Title: Blik-O 1946
Music & Story: Nobuo Uematsu
Illustration: Hiroki Ogawa
Category: Fiction, Picture Book
Length & Cookies: 30 pages, the iBook version includes illustrations and 3 original songs
Postmodernism is big these days. By Postmodernism, I mean that old ideas are altered, refurbished, or changed to illustrate them in new, fresh ways. A great example of postmodernism was when Square Enix and Disney joined the forces of their respective intellectual properties. The result was a highly memorable and kinetic game-universe that recast old Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck, through the style of the Final Fantasy game series. More specifically, the result was a little gem named Kingdom Hearts, which has seen 7 sequels released between 2002 and 2013.
A huge benefit of refurbishing old ideas is that if the new style is successful, then the modern interpretation can capture a whole new and younger audience. Furthermore, The Kingdom Hearts universe, which was largely limited to worlds based on popular Disney animated films in the original game, would eventually grow and include expanded worlds based on live-action Disney films for its third entry, Kingdom Hearts II. Such popular sequels later led to a manga series. Therefore, one can see how easily postmodernism and refurbished ideas spread. Art, games, television, films, books, plays, screen plays- it is found everywhere.
Enter Nobuo Uematsu, who is considered by many to be one of the most respected and popular composers in the video-game industry. He joined Square Enix in 1986 and has crafted a number of very successful compositions for the Final Fantasy game series. Final Fantasy, like Kingdom Hearts, expanded beyond the gaming world and out into the cinema, manga and television worlds as well. However, Nobuo Uematsu left Square Enix in 2004 and formed his own music production company called Dog Ear Records. This has allowed Mr. Uematsu to pursue other free-lance endeavors, such as both writing and composing the music for a new picture book entitled Blik-O 1946.
The book immediately captures and refurbishes the old characters of Mister Geppetto (who is a kinder and more humane idea of Dr. Frankenstein) and Pinocchio, characters adapted for one of Disney’s older animated films. The illustrator, Hiroki Ogawa, offers his postmodern idea of the characters by drawing Pinocchio as a robot made of tin named Blik-O. The old, less humane Dr. Frankenstein, upon seeing his creation, would have run away and left his monster to fend and learn for itself. However, the new Geppetto, named Dr. Mabuse, is described by Uematsu in Act 1 of the story as “an authority on artificial intelligence [who] feared that his creation might do untold harm in the hands of evil men.” Thus, the father and son bond that Geppetto and Pinocchio shared is also found between Dr. Mabuse and Blik-O.
As an author, Uematsu will send the veteran and seasoned reader into a spiraling world of allusions. Blik-O was created with a tin body, as was the Tin Man in Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, which also had its characters and world refurbished into a live-action Disney film earlier this year. In addition, the main character (pictured below), also like the Tin Man and Pinocchio, is missing a human heart.
The setting further stirs the brew of postmodern allusions. Geppetto built Pinocchio in a small shop in a village in Italy in 1883, while Dr. Mabuse builds Blik-O in a small village in Germany in 1946. Regardless of the 63 year-gap, both Germany and Italy ring the mind’s bell of Hitler and Benito Mussolini. They were both historical figures who transcended into, and remain, the exact characters of evil that mankind can delve towards. However, such allusions and postmodern interpretations are not only isolated to the world of Blik-O . A recent movie directed by Richard Raaphorst, Frankenstein’s Army, used Dr. Frankenstein’s son as a Nazi scientist who turns the dead into killer robots. Although Uematsu’s take is both much more light hearted and much less schlock riddled, the settings are strikingly and eerily similar. If one views art from Uematsu and Ogawa’s literature and compares it to the movie-poster for Frankenstein’s Army, then one’s mind will go under to easily find postmodern similarities:
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Regardless, as an iBook, Blik-O 1946 offers a set of much needed extra perks to attract fans and newcomers alike. In regards to length, the picture book is divided into 13 Acts (30 pages total), which are one to three pages each with multiple illustrations. The biggest reasons to buy the book are the three tracks from Dog Ear Records and Uematsu that are included. When one purchases the iBook, a track called “Blik-O 1946″ is available to be played on the cover page. The track itself, like the other two, are keyboard injected themes of the robot’s struggle to become human. If readers click on the speaker symbol (pictured below) in the book, then the song will begin to play. If readers turn the page or skip ahead though, then the song stops. Still, the songs are wonderful additions that can be returned to, though I wish the careful arrangements could have played as a true soundtrack to accompany the turning pages.
