Terayama, Shuji

b. December 10, 1935, Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, Japan
d. May 4, 1983, Tokyo, Japan

Like his contemporary Mishima Yukio, the playwright, poet, essayist, songwriter, horseracing commentator and director Terayama Shuji was set on turning the world into theatre.¹ While this article will primarily focus on his directorial work, the various mediums he worked in deserve mention, as it is through these intersecting vocations that the Japanese underground icon established himself – along with the help of countless talents, ranging from musicians to graphic designers – as a key figure in national and international countercultures.

Before Tenjo Sajiki

The decade prior to his directorial debut, Terayama made a name for himself in Japanese New Wave cinema through several screenwriting credits. The first of these was Shinoda Masahiro’s Kawaita Mizuumi (Youth in Fury, 1960) – starring Terayama’s girlfriend Kujo Eiko, whom he would marry three years later² – a drama tackling the contemporaneous protests against the US-Japan Security Treaty, which allowed for the construction of American military bases in Japan. He also wrote Shinoda’s contract killer comedy Yuhi ni Akai Ore no Kao (Killers on Parade, 1961), which offers early signs of Terayama’s sardonic political consciousness. Terayama’s work on Hahatachi (Mothers, Matsumoto Toshio, 1967) would offer a glimpse into his complex views of motherhood, and his screenplay for the erotic art film Hatsukoi: Jigoku-hen (Nanami: The Inferno of First Love, Hani Susumu, 1968) would likewise foreshadow his preoccupation with sexual experimentation and the alienated youth of ’60s Japan.

Decades later, long-time collaborator Morisaki Henrikku would state that Terayama was dissatisfied with the final products of his screenwriting works – the two would even create their own version of Nanami in the form of an experimental concept album, as the original film “fail(ed) entirely to convey the poetic vision of the screenwriter”.³ It is perhaps unsurprising then that Terayama would form his own outlet for artistic expression. In the portentous days of ’67, with the help of his wife Kujo Eiko, graphic designer Yokoo Tadanori, and stage director Higashi Yutaka, he cofounded the legendary underground theatre troupe Tenjo Sajiki, which derives its name from the Japanese title of Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise, 1945).⁴ Terayama and Kujo divorced after she was caught cheating on him with stage director Higashi, though they would continue working together throughout Terayama’s career, with Kujo producing his films and maintaining a prominent role in the troupe.⁵ The Tenjo Sajiki would persist till Terayama’s death, paralleling and complementing his film career. 

Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1971)

Already entrenched in the Japanese angura (underground) scene, Terayama would direct Tomato Kechappu Koutei (Emperor Tomato Ketchup) in 1971, a controversial political satire based around a Lord of the Flies-style child-run autonomous state, featuring motifs of sadomasochism and Nazism. The film was originally available as a 20-minute fragment until an extended, one-hour cut was released in the ’90s. Like most of Terayama’s films, Ketchup was produced by the Art Theatre Guild – a staple of Japanese New Wave cinema also responsible for several of the films Terayama scripted the decade prior.

With its interrogation of authority roles and their volatility, Ketchup channels the Bakhtinian carnivalesque⁶ – fitting, considering that Terayama would go on to utilise literal carnival imagery in several films, further dissecting authority. The film features an eclectic soundtrack by experimental composer J.A. Seazer, who would score all of Terayama’s features and several of his shorts. Erotic film star Niitaka Keiko – who would appear in all of Terayama’s features – also makes an appearance.

A consistent use of washed-out whites and pinks makes for a viewing experience akin to gazing upon a fragmentary, long-lost relic. Perhaps the film’s most characteristic scene involves a ten-minute take depicting a game of jan-ken-pon (akin to rock-paper-scissors) between two youths dressed in Japanese military and Schutzstaffel garbs – a scenario in equal parts provocative and playful.

This prelude to Terayama’s feature filmography set the stage for his continued interrogation of political ideology, youthful rebellion, and film form itself.

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1971)

Later that year, these ambitious thematic motifs would explode into the iconic account of student radicalism that is Sho o Suteyo Machi e Deyou (Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, 1971) – an almost two-and-a-half-hour epic based on Terayama’s essay collection and play of the same name. Serving as a psychedelic thesis on the efficacy of cinema as a political weapon, this movie is the ultimate example of Terayama’s consistent attempts to push the boundaries of the filmic medium.

