#and hachi made me realize my type in women….

[luffysinterlude]

MINI UPDATE:

hiii everyone!! i just wanted to say thank u for all the feedback on my luffy piece <33 it really helps me out a lot, and i appreciate all of it !!

i just finished reading the Nana manga. when i tell you i have never read anything more heartbreaking in my entire life. like idk. so many complex characters. i kept seeing myself in a few. i will say that i feel like i learned a lot and not only that, but in a way grew up. idk. i see myself in early Hachiko and later towards the ending (?) of the story, i see myself in Nana. but other than realizing my issues….T^T….i feel like i’ve learned how to write better….it’s so well written, and i feel super inspired so i’m gonna try my best and get thru these requests!! i’m also making a masterlist :33 i’m thinking about writing for Nana characters as well, mostly because i’m in love with Yasu, and also, i think it’d be a great way for me to cope that ending.

also, works been super draining and i’m glad to have this little safe space of mine to let my creative side run freely. i’m currently in the process of planning to move out of my parent’s house, and i’ve been really discipling myself to do so. from there, i’m hoping to get a better job so i can 1) pay my bills responsibly & build my credit back up and 2) so i can afford to go back to school. everything always works out for me, so i’m gonna work hard and try my best, and find balance with doing what i love & doing what i need, and somehow be able to feel as if i’m doing both at once…lol

if you’ve read this far, we’re basically bffs now. jk….unless. i love making new friends so don’t be shy to interact! :33

i’m gonna watch one piece asap because i don’t want to be sad over Nana for too long because i’m afraid that i’ll start overthinking and compare my life to the characters i feel so close to, and send myself down a spiral

wishing you a happy good morning/afternoon/evening/night and abundance in every aspect of your life,

xx cathi ^*^

[justtheendoftheday]

鬼婆  [Onibaba] (1964)

“What do you do for food? You don’t seem to grow anything. What do you do? ...you steal?”

It’s 14th century Japan during a time of civil war and scarcity called the Nanboku-chō Period.

After her son was conscripted to fight in the war, an older woman and her daughter-in-law have been forced to become murderers and thieves in order to survive. However, when their former neighbor returns after having escaped the war he creates a fracture between the two women. As the pressure between the three of them increases the mother decides to take exceedingly extreme measures to try and keep her family together.

Fright: 1/5  -  Sketchy friends of your kid

There’s a level of spooky campfire-story style creepiness at play throughout. It is a black and white movie from the 60s though, so the creepiness is muted by time. Although if you live near some tall grass or a corn field or something, it might hit home a bit harder.

Gore: 1.2/5  -  Raptor-style Assassinations

Some people are murdered, but the film doesn’t really have any real interest in gore. There’s some stabbings and you see a character with a heavily scarred face, but that’s about it.

Jump Scares: Almost none

There are a handful of small startle moments, but nothing so extreme as a real jump scare.

Thoughts:

In Japanese an “Oni” [鬼]  is a type of supernatural creature that are kind of similar to trolls or ogres. While “Baba” [婆] is a term for an old woman or sometimes more insultingly as a “hag.” So the title of Onibaba is sometimes translated rather literally as “Demon Hag,” which in English is rather harsh and slightly misleading. In Japanese the term “onibaba” has more of a connotation with a cruel or spiteful old woman than a real demon. But seeing as that the film actually does talk a little about oni, I would guess that the title is having a bit of fun with wordplay by sharing both ideas.

Which just goes to show that foreign works can never fully be translated, because the context behind a concept can only be approximated.

Aren’t foreign films fun!

I debated a lot on whether or not this film actually counts as a spooky movie or if it was just an eerie sort of psychological noir drama. And while it doesn’t go in for a lot of the traditional elements of Horror, overall it has this wonderful campfire-story style of creepiness to it that I just can’t ignore.

The story is based on an old Buddhist parable about a mother who tried to use an oni mask to scare her daughter from going to the temple to pray and in turn was punished by Buddha. However, from that premise it is able to create something so much deeper. And you know what? It’s really well done.

