Outtakes from Ineffective Love Potion

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada, june 1993. Starring Katayama Kaoru as "Sleeping Beauty".

Bizarre love triangle about a girl, Yuki who transforms into a tentacled creature that feasts on human blood. She manipulates the guilt-ridden Fumio to do her bidding, only for a strange romance to blossom between them.

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada. Performed by Shimada and Ichigo-chan. Shooting assistance by Kenji Onishi.

Koji Shiraishi interviews the survivors of an indiscriminate attack at a sightseeing resort and starts investigating the strange events that have been happening to them.

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada. A short light entr'acte of "ROMANTISCHE".

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada, autumn 1992. A prelude to "Kazuko; RONDO..."

A unique youth group drama set in a deserted local city in the 1980s, depicting the fate of a mysterious girl, Himiko, and the men surrounding her. Himiko, a girl who once left town, returns as a beautiful adult woman. Mukawa, a member of the baseball team who is practicing hard with the aim of participating in Koshien, meets Himiko by chance and is captivated by her.

A strange DVD brought in from a man claiming to be a freelance director.

It is all flickering neon-light with Aquarium City (1996), a feature film of 76 minutes, using black inserts and the structure of the tatami again. Blue and grey are the most prominent colours, and a sky turning white while a young woman is using drugs and waving her hair. The needle in her arm, and we are watching from a distance while cars and motorcycles are passing the street. The possible contrasts in beauty seem to be Onishi’s theme, so after the dark street we watch another woman masturbating while sitting on a chair. But later placing the needle in the vagina of another woman. The sun is shining outside and cars continue driving. But the power is gone. And the way out is never anything else but a black hole.

Unfinished 8mm work by Yukiyasu Shimada.

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada. Performed by Shimada himself and the girl is Ichigo-chan.

Zetcho is a feature shot on film, including the typical colouring of washed-out white and blue. Again Onishi brings together the couple’s problems, nature and brutalism, set against a colour-changing skyline or in small apartments. The structure of architecture and the one of nature. A cat hiding behind a car. While it all turns out to be a drama of killing and brutalism against women.

It is all flickering neon-light with Aquarium City (1996), a feature film of 76 minutes, using black inserts and the structure of the tatami again. Blue and grey are the most prominent colours, and a sky turning white while a young woman is using drugs and waving her hair. The needle in her arm, and we are watching from a distance while cars and motorcycles are passing the street. The possible contrasts in beauty seem to be Onishi’s theme, so after the dark street we watch another woman masturbating while sitting on a chair. But later placing the needle in the vagina of another woman. The sun is shining outside and cars continue driving. But the power is gone. And the way out is never anything else but a black hole.

8mm film by Yukiyasu Shimada

miniDV film by Yukiyasu Shimada.

In the summer of 1998, the filmmaker went home to Takasaki to film the birth of his brother and sister-in-law's child. Days go by and the child is still to be born. With time on his hands and no one to talk to, the filmmaker finds the phone number for a telephone date club, and calls up with an earnest de- sire: I'd like to talk to a girl. While following the conventions of film-diary form, at some point the filmmaker falls into a times pace tunnel of false memory.