Like much of the world, Japan saw a period of increased student protest in the late ’60s.⁷ The formation of the Zenkyoto (All-Campus Joint Struggle Councils) at Nihon University led to lecture halls being barricaded in the name of academic freedom. While Zenkyoto were officially non-sectarian, large portions of students adopted radical leftist ideas and marched in opposition to the renewal of the US-Japan Security Treaty, with anti-American sentiment amplified by opposition to the Vietnam War.⁸ This political landscape acts as the backdrop for Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets.

The film centres on a monologuing, alienated student (Sasaki Hideaki) living with his pickpocket grandmother (Tanaka Fudeko), war criminal father (Saito Masahiro) and misandrist sister (Kobayashi Yukiko). We follow him as he visits his soccer club – where locker room talk consists of musings on Marxist theory – rundown brothels, his fractured home, and the titular Tokyo streets themselves, swarming with student protestors and performance artists. All this is interwoven with the protagonist’s monochrome dreams and memories, as well as street interviews and musical performances, making for a labyrinthine testament to the zeitgeist of late ’60s and early ’70s Japan. J.A. Seazer’s noise rock compositions are joined by the raw anthems of the Tokyo Kid Brothers troupe, founded by Higashi Yutaka, who had left the Tenjo Sajiki following the aforementioned cheating scandal.⁹ Legendary drag queen Miwa Akihiro – known for voice roles in Miyazaki Hayao films and as the titular character of Kurotokage (Black Lizard, Fukasaku Kinji, 1968) – is also featured in a particularly dreamlike scene.¹⁰

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets

In the years leading up to the film’s release, radical left factions of Zenkyoto developed a form of rigid self-critique known as jiko hitei (self-negation), leading them to wholly reject Western influence and counterculture.¹¹ J.A. Seazer recounts that “(the activists) had no interest whatsoever in anti-war songs or folk music. You were either a fūten (perhaps comparable to a bohemian) or a revolutionary, but not both.”¹² This makes Throw Away Your Books all the more bold in its blending of sensually charged underground art and radical politics, rebelling not just against mainstream sensibilities, but also against the increasingly puritanical ideological preconceptions of the leftist movement itself.

Bold, haphazard, and all-encompassing, Throw Away Your Books is a testament to the transgressive spirits of the Japanese New Wave and Japanese New Left, forged in the twilight of both movements; it is commonly agreed that Japan’s New Left saw its death blow with the optically disastrous Asama Sanso incident in 1972, in which the infighting of several United Red Army members transformed into a deadly hostage situation.¹³ In the following years, Terayama would shift away from the overtly political and instead turn inward, though his boundary-breaking attitude and questioning of social mores would remain.

Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)

It was the tail end of World War II, and Terayama Shuji was ten years old, when his hometown of Aomori was bombed. The same year, his father Terayama Hachiro died of dysentery while stationed in Sulawesi.¹⁴ The young Shuji had a troubled relationship with his mother Terayama Hatsu, and in adolescence he was diagnosed with nephrosis, requiring a hefty diet of medication throughout his life, which decades later would lead to his death.¹⁵ As a young adult, he would publish controversial polemics encouraging children to run away from their parents.¹⁶

The traumas and tribulations of childhood would provide the subject matter of Terayama’s next film, the semiautobiographical Den-en ni Shisu (Pastoral: To Die in the Country, 1974). Pastoral is a surrealist picture that blends fact and fiction through carnivalesque depictions of youth and musings on identity and cinematic truth, intercut with readings of Terayama’s own tanka poetry. As made apparent by a metafictional twist, Pastoral deals with Terayama’s self-fictionalisation, tackling familial trauma and sexual experiences with a playful ambiguity as to the facts of the matter.¹⁷

Pastoral: To Die in the Country

In Pastoral, the protagonist – a young boy – attempts to run away from his countryside home and fantasises about killing his mother. So too does he bear witness to a tryst between a young woman and her lover. Amidst these intersecting dramas, a travelling circus visits town, adding to the film a degree of psychedelic theatricality that was by this point signature Terayama. The childhood epiphanies of Pastoral – equal parts horrifying and ecstatic – are set to the grizzled folk ballads of frequent Terayama collaborator Mikami Kan, alongside some of J.A. Seazer’s grandest compositions – heavy guitars are met with traditional Japanese instrumentation and swelling choirs come in during moments of sexual profundity.

