Submersion of Japan (日本沈没)

A Toho Movie Inc. and Toho Image Inc. Co-Production

Two hundred million years ago.

One hundred and fifty million years ago.

One hundred million years ago.

Sixty five million years ago.

Thirty million years ago.

Ten million years ago.

Three million years ago.

Present.

SUBMERSION OF JAPAN

Associate Producer - Osamu Tanaka Executive Producer - Tomoyuki Tanaka

Screenplay by Shinobu Hashimoto from the novel 'Nippon Chinbotsu' by Sakyo Komatsu

Music by Masaru Sato Director of Photography - Daisaku Kimura and Hiroshi Murai Production Designer - Yoshiro Muraki

Chief Assistant Director - Koji Hashimoto Editor - Michiko Ikeda Executive in Charge of Production - Takahide Morichi

Keiju Kobayashi

Tetsuro Tamba

Hiroshi Fujioka Ayumi Ishida

Director of Special Effects - Akihiro Nakano

Directed by Shiro Moritani

MISAKI PORT, KANAGAWA PREFECTURE

As a whole, the guys from the public office

are a little too nervous.

It's just some deserted island that's sunk.

Well, Onodera, this is Dr Tadokoro.

Ah, the sea volcanoes man.

I'm Mr. Onodera from Kaitei Kaihatsu Kogyo.

Don't get me wrong. My line is Earth Physics.

I've been sticking my nose into so many things that I've become famous for everything else.

Ah, here it is.

I've asked your managing director to let me get in it any number of times, but he never...

It's because he has too many meetings or banquets to go to.

Before long Wadatsmi II will be completed.

Then our job rotation will be easier.

You're sure that you can go down ten thousand metres, aren't you?

Yes. We can.

When it's over 2000 meters, something relating the system of the ballast...

Well... the company ordered us not to get too committed.

All I want to know is whether it's possible to dive down to 10,000.

NORTH OF THE OGASAWARA ISLANDS.

Okay, go ahead.

The average depth is 400. It's child's play.

I'll watch you through the underwater camera.

The doc is working hard.

I hope that they can go through with it like they say.

It didn't fracture because of the eruption.

It's collapsed from a secondary cause.

This island didn't sink because of volcanic action.

How deep is it inside the crater?

96 metres.

The ocean floor extends like this quite far, doesn't it?

Ripple mark.

That many volcanic rocks and bombs?

The mud on the floor moved very recently.

This area seems to me

to have subsided slightly in a wide range.

No, this isn't so much subsistence as a landslide.

It's not due to volcanic action but to a landslide on the ocean floor

that made the island sink like this.

Well, what... what caused a landslide that big?

No idea.

No, I have no idea at all.

Anyway, I can't help thinking that the cause of the landslide is the trench.

Tomorrow, we'll check out the trench...

Is that OK? Onodera?

Yes. Theoretically, you can go down 100 thousand metres in Wadatsumi.

If there was a sea that deep.

However, its structure won't allow you to stay there long.

From Daitomaru from the Meteorological Agency,

At a trench off the Boso coast intersecting Ogasawara trench and the Japan trench,

sonic survey has picked up something abnormal.

After research of the cause of the island's submersion,

they're requesting general research of that trench.

You don't have to worry about the island.

We're going to the Japan Trench tomorrow.

Wadatsmi is going to submerge.

1500.

3000 metres.

The slope goes down to the left

Distance 11km. Slope 25 degrees.

The incline of the ocean floor is usually gentler. In this way, 10 or 15 degrees...

8000 meters.

Wh... what? Malfunction?

No, it's a deep sea current.

A current at this depth?

Don't ask me why. Sometimes we hit one.

But this is the most dynamic current we've ever seen, it's flowing at least 3.5 knots.

This is the bottom of the Japan Trench.

8740 metres.

A few days ago, there was a violent undercurrent from south to north.

An old ripple mark is over there,

running east to west.

Can you move it at this depth 7 degrees starboard?

What is that, Onodera?

I have no idea.

I've been to the bottom of the trench a few times, but I've never seen anything like this.

Let's go and trace

the path of that monstrous slug's crawling.

8500 metres.

Water's getting muddy.

Is... is it all right?

Hercules. Hercules.

Yuki. This is Wadatsumi, over.

This is Hercules, over.

Did you feel an abnormal vibration right now?

Just a minute.

Nothing's registered.

We've set a sound locater at 100 metres, but it hasn't picked up anything.

The readout can't tell us anything because of the mix of different minor vibrations.

Roger

I found a strange trough at the bottom of the trench, so I'm going to go north along it.

OK.

Send a ping every minute.

Roger.

It's dangerous to go down, so I'll keep going this way.

OK. You can do that.

The trench vanishes in front of that muddy cloud. Keep this straight.

Whoa!

Go down to the bottom again.

But going down any further is...

Doctor, too danger-

You went down to the bottom before, didn't you?

Underwater flare, then.

Now let's go down.

Well, doctor...

To the bottom! Another 50 meters, to measure the temperature, the density, and the saline concentration.

Onodera, watch out down there,

be careful and be ready to go up anytime if necessary. OK?

There's an unstable layer in the density of the sea floor.

The current is from south to north.

It's opposite to the normal trench current.

Density 1.053.

This is the maximum value of seawater density.

The concentration of salt.

It must be heavy.

A lot of heavy ions.

Collect a sample.

Doctor, we don't have time for that.

A flare!

Doctor... th.. that..

Turbulent muddy current.

At this depth.

Besides, that goes from the trench of the crust on which the Japan islands are

to the dark side of the Pacific Ocean; Japan Trench,

and to the north of Kamchatka,

to the south. It goes from Ogasawara to Mariana,

the largest trench in the world, to the Japan Trench.

At the bottom, something is...

Something is happening.

From Keishi 3 to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Keishi 3, go ahead. Over.

02.8:43 pm Prime Minister arrived at his private house.

Roger.

Welcome home.

Oh, Yachan.

It's been a while.

Yachan's kid.

So cute.

Yachan was there for eight years as a director of the Finance Ministry,

So his kid is like your grandchild.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, then.

You didn't even change your clothes.

People have some strange sense.

The words you heard before without much interest...

pop up into your mind without warning.

Yamamoto is a chief director of the Meteorological Agency.

He felt some problems about something unusual at the Japan Trench.

Sir, this has been finished.

Hi.

Yes?

Hey. For you.

Yes? Onodera speaking.

Yes, your... that Wadatsumi.

How much will it cost to charter it for an extended period of time?

It depends, so should I put this call

through to the business department?

Can I use it now, if I apply right now?

No, that's not possible.

Wadatsumi is around Kyushu to investigate the sea floor between Shimonoseki and Pusan.

And then it will go to Indonesia to investigate an offshore oil field,

so it will be booked for one year.

A year?

Doctor...

What do you want to investigate by chartering Wadatsumi for so long?

You... you should have seen it, together with Yukinaga.

Doctor, what is it?

What's going on in the Japan Trench?

I wish I knew.

Because that even I don't know, it's essential that we investigate.

However, even though Japan is a maritime power,

it has no more than one deep sea submarine for 10000 meters.

Are you going home now?

Yeah.

From tomorrow I'm taking the vacation I couldn't have before.

Hey, why not take a chance on getting married?

Huh?

Instead of being stuck as a pilot,

you should be doing a job with brain work, using your mind.

Considering that and the reputation you have, I think it's about time you got married.

Come on, let's go now.