The television animation series 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother 『母をたずねて三千里』 Haha wo Tazunete Sanzenri was released in the year 1976 as part of the project “The Theater of World-Masterpieces”. It was originally named From the Apennines to the Andes and is based, loosely, on a fragment from the popular novel Cuore (Heart) published by the Italian writer Edmondo de Amicis (1846-1908) in 1888. This television animation series contains 52 episodes of epic narrative lines and rich character architectures. 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother’s huge success in Japan was closely followed by an overwhelming success worldwide, particularly in Spain, Brazil and Israel. It triggered deep cultural and social movements, more specifically in the countries which found their own quest for national identity and international acknowledgment being reflected in this discreet mass-media work. Since its television release, almost three generations of viewers have experienced, mentally, emotionally, little Marco’s adventures during his relentless search for his mother, and remember it with warmth and tenderness: Late-modern social actors, in Pierre Bourdieu’s parlance, firmly embedded within a television and mass-media environment which leaves them few, if any, choices truly free of their own, recognize themselves in the small Italian boy, share with him joys and moments of sadness, of hope and despair. It is almost as if animation – in this case rather as a medium than as ideology or aesthetics – does not, cannot replace real life, but enriches it while courageously counterpointing it.
Plot Overview
The plot of 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother is relatively simple: Italian boy Marco Rossi lives in the city of Genova with his family; Genova had been heavily hit by severe tax increases as well as economic crises. His father, Pietro Rossi, runs a hospital where mainly poor citizens come: this brings him high social reputation, but not much income. Marco’s mother, Anna Rossi, leaves for Argentina in order to earn the necessary money for the family and send it back to them. Put in front of his mother’s sudden departure, Marco cannot deal with being away from her and decides to go in search of her, thus leaving behind his father and his elder brother, Antonio (Tonio). In accordance with his decision, Marco embarks on a long journey around the world. He is accompanied by Amedio, his little monkey-pet. During his travels, he encounters and accompanies for a while Peppino and his daughters, who run together a little wandering performance theater; they deliver short live events outdoors for money. For some time, Peppino, Conchetta, Fiorina and even the toddler Julietta (their mother died in childbirth) are Marco’s best friends in his quest, cheering him up and encouraging him in difficult moments, standing by his side as much as they can.
Marco’s search for his mother takes him from Italy up to Bolivia. He experiences many adventures, must undergo various jobs – e.g., as helper on the ship on which he departs from Italy, as courier, as bottle-washer – to earn money so that he can continue his travels; he gets to know many different people; but he never allows any failures or false traces to deter him from his goal to find his mother, somewhere in South America. When he eventually finds his mother, he is compelled to understand that throughout his journey, he has learnt the value of life and of other humans, despite hardships, setbacks and disappointments. Moreover, he starts to see the difficult decisions his parents had to make back then, between their own welfare and the survival of their co-citizens, between their own family unit and their responsibility towards those less fortunate than them. In the same way as Memories like Raindrops delivers its most important message in the final minutes of the end-scroll, the fundamental message of 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother is neatly conveyed in the last episode: Marco decides, like his father before him, to become a doctor for the poor when he finds out that his seriously ill mother had been treated and cured by such a doctor. This is a conclusion which teaches audiences and consumers more vital lessons than tons of treatises on the meaning of life and death. Beyond personal prosperity and satisfaction, there is social responsibility towards the others: this must be learnt, even if not taught, in the process of turning into a full-fledged human being.
Animation Transcends Childhood
Both Japanese and non-Japanese consumers of animation “made in Japan” mentioned the underlying seriousness of the plot-line when expressing their opinions on 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother. Edmondo de Amicis’ original book was unknown to most viewers I have been talking to, but they all felt somehow connected to Marco’s determination to travel until the end of the world to find his mother. Marco’s courage and decisiveness, his faith as well as his kindness were serving as an existential model to kids and teenagers belonging to three different generations, on a global scale: at its most basic, this television animation series speaks, more than the initial novel, of the coming-of-age of a young boy who sets his mind to find – and bring back – his lost mother. However, what Marco imagines under “his mother” proves, lastly, to be a highly idealized emotional-mental construction, which turns into a symbol of love. One might say, it is a reverse journey of initiation, during which the son reconstructs his parents: his mother from the childhood memories flooded with affection and longing, his father from the original disappointment of letting him down and his mother go. Marco’s self-identity gains increasingly clear contours during a long, slow, laborious process of deconstructing – and accepting – his parents as the flawed, but benevolent humans that they were, who have found themselves put in front of impossibly difficult decisions. He must understand and acknowledge that his mother had not left him out of selfishness and that his father had not treated poor patients for almost no money, if any money at all, out of stupidity. They both did this in the name of a greater good which dictated them to move beyond their personal wishes and limitations and to act the way they had chosen to. For Marco, growing-up and moving out into the wide world means the discovery of the human nature in its most intrinsic beauty and benevolence, as well as the acceptance of the others as necessary interfaces in the process of self-creation; by empathizing with these others, he learns to recognize the significance of life, of community and of inter-personal relationships.
