year-old Maya Kitajima is from a poor household. She lives with her mother, who works as live-in help at a small ramen restaurant in Tokyo. Maya often does deliveries for people who have ordered ramen from the shop. Maya has a major problem, however. She loves drama. Really loves it. To the point that she sneaks into theaters when she should be doing deliveries, spaces out, and then doesn’t deliver on time.

Naturally, her mother considers her a failure, as does everyone else it seems. Everyone, that is, except for this crazy old woman. Chigusa Tsukikage is some kind of famous actress or something. I’m not quite sure what she is, they haven’t covered this in the series yet. It’s pretty clear that she knows a thing or two about drama. She is walking in the park when she sees (or rather hears) Maya performing a part out of a movie she saw, acting out both personae. Tsukikage instantly recognises the girl’s innate talent, announcing she has been searching for someone like Maya for a long time. She then proves that she’s a pretty odd old lady, and freaks Maya out completely. After Maya runs away, Tsukikage announces to us that she is ‘The girl who bears a thousand masks’.

Maya’s destiny all changes when she sees an advertisement for an upcoming play. The play is ‘Tsubaki Hime’ — Princess Camellia (or La Triviata) a famous play by Verdi. As an aside here, Verdi’s original work was an opera and this pretty clearly isn’t, so I’m assuming what it was she went to see was some kind of adaption. Either that or someone on the creative side of things didn’t do enough research. Anyway, there is no way that Maya could afford to buy tickets, but she really wants to go. Enter Sugiko. Sugiko is the bitchy horrible daughter of the owner of the ramen shop, and she really dislikes Maya. Sugiko has been given a ticket to the play by her boyfriend, but has no interest in going. She makes a deal with Maya - if Maya can make all of the deliveries on New Year’s Eve before midnight, then Sugiko will give her the ticket. Of course, the girl thinks that this task is impossible, as New Year’s is the busiest time of the year for the shop.

However, Maya is determined to get that ticket. She puts everything into her job, managing to make every delivery within the time. Sugiko is a bitch though, as mentioned earlier. She throws the ticket, and the wind blows it out into the ocean. Unthinking, Maya dives in after it, managing to collect it. Everyone around her is stunned at how desperately she wants to see the play - this is New Year’s Eve in Tokyo, the middle of winter, and she’s diving into the ocean after pieces of paper.

This is the turning point for Maya. At the theater, she meets Masumi Hayami, a director and owner of the playhouse. Also in the audience is Ayumi Himekawa, who will become Maya’s rival in the future. Also present is Tsukikage, once again, though she doesn’t make her presence known to Maya. Later on, we will find out that Maya has an incredible potential for dramatic arts - she memorises the entirety of Princess Camellia, a play that is over three hours long, after having watched it once. Not only this, she remembers every line perfectly, and even remembers the poses of the actors. While her actual acting skill is amateur and unpolished, Tsukikage sees the immense potential in her and decides that she wishes to develop it.

Now, I’m going to wax nerdy for a little and mention the acting talent involved in this series. While for the most part the vocal talent is relatively unknown when it comes to anime, Maya happens to be played by a personal favourite of mine, Sanae Kobayashi. She’s an extremely talented and versitile actress who’s only really come into her own in the last year or two. Just browsing her roles is enough to show how good she actually is - Madlax in Madlax, Akira in My-HiME, Akira in Hikaru no Go, Lilith in Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, and Lucy (both young and old) and Nyuu in Elfen Lied are among her highlights. It was hearing that she was doing the lead role in Glass Mask which was what originally attracted me to the series, especially given that it’s about a girl who is able to take on any persona she chooses to and act with it, something which Sanae Kobayashi seems to be able to do exceptionally well.

There is only one group currently actively fansubbing Glass Mask 2005 - SD Project. I want to give them a bit of a shout, as they’re one of the few groups who bothers to sub stuff that no one else is doing like Glass Mask and Peach Girl. If you’re interested in the original Glass Mask, then Oppai Fansubs (who I believe are part of Live-Evil) have started subbing it and are up to episode 4.