#i get that miyazaki changed A LOT from the book

[nikkxb]

Not to be an Absolute Douche but

Calcifer listened to Sophie because Sophie blackmailed him.

Howl built a moving castle to stay away from the Witch of the Waste and her curse.

He wasn't undercover?? Or even on both sides. He was "working" for the king by searching for the missing prince that started the whole war in the first place.

how am i ever suppose to move on from howls moving castle when the first thing howl ever said to sophie was “there you are sweetheart. sorry im late, i was looking everywhere for you” and how calcifer would only listened to howl but when sophie came he listened to her bc calcifer is howls heart and his heart has always known sophie!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and how howl literally built a moving castle to search for her and was undercover for both sides of the war incase she was on either side and how phoebe bridgers song smoke signals is literally about them bc he must have sending smoke signals looking for her all his life!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vanessagillings]

Please talk about your favorite animated movies and what makes them special to you! I'm really curious about what you enjoyed about them both in the past and now?

haha, okay you asked!

I LOVE animated movies. My theory on this is that it took me a long time to emotionally relate to most media growing up, where I felt next to nothing watching most movies and shows as a young kid, and didn't relate to books until I was quite a lot older (I read picture books until I was around 10, and then suddenly in middle school, I hopped right to adult novels like 1984 and the entire Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley, ha). But even before I emotionally related to fiction, I really enjoyed watching animation. It was nice to look at, and I enjoyed watching everything move and change. I grew up in the 90's where animated movies were largely 2D, and I spent hours watching and re-watching my favorite movies just studying how the characters moved -- it's definitely a lot of where I got my understanding of human expressions from. But I also think as I got older and started to relate more to fiction, animation was easier to parse emotionally than live action. The body language is clear. The stories are direct and not as forgiving of bad human behavior (I get frustrated sometimes with the defeatism in adult media, that assumes that People Just Act Badly, and that just needs to be accepted). Facial expressions are also exaggerated and more stylized -- think of a single arched eyebrow, for example, an expression that's commonly drawn to express one particular emotion in animation/illustration but which you next to never see on a real human face. My first introduction into serious reading was also manga -- a highly visual medium -- which uses a lot of the same tactics stylistically as western animation: big, expressive faces, bold gestures and big stories. Compare manga with western comics being printed at the time and it's even more obvious to me why I didn't particularly like comics until I was given manga as an option -- and thankfully I lived close to a kinokuniya, so I could spend all my allowance on untranslated books and magazines, which is also where I learned Japanese (もうたくさん忘れてしまいましたけど).

As far as my favorite movies? THAT IS SO HARD. The first animated movie that BLEW MY MIND was The Lion King. I saw it in theaters when I was eight and I was obsessed; it was definitely one of my first special interests. I know that entire movie line by line, frame by frame, and I had the stuffed animals and the trading cards and the clothes (man, was I teased for those clothes!). My other favorite movies as a kid were The Land Before Time, American Tale, and The Secret of NIMH (I was a big Don Bluth fan!) which have left deep impressions on how to approach storytelling for children; I warn you, I go hard on emotions for kids, because I needed that as a kid, and I know I'm not alone. Some of my other favorites are anything Miyazaki but especially Howl's Moving Castle (I relate to Sophie a lot), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (what I watch when I'm In A Mood), Ratatouille (a huge source of echolalia for my husband and me, we often detect nuttiness, let me tell you), Wallace and Gromit and Fantastic Mr Fox, which I watch every fall as an autumnal tradition. Even as an adult who likes live action, too, I still tend to like slightly over the top directors like Wes Anderson and Guy Ritchie, or movies that are highly cinematic like Road to Perdition, which is still one of my favorite films of all time.

In my opinion, animation is a super important medium outside of it being a very beautiful one. I truly believe it helped me access and understand emotion better as a child, and as an adult, it's a massive source of inspiration in my own work 💛

(Sorry for length, but you did ask!)

[emotionallychargedtowel]

10 comfort shows

I was tagged by @imlivingformyselfdontmindme for this thing. Thanks! The instructions are simple: "List 10 comfort shows and then tag 10 people." But I'm not a big tagger, and a lot of folks I know have done this already. If you haven't, though, and you're interested, please do!

The instructions said "10 comfort shows" not your favorite 10 comfort shows or the ones you watch the most often. So I made a list and I picked the ten that I immediately thought of something to say about. i'm all about comfort viewing and watching things repeatedly so I had to leave quite a few things off of this list.

Future Boy Conan

I've lost count of how many times I've seen this series. It really is one of the most life-affirming, wholesome (in the real way) pieces of media I've ever encountered. The first time I saw it, I went into it expecting to see a fairly run-of-the-mill anime series with some early glimmers of Miyazaki's aesthetic and themes. But it's a frickin' masterpiece. Themes and visual mannerisms you see throughout Miyazaki's career are already here, full-blown, but it's also distinct from his other work in a way that makes it feel really fresh even if you've gone through his whole movie oeuvre. Mostly it just always has its heart impeccably in the right place.

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Don't talk to me about that movie. This is the adaptation against which all others must be measured. Faithful as heck to the book in most respects (we won't talk about Wet Darcy either), with an incredible cast, not to mention the costumes, set design, and locations. Watching this miniseries as a teenager could be the reason I'm still obsessed with shows and movies where half of the story is told through meaningful glances.

