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Japan Today
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
How true to life is Brendon Fraser's movie about Japanese rental families?
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24 In the decade-plus that SoraNews24 has been around, we've never once mentioned Brendan Fraser. This isn't because of any long-standing beef between us, but simply a result of the Academy Award-winning actor not having any major connections to Japan-related happenings during that interval. So to all our loyal readers who also happen to be fans of Mr Fraser, we apologize for the wait, which is now over thanks to the release of the trailer for "Rental Family." An upcoming release from Los Angeles-based Searchlight Pictures, "Rental Family" stars Fraser as a foreigner living in Japan, eking out a living acting in commercials. When that line of income starts to dry up, he finds a job with a 'rental family' agency, where customers pay to have someone play the role of a family member or friend. This isn't such a far-fetched premise. There's an entire ecosystem within the Japanese show business industry of foreign resident actors who specialize in bit roles in commercials, movies, TV dramas, and historical reenactment programs that need non-Japanese on-screen cast members (the live-action adaptation of manga "Thermae Romae," for example. has a scene set in an ancient Roman bathhouse with dozens of non-Japanese extras). The size of these parts, though, means that the actors aren't making A-lister money, so Fraser's character needing to take on an unorthodox job to make ends meet is pretty plausible. Likewise, Japan, really does have rental family agencies. They first started attracting significant attention in the early 2010s, and we've even tried their services out for ourselves, such as when our reporters rented a middle-aged man or sister (two sisters, actually). That said, judging from the trailer, it's debatable whether "Rental Family," directed by professionally mononymous Hikari, who was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. after high school, is attempting to accurately depict the status of rental family agencies in contemporary Japanese society, or whether its main goal is to tell a dramatic and emotional story with Fraser's character's job as its framing device. For example. a major plotline seems to involve a Japanese woman hiring Fraser's character to pretend to be the father of her daughter, who appears to be of mixed Japanese/Caucasian ancestry. 'This girl needs a father,' Fraser's boss tells him, and when he introduces himself to the child as such, in a public place, she shouts 'I hate you!' and storms off. 'She hates me,' Fraser laments to his boss, who replies 'That's what being a parent is.' Now, it's definitely true that most countries don't have rental family services, and the obvious reason is that the concept would be seen as just too weird. But while the idea isn't too weird for Japanese society as a whole, renting a family member is still considered unusual by most Japanese people. There's no real pushback against it, since it's seen as quirky but harmless fun for those who're intrigued by the proposition, and you could argue Japan is already somewhat softened regarding paid quasi-social relationships, what with hostess/host bars having been a thing for so long. However, hiring a stranger to pretend to be your child's father, especially as an attempt to address clearly severe psychological issues stemming from the parent's absence, is something that most Japanese people would say is a cruel disservice to the child, and not the sort of benefit that rental family agencies promote themselves as providing. Yes, you can rent a 'dad' in Japan, as Conan O'Brien famously did during his time in the country, but again, the service is targeted at adults wanting a fatherly figure for role play, not as a way to address the emotional trauma of a minor. Similarly, Japan's 'rental grandma' service is more about the sage wisdom, traditional skills, and calming presence that a woman of advanced age can provide, not necessarily acting as a substitute for an actual familial connection. So what about the two scenes where Fraser appears to have been hired to play the role of a groom at a wedding, one a Western-style ceremony and one a traditional Japanese one? Surely that's got to be crossing some sort of marriage-fraud line, right? Except, no, those are actually possible scenarios, though maybe not the most plausible. That's because in Japan, wedding ceremonies, whether performed at a church or temple, aren't legally binding. The only way to make your marriage official in the eyes of the law is to submit your marriage registration paperwork to your local city hall or ward office. So as long as the chapel or temple is OK with it, you could, in theory, hold a wedding ceremony, and a reception too, as a purely for-fun thing, perhaps if circumstances mean you're unlikely to ever get legally married to an actual life partner. Sure, it'd involve considerable expense, and there's no guarantee that all of your friends and family members would be onboard and happy to attend, but there's no legal barrier to doing it if you want to have the wedding experience without actually getting married. Oh, and you also have to give "Rental Family" credit for making sure to pick a suitably niche console to be the system of choice of the lonely man who hires Fraser to pretend to be his buddy. ▼ Your true friends are the ones who'll still hang out and play Dreamcast games with you in 2025 (but they'd be even better friends if they helped keep any snacks off of the disc drive cover). The trailer also includes a few shots of the Shibuya Scramble intersection, but I'm pretty sure the U.N. recently passed a resolution mandating the landmark be shown at least once in any foreign-produced movie with scenes set in