High School Student Muyori-Anshin Reflects the Power of Youth and Entertainment with No Way Out, 1970-1975

High School Student Muyori-Anshin Reflects the Power of Youth and Entertainment with No Way Out, 1970-1975
Toho's film adaptation of Kajiwara Ikki's "High School Student Muyori-shi" was made against the backdrop of a serious turning point in the Japanese film industry in the first half of the 1970s. The rapid spread of television had caused a decline in the number of viewers, and major film companies, in order to survive, turned their attention to low-budget genre films that were sure to attract young viewers. Toei's "Bancho" and "Battles without Honor and Humanity," Nikkatsu's "Roman Porno," and Toho's "Seishun Action. This rapid-fire genre film line was a desperate measure to maintain movie theaters in the face of the growing popularity of television.
On the other hand, there was also a strong background on the social side: the student movement of the 1960s was dissolved and political ideals were lost, but only the frustration and sense of stagnation among the youth remained. The competition for entrance examinations, the shift to a more managerial and disciplined corporate society, and the sense that there was no place for them to belong were all pervasive. The school action was very convenient as a device to vent these feelings that had no outlet. Rebellion against the system was depicted not as a philosophy, but as an instinctive urge to punch the wall, and the audience was able to consume the violence with ease.
The expression of violence in High School Mutiny is detached from politics and completely spectacularized. Fistfights, motorcycles, intramural strife, betrayal and friendship. These were violence not to transform reality, but as a mechanism to temporarily release depressed emotions. At the same time, it was also differentiated from television by incorporating cultural elements of the time, such as 70s fashion, music, and youth language.
Therefore, High School Student Mutekiwa is not only a manga-based film, but also a crystallization of the strategies of the times developed by the film industry, which was in decline, to attract young people back to the theaters. Rebellion without principles, youth with no way out, and consuming violence. As an entertainment film that safely packages these elements, it sharply reflects the shadows and desires of Japanese society in the mid-1970s.