To My Star (1&2)

I really lucked out having this show as one of my first BLs, except that I nearly squandered the opportunity because I wasn't paying close attention and missed a lot of the subtle details. And this is a show that is full of really subtle details! Talk about telling a story through meaningful glances. There's a lot going on on a nonverbal level in this one. It helps that the leads have such a great, nuanced kind of chemistry together and both just seemed to show up for these roles ready to dig deep and be present. Thank goodness I went back and rewatched this one after that first attempt! I know for some folks the second season premise was really painful, but I found it to be completely worth it in the end. I'd happily watch a third season if they made one. In the meantime, I continue to rewatch both series (sometimes in movie form) regularly and I notice different things each time.

Spaced

This show was there for me at a time in my life when I needed comfort shows the most, when I was rebuilding my life after the abusive relationship that consumed most of my 20s. It's usually described in terms of the various pop culture references it uses, the movies the director and one of the co-writer/co-stars went on to make, or in some kind of generational terms as representing a demographic.

But I don't think those things are what make it interesting and rewarding. I guess the thing it boils down to at the end of the day is that it's very much a found family story. And an unconventional love story in which the two leads may or may not get together--after the series--but no matter what type of relationship theirs turns out to be, it will have changed them both for the better. In the meantime they’re facing their fears, honestly fixing their mistakes, and broadening their horizons, and they’re always lovable while being riddled with personal flaws.

Also, after having been raised on Coen Brothers movies and coming of age during the heyday of The Simpsons, I'm a sucker for a really quotable piece of media.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979)

When it comes to adaptations, I usually have a strong preference for one while writing off the others. In this case, there are things I appreciate about the Tomas Alfredson film that this adaptation doesn't do as well, but this version has a great deal to say for itself too. The adaptation really captures Le Carré's voice, the cast is incredible, and the whole miniseries just has this wonderful pervasive tone to it that's not like anything else. (The soundtrack is unobtrusive but very effective, and it has a lot to do with that.)

I don't know if it's the fact that this series came out when I was a toddler and has the look and feel of a lot of shows my parents would watch on PBS when I was a child (heck, I bet they watched this very show on PBS), but this suspenseful spy thriller makes me feel relaxed as hell. Having seen it a ton of times helps, too. There's never anything resembling a surprise. But even if this type of series doesn't feel like your childhood and even if you're going to be surprised right and left by the plot, I think it's an incredibly well-constructed piece of work that almost anyone could enjoy.

Emma (2009)

I'm very picky about my Austen adaptations. Emma has been adapted quite a bit, and I've found at least something to like about every version I've seen. But this is the best one by a good margin. I always love Romola Garai in anything, and she's lovely here--assertive, vulnerable, annoying when she should be and charming the rest of the time. She does a wonderful job portraying all of the subtle gradations of self-awareness that build in Emma throughout the story.

But I think the decisive factor has to be the screenplay and direction (not to mention other behind-the-scenes aspects). The folks behind this version just seem to have prioritized capturing the subtleties of the novel more than others. There are a few points where this is particularly apparent. One example is how this adaptation treats Frank Churchill. The 2009 version of Frank shows what a capricious, moody, immature person he is, but it also shows his good nature and the ways he tries to be open (in the novel, he attempts to tell Emma about his engagement to Jane Fairfax on multiple occasions and mistakenly believes she understands him). Hewing to the novel makes for a more complex, engaging character than the two-dimensional cad most other adaptations make out of Frank. The portrayal of the Box Hill incident is another example. This version of Emma has the most uncomfortable, unsparing rendering of Emma's insulting comment to Miss Bates that I've seen, but it also tempts us to laugh along with Emma. The scene in the novel is exactly the same way--it's complicated and makes us acknowledge our ambivalence. This adaptation keeps all of these strands alive in the story and the miniseries is better for it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It's weird looking back now on how BtVS seemed back when it was new. Our standards were different for a reason. TV really wasn't as interesting or as progressive as it is now, and the range of both was narrower. Having a cishet white dude showrunner who would willingly utter the word "feminism" seemed like a remarkable piece of good fortune. And of course, we didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.

I imprinted on this show like a baby chick back then. It's not really possible for me to be objective about it. If I think it's good, how much of that is its actual quality and how much is the fact that it seemed like such a gift back then compared to what we were all used to? Well, some of it at least was actual quality, but I can't tell how much. So this show is special to me partly because it's grandfathered in due to circumstances and partly because it's actually good.

I remember when it seemed wild to me that there were people who could talk about  a TV show and discuss episodes by title. BtVS was the first show I did that with myself. Eventually, it didn't seem that remarkable. Basically, this was the show that made me into a fan.

This is another show that was there for me after my abusive relationship ended. I remember at times when I was lonely (which happened a lot; not only was I newly single, I also had to start almost entirely from scratch when it came to friendships) I would look at my little dvd binder thingy with my pile of Buffy discs and tell myself, "If all else fails, I have all these shows to watch until things improve."

She-Ra

There’s that found family theme again! How could you go wrong with a story that starts with foundlings raised by a witch and a clone soldier to fight in their evil army, then follows them as they slowly get their consciousnesses raised and find their own identities and meaningful connections? It's a remarkably subversive and deeply queer show. We were in a miniature golden age for high-quality, politically progressive, LGBTQ+ friendly American animated series for a while there, and this show was not only a part of it but a particular highlight. It's been tapering off for a while now and it's sad to see it come to an end, but at least we got shows like this one and we can keep watching them and introducing people to them.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

I don’t know why a series that’s so steeped in existential dread feels so cozy to me, but it does. Well, I guess it’s because the show is about finding your people, your coping strategies, and the unapologetically weird little hobbies that will help you to muddle through war, loss, spiritual crises, and the challenges of long-term love.