Tokyo. The more aggravating thing is when the preview has someone saying, ostensibly to Fraser, 'You could live in this country for a hundred years, and there will still be things you won't understand.' Yeah, Japanese culture has its initially confusing quirks, just like any country's culture does, but playing up the inscrutability of the Japanese psyche is a pretty tired cliche, especially considering how many of Japan's real-world foreign residents effectively adapt to the local social norms way before they hit the century mark of living here, and even more especially when the line is paired with visuals showing people waiting at a train crossing, which doesn't exactly make one say 'Ah, Japan…so mysterious!' ▼ Granted, the barriers do tend to go down earlier in Japan than in some other countries, but 'Wait here so you don't get hit by a train' isn't so hard for non-Japanese people to wrap their heads around. So you could say that it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of how much of a window into modern Japanese life "Rental Family" is going to be, but that might not really be its intention anyway. Fraser's character himself even says 'You know, sometimes it's OK to pretend' as the trailer wraps up, so 100-percent real-world accuracy probably isn't the goal, and if nothing else it looks like it's going to be a story that's both introspective and encouraging of empathy, neither of which are bad emotional spaces for a movie to take its audience. "Rental Family" opens in theaters in North America on November 21. Source, images: YouTube/SearchlightPictures Read more stories from SoraNews24. -- We tried Tokyo's 'rent a middle-aged Japanese man' service, and it was awesome! -- Conan O'Brien in Japan episode features Toto toilets, Harajuku, a rented family and Conan Town -- Rental grandma service growing in Japan, can help cook or break up with boyfriends External Link © SoraNews24
SoraNews24
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
How true to life is the trailer for Brendon Fraser's movie about Japanese rental families?
Rental families are thing in Japan, but is Rental Family going to show what life in Japan is really like? In the decade-plus that SoraNews24 has been around, we've never once mentioned Brendan Fraser. This isn't because of any long-standing beef between us, but simply a result of the Academy Award-winning actor not having any major connections to Japan-related happenings during that interval. So to all our loyal readers who also happen to be fans of Mr. Fraser, we apologize for the wait, which is now over thanks to the release of the trailer for Rental Family. An upcoming release from Los Angeles-based Searchlight Pictures, Rental Family stars Fraser as a foreigner living in Japan, eking out a living acting in commercials. When that line of income starts to dry up, he finds a job with a 'rental family' agency, where customers pay to have someone play the role of a family member or friend. This isn't such a far-fetched premise. There's an entire ecosystem within the Japanese show business industry of foreign resident actors who specialize in bit roles in commercials, movies, TV dramas, and historical reenactment programs that need non-Japanese on-screen cast members (the live-action adaptation of manga Thermae Romae , for example. has a scene set in an ancient Roman bathhouse with dozens of non-Japanese extras). The size of these parts, though, means that the actors aren't making A-lister money, so Fraser's character needing to take on an unorthodox job to make ends meet is pretty plausible. Likewise, Japan, really does have rental family agencies. They first started attracting significant attention in the early 2010s, and we've even tried their services out for ourselves, such as when our reporters rented a middle-aged man or sister (two sisters, actually). That said, judging from the trailer, it's debatable whether Rental Family , directed by professionally mononymous Hikari, who was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. after high school, is attempting to accurately depict the status of rental family agencies in contemporary Japanese society, or whether its main goal is to tell a dramatic and emotional story with Fraser's character's job as its framing device. For example. a major plotline seems to involve a Japanese woman hiring Fraser's character to pretend to be the father of her daughter, who appears to be of mixed Japanese/Caucasian ancestry. 'This girl needs a father,' Fraser's boss tells him, and when he introduces himself to the child as such, in a public place, she shouts 'I hate you!' and storms off. 'She hates me,' Fraser laments to his boss, who replies 'That's what being a parent is.' Now, it's definitely true that most countries don't have rental family services, and the obvious reason is that the concept would be seen as just too weird. But while the idea isn't too weird for Japanese society as a whole, renting a family member is still considered unusual by most Japanese people. There's no real pushback against it, since it's seen as quirky but harmless fun for those who're intrigued by the proposition, and you could argue Japan is already somewhat softened regarding paid quasi-social relationships, what with hostess/host bars having been a thing for so long. However, hiring a stranger to pretend to be your child's father, especially as an attempt to address clearly severe psychological issues stemming from the parent's absence, is something that most Japanese people would say is a cruel disservice to the child, and not the sort of benefit that rental family agencies promote themselves as providing. Yes, you can rent a 'dad' in Japan, as Conan O'Brien famously did during his time in the country, but again, the service is targeted at adults wanting a fatherly figure for roleplay, not as a way to address the emotional trauma of a minor. Similarly, Japan's 'rental