The most striking thing about the film for me was that it doesn’t focus on the mask at all. It’s a story about women and (like most horror movies) about survival. And the choice to make the whole thing be about a woman and her daughter-in-law is such an interesting one. The two characters are bound together not by blood or friendship, but through the son Kishi and through time. And when they learn that Kishi is probably dead they have to reevaluate what’s really keeping them together.

If the only reason they stay together is because it takes at least two people to properly rob their victims, then isn’t Hachi just as useful as the mother? Plus he can serve as a romantic partner as well...I mean, you’d have to be awfully thirsty to even consider that option, because he is super gross, but the potential is certainly there.

Although it struck me as terribly odd that the daughter-in-law is so willing to contemplate ditching her mother-in-law in spite of the fact that those two had been surviving together—by themselves—for years. At no point is there ever a real bond or friendship depicted between the two women. Because of this when their relationship begins to fall apart, the mother never appeals to their own personal bond. Which is kind of odd isn’t it? You’d think some sort of relationship or familial love would have been created between them. Since the movie was written/directed by a man in the 1960s I have to wonder if some of this isn’t necessarily thematic, but just a result of a male POV.

And more to that point, I also found it interesting that only the male characters in the film are named. The son is Kishi, the neighbor is Hachi, even the swindling blackmarket operator is named Ushi. But the two women—the two main characters of the movie—are both unnamed. And while it certainly could be an intentional move, I could also see it simply being because the writer/director didn’t consider giving them a specific identity important. After all, Hachi is given more depth of character and backstory than the two women are.

Or maybe it’s all a thematic element attempting to show how women are so often overlooked while simultaneously depicting the hardships they had to go through because the entire nation didn’t care what happened to them…although the lack of relationship between the mother and daughter-in-law seems to be a hard point against that theory…

But what about the corpse hole? The movie opens and ends with the image of this hole that the women use to dispose of their victims corpses. Is that a yonic symbol in the movie? The women are not afraid of it and use it to their advantage, but it is always a dangerous presence to the men in the movie. Hachi himself is shown to be wary of it, because he’s afraid of overlooking it and falling to his death...just like how all these samurai who overlooked these women and met their demise. Talk about some imagery rife for writing a research paper about, amiright?

But who can say? And when it comes down to it, isn’t that half the fun of analyzing fiction?

What can’t be argued is that here is a film where some badass ladies have been outsmarting friggin’ samurai for years! They are super competent and by working together they are able to outplay all the men who are always trying to either fuck them or fuck them over.

There’s a part when Hachi first shows up and he’s bragging about killing some dude and how hard it is and it’s like, Hachi...you complete bag of rocks. Do you not realize who you are talking to? These ladies are twice the killers you could ever hope to be, you doofus. Are you seriously mansplaining murder to them?

The cinematography of the film is really quite interesting and has some shot compositions that I really loved. It’s a really well made film that’s full of interesting themes and ideas. While certainly a slow-paced movie that is unlikely to keep you up at night, it still has a great air of subtle creepiness to it. So while it might not be a great movie to fear-cuddle up with a cutie to, it is a great movie to watch and have a fun intellectual discussion with a cutie about. So cheers to that!

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Directed by: Kaneto Shindo

Written by: Kaneto Shindo

County of Origin: Japan

Language: Japanese

Setting: Not explicitly stated. [but they filmed in in Japan’s Chiba prefecture]

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Content Warnings: A dog is killed and eaten. In their defense it was a wild dog and food was scarce. But still!

After-credits Scene?: None

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Context Corner:

The film takes place in 14th century Japan during a time of civil war called the Nanboku-chō Period [The Northern and Southern Courts period] that spanned from 1336 to 1392. And like most civil wars it was more of power battle between bigwigs than it was something a poor farmer gave any shits about. Very long story made somewhat short: the Southern court was where the emperor was based, but the Shogunate (basically the organization of the samurai that was led by the shogun) was based up in the North. So in a power play the Shogunate establishes their own emperor in the North and this leads to war. In the end the North won (thanks military power!), but the Southern emperor got to keep his title. Although now he was really more of an “emperor” because the shogun had all the real power (which is why only 75 years after this war ended, another war [the Onin War] started over who the next shogun would be).

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“If my son’s dead, she’s all I’ve got! I can’t get along alone. I couldn’t even kill! Take her and I’ll starve!”