That, and it reminds me of my mom.

A lot of ink has been spilled over this series so I won't try to explain beyond that why it's so special. But I will say that it is absolutely the best Star Trek series. It's unpopular with a certain type of fan, but those philistines dislike it for exactly the same qualities that make it so great.

Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

I'm indecisive and bad at picking favorites, so I'm not sure what I'd consider my favorite tokusatsu series or even just my favorite sentai series. Zenkaiger would rank pretty high up there in both at the very least. But this is a list of comfort shows, not favorite shows or the best shows, and that's a category in which Zenkaiger is completely unbeatable. It's hopeful, funny, idealistic, and more than anything, definitely the sweetest toku show I've ever seen. It's also easy to pick a random episode and watch it out of context because of the villain-of-the-week thing (not that the larger-scale arc of the series wasn't also compelling).

This is yet another found family show. Families of origin are still very important in the series. The central characters are all trying to find, help, or learn about one or more of their family members. But it's also about blending your found family and your family of origin into a group so inclusive that it includes aliens and robots.

I'm only picking one gif for each show on this list except for this one. I couldn't pass up having one for Kaito, one for Stacy, and one for Zox.

(Edited to add: I switched out the three gifs here for a single replacement because I realized two of the ones I originally used were made by someone who requests that others not repost them.)

[newtsnaturethings]

Your Opinion on Ghibli movies.

🔥 🔥 🔥

cracks knuckles

Okay. So I will put the caveat that I stopped watching Ghibli movies after I was sorely disappointed with the Ghibli take on “Tales of Earthsea”, so any of my opinions are gonna be applied to only the ones I’ve actually seen.

Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind: amazing. Soft apocalypse with massive bugs and a spooky jungle. Great environmental message. I would love a pet fox squirrel. Nausicaä is awesome and I want her wind glider. The ending never fails to make me cry. You see the origins of the “girl with strong connection to nature with a guy who loves and supports her” theme.

Castle in the Sky: this one’s one of my favorites. Giant super weapon and soft apocalypse vibes. The protagonists are ride or die. And “girl with strong connection to nature with a guy who loves and supports her”. The sky pirates are wonderful and the villain is so much fun (he’s a complete asshole).

Grave of the Fireflies: watched it once. I’m good.

My Neighbor Totoro: this is the second movie I ever watched. I love Totoro. And the Catbus. In fact I think we should invest in Catbus as a means of public transportation.

Kiki’s Delivery Service: this movie hits different when your an adult. Kiki’s journey and the burn out she eventually gets like. Definitely a comfort movie, but Kiki’s journey resonates with me. Oh and I want to live in that cabin in the woods with all the crows.

Porco Rosso: I too, would rather be a pig than a fascist.

Whisper of the Heart: this one’s just sweet. Like. It’s so cute and wholesome.

Princess Mononoke: look. Look. This movie changed me as a person. I saw this as a kid and boom..that was it. San lives with wolves and lives in the forest. Ashitaka is awesome and badass and rides a deer. Also like. The themes of this movie. It’s got the strong environmental message about the importance of living in community with nature, but there’s a lot of shades of grey. You see all sides of the story and it’s fantastic. I could talk about this movie for hours. And it has that classic “girl with strong connection to nature with a guy who loves and supports her”. Ashitaka and San are looking out for each other and it’s great.

Spirited Away: another excellent one. I think this one has my favorite soundtrack. And Chihiro’s journey to find herself and save Haku. I don’t have much else to say on this one. Go watch it it’s great.

The Cat Returns: it’s got walking cats. What more could you want.

Howls Moving Castle: I have to view this one as a separate entity from the book it’s (supposedly) based on. I enjoy this one as its own thing; the Howls Moving Castle book is like…so good. One of my favs. Anyways. Movie Howl - the feathery hug between Howl and Sophie low key rewired my brain chemistry.

Overall I just love these movies. The art is incredible and remains a huge inspiration to me, and you can see how much love gets put into those nature scenes. I could stare at then endlessly. And I love how Hiyao Miyazaki shows love in his movies, where like. The two protagonists help each other grow and make it a goal to live for each other. They accept each other where they are and are ride or die for each other. I just. That shit gets to me. Love it.

Thanks for the ask (and letting me ramble)🦎

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Studio Ghibli has adapted a few famous books (Earthsea, Howl's Moving Castle, The Borrowers), but they change bits to enhance the whimsy and carry a specific emotional throughline... and Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä show the studio has a broad tonal range...

So, what if they did an adaptation of the Twilight series as a single film? Like, what scene as written has the biggest Ghibli vibes, what gets cut down to make the film more coherent, and how do they change the aesthetics of the supernatural to be more... Ghibli?

On Ghibli and Adaptations

"change bits"

That's a bold statement.

I haven't read Earthsea, but both Howl's Moving Castle and The Borrowers are extremely loose adaptations of their source material.

Howl's Moving Castle, as an example, completely changes the main character personalities (Sophie and Howl are very toned down/more palatable), drops an entire subplot involving Sophie's sisters, adds in an entire war/a major theme of environmentalism, ages down one of the characters significantly, and basically only shares the castle with the original book.

(I say this loving the film and actually preferring it to the book, but it needs to be said)

Borrowers... has Brorrowers, and that's about as far as that goes as well.

Twilight as Adapted by Ghibli

Depends on which Ghibli director we're going for, obviously, but we'll just stick with Miyazaki as I'm most familiar with his work.

