On Your Mark
Encyclopedia
is a song by the Japan
ese rock
duo Chage & Aska
. At their request, animator Hayao Miyazaki
produced a music video
for the song. The music video was created in 1995, is entirely animated, has no dialogue and runs for six and a half minutes. The song was used in advertisements for NEC
.
fashion. This is likely inspired by the lyrics. As the song describes, the two men do not give up in their efforts to rescue the winged girl, no matter how many times they fail.
The video begins with shots of a peaceful but vacant village
, overgrown with weed
s, with the enormous concrete
sarcophagus of a covered-over nuclear reactor
in the background.
As the music begins, the scene changes to a sci-fi style nighttime military-style police raid on a cult. Futuristic flying troop transports crash through the windows of a tower topped by the gigantic neon-lit eyes and occupied by armed defenders. Anti-terrorist policemen exchange gunfire and grenades with cultists whose hoods depict an enormous eye, similar to those of the Dorok priests in Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga. The police are victorious; as they sort through the bodies of apparent mass suicide victims, two of them find what appears to be a girl, lying unconscious, with large feathered wings on her back.
The scene changes again, now to bright daylight and blue sky. Two men are driving an old Alfa Romeo
down an empty road. One of them helps the girl up; she spreads her wings; he holds her hands as she gains confidence. With a nudge she is airborne, but she seems hesitant and afraid as he lets go.
The scene changes back to the discovery of the girl in the tower (bypassing the original sequence of the raid leading up to this point). Only at this point are the two men revealed to be the two from the vehicle in the previous sequence. The two men carefully carry her out and offer her something to drink, and are encouraged when she sips. But a team of scientists wearing radiation suits
arrives and quickly takes the girl away after placing her into a sterile container.
The two men are shown relaxing later, but thinking of the girl and looking somewhat morose — haunted by the fate this girl will suffer. The two plan — they are shown working on various aspects of this, then the pair wearing radiation suits and breaking into a laboratory
and rescuing the girl. This triggers the lab's alarms, and the three of them escape in an armored truck
. They drive along a narrow suspended roadway over what appears to be a domed city
built in a crater. Police hovercrafts are in pursuit, and one of them comes very low to the roadway right in front of the fugitives. When the protagonists try to force their way through underneath the hovercraft's belly, the resulting pressure tears down the roadway, sending the truck plummeting. The winged girl refuses to let go of the hands of her rescuers, and the three of them presumably fall to their deaths.
A brief montage of previous shots follows: the discovery of the girl, the girl flying through a blue sky, the two men rescuing the girl from the laboratory and stealing the truck, the truck plummeting amidst the wreckage of the roadway. But this time, the truck fires stabilising thrusters and makes a short flight into the side of an apartment tower. The men and the girl escape; they are seen in their sports car racing through a dark tunnel
underneath signs which bear radiation
symbols and read (in kanji
) "Beware Of Sunlight" and "Survival Not Guaranteed", then finally they emerge into daylight, passing through a field of nuclear cooling tower
s and past a sign which reads "Extreme Danger." Except for the green fields and trees, there are no other signs of life. This lush vegetation, however, hints the radioactivity might have subsided long ago, allowing nature to take over.
As the car speeds down the road, one of the men helps the girl up, and she spreads her wings and gives them a grateful smile; he kisses her hand, and the other winks in farewell. Soon, she is gone drifting upward into the sky. Briefly, a major urban cityscape is seen beyond the trees. From a bird's-eye view
, we see the shape of the car veering off the road and slowing to a stop in the grass. Hayao Miyazaki implies the two policemen might not be able to return to their old life, however; whether this is because of the authorities being on their trail or because of potential radioactive poisoning is unknown.
Aska Aska is the other policeman. He is more serious than his partner. It is he who suggests they save the angel girl. He drives the car whenever they need to go somewhere.