After one finishes Act 5, another musical interlude called “Ah, But Why?” is available. The sonic and lush arrangements that Nobuo Uematsu made famous in the Final Fantasy series are instantly recognizable here. The track itself uses a synth-heavy sound that summons a distorted bridge from “When You Wish Upon a Star” that Jiminy Cricket sang at the opening of Disney’s animated version of Pinocchio.
The second track is playable after one finishes reading ACT 13. The track is called “So Close” and uses a series of mesmerizing pop hooks while Blik-O and his girlfriend, Puppe sing of their love for each other. Puppe’s voice is human, while Blik-O sings and speaks in a high-pitched robotic octave that sounds exactly like a baby, or a one-year old robot should; innocent, curious. While this track is the most relaxing of the three, it also serves as a trance-like note of peace and love during the aftermath of World War 2. It is most successful when the two characters sing together and the synth-hooks peak to a crescendo. In contrast, the other musical interlude “Ah, But Why?” is more upbeat and mysterious. It opens with samples from Blik-O reciting a poem, and quickly breaks into an early 80′s neo-pop wave of confusion. It’s as though Nobuo Uematsu were trying to infuse the struggles of a young boy’s first dreams after World War 2 with the soundtrack from Beverly Hills Cop. Again, each track goes under the seasoned reader’s mind to reminisce about other worlds, and the iBook includes the songs lyrics.
The overall cast of this picture book is appropriately small. Blik-O, his creator, Puppe, and a little punk named Sly only encounter Nazi soldiers once. There is a rush of violence here that is best described as misplaced yet haunting. Uematsu and Ogawa quickly shift the focus of the story into Blik-O and Puppe’s love, which is highlighted by pictures of the young couple discovering what it means to share a heart. Parents and older readers alike will most likely find the conflict with soldiers, and a heart-wrenching death of one of the characters shortly after, questionable and inappropriate for very young children. The main reason for this is that machine guns are used to save lives, but condemned throughout the beginning and the rest of the story. As a result, an audience of students in grade 5 or higher is the most appropriate group for Uematsu’s writing. Such readers will identify with Blik-O’s questions and curiosities about human behavior as well as life in general. His struggles to fit in and become what he wants to be while others either befriend or take advantage of him can contingently be reminiscent of anybody’s first day of school. In addition, the book pulls together for a happy ending that everybody can contingently take with them.
Yet, on an intellectual path, the book does show true short-comings. Uematsu wants to tell a tale of love as well as to redefine what it means to have a heart. After all, the horrors that took place in World War 2 were committed by people with human hearts, but these are the same people that would describe an innocent Blik-O as heartless. At times, the backdrop of Germany in 1946 just doesn’t suit the tale. There is little description of the setting, and the illustrations are darkly colored, not very vibrant, and are mostly of the main character. Obviously, Uematsu wants readers to use their imagination and to rejoice in child-like love rather than focus on the atrocities of war, and such a notion is more than admirable. The author captures that mood with the three songs on the iBook’s soundtrack, though not necessarily with his pen. Like the first outing for Kingdom Hearts, which had successful points but was limited, Blik-o 1946 also has touching moments of a naive and misplaced boy-like robot on a journey through a small-minded village in Germany, yet the literature and illustrations serve more as an expanded EP cover for Uematsu’s true genuis, which is music.
It must be reiterated that the success of the first Kingdom Hearts gave rise to a far superior sequel. And, the final page of this first Blik-O story ends with the following: The End…?
Overall, the combination of art forms within Blik-O 1946 allow the music of a trained composer in Uematsu and the illustrations of Ogawa to somewhat overshadow the thinly penned story. The allusions and familiar archetypes will stir the minds of only seasoned readers long after the book finishes, and that is the bright fact that raises the question of whether a large enough audience will support and garner enough interest for a superior sequel to be crafted. The final verdict is that fans should buy Blik-O 1946 for the music, recognize it as a new style of EP, or a small album, and riskily yet faithfully trust that the combination of Uematsu and Ogawa can expand the concept into a future gem.
Chris Patton is the writer for Laser Lemming’s movie review blog entitled The Cursed Hero. Read his rodent blog here: https://laserlemming.com/category/blogs/cursedhero/