We're looking at a film that has the name Twilight but has characters with the same names and that's about it.

There's a lot more meadow and nature scenes, Edward probably actually lives in the woods, environmentalism becomes a major theme of the film as vampires like Edward bemoan what humans have done to the world and how soon this beautiful landscape will be gone.

The vampires themselves are likely far more inhuman, they have the features of people, but move completely differently and look markedly different from humans. I imagine they act very different as well, more like spirits, which means Edward sure as hell isn't going to high school.

There's a climactic adventurous confrontation as something happens with Bella. She gets kidnapped by the Volturi, ends up trapped in the vampire part of the forest, and very likely conflict between humans and vampires.

The wolves likely play a more neutural third party to all of this and it's clear that no one's really "the bad guy" in this. Instead, all parties have their own reasons for doing things that make them all, in their own way, short sighted in a way only Bella can see as an outsider.

Meyer is probably mildly flummoxed/upset as it's existence as it's cool her work is an anime film but it's very clearly not her story. At all. And it's not her Bella and Edward (we're talking about a woman who felt strongly enough to give us Midnight Sun because the fans were getting Edward wrong).

But a Scene?

They probably keep the meadow but--

That would honestly be it.

I'm not joking, it'd be completely different.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-01-22

Snowing again

Listening: Went looking for some very funky guitar and came across the album Parallels by Evan Marien and Dana Hawkins. Here's "Forever"

Reading: Not The End of the World by Hannah Ritchie, a book focussed on taking a realistic eye to sustainability.

This book largely rehashes stuff you'll already have seen if you read Ritchie, albeit in a nice compact form factor and with a lot of your generic pop-sci book flourishes. Better than median pop-sci because it has sources cited.

I do think that knowing these kinds of things is important. It helps you recognize what is worth worrying about and where you really don't need to obsess so much. Much of this book is about agriculture and food, since food is the easiest part of most peoples' lifestyles to change and this is squarely focussed on individuals, but it does also cover other pollution, general habitat loss, disease, disasters, and plastic pollution. A lot of this still ends up linking back to food, because agriculture is a huge user of land, and land use drives a lot of those things.

There's also a lot of debunking of bad stats that get quoted, which is useful. You see a lot of these On Line and even if you avoid propagating sensationalist headlines, you still read them and they can be sticky. In general this book doesn't as much assuage anxieties as try to shift them to more productive terrain.

Even if you disagree with the philosophy of the solutions proposed here, the data are mostly pretty good and well covered, it's solidly grounded more often than its not. Having relative comparative values for things like land use from meat vs plant foods, relative proportions of plastic landfilled vs recycled vs dumped in different parts of the world.

Watching: Porco Rosso, because like three years ago someone told me to watch it and I finally did it. Perhaps the lowest time to fantastical flying machine possible in a Miyazaki movie, although I haven't watched Nausicaa.

It is so funny that he's just some guy who got cursed! The human hands and pig head form a perfect comedic item. Killer one liners. It's tricky to make a movie simultaneously about fascism in Mussolini's Italy and also about a big cartoon pig who outsmarts a bunch of goofy pirates.

Playing: Still on Dark Souls, made it into The Depths, video on that just went up.

Making: Did some microscopy over the weekend, on a random snow sample. Not as interesting as algal samples or pond scum, but the pond is frozen over at the moment. I'll go back once it's melted with a stick.

Tools and Equipment: If you keep on dealing with shit-ass audio from your computer, a dedicated audio handling device is probably going to solve your issues.

I've spent years dealing with crap audio from devices plugged directly into my motherboard but I recently got a Zoom H1n portable recorder and I'm using it as a basic USB mic interface plugged into my old Video Mic for the Video Games Recordings seen above and my audio is SO clean. I can finally actually do proper audio stuff like recording with headroom and gaining in post without destroying my noisefloor, I did not know just how much goddamn noise my motherboard was dumping into audio signals.

I like doing video and audio to complement my photography but unlike with photography, I've never really used good quality tools to do that, so I'm in the process of changing that.

[centrally-unplanned]

Re that post about Kenzaburo Oe, you mentioned the term 1968 kids, talking about him and Hayao Miyazaki, how would describe that group? I get the gist of a certain kind of utopian artist from that generation, but I haven't heard it before, wondered if there was any other traits/anyone else you'd put in that group?

Definitely worthy of a fuller write-up, and I wish I had a concrete "unifying" source for all this, but Japan had a rapidly growing leftwing radical movement in the 1960's. The Anpo protests, a huge series of demonstrations against the US-Japan Security Treaty (which gave the US military bases in Japan) from 1959-1960 were the launching point, and they built on growing movements of unionization, environmental activism, and anti-militarism. It culminated in the 1968 seizure of much of the campus of the University of Tokyo by the 'Zenkyōtō' student activist faction, which was part of a global wave of student activism in 1968.

And like in so many places, 1968 was this movement's high water mark - they were awash in factionalism, police broke up their occupation, and support for them plummeted in the face of the violence they both initiated and recieved. In the 1960's members of these factions thought that they could seize political power, change the state, all that jazz. By the 1970's that dream was dead.