From this perspective, Marco Rossi as male character is one of the last authentic winners in the animation genre in Japan. His figure – a symbol and a projection – will be increasingly dissolved over the next years and decades by the shôjo until its final effacement by mid-1990s. After Marco, male characters would be gradually portrayed as helpless, confused, blocked in their own world: the social phenomenon of otaku, a partial preview of what would be labeled since late 2000s as “toxic masculinity”, has been reflected in products of popular culture and merchandized with an unusually high level of positive feedback. At the outset, Marco Rossi is a naive boy who is determined to do anything in his power to find his mother in the wide world and to bring her home. His quest takes him to the end of anything known to him and his fellow-citizens back then, and far behind, in fact, and discloses over many years an apparently endless line of disappointments and moments of despair, counter-balanced once in a while by bright rays of hope. His constant, loyal friend is the pet-monkey Amedio, a powerful symbol and reminder of Marco’s firm, unshakeable faith in himself and in others.
Global Rites of Passage
Marco’s journey of initiation begins with his sudden awareness of a fact known to all others around him, who tried very hard to hide it away from him: his mother’s departure. This unforeseen awareness – that he might possibly never see his mother again –, means for Marco a first step, perhaps premature, one might argue, into the merciless world of the grown-ups, which allows neither generosity nor patience. In the hospital run by Marco’s father, mostly poor patients are treated; the immediate reason for his mother’s departure is the hope of a life in dignity for the entire family, as the meager income provided by his father cannot cover even the basic needs of the four-member family. In an aggressive outburst of anger and pain, Marco criticizes his father and his work very harshly; only at the end of his journey, years later, when he finds out that his mother had been rescued by a doctor very similar to his father, Marco changes his insight and understands, deeply, rigorously, the importance of such social individuals like his father: a doctor dedicating himself to the poor does not earn a lot of money, but he rescues the lives of many people who cannot otherwise afford the costs of medical treatment. Marco’s journey is full of such experiences, which reveal the world to him in concentric circles – a fascinating, beautiful, but also excruciating world. Thereby, Marco is constantly driven by the love towards his mother and the hope to find her: his quest is, in fact, the quest of an entire generation and of an entire nation for equality and prosperity for all as well as for the strength to keep on going despite setbacks and defeats. When he arrives at the end of his journey, Marco recognizes his parents’ ideals, learns to respect their efforts and their failures and identifies gradually with their conflicts and hopes. He gains insight into the fact that losses and victories alike are essential parts of the process of growing-up.
An important role within the representation of Marco’s journey of initiation is the depiction of the social framework as well as the illustration of the work of the so-called “new poor”: The overall result is an (almost) socialist art-work by means of the animated medium, counter-pointed by sensibly critical accents, so that the relationship between rich and poor – painfully obvious in the portrayal of the hospital run by Marco’s father, of the life circumstances of Peppino’s family as a wandering theater troupe, of the overseas ship-travel of the poor emigrants and most particularly in the intensive, emotional description of Fiorina’s short, platonic romance with a wealthy landowner – comes devastatingly into the foreground. It becomes agonizingly clear that it is impossible to escape the class which one was assigned by birth to or to move freely between classes, and that every attempt at transcending class-determined differences and thus at challenging the social predetermination is doomed to fail. The warm humanism which had enlivened through dynamic plasticity the narrative line in The Prince of Sun:Horus’ Great Adventure or Heidi, the Girl from the Alps, turns in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother the plot into a contemplative tale of the human condition. The vibrant optimism from The Prince of Sun: Horus’ Great Adventure and Heidi, the Girl from the Alps changes in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother into realism and the inescapable awareness that solely good intentions cannot save the world. This disenchantment process will continue in the next works, with a powerful climax in The Grave of the Fireflies.
The Collapse of the “Traditional Family” and Its Replacement with Friendships
Within the representation paradigm of inter-human relationships, a vital part is played by the description of nature. The collapse of what has been largely regarded as the “traditional family” in the tumultuous times of modernization and the accompanying dwindling sense of community are brought to the same denominator: nature is in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother almost permanently absent – a remarkably rare occurrence in Takahata’s works. In contrast to the stable, benevolent nature from The Prince of Sun: Horus’ Great Adventure or the solid, eternal nature from Heidi, the Girl from the Alps, in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother, in the scarce occasions when nature is present, it is mostly a desolate, bare, distant nature, with empty, endless deserts and gray landscapes, with lonely houses and miserable life-stories. This comes to underline even more sharply the disparity between its previous representation of social cohesion and of family as basic elements of the prevailing community, which inexorably gets lost due to the emergence of the all-encompassing society. Such factors used to prevail in Takahata’s former major animation releases, underscored by solidarity and compassion among human beings as basic prerequisites of a sustainably functional system, which allows every individual to find his/her place and to thrive, consequently.