Angel girl The angel girl may or may not be an actual angel, but she does have two large, white, feathery wings sprouting out of her back. She is found by the two policemen in a religious cult's headquarters. It is possible she was given her wings by the cultists. She is unconscious for nearly the entire film, but in her waking moments, she is revealed to be grateful for what the policemen do for her.
The two men are meant to look like the singers Chage and Aska themselves. One of the men (wearing a naval cap) is depicted as brave and caring, while the other (wearing a helmet and dark goggles; apparently Chage as implied by the text on his coffee mug) is depicted as being somewhat goofy, but warm-hearted. This kind of pairing is common to anime
.
The winged girl resembles a princess from another Miyazaki film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The theme of the film is notable in that Princess Nausicaä studies and takes samples from the Toxic Jungle, a lethal forest contaminated and mutated after the apocalyptic "Seven Days of Fire."
version of the song — "Castles in the Air", which is available on Chage & Aska's English-language album One Voice: The Songs of Chage & Aska. This version of the music video was thought by many fans in Asia to be the intended version of the video because it was the version publicized originally.
The version of the video on the Ghibli ga Ippai Short Short DVD collection allows the animation to be played with either "On Your Mark" or "Castles in the Air" as the backing music.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
duo Chage & Aska
Chage and Aska
or Chage and Asuka are a Japanese popular music duo composed of two singer-songwriters from Fukuoka Prefecture, and . To date they have sold over 31 million albums and singles in Japan....
. At their request, animator Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
produced a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for the song. The music video was created in 1995, is entirely animated, has no dialogue and runs for six and a half minutes. The song was used in advertisements for NEC
NEC
, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
.
Synopsis
The narrative is told in a nonlinearNonlinear (arts)
Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, hypertext websites and other narratives, wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order...
fashion. This is likely inspired by the lyrics. As the song describes, the two men do not give up in their efforts to rescue the winged girl, no matter how many times they fail.
The video begins with shots of a peaceful but vacant village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
, overgrown with weed
Weed
A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...
s, with the enormous concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
sarcophagus of a covered-over nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
in the background.
As the music begins, the scene changes to a sci-fi style nighttime military-style police raid on a cult. Futuristic flying troop transports crash through the windows of a tower topped by the gigantic neon-lit eyes and occupied by armed defenders. Anti-terrorist policemen exchange gunfire and grenades with cultists whose hoods depict an enormous eye, similar to those of the Dorok priests in Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga. The police are victorious; as they sort through the bodies of apparent mass suicide victims, two of them find what appears to be a girl, lying unconscious, with large feathered wings on her back.
The scene changes again, now to bright daylight and blue sky. Two men are driving an old Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of cars. Founded as A.L.F.A. on June 24, 1910, in Milan, the company has been involved in car racing since 1911, and has a reputation for building expensive sports cars...
down an empty road. One of them helps the girl up; she spreads her wings; he holds her hands as she gains confidence. With a nudge she is airborne, but she seems hesitant and afraid as he lets go.
The scene changes back to the discovery of the girl in the tower (bypassing the original sequence of the raid leading up to this point). Only at this point are the two men revealed to be the two from the vehicle in the previous sequence. The two men carefully carry her out and offer her something to drink, and are encouraged when she sips. But a team of scientists wearing radiation suits
Hazmat suit
A hazmat suit is a garment worn as protection from hazardous materials or substances. A hazmat suit is generally combined with breathing apparatus for protection and may be used by firefighters, emergency personnel responding to toxic spills, researchers, specialists cleaning up contaminated...
arrives and quickly takes the girl away after placing her into a sterile container.
The two men are shown relaxing later, but thinking of the girl and looking somewhat morose — haunted by the fate this girl will suffer. The two plan — they are shown working on various aspects of this, then the pair wearing radiation suits and breaking into a laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
and rescuing the girl. This triggers the lab's alarms, and the three of them escape in an armored truck
Armored car (valuables)
A common meaning of armored car is as an armored van or truck, used in transporting valuables, such as large quantities of money . The armored car is a multifunctional vehicle designed to protect and ensure the well being of the transported individuals and/or contents...