Most political-style artists were part of this movement, and shaped by that break - as political opportunity faded, they saw in their art a way to express their concerns, visions, etc that the political system would not. Since I am an anime person, this is where a lot of leaders of 70's and 80's anime would emerge from. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were both animators at Toei Animation during this time, got heavily involved in the union efforts there - Miyazaki was the union's general secretary in 1964 - and were avowed Marxists. Mamoru Oshii was similarly active, participating in the Shinjuku Riot over the Vietnam War and identifying as Trotskyist-Left. There is an entire genre of Japanese cinema called New Wave which was part of and shaped by this movement - director Shūji Terayama would be a notable for films like 1971's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, which I will mention because its creators included theatre director and music composer J. A. Caesar (real name Takaaki Terahara) who composed the soundtrack for Revolutionary Girl Utena, for the anime connection. There are of course hundreds more I could name.

I think their themes are well known - what united them as a 'movement' was A: they all mutually saw themselves that way, and B: they are the last generation to believe that their art could truly change minds. Miyazaki is making Nausicaa because he actually thinks it will turn people away from techno-fetishization, stuff like that. Creators after that make works about society, but they don't view them the same, their ambitions are different - insight vs activism, or reform vs revolution. Of course these creators will age and change - Oshii for example did so, he would famously criticize Miyazaki of being a typical "Anpo man" in feeling like his films were responsible for society and the world, saying such responsibility was itself a form of fascism (its Oshii, he says shit like this all the time). In his criticism you can see the identity of the 1968 generation reflected back. They were more-or-less wrong, of course - art can change things, but not that much, and it turns out politics is way more complicated then their visions could contain. But I respect their conviction dearly and find the art they made to have something irreplacable due to that conviction, so its worth remembering.

[nyxknocks]

It's not a Miyazaki film if there isn't allusions to capitalism, destruction of the environment, identity, growth, and change. And we love him for it immensely.

It's easy to think of movies like Spirited Away as nothing more than a kid's movie, but time and again powerful messages are hidden within Miyazaki's work, really making you question why animated media gets so trivialized.

I'm a Ghibli dork, I love it. While Spirited Away isn't even in my top 3 (tbh not even my top 5. I only really like the sprites and No Face...) of their movies, it's still such an important film that touches on a lot of incredible emotions. The fear of change that Chiihiro feels at the beginning is spot on to what a young child who has been uprooted is likely to feel. She's in an unknown place with unknown surroundings, it's not a surprise she freaks out the way she does. The most major aspect of this film is how a child deals with their fears--their fear of being separated from her parents, of growing up, of change, of figuring out who they are. Because identity is massive in this film. I mean, hello, there's a whole ass character named No Face. Yubaba literally steals aspects of their names, and it's Chiihiro's growth that allows her to take back her (and Haku's) identities and reclaim them. She gains confidence and autonomy by doing this. This, I feel, everyone can see in this film. It's pretty heavy handed.

Capitalism is throughout pretty much every Miyazaki film (as far as I've noticed) and this movie has it in abundance. I mean, they work in bathhouse, slaving away to the point they no longer have an identity. She has to beg for work to survive. The physical laborer's are literally hidden well beneath the lavish building they slave over. Also, hello, literal child labor? Even the clothes separate the working class from the elite--Yubaba is always lush and extravagant (while also being very ugly, a staple for Ghibli antagonists). The uniformity Chiihiro has to change into and hide her real clothes. The boiler rooms????? Hello????????? It puts a spot light on western industrialization and how dehumanizing and terrible it is. The mix of both Japanese and distinctly western influences just shows how they feel about the ever-expanding western capitalism influences into Japanese society--spoiling it and rotting it from the inside.

There is so much emphasis on over-consumption in this from the parents literally obsessively eating food they happen upon to No Face spouting their gold everywhere, the literal polluted river. The coal the sprites lug to keep the bathhouse going. The forever-baby indulging in their mom's attention and wealth with no thought to growing up or making an effort to be independent. Yubaba herself. There's so much of it.

Miyazaki is one that no one questions the greatness of, and for good reason. Dude is gifted. We still should've watched Howl's Moving Castle instead (but I know you like anti-capitalism, prof. Howls' has that too!!!!)

Recommendation: read the Howl's Moving Castle book series (trilogy?) it's very good.

[augment-techs]

what i watched/read in january

Saint Maud: 5/5 Quite the parlor trick that I spent the whole buildup to actually seeing it believing it couldn't possibly be as psychologically intense and questionable as people were making it out to be and--what do you know? I was actually drawn in an surprised. Especially by the "demonic possession" and "angel wings" leading up to the final scene.

Grabbed: Poets & Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment, and Healing, ed. by Blanco, Moro, Moustaki, and Albo: 5/5 This was all very moving and left me with much to think about. It didn't just take points from the female pov, but also the male and--I think?--trans and nonbinary. The poetry in itself was a surprise, the essays and confessions something more what I was thinking of. It was hard to choose my favorites from the lot, but the poem by Michael O'Mara using Pink stands out the most.

Shades of Blue: Writers on Depression, Suicide, and Feeling Blue, ed. by Amy Ferris: 5/5 Okay, I'm not going to lie, I read through this entire book and while all of them were deeply meaningful, the one that stuck in my brain was the one that included a knock-knock joke-- "Knock knock/Who's There?/Boo./Boo who?/Just boo, you dope. You're a ghost." -by judywhite-- Which...is kind of horrible, and yet stupidly endearing?

Frankie Drake Mysteries, season 4: 4/5 Okay, I really, really, really wanted to love this season, which is apparently the last we're getting from this series, but, like, apparently they HAD warning that they weren't getting a fifth season, had time to wrap up most loose ends and STILL left us with this COMPLETE BULLSHIT ENDING?! WTF?