grandma' service is more about the sage wisdom, traditional skills, and calming presence that a woman of advanced age can provide, not necessarily acting as a substitute for an actual familial connection. So what about the two scenes where Fraser appears to have been hired to play the role of a groom at a wedding, one a Western-style ceremony and one a traditional Japanese one? Surely that's got to be crossing some sort of marriage-fraud line, right? Except, no, those are actually possible scenarios, though maybe not the most plausible. That's because in Japan, wedding ceremonies, whether performed at a church or temple, aren't legally binding. The only way to make your marriage official in the eyes of the law is to submit your marriage registration paperwork to your local city hall or ward office. So as long as the chappal or temple is OK with it, you could, in theory, hold a wedding ceremony, and a reception too, as a purely for-fun thing, perhaps if circumstances mean you're unlikely to ever get legally married to an actual life partner. Sure, it'd involve considerable expense, and there's no guarantee that all of your friends and family members would be onboard and happy to attend, but there's no legal barrier to doing it if you want to have the wedding experience without actually getting married. Oh, and you also have to give Rental Family credit for making sure to pick a suitably niche console to be the system of choice of the lonely man who hires Fraser to pretend to be his buddy. ▼ Your true friends are the ones who'll still hang out and play Dreamcast games with you in 2025 (but they'd be even better friends if they helped keep any snacks off of the disc drive cover). The trailer also includes a few shots of the Shibuya Scramble intersection, but I'm pretty sure the U.N. recently passed a resolution mandating the landmark be shown at least once in any foreign-produced movie with scenes set in Tokyo. The more aggravating thing is when the preview has someone saying, ostensibly to Fraser, 'You could live in this country for a hundred years, and there will still be things you won't understand.' Yeah, Japanese culture has its initially confusing quirks, just like any country's culture does, but playing up the inscrutability of the Japanese psyche is a pretty tired cliche, especially considering how many of Japan's real-world foreign residents effectively adapt to the local social norms way before they hit the century mark of living here, and even more especially when the line is paired with visuals showing people waiting at a train crossing which doesn't exactly make one say 'Ah, Japan…so mysterious!' ▼ Granted, the barriers do tend to go down earlier in Japan than in some other countries, but 'Wait here so you don't get hit by a train' isn't so hard for non-Japanese people to wrap their heads around. So you could say that it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of how much of a window into modern Japanese life Rental Family is going to be, but that might not really be its intention anyway. Fraser's character himself even says 'You know sometimes it's OK to pretend' as the trailer wraps up, so 100-percent real-world accuracy probably isn't the goal, and if nothing else it looks like it's going to be a story that's both introspective and encouraging of empathy, neither of which are bad emotional spaces for a movie to take its audience. Rental Family opens in theaters in North America on November 21. Source, images: YouTube/SearchlightPictures ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! Following Casey on Twitter also does not count as a legal marriage.
News18
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
Volcano Erupts In Japan As New Baba Vanga's 'July 5 Earthquake' Prophecy Stokes Fears
Last Updated: Video of the eruption captured by the Meteorological Agency showed lava and thick grey smoke rising from the mountain around midnight on Wednesday. Japan's Mount Shinmoedake erupted on Wednesday afternoon, sending thick ash plumes several metres into the air. Authorities issued warnings advising locals to stay away from the mountain due to safety concerns. As the volcano erupted, social media was abuzz with references to a viral prediction made by Japanese manga artist Ryo Tatsuki, who had earlier forecast a major disaster in Japan in 2025. Often likened to Baba Vanga for her uncanny foresight, Tatsuki's prophecy — which mentioned a catastrophic event in early June — resurfaced online, with many drawing connections to the sudden volcanic activity. Japan's weather agency also issued a warning and said, 'The plume reached the height of 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) for the first time since April 3, 2011." Video of the eruption captured by the Meteorological Agency showed lava and thick grey smoke rising from the mountain around midnight on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a powerful earthquake on Thursday—one of over 1,000 tremors reported in Kagoshima prefecture over the past two weeks—has intensified speculation linked to a manga prediction about a major disaster in July. Following a 5.5-magnitude quake near southern Kyushu, authorities evacuated residents from nearby remote islands on Friday. On Saturday, Japan's government warned of further possible quakes in the region but urged the public not to fall for baseless disaster rumours circulating online. The manga's first edition appeared to foreshadow the March 2011 quake and tsunami that devastated Japan. Its latest edition has been interpreted by some as predicting a major disaster on July 5, 2025 — a claim the creator, Ryo Tatsuki, has denied. Meanwhile, the viral rumour and prediction have also affected tourism in Japan, according to a report by Reuters. While Japan recorded an all-time monthly high of 3.9 million travellers in April, the numbers declined in May. Steve Huen of Hong Kong-based travel agency EGL Tours blamed a flurry of social media predictions tied to a manga that depicts a dream of a massive earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan and neighbouring countries in July 2025. 'The rumours have had a significant impact," said Huen, adding that his firm had seen its Japan-related business halve. Branden Choi, a 28-year-old frequent traveller to Japan and resident of Hong Kong, said he was hesitant to visit the country during July and August due to the manga prediction. 'If possible, I might delay my trip and go after September," he said. First Published: July 05, 2025, 14:24 IST