The film’s intercutting of circus imagery and sexual psychedelia can be felt in later cult classics, like manga artist Maruo Suehiro’s Shoujo Tsubaki (Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show, 1983-1984), the film adaptation of which (Harada Hiroshi, 1992) would also feature a J.A. Seazer soundtrack.

Converging performance and reality, Pastoral is the boldest contribution to the prismatic lore of Terayama Shuji’s life.

Boxer (1977)

While Terayama has roots in theatre, he also saw a world of performance and passion on another stage of sorts: the boxing ring.

Boxing was a recurring source of fascination for Terayama, who penned an unproduced screenplay for a boxing film in 1959, titled Juukyuusai no buruusu.¹⁸ So too did he publish Aa, koya (Ah, Wilderness), a serialised novel about the sport, from 1965-1966.¹⁹ Like many of his generation, Terayama was a passionate fan of Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe) – a classic boxing manga (Takamori & Chiba, 1968-1973) and anime (Dezaki Osamu, 1970-1971 and 1980-1981). He wrote the lyrics of the anime’s end credits theme, and when a major character in the series was killed off, Terayama famously staged a real-life funeral procession that was attended by thousands of fans, with the help of Higashi Yutaka.²⁰

In 1977, Terayama would direct Bokusa (Boxer), a relatively conventional boxing drama and the first of several Terayama films cowritten by feminist playwright Kishida Rio. The film’s premise reverses the premise of Ashita no Joe; whereas the narrative of Joe concerns an aggressive young man who – upon meeting a washed-up former boxer – is urged to pursue the sport, Terayama’s film has its disillusioned former boxer, portrayed by titan of Japanese acting Sugawara Bunta known for roles in Fukasaku Kinji and Miyazaki Hayao films, take centre stage, as he serves as the reluctant mentor to a passionate up-and-comer (Shimizu Kentaro). Additionally, Terayama’s rival playwright Kara Juro cameos.

Despite its relatively grounded nature, the film still contains moments of Terayama’s surrealistic pastel lighting and an unconventional presentation of memory and trauma in line with that of Throw Away Your Books and Pastoral. Here, strained family dynamics make a return, albeit in a far more grounded manner than the likes of Pastoral, and the listless wandering of Throw Away Your Books’ protagonist is here swapped for an overbearing, melancholic stagnation, only to be shaken by bursts of romanticism in the boxing ring.

Boxer provides a precursor to the modern malaise examined in later Japanese boxing movies like TOKYO FIST (Tsukamoto Shinya, 1995) and Kizzu Ritaan (Kids Return, Kitano Takeshi, 1996). The film is an intimate character portrait paved with urban grit, though Terayama’s next picture would see his return to the fantastical world of rural nostalgia.

Grass Labyrinth (1979)

In 1979, Terayama contributed to the French anthology film Collections Privées with his episode Kusa Meikyu (Grass Labyrinth) – an oneiric, kamishibai-inspired film with oedipal undertones that was included alongside episodes by Just Jaeckin and Walerian Borowczyk. Notably, Grass Labyrinth stars Tampopo (1985) director Itami Juzo in an early role.

Grass Labyrinth

While Labyrinth is a far humbler production than most Terayama features, it still bears his signature theatricality, particularly in scenes which flirt with the supernatural. We also see familiar motifs of sexual experimentation and intergenerational tension within a quiet countryside setting. This work – deeply rooted in traditional Japanese folklore – would be contrasted with the next period of Terayama’s career.

Fruits of Passion (1981)

Like his New Wave contemporary Oshima Nagisa, Terayama’s ’80s work took on a transnational flavour: the final years of his life would see him direct two adaptations of foreign literature.