My Neighbor: Art Inspired by the Films of Miyazaki: 3/5 I mean, some of this was very good, but this was not at all what I was expecting and it was kind of a let down that I had to order this from out of state from my library. I thought this was an essay AND art collective.

Humans, by Brandon Stanton: 5/5 I'm always reading and rereading this, and it never gets old and is always giving me something new to notice and think about. On this particular reread, the photos and people that stood out the most were a small child in New York in a lion costume who was quoted saying, "There's nothing hard about being four;" then a group shot of two boys and a girl I think in the Middle East, one of the boys saying, "We let her pick," while all three smile, holding up a kite with Barbie on it; and then a picture of a man just sitting against a building with a really beautiful anecdote he gave about reading tarot cards to make a living in New York city wherein he believes in the card, but not in the way fortune tellers do, "I believe in them like you'd believe in a poem. I believe in their aesthetics."

Eat a Peach: a Memoir, by David Chang: 5/5 Being a chef and restaurant owner and believing in the work while also having mental illness. I haven't read this kind of memoir before from the Korean immigrant perspective and this went much better than I would have thought. Mostly because I did not expect this to be so FUNNY in some places. I thought it would be lyrical (which it was) or quite philosophic (which it was) but the book cover--which was beautiful--kind of made me think this would read like a Sisyphean tragedy. Which it really wasn't. And also some of his analogies--especially the one about a Hogwarts Culinary Dark Arts Class--are going to be stuck in my brain for a while.

Calling Doctor Laura: A Graphic Memoir, by Nicole Georges: 3/5 Oh to be a young queer woman at the turn of the century whose mother is almost certainly an untreated narcissist with BPD and whose girlfriend was most definitely cheating on her while she worked out trying to get the truth about her not-actually-dead father while sifting through very unpleasant memories of neglect and emotional abuse. Not a fan of the art style, but the story was at least honest.

Cheshire Crossing, by Andy Weir & Sarah Andersen: 5/5 TEN-THOUSAND blessings on writers who both admit to writing fanfiction on their opening introduction AND an art style where the cast was presented as 80% poc, INCLUDING Alice & Dorothy themselves, while presenting Wendy as queer. YES TO ALL OF THIS.

How to Be an Artist, by Jerry Saltz: 4/5 Actually a very good collective for advice and practice, though I might disagree with some of the rules...just...a bit.

The Wendy Project, by Osborne & Fish: 4/5 A story of young grief in the aftermath of an accident. A modern retelling of Peter Pan, but without the explanation of separating grief and breakdown from reality...such as it is. I was actually rather pleased to see the more "human" Peter ignored for the sake of the Wendy.

The Girl Who Married a Skull and Other African Stories: ratings run from 1/5 to 6/5 depending on the artist and story. My favorites of the lot were The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull, by Nicole Chartland--which was beautiful and did NOT end in marriage, but did end in love--and Concerning the Hawk and the Owl, by Meredith McClaren--which was incredibly lovely and had very little NEED of words.

Kimi Can't Communicate vol. 16, by Oda Tomohito: 5/5 Best parts about this would be: -Tadano playing the sports festival and getting crushed on HARD by Manbagi, Katai, and Komi. -Maeda, the school's top sprinter, having a thing for GILFs. -Suteno not giving Tadano a single thought and getting his headband taken without Tadano even blinking. -EVERYONE (bar Komi and Manbagi) feeding Tadano lunch. -The first time Tadano pats Komi on the head = KOMI WANTS MORE!! -Return to the Cat Café, complete with Manbagi getting a little pervert tomcat and Tadano once again pulling in the prettiest kitty in the area by being himself. -Shousuke and his Dad have a Father-Son day--and it becomes very obvious that Shousuke totally deserves Hitomi as the only curse he'll ever get. -Emoi Awards. -Tadano saves Manbagi's goldfish. -The whole voting process for the Culture Festival--once more, Komi is made to be the golden idol. -The Rehearsal of Najimi's play and The Cold-Blooded Princess. -It might be for the play, but Komi finally tells Tadano, "I like you."

The Vincent van Gogh overseas history DVD: 3/5 I suppose this is useful in terms of understanding and reference, but I didn't much care for the directing and editing style.

Big Trouble in Little China: 5/5 I FINALLY get to watch the movie with the women that have green eyes sacrificed to a dragon spirit in the name of a dark sorcerer cursed for over a thousand years in San Francisco. I haven't seen this movie since I was in kindergarten and should never have watched it to begin with. It is infinitely more entertaining and unpredictable than most anything coming out of the industry today. I had totally forgotten that Samantha from Sex and the City and Steve Stronghold from Sky High were acting here. I cannot believe John "Halloween" Carpenter directed this.

Disney's A Twisted Tale Anthology: -What if Snow White Learned Magic: 3/5 -What if Mulan became the Emperor's Advisor: 4/5 -What if Remy met Colette First: 5/5 -What if Anastasia had a change of Heart: 4/5 -What if Jim Hawkins joined the Pirates: 2/5 -What if history wasn't Quite Right about Robin Hood: 4/5 -What if Eric met Ariel after she rescued him: 3/5 -What if Tinkerbell was working for Captain Hook: 3/5 -What if Naveen had to get home to Maldonia: 5/5 -What if the Triplets visited the Witch: 3/5 -What if Madam Mim and Merlin wet to school together: 3/5 -What if Belle had to take her father's place at the fair: 3/5 -What if Hercules's first day as a god didn't go as planned: 2/5 -What if Bambi didn't want to be a Great Prince: 5/5 -What if Aurora knew about the curse: 4/5

