Both the editions of SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus ‘Baahubali’, which were released in multiple languages across the globe, have shattered several records of Bollywood films. The film continues to make waves even now. ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’ and ‘Baahubali: The Conclusion’ have hit the screens of Japan on April 8, 2017 as ‘Baahubali: The Birth Of Legend’ and December 29, 2017 as ‘Baahubali: The Triumphant Return Of The King’ respectively.
Twitter flooded with Japanese fans sharing fan art and manga dedicated to and featuring the characters from the film. Nippen-no-Miko-chan, a famous fictional character associated with the Japan Pen Writing Study Organisation, is one of the admirers of the movies. The makers of Miko-chan manga have released a bit that shows Nippen-no-Miko-chan falling in love with Baahubali and creating a chocolate statue of him.
Japanese fans of Baahubali go on visiting the theaters many times. Audiences there often go to the movie dressed like the movie characters. Japanese fans are finding similarities with classic period and fantasy films from Japan and therefore they found it easy to relate.
Yoko Deshmikh, a Japanese translator, is of the opinion that the pauses are similar to the pauses of Mie-wo-kiru acts of Kabuki, a dance drama form in Japan. He pointed out that Japanese audience are habituated to Hollywood stars, but Baahubali editions made them understand the magnificence of Indians.
Since Japanese people are not aware of Indian culture, they fail to understand the meaning of each character’s actions. Therefore, Shion Yoshizaki, a Japanese novelist and Hindu mythology expert, shared her knowledge of Hindu gods and religion included in the film with Japanese Baahubali fans on Twitter by drawing a lot of beautiful and detail illustrations.
The movies were lauded for fascinating story, lively characters, finest VFX, song sequences, prominence that was given to the strength and honor, the triumph of good over evil and for its grand scale of execution.
Directed by SS Rajamouli, ‘Baahubali’ editions have Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anishka Shetty, Tamannaah, Ramya Krishna and Satyaraj in the lead roles.
Here are some of the tweets from Japanese fans -