After contributing to the script for Afurika Monogatari (A Tale of Africa, Hani Susumu, 1980), starring Jimmy Stewart, Terayama would direct a French-Japanese coproduction: Les Fruits de la Passion (Fruits of Passion, 1981). Fruits is a loose adaptation of the novel Retour à Roissy (Return to Roissy) by Pauline Reage²¹ – a sequel to her 1954 novel Histoire d’O (Story of O), which is widely considered the first erotic novel written by a woman. Reage disowned the sequel, labelling it redundant in a foreword, though Terayama manages to extract from it a unique meditation on economics and eros, situating the story amidst the political tensions of 1920s China. With dialogue alternating between French, Japanese, English, and Cantonese, Fruits of Passion is rife with cultural and colonial conflicts – familiar subject matter for the writing duo of Kishida Rio and Terayama Shuji.²² 

Like with Boxer, the film casts a relatively unknown actor alongside a superstar: Isabelle Illiers portrays the titular O, while the infamous Klaus Kinski plays O’s sadistic master, Sir Stephen. In Fruits, Kinski offers a reserved rendition of the haphazard monstrosity found in many of his Werner Herzog roles, while Illiers provides a subtler performance befitting the version of her character in the original Histoire d’O. Additionally, Ikehata Shinnosuke (a.k.a. Peter), of Bara no Soretsu (Funeral Parade of Roses, Matsumoto Toshio, 1969) fame, features as a brothel’s haughty madame.

Perhaps the film’s greatest similarity to Retour is its examination of economic conditions, in contrast with the first novel, which privileges individual psychology. The film alternates between aristocratic interpersonal conflicts in a Chinese brothel and the collective toil of anti-colonial radicals in the city’s slums. The tense roleplay and power games of the first novel are also present; interrogating notions of performance was nothing new to Terayama by this point, as suggested by his theatre productions, which in turn evoke Artaud and Brecht. It is no surprise, then, that sexual and racial performativity is central to his take on Reage’s world of erotica. Despite the sadomasochistic imagery – torture chambers and bondage gear abound – this is not so much a tale of de Sade as it is of Said – throughout the film, Western assumptions of oriental submission are thoroughly interrogated in a manner that would be echoed a decade later by David Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly (1993).

Video Letter (1983)

Terayama’s health rapidly declined in his later years, though he produced one more project before his death: from 1982 to 1983, a series of “video letters” were exchanged between Terayama and Tanikawa Shuntaro – famed poet and Japanese Peanuts translator – in which they discuss semiotics and identity while filming abstract visuals. Like a contemporary form of renga – Japanese collaborative poetry – these letters were compiled in a film simply titled Bideo Reta (Video Letter), released in 1983.

This piece serves as an example of Terayama’s continued experimentation with new mediums, capturing the director in the final months of his life.

He passed away due to liver cirrhosis in May of 1983.²³ He was 47.

Farewell to the Ark (1984)

But the underground icon was not finished.

Released the year after his death, Terayama’s final film is a loose, unofficial adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’ famed novel Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967) titled Saraba Hakobune (Farewell to the Ark, 1984), which shifts the story from Colombia to Japan. Terayama had previously adapted the novel into an experimental stage play – performed on an X-shaped stage surrounded by the audience – with the Tenjo Sajiki in 1981.

It is easy to see how Marquez’ tale of nostalgia and national consciousness would appeal to the director: a novel which warns against the single-minded pursuit of knowledge without the outlet to execute its rewards, like Throw Away Your Books; which examines colonial tensions and cultural adaption, like Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Fruits of Passion; which dissects the politics of memory and family tensions, like Pastoral and Grass Labyrinth, and the double-edged sword of machismo, like Boxer. The film offers a poignant examination of nostalgia mirroring the contemporaneous Kare no Ootobai, Kanojo no Shima (His Motorbike, Her Island, Obayashi Nobuhiko, 1986). Fittingly, the afterlife is another concept explored in both the original novel and the late Terayama’s film.