. They drive along a narrow suspended roadway over what appears to be a domed city
Domed city
A domed city is a kind of theoretical or fictional structure that encloses a large urban area under a single roof. In most descriptions, the dome is airtight and pressurized, creating a habitat that can be controlled for air temperature and quality...
built in a crater. Police hovercrafts are in pursuit, and one of them comes very low to the roadway right in front of the fugitives. When the protagonists try to force their way through underneath the hovercraft's belly, the resulting pressure tears down the roadway, sending the truck plummeting. The winged girl refuses to let go of the hands of her rescuers, and the three of them presumably fall to their deaths.
A brief montage of previous shots follows: the discovery of the girl, the girl flying through a blue sky, the two men rescuing the girl from the laboratory and stealing the truck, the truck plummeting amidst the wreckage of the roadway. But this time, the truck fires stabilising thrusters and makes a short flight into the side of an apartment tower. The men and the girl escape; they are seen in their sports car racing through a dark tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
underneath signs which bear radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
symbols and read (in kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
) "Beware Of Sunlight" and "Survival Not Guaranteed", then finally they emerge into daylight, passing through a field of nuclear cooling tower
Cooling tower
Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature or in the case of closed circuit dry cooling towers rely...
s and past a sign which reads "Extreme Danger." Except for the green fields and trees, there are no other signs of life. This lush vegetation, however, hints the radioactivity might have subsided long ago, allowing nature to take over.
As the car speeds down the road, one of the men helps the girl up, and she spreads her wings and gives them a grateful smile; he kisses her hand, and the other winks in farewell. Soon, she is gone drifting upward into the sky. Briefly, a major urban cityscape is seen beyond the trees. From a bird's-eye view
Bird's-eye view
A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as though the observer were a bird, often used in the making of blueprints, floor plans and maps.It can be an aerial photograph, but also a drawing...
, we see the shape of the car veering off the road and slowing to a stop in the grass. Hayao Miyazaki implies the two policemen might not be able to return to their old life, however; whether this is because of the authorities being on their trail or because of potential radioactive poisoning is unknown.
Characters
Chage Chage, which can be guessed is his name since it is on his coffee mug, is one of the two policemen who rescue the angel girl. From what can be seen, he is funny, enjoys taking risks and knows much about technology.Aska Aska is the other policeman. He is more serious than his partner. It is he who suggests they save the angel girl. He drives the car whenever they need to go somewhere.
Angel girl The angel girl may or may not be an actual angel, but she does have two large, white, feathery wings sprouting out of her back. She is found by the two policemen in a religious cult's headquarters. It is possible she was given her wings by the cultists. She is unconscious for nearly the entire film, but in her waking moments, she is revealed to be grateful for what the policemen do for her.
Analysis
The video was inspired partly by the Chernobyl accident of 1986, in which a damaged reactor had to be covered with concrete and the surrounding area evacuated.The two men are meant to look like the singers Chage and Aska themselves. One of the men (wearing a naval cap) is depicted as brave and caring, while the other (wearing a helmet and dark goggles; apparently Chage as implied by the text on his coffee mug) is depicted as being somewhat goofy, but warm-hearted. This kind of pairing is common to anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
.
The winged girl resembles a princess from another Miyazaki film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The theme of the film is notable in that Princess Nausicaä studies and takes samples from the Toxic Jungle, a lethal forest contaminated and mutated after the apocalyptic "Seven Days of Fire."
Alternate version
There is another version of this video which, instead of having "On Your Mark" as backing music, has the EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
version of the song — "Castles in the Air", which is available on Chage & Aska's English-language album One Voice: The Songs of Chage & Aska. This version of the music video was thought by many fans in Asia to be the intended version of the video because it was the version publicized originally.
The version of the video on the Ghibli ga Ippai Short Short DVD collection allows the animation to be played with either "On Your Mark" or "Castles in the Air" as the backing music.