Komi Can't Communicate vol. 15, by Oda Tomohito: 5/5 -Isagi is introduced with a HUGE arc to become Student Council President -Isagi has poor communication/OCD/Extreme germaphobia and touch aversion -Ase presents and comes through as Isagi's Truest Friend -Tadano sees Pretty Cat Komi -Yamai gets Komi to play Twister with her...in the school hallway...and passes out when she gets EXACTLY what she wants -Hitomi initiates a Shousuke/Ai + Hitomi & Yamada "date night" complete with coffee drinks, prize games (Hitomi won Ai a stuffed panda) and a movie at the theater -Ai had fun~ -Isagi plays Rock/Paper/Scissors/Hammer/Helmet against the entire class and WINS -Najimi insists on Isagi keeping the hammer (she's too good not to have it) -The previous Class President is utterly TERRIBLE at her job -The class take glamor shots together in an effort to get Isagi to smile for her election photo; but only managed to get a very on point shot of her menacing Najimi (which works better) -Isagi forgot to choose her campaign representative, but as usual, BLESS TADANO, "Don't worry about it. We don't care who you pick." -Isagi wins after a truly heartfelt speech from Ase. -Time for school physicals; Tadano is a half inch taller than Komi (who is SO GLAD) -Manbagi stresses about her crush on Tadano -Komi and Shousuke are forced by their mother to invite friends to dinner; Komi invited Manbagi, Ase, and Tadano...Shousuke ONLY invited Yamada, but Hitomi being Hitomi invited herself and Ai -Tadano gets to shine as the most polite person on the planet by being the ONLY PERSON at the table to say Yamada Sanjurokuro's name correctly (which may or may not lead to yet another crush on him; bringing his fan club up to, what, twelve now?)

Komi Can't Communicate vol. 14, by Oda Tomohito: 5/5 -The only thing that keeps sinking into my brain about this particular issue is the entire fair situation wherein Tadano, Komi, Manbagi, and Katai get sucked into working at Agari's aunt's food stall by Najimi. -Fushima continues to cheer on Katai/Tadano from the sidelines (and me along with her). -But the kicker is Manbagi finally warming up to Tadano and Hitomi & Onemine & Sasaki & Sato FREAKING OUT -Komi is just glad they get along -Hitomi is glad that Tadano continues to be Tadano and does not understand the concept of ANYONE having a crush on him. This precious boy.

Komi Can't Communicate vol. 13, by Oda Tomohito: 4/5 -It was fucking MAJESTIC to see Nakanaka playing around with an umbrella after sunset like a gun, running aground of the Four Monarchs, an out of town city woman playing dead when she said, "BANG!" to be polite--and her running away as fast as she could with the Monarchs finding the situation quite interesting but the woman on the ground wondering when she could get up again. -Najimi sets up a horror challenge at Katai's WITHOUT ASKING HIM--but it's fine. His friends are proud of him and he is so SOFT.

Komi Can't Communicate vol. 11, by Oda Tomohito: 5/5 -Summer vacation wherein the Komi and Tadano family end up at the same outdoor game park. -Hitomi continues to be Shousuke's unwanted but entirely necessary cheerleader. -Komi unlocks a kink by seeing the rim of Tadano's underwear. -Nakanaka/Yamai is VERY encouraged by Sukida (and myself as well). -The Four Monarchs are introduced to the class and it is SO fucking funny watching them fail to impress or scare ANYONE in this new class. Especially Tadano; it is so awesome.

3 Generations DVD: 4/5 A lesbian, poly, trans family making their way through the son's transition and the messy secrets the mother left behind in an effort to get written permission to start testosterone. I'm a little sad that the main actor wasn't actually trans but...Elle Fanning is still Elle Fanning, so the acting was *chef's kiss*.

Pawn Sacrifice DVD: 5/5 I already wanted to punch Bobby Fischer when he was alive for being both a genius and the biggest fucking asshole, but Toby Maguire was a fucking majestic BEAST in this piece illustrating opposite Liev Scheiber just HOW MUCH chess players during the Cold War did not inspire envy. Every actor in this film was a blessing, but DAMN, these two are awesome.

Little Panic: A Memoir, by Amanda Stern: 4/5 Oh, holy shit; I knew the 80s were terrible for women, but to have an anxiety disorder on top of a learning disorder in New York's East Village at the time was nothing short of just AWFUL.

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir, by Elna Baker: 4/5 This is useful in being a funny and darkly honest commentary/critique of diet culture, New York single life, religion, growth, and cues into life in-between. But All the way through I could not help but feel a little bit irked by the author.

From Boys to Men, edit. by Ted Gideonse & Rob Williams: 5/5 My fourth time reading this and it gets better every single time--especially in that these are queer men of all ages, races, and types, and just feels NICE. -The Story I Told Myself, by Soehnlein: inventing the self through playing with the little people in your head to make some pretty awesome soap operas -Sleeping Eros, by McAllister: considerations on divorce and brotherhood and a father who might have also been gay -Preppies are my Weakness, by Dolby: the essay that basically promises that those you're attracted to at ages 14-17 are Your Type (interestingly, for those of my mutuals reading this; I kept picturing Billy Cranston and Jason Scott, even though Jason would NEVER treat Billy like that). -Barbie Girls, by E.K. Anderson: Mid-80s realizing the politics of "romance" at age 11 and meeting a kindred soul at summer camp -Signs, by R.C. Green: exploring sexuality from the POV of an inner city, poc athlete that had a LOT of anger and internalized homophobia -And much, much, MUCH more.