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GMA Network
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- GMA Network
Manga doomsday prediction spooks tourists to Japan
Viral rumours of impending disaster stemming from a comic book prediction have taken the sheen off Japan's tourism boom, with some airlines cancelling flights from Hong Kong where passengers numbers have plunged. Japan has seen record numbers of visitors this year, with April setting an all-time monthly high of 3.9 million travellers. That dipped in May, however, with arrivals from Hong Kong - the superstitious Chinese-controlled city where the rumours have circulated widely - down 11% year-on-year, according to the latest data. Steve Huen of Hong Kong-based travel agency EGL Tours blamed a flurry of social media predictions tied to a manga that depicts a dream of a massive earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan and neighbouring countries in July 2025. "The rumours have had a significant impact," said Huen, adding that his firm had seen its Japan-related business halve. Discounts and the introduction of earthquake insurance had "prevented Japan-bound travel from dropping to zero," he added. Hong Kong resident Branden Choi, 28, said he was a frequent traveller to Japan but was hesitant to visit the country during July and August due to the manga prediction. "If possible, I might delay my trip and go after September", he said. Ryo Tatsuki, the artist behind the manga titled 'The Future I Saw', first published in 1999 and then re-released in 2021, has tried to dampen the speculation, saying in a statement issued by her publisher that she was "not a prophet". The first edition of the manga warned of a major natural disaster in March 2011. That was the month and year when a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster struck Japan's northeastern coast killing thousands. Some have interpreted the latest edition as predicting a catastrophic event would occur specifically on July 5, 2025, although Tatsuki has denied this. Situated within the Pacific Ocean's 'Ring of Fire,' Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. In recent days there have been more than 900 earthquakes, most of them small tremors, on islands off the southern tip of Kyushu. But Robert Geller, a professor at the University of Tokyo who has studied seismology since 1971, said even scientifically-based earthquake prediction was "impossible". "None of the predictions I've experienced in my scientific career have come close at all," he said. Nevertheless, low-cost carrier Greater Bay Airlines became the latest Hong Kong airline on Wednesday to cancel flights to Japan due to low demand, saying it would indefinitely suspend its service to Tokushima in western Japan from September. Serena Peng, 30, a visitor to Tokyo from Seattle, had initially tried to talk her husband out of visiting Japan after seeing the social media speculation. "I'm not super worried right now, but I was before," she said, speaking outside Tokyo's bustling Senso-ji temple. —Reuters
Business Recorder
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Recorder
Manga doomsday prediction spooks tourists to Japan
TOKYO/HONG KONG: Viral rumours of impending disaster stemming from a comic book prediction have taken the sheen off Japan's tourism boom, with some airlines cancelling flights from Hong Kong where passengers numbers have plunged. Japan has seen record numbers of visitors this year, with April setting an all-time monthly high of 3.9 million travellers. That dipped in May, however, with arrivals from Hong Kong - the superstitious Chinese-controlled city where the rumours have circulated widely - down 11% year-on-year, according to the latest data. Steve Huen of Hong Kong-based travel agency EGL Tours blamed a flurry of social media predictions tied to a manga that depicts a dream of a massive earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan and neighbouring countries in July 2025. 'The rumours have had a significant impact,' said Huen, adding that his firm had seen its Japan-related business halve. Discounts and the introduction of earthquake insurance had 'prevented Japan-bound travel from dropping to zero,' he added. Hong Kong resident Branden Choi, 28, said he was a frequent traveller to Japan but was hesitant to visit the country during July and August due to the manga prediction. 'If possible, I might delay my trip and go after September', he said. Ryo Tatsuki, the artist behind the manga titled 'The Future I Saw', first published in 1999 and then re-released in 2021, has tried to dampen the speculation, saying in a statement issued by her publisher that she was 'not a prophet'. The first edition of the manga warned of a major natural disaster in March 2011. That was the month and year when a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster struck Japan's northeastern coast killing thousands. Some have interpreted the latest edition as predicting a catastrophic event would occur specifically on July 5, 2025, although Tatsuki has denied this. Situated within the Pacific Ocean's 'Ring of Fire,' Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. In recent days there have been more than 900 earthquakes, most of them small tremors, on islands off the southern tip of Kyushu.