In addition to the problematic representation of nature, the social dimension of friendship is carefully displayed in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother as the component of a broader observation of inter-human relationships. Friendship is by no means a natural appearance existing outside the realm of human action; rather, it arises solely as a personal decision resulting from a more or less accidental encounter. Like a brightly colored red thread, the friendship between Marco and Conchetta (the middle-daughter of Peppino’s household) as well as the other family members, conveys warmth and logical depth to Marco’s story, with Fiorina (the eldest daughter) momentarily replacing Marco’s mother, in this human constellation. Marco feels protected and safe within this family framework; in time, though, he comes to understand their precarious, vulnerable existence – which, in turn, helps him understand the vital role played by people like his parents and leads him to accept and respect their decisions on a very profound, intimate level.
On his quest, most support comes from persons who feel connected to him through the ineffable bond of friendship. This major feature makes 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother a powerful contemplation on the function and significance of friendship, apart from the other two dimensions mentioned previously, the complicated coming-of-age process and the social critique. Marco’s long journey towards his mother is not only a model emulating the quest for one’s own self in modernity as well as a critical insight into the social structure of early modernity, but also a sensitive analysis of what friendship might mean for modern social actors: a replacement for family and community, support and hope in times of distress. Subsequent animation productions, e.g., Galaxy Express 999 (『銀河鉄道 999』 Ginga Tetsudô 999, television animation series, 1978-1981), Kimagure Orange Road (『きまぐれオレンジ☆ロード』 Kimagure Orenji Rôdo, television animation series, 1987-1988), Rurouni Kenshin: The Romantic Tales of a Meiji Swordsman (『るろうに剣心：明治剣客浪漫譚』 Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan, television animation series, 1996-2001), Spirited Away, The Eternity You Long For (『君が望む永遠』 Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, television animation series, 2003-2004) or Beyond the Clouds, the Promised Place (『雲のむこう、約束の場所』 Kumo no Mukô, Yakusoku no Basho, also known as “The Place Promised in Our Early Days”, animation film, 2004), to name only a few, take over this theme in various manners, but the fundamental message remains the same: regardless of the plot-line, friendship rather than (romantic) love appears as the most important inter-human relationship in late modernity. It replaces family and community, erotic love and loyalty towards a master and combines the functions of all these emotional-mental states.
Animation as a Multi-Layered Phenomenon
By adopting this representation of friendship in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother, Takahata has established the status of animation as an artistic expression at the beginning of late modernity. On his own quest for “l’invention du réel” by means of animated images, Takahata sets in 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother the foundational block of his representational enterprise of animation as a medium, genre, technology, aesthetics and ideology. There is an important differentiation between the more general cartoons category and animation “made in Japan” according to Takahata’s vision and his own effort to turn that vision into a prevalent practice to make use of: the general category of the cartoons brings to life a narrative and visual environment which decidedly diverges from the live-action version of the world as this is reflected in live-action movies, while simultaneously transcending it. As a medium, though, Japanese animation overcomes this common categorization as innocent and children-oriented, and attempts to grasp a liberating worldview to be delivered to hopeful audiences. As a genre, on the other hand, Japanese animation as envisioned by Takahata and later on by Miyazaki himself, is located in the stress-ratio between comics and (live-action) movies, greatly depending on aesthetic and cultural outlooks carried by animation artists rather than on current circumstances of a global Disneyfication. Technologically speaking, Japanese animation is the result of hand-made (or, more recently, computer generated) eight to twelve frames per second, in sharp contrast to 16-24 frames per second in Western cartoons to mediate the illusion of a continuous movement. (This feature brought up the denomination of “limited animation”.)
The aesthetic dimension of Japanese animation is derived from the apparently incalculable freedom of animated images to reproduce the individual, ideological requirements of the artists; it refers mostly to the magic as well as to deeper levels of significance which turns animation into a popular communication paradigm. Lastly, animation as ideology reveals reality and realism as pure concepts: it grasps them creatively and overcomes their limitations and boundaries in critically expressive languages of democratic resonance. While it does not attain the vital strength of such theoretical concatenations, 3.000 Miles in Search of Mother conveys the familiar feeling that Japanese animation is a complex phenomenon and a reliable mirror which honestly reflects the world, the life and the human being.
Conclusion
3.000 Miles in Search of Mother is a first major proof showcasing the ability of Japanese animation to be a crucial part of the global animated universe, which it simultaneously enriches and transcends: like their non-Japanese counterparts, Japanese animators take great pleasure in re-creating humanity and thus challenging its history and its perspectives for the future. Everything becomes possible in the hands of animation artists: for short moments of absolute creative freedom, they become mischievous little gods playing with imagination, colors and contours. In the symbolic quest of a little boy for his mother, the entire emotional load of late modernity seems to be disposed of: Marco’s endeavor appears, therefore, no longer as an individual yearning, but turns into the emblem of a full era, which has either forgotten its roots and its nostalgias or has been trying all along to repress them through mindless consumption and irresponsible social behavior.
