"Jakku To Mame No Ki"- The Jack and the Beanstalk Animation from Japan

Along with Snow White, “Jack and the Beanstalk” is another one of those fairy tales one often hears as a child. It is, as most of you probably know, a tale about a little boy who trades a cow for a handful of magic beans, and upon waking in the morning, finds that an enormous beanstalk has sprouted in his garden, extending up into the clouds.

The image of this beanstalk is engraved in the minds of children everywhere, yet the funny thing is, the story itself has dozens of different retellings. There are at least three major written versions based on oral versions of the stories, with three different authors to boot. Typically, the version penned by Joesph Jacobs is the one we see adaptations of in popular media, as it is believed to be the closest written telling there is to the original folktale.

However, if there is one thing I can usually count on when watching an anime adaptation of a fairy tale, is that they like to take some...lets say creative liberties with the source material. (In my experience, this usually involves sorcery of some sort. There happens to be an anime version of “Puss in Boots” where the main villain is a giant who can transform himself with the aid of a magic skull.)

“Jakku to Mame no Ki” does indeed make some interesting creative changes to the original tale, but altogether, I think it is vastly overlooked, especially today when anime has a huge following in the United States.

This version of Jack and the Beanstalk, directed by Gisoburo Sugii, is a musical anime film which at first, seems to follow the Joseph Jacobs version pretty closely. (Save for the addition of a comic-relief dog named Crosby who lives with Jack and his mother as well.) Jack is sent off to sell the family cow in order to get some money to buy food. However, on his way to town he comes across a man wearing an eye-patch who entices him to trade his cow for his magic beans, which he claims can cause miracles. Jack is talked into the deal, and returns home and gives the news to his mother, who becomes extremely irate and, just like in the story, throws the beans out the window into the garden. However, in this version, Jack's only adversary is not only the giant, but the giant's evil mother as well, who has cast a wicked magic spell on all the inhabitants of the “Castle of the Clouds” that has turned them into mice, while the Princess of the castle, believing the giant to be a handsome prince due to another magic spell, is betrothed to him.

See what I mean about creative changes? However, these changes are interesting in that they give Jack the opportunity to play the hero in his story, rather than merely the clever thief. It gives the story an additional conflict, but doesn’t divert too far from the source material to be unrecognizable either. It still sets the stage for the classic ending; Jack is pursued down the beanstalk by the giant, but he makes it down first and then chops in down with a hatchet, sending the giant plummetting to his death.

Having vouched for the movie's plot, I should return your attention to the fact that, at least the English version of the film labels this as a “Musical Fantasy.” There are many different kinds of songs in the film, and none of them I found to be bad exactly, but some of them I should say are a bit...strange.

The first few songs are not actually sung by characters in the movie, but an omniscient chorus of sorts that comes in during a scene where Jack is trying to trap food, where Jack is taking the cow to town to sell, and at night when the Beanstalk begins to grow. Some of the songs have a slow and easy-going pace to them, while others are fast-paced and sharp, adding to the tension of the scene (This point is mainly in reference to the song that starts when the Beanstalk begins to grow. I found it to be unique and memorable, but also in stark contrast to all of the previous songs that had played up to that point. Since it is pretty difficult to adequately describe here just how eclectic this soundtrack can be, below I took of the liberty of finding the scene with the song I mentioned above, entitled the “Miracle” Song on Youtube, where it can be viewed below.)

Overall, I found the songs to be pretty good, and most of the time they fit in nicely with the scenes they were matched too. The songs in this film widely varied in terms of sound, but the film also is strange in the sense that characters don't really seem to actually “sing” the songs, and I mean this in the sense that as the songs are being “sung,” we see the characters on screen moving their lips in a way that is unmistakably out of sync with the music, and it is blatant enough and happens often enough so that I can only infer that it was a stylistic choice on part of the director. It's not bad, but I did find it a tad awkward at first. It took some getting used to mostly due to the fact I had never seen another film, either animated or live-action, do anything remotely similar to this. I do think anyone going into this film should bear in mind that this is not a typical musical, and that it does have a unique style that does take a little getting used to. I don't think it was really a bad choice, as I did eventually grow more accustomed to it, and I think most people who watch it will as well.

Another thing I noticed is that the animation itself was very fluid had little of the somewhat choppy quality that anime sometimes has. In fact, people who are within the anime fandom might not even recognize this as an anime at first, as it's character models are less detailed and more cartoony compared with the art styles commonly seen in modern anime. A lot of older animation from Japan is significant in that fact that it more closely resembles early American animation, which makes sense considering that the earliest animes were inspired largely by Disney animation, and thus had a very similar style.

Overall, I found this to be an engaging, cute little retelling of the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” It brings a new twist to a classic tale that I think is very enjoyable to watch, and moreover attempts to have its own unique style to distinguish it from other musicals. I think it is a noteworthy adaptation of the story, and one

that deserves to have more of an audience.

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