Chasing Shadows: The Lost Meiji Les Misérables

The Great Void

Is Janbarujan: kohen worth watching? Well, you can’t. That’s the punchline. If you’re the type of person who loses sleep over lost media or obsesses over the fragments of early 20th-century Japanese cinema, this is your holy grail. If you’re looking for a casual Friday night watch, you’ll probably hate the fact that it exists only as a credit on a list.

It’s funny how we treat film history. We talk about The Bat Whispers or Tosca as if they are permanent, immovable objects. But then you hit a brick wall like this. It’s just… gone. Melted down for silver, or tossed in a dumpster, or maybe just left to rot in a damp basement.

The premise is wild, though. Moving Les Misérables to the Meiji Revolution? That’s not just a change of scenery; it’s a total remapping of class struggle. You’ve got the same heavy, soul-crushing morality of Hugo, but set against the backdrop of Japan’s rapid, violent modernization. It sounds like a mess. It sounds like a masterpiece. We will never know.

The Ghosts in the Machine

I find myself thinking about Takako Irie in this. Irie was a massive star, and to think there’s a performance of hers that’s just been erased from the earth? It’s a bit sickening. It’s not like Leathernecking or some of those other fluff pieces from the era that you wouldn't mind losing. This was supposed to be the adaptation.

• Sometimes I wonder if it’s better that it’s lost.
• Our imagination probably makes it better than it actually was.
• The silence of the film is heavier than any dialogue could be.

There’s a weird, hollow feeling when you read the credits for a movie that doesn't play. It’s like looking at a headstone. You get the names—Ichirō Sugai, Bontarō Miake—but the faces are flickering in and out of focus in your head. Did they do a good job? Did they lean into the melodrama, or did they try to keep it grounded? Who knows.

Maybe it’s better than McFadden's Flats or whatever else people were watching back then. Or maybe it was a total disaster. The fact that I can't confirm this is honestly the most interesting thing about it. It’s a movie that stopped being a movie and turned into a myth. 🎞️

I’d give my left arm to see just one reel of it. Just one. Even if it was scratchy and falling apart at the edges. Just to see how they handled the barricades in Meiji-era Tokyo. Instead, we have nothing. Just a void.