Karakuri Babble is a daily column by the editors of i360.com, usually on topics tangentially related to anime and cosplay.

In the past we have endorsed many things; in the future we shall support many others.

One of the little-studied elements of cosplay in the modern era is the "stage ninjas" who perform onstage dressed all in black, helping to make things happen that are common in anime, but impossible in reality.

I'm sorry, that was a terrible explanation. Here's a video:

As you can see, there are. . . a lot of people making the transformation effect possible. It's basically always played for laughs, as here, but I think there's a serious aspect to it.

And of course, the thing about it that I think is funny is that this is one of the most unique and distinctive legacies of Japanese theatre (where, I have a feeling, it was also done for laughs once in a while.) In kabuki, the stagehands dressed in black function as mechanical aids and greek chorus all in one, both enabling and commenting on the onstage action.

A video will probably help a bit here. This is the trailer for SHINODA Masahiro's legendary 1969 film Double Suicide, adapted from a bunraku play which uses the same black-clad stagehand convention. (Not work safe).

Particularly near the end of the trailer, you can see how the kuroko are practically ferrying the characters along to their destiny. That's what I mean -- they're not passive or invisible by any stretch of the imagination. Just as in the cosplay video, they are the unacknowledged -- deliberately occluded -- subject of the film.

words from chris, 2009-06-14 18:47:38, los angeles