Producer Kadokawa Haruki embraced “idol movies” with a vengeance in the 1980s, turning out vehicles for both male and female idols by the truckload. It was natural that he would enlist Obayashi to direct the biggest of them, once again appealing to Obayashi’s natural tendencies, since the filmmaker had also pioneered the “Lolicon” (“Lolita complex”) movie – i.e., young girls presented in a semi-sexualized manner – with House.
Their first idol film together was School in the Crosshairs, also known as The Aimed School (Nerawareta Gakuen, 1981), which was adapted from a best-selling science fiction novel and starred popular young actress/idol Yakushimaru Hiroko, who had begun her career under Kadokawa’s tutelage three years earlier.
She had since become synonymous with the studio’s idol films, starring in Somai Shinji ‘s Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (Sera-fuku to Kikanju, 1981), Fukasaku Kinji’s Legend of Eight Samurai (Satomi Hakken-den, 1983) and Sawai Shinichiro’s W’s Tragedy (W no Higeki, 1984), all among the most successful Japanese movies of the 1980s.
School in the Crosshairs stars Yakushimaru as Yuko, a high school girl who must defend her school from an extraterrestrial attack. A new transfer student is using her psychic abilities to transform their school into a conformist, almost fascistic staging area for an alien takeover of the Earth, while coercing her classmates into going along. Discovering her own latent telekinetic abilities, Yuko teams up with Koji, her budding boyfriend from the kendo club, to fight off the invaders.
The film is almost pure fantasy, filled with Obayashi’s trademark analog special effects and camera tricks, though this time supported by a stronger main story with a well-developed central character (Kadokawa’s own influence), a notable departure from House.
The special effects-heavy finale – a battle between Yuko and Kyogoku, the demon-like extraterrestrial being who has set his sights on the school – manages to outdo House in its wild, brain-melting unbelievability. It’s also a brilliant statement about conformity and free thought, most likely aimed by Obayashi at Japanese society in general and the film industry in particular.
Despite having been remade over and over as a television series, animation and other live-action films, it’s Obayashi’s version that is considered the best by Japanese critics and fans. It was another indication of Obayashi’s dedication to making personal films, evidenced by the casting of Tezuka Osamu’s son Macoto as vengeful class nerd Arikawa, who willingly joins the aliens in their conquest of the school.
Macoto would later go on to become a film director in his own right.