I'm happy that my films were discovered by chance by foreign film festivals. That makes me realise more that there is a world outside Japan too. For me, it's an occasion to meet many people and to experience directly the response of international audiences to my films. But for me as a director, my attitude towards making films hasn't changed with the fame. I feel it's not good to change as a person anyway
I haven't changed. If it seems I'm becoming more mainstream, doesn't that mean instead that Japan is aligning itself with me? I haven't changed one bit.
Basically, people in other countries don't want to have to work quite as flat-out as they do in Japan.
I always enjoy working with an international crew and director. But on the set of a Hollywood action film - now that's a whole other world. The sheer grand scale of the way things are done over there makes me envious; it's just so different from the way things are done in Japan.
Fish from all over the world, from deep in the sea, wind up in countries from Germany to Japan. That is just crazy.
I guess my favorite way to travel is in a car, especially if you get to go some place cool. The bullet train in Japan is cool; but overall, driving through certain areas, like the desert in the United States, or the Black Forest in Germany, you feel the nature unfolding.
Going there [Japan] in the early 80s was quite a culture shock. I think the bombardment of Shinjuku and all that would have filtered through, which certainly informed things we later filmed.
Turkey, Japan do great work because they can keep under control their little personal selfishness, egoism, jealousy, etc. when they get down to work.
Even if I'm in Japan and I don't speak Japanese and the woman facing me doesn't speak French but she's dressed in Rykiel, and she recognizes me, then we have a common language right away.
I certainly have more enthusiasm when I'm dealing with marginalized people in Japan, and as a creative person I am part of that marginalization.
Of course, when it comes to Japanese role-playing games, in any role-playing game in Japan you're supposed to collect a huge number of items, and magic, and you've got to actually combine different items together to make something really different.
Japan actually is an aging population, and so as the population has aged, they have had a lot more problems with health.
People don't put as much of an emphasis in expanding their choices, so that, you know, one of the things that I learned when I was in Japan way back in the 1990's and there were all these quarrels happening between the U.S. and Japan about allowing more American products into the Japanese market.
When Japanese went to Hawaii they would go straight and buy the same thing that they would buy in Japan. They just got it cheaper, which they liked. And so they would still eat the red bean ice cream or the green tea ice cream, but they didn't really take advantage of the variety and it wasn't clear that they cared.
Me being from a Celtic culture that tends to emphasize directness, conflict, openness has a big effect on my living in Japan, which tends to focus on indirectness, avoidance of conflict and keeping things close to your chest. So that has led to quite a lot of cultural misunderstandings in dealing with this East Asian culture I live in.
I had whale tartare when I was in Japan, but I probably wouldn't have it again.
I really liked the food in Japan. There is something so organized, neat, and methodical about it. They put a lot of care and quality into their cooking. I also love Mediterranean, New American, and Italian food, because the cuisines borrow influences from all over the world.
I had sort of had a 21st birthday when I was 17, 18-years-old living in Japan. I had all of that stuff sort of happen earlier for me, which happens to a lot of people. My 21st birthday was just a little boring. Not a great story.
I think actually what I'm going to do when I'm done and take my next vacation, is I'm going to go over and start unions in Japan. I'm going to unionize Japan. Because the way they work those crews is so criminal. There's no overtime, so they can just keep going.
I've always been fascinated by Japanese culture.
When I think of countries that I enjoyed visiting, that I would want to go back to, Italy would be one, Japan would be another. I've only been to Indonesia once or twice and it seems like such a fascinating country. I guess India certainly.
Japan's diplomatic efforts could have had a broader international perspective. Relations with the U.S. are, of course, the cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy, but the U.S. acts on its global strategy. For instance, Washington suddenly got closer to China in the early 1970s as part of its strategy against the Soviet Union.
Japan needs to cooperate with China economically. This is understood better by the business community than the government.
Climate change has always been sort of my main focus. I think also with [what happened in Fukushima, Japan] there's still a lot to think about in terms of what's coming down the pike into the world's oceans, too.
The United States trades more with the province of Ontario alone than with Japan.
