A ‘brand-new’ take on Frankenstein

TOKYO — Go Ayano, one of the most awarded and most respected actors of his generation in Japan (think of Filipino heartthrobs Piolo Pascual or John Lloyd Cruz), is playing the titular immortal monster, with a gentle heart, in the romantic Japanese TV drama Frankenstein’s Love, inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic fiction novel.

Presented by GEM TV, Frankenstein’s Love is airing every Thursday at 9 p.m. on SkyCable Channel 116. It features the 35-year-old Ayano as the humanoid monster Bem created by Dr. Franken 100 years ago, and who has an unspeakable secret of endangering the lives of any human who would touch him including Tsugaru, the woman he is bound to fall in love with, played by Fumi Nikaido.

Although he is yearning for human contact and dreaming of becoming human someday (he listens to the radio and collect things thrown away by people), Bem is unwilling to jeopardize the lives of others and chooses to hide himself deep within the forest.

“I was drawn to this project because as an actor, I felt that being a monster and an actor is actually quite similar,” Ayano remarked, which drew laughter from members of the Asian media, among them The Philippine STAR, who were met by the actor at a press junket promoting the drama series overseas.

“As an actor, we create characters and actors as well,” he clarified. “The image of the actors is created by the public and by the people, and we get to know each other more as we shed each layer of our skin, and then evolve and grow. In this sense, I feel like monsters and actors are the same.”

“I also feel that humans are sometimes more like monsters than monsters themselves,” added Ayano, who is best known for the movies Gatchaman, Lupin III and Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. “Humans live life without even questioning it. The thing is we all die in the end. And even though we know we’ll die in the end, we take life for granted.”

Producer Kawano Hidehiro said Frankenstein’s Love is a fresh take on the 1818 classic British novel, which even non-Japanese viewers can connect to right away. There’s even a love story element to it, he noted, between monster and human.

“Casting the main character as non-human allows us to see humans on a totally different perspective,” said Hidehiro, who has produced a number of blockbuster shows for Nippon TV. “It’s a totally non-human perspective and I think that’s very interesting.”

“There’s been many remakes of Frankenstein throughout history and so what I wanted to do is to take every single one into account and incorporate that and also create something brand-new,” he explained. “We wanted it to be beautiful and we want the story to have a melancholic quality in order to draw people in. The idea here is to take a character who everyone around the world knows and see how the popularity of that character will increase our viewership around the world.”

The press was given a tour of the laborious set at TMC Studios outside Tokyo and watched some of the actual filming with Ayano, before he granted a freewheeling interview. “Feel free to ask anything,” he playfully told the press. Filipino-Japanese interpreter Ryu Suzuki of Nippon TV translated the actor’s response from Nihonggo to English.

Ayano, who received the Rising Star Award from the 15th New York Asian Film Festival and the 37th Japan Academy Award for Newcomer of the Year, expressed confidence that the drama’s theme of pure love between a human and a monster would attract and inspire viewers of all ages and backgrounds.

“We all want to believe that real love can blossom in that type of relationship,” he said. “I think we were born with that kind of emotion and we want to hold on to it. When we grow from child to adult, we lose the pureness of that emotion. I think as adults we want to regain the pureness of our heart.”

Although the character’s physical appearance is far from the customary Frankenstein look the world has come to know, Ayano revealed that the production put painstaking efforts for his humanoid monster appearance.

“Physically, it requires a lot of special make-up for the entire body,” he shared. “There are also changes in the character that happen and those changes are done with the help of special make-up. It’s very time consuming, especially when I have to wake up early in the morning to start the make-up process.”

“It’s really challenging, but it’s all worth it,” he added.

Ayano is confident the viewers will fall for the “genuine kindness” and “unique charm” of his character and may even make them realize how lucky they are to be humans.

“What I love about this character is that he realizes that he is a monster and not human,” he pointed out. “That realization allows him to see another person clearly. He realizes the existence of every human and the love that’s there for each other. Realizing that he is a monster is his greatest charm.”

“This monster is actually 120 years behind and so seeing everything in the present world is all new to him such as using the smartphone and being able to take a look at the pictures there,” Ayano added. “I like the way the monster sees and experiences everything so purely, things that we just take for granted.”