A Gift From a Ghost, by Borja Gonzalez: 6/5 This is such a beautiful graphic novel for the consideration of how the future is a reflection of the past and how the past has little touches of understanding the future. Possibly it is also a thought piece on reincarnation? Dimensions and time spotting? Either way, the choice for the characters to be faceless and wit the looks of very pretty mannequins while building up the surroundings and wardrobe was MAGNIFICENT.

Change the Game, by Kaepernick: 4/5: A graphic memoir about the growth of a black football player from a white family who would eventually take the knee in protest to racist, sexist, political lashings. Not my favorite art style, but I can appreciate the lighting and line technique.

Goodbye: A Story of Suicide of Hailee Joy Lamberth: 2/5 A good attempt at humanizing and rationalizing, but for me, personally, it was a little too bright, shiny, sanitized...And not to mention a bit self-indulgent.

The Books that Changed My Life, edit. by Bethanne Patrick: 5/5 I have my favorites in the writers and in the books they chose and in the essays they wrote on them. But Gillian Flynn, Margaret Atwood, Peter Coyote, and Sofia Coppola's choices were my favorites.

Komi Can't Communicate vol. 4, by Oda Tomohito: 5/5 -Komi and Tadano try and say each other's first name...and fail SPECTULARLY. -They swapped kitty keychains (a tabby and an ebony) -Inaka makes her first appearance in a Subway parody -Nakanaka/Yamai is establishing itself through Tadano trying to teach them "Komi Speak."

[windowsloth]

logging onto tumblr dot com because I need to post my thoughts after finishing the Book of the New Sun somewhere:

I read it back-to-back with the Left Hand of Darkness which was a pretty jarring choice in a lot of ways. There’s some superficial similarities in the way the books are structured or constructed (narrator recounting events past, a strange an alienating world the reader is kind of dropped into the middle of, a long and arduous journey that occupies most of the story and leaves the main character profoundly changes), but they feel so different to read. I also thing Genly Ai is one of the most likeable and interesting protagonists I’ve ever read, whereas Severian is extremely interesting but (in my opinion) kind of pretty unpleasant

I think it’s interesting that there seems to be a lot of discussion about whether or not Severian is an unreliable narrator. I think he absolutely is, but I also think he knows he’s being unreliable. As in, I don’t think he’s trying to actively deceive the reader any more than he’s trying to convince himself that what he’s saying is always completely true. By the end of the story his own identity and personhood have been mostly stripped away, and by telling a fable about himself he’s able to recast himself as one of the mythic heroes he would read about in the little brown book

Stories in general are a huge part of the book. Severian himself says as much during Foila’s contest in the lazaret. The idea that the language and the culture we grow up in helps shape and define how we see the world runs throughout so much of the narrative, from Severian’s upbringing with the torturers to Loyal to the Group of Seventeen’s life in Ascia. The context that we experience the world from might not even be something we’re conscious of; it’s something that Severian spells out in the first chapter when talks about how symbols define us even if we aren’t aware of it

Jonas is probably my favorite character. I just love the “lost sailor” concept so much, and I think his fascination with Jolenta is so interesting. I wish he’d had more interaction with Talos, I need to reread and see if they spoke at all

From skimming some discussions online, I don’t think I’m super interested in doing the work of trying to untangle everything about the story. I’m okay with letting a lot of it be kind of ambiguous and weird, but I am fascinated by Severian’s (implied) sister. I don’t have much else to say about that, I just think it’s such an interesting thread that is raised and left dangling (maybe it gets address in some of the follow up books that I haven’t read. I’m not really planning to read any of them, probably?)

Agia is my second favorite character. I actually enjoyed her dynamic with Severian, even if it starts with him being a horny little freak and evolves into her being some kind of weird Pokémon rival who keeps showing up to try and stab him, and then ends with some kind of Batman/Joker perpetual enemies dynamic

Little Sev getting vaporized made me laugh. It’s a grim moment but it was so abrupt that I couldn’t help it

Love the dead-starships-as-fortresses thing that Nessus has going on. Honestly the setting in general is incredible, all of the locations are fascinating and cool. I do love that the Antechamber of the House Absolute has a drop ceiling, the idea of an old cubicle farm buried under centuries of dirt being repurposed as a dungeon is very good

I was trying to explain what the book was like to people and I kept saying it’s like first 60 pages of Dune meets a Miyazaki movie, and while I do stand by that, I hate that Cameron Kunzelman sums it up so much more succinctly and also reads me to filth in his Waypoint article by describing it as Dark Souls

I probably (definitely) have more thoughts but I want to jot some stuff down and Twitter isn’t the place. Good book though? Just not a book I’d actively recommend to people, probably.

[wanderrlust0]

i hung out with snow and 2 of their friends for their bday (2 dozen anni celebration) and it was a lot of fun!

we got to the city around 3:15 and walked to ktown. we went to this bakery they all usually go to and they had so many tasty treats, i wanted to try them all! i got a strawberry bouchee & snow got us this strawberry refresher thats kind of carbonated but it was good! it had pieces of strawberries in it so it was cute. then we walked to kinokuniya which is this huge japanese store filled with books,magazines,manga, stationery, plushies,toys,collectables, &moreeee. it had 3 stories!!! there was soo much to look at & i def wanna go back!! i told the bestie about it & she wants to go! (i didnt realize how close it was to bryant park as well. like i totally wouldve went there last time i