Set amidst a rural fantasia reminiscent of Pastoral and Labyrinth, we chronicle the construction of an autonomous town, as in Tomato Ketchup. Rather than simply transposing Márquez’ novel to Japan, Farewell to the Ark configures recognisable episodes from the novel into a narrative that – beyond its basic premise – is wholly new. The novel’s instigating cockfight is recreated with dramatic flair, as is the enigmatic “insomnia plague” incident and its commentary on semiotics – the original story has family patriarch José Arcadio Buendía label every household object when he begins to forget their names due to insomnia; the film’s protagonist, Tokito Sutekichi (Yamazaki Tsutomu), does the same with kanji characters, in a manner reminiscent of Pastoral, wherein objects bare giant kanji identifying their purpose. The film also features a B-plot that clearly draws from the character arc of Remedios the Beauty in the novel, offering hazy interludes from the family drama which constitutes the central narrative.

Farewell harkens back to every stage in Terayama’s filmography, with the director offering one of his strongest meditations on the transience of life – from beyond the grave.

Terayama Shuji with members of the Tenjo Sajiki

After Tenjo Sajiki

It has been said that “Terayama refused to gracefully fade into history, but became in death far more popular and far more influential than he had been in life.”²⁴ Sure enough, Terayama’s artistic heart beats far and wide.

In 2017, his boxing novel Ah, Wilderness received a two-part film adaptation.²⁵ Terayama is also paid homage to in anime legend Oshii Mamoru’s series Burado Rabu (Vlad Love, 2020-2021),²⁶ and fellow anime directors Ikuhara Kunihiko²⁷ and Yamada Naoko²⁸ have both mentioned Terayama’s influence on their work. His oeuvre has also seen acknowledgement in the West: American blockbuster Bullet Train (David Leitch, 2022) features Carmen Maki’s 1969 hit single Toki ni wa haha no nai ko no you ni, to which Terayama wrote the lyrics. So too has his filmography been exhibited in locations as disparate as Harvard and ACMI.²⁹

Perhaps the greatest testament to his legacy is the Terayama Shuji Museum in Aomori prefecture, which was established in 1997 with the help of several key figures throughout Terayama’s life, including Kujo Eiko and Terayama Hatsu.³⁰

Encompassing myriad media and subcultures, his legacy playfully reflects the past while boldly anticipating the future.

Prismatic, ever extending: Terayama Shuji.

Filmography

Shorts

• Catology (Nekogaku) (1960)
• The Cage (Ori) (1964)
• Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Tomato Kechappu Koutei) (1971)
• Jan-ken War (Janken Sensō) (1971)
• Butterfly (Chōfuku-ki) (1974)
• Laura (Rōra) (1974)
• Young Person’s Guide to Cinema (Seishōnen no Tame no Eiga Nyūmon) (1974)
• Labyrinth Tale (Meikyū tan) (1975)
• Smallpox Tale (Hōsō-tan) (1975)
• The Trial (Shinpan) (1975)
• Eraser (Keshigomu) (1977)
• Les Chants de Maldoror (Marudororu no Uta) (1977)
• An Attempt to Describe the Measure of a Man (Issunbōshi o Kijutsusuru Kokoromi) (1977)
• The Woman with Two Heads (Nitō-onna: Kage no Eiga) (1977)
• Reading Machine (Shokenki) (1977)
• Father (Chichi) (1977)

Features

• Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (Sho o Suteyo Machi e Deyou) (1971) also known as Throw Away Your Books, Let’s Go into the Streets
• Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Den-en ni Shisu) (1974) also known as Pastoral Hide and Seek
• Boxer (Bokusa) (1977)
• Grass Labyrinth (Kusa Meikyu) (1979)
• Fruits of Passion (French: Les Fruits de la Passion; Japanese: Shanghai Ijin Shoukan – China Doll) (1981)
• Video Letter (Bideo Reta) (1983)
• Farewell to the Ark (Saraba Hakobune) (1984)

Articles in Senses of Cinema

• Throw Away Your Books: Japanese Cinema by Bill Mousoulis 
• The Closed World: The Films of Shinoda Masahiro – Surface Play and Subterfuge in the Movies of a Modern Classicist by David Phelps
• Tokyo 1969: Revolutionary Image Thieves in a Disintegrating City by Stephen Barber

Web Resources

• https://www.terayamaworld.com/ – official Terayama website.
• https://anguraresearchcenter.wordpress.com/ – a fan website dedicated to researching and archiving angura media with several articles on Terayama’s films and plays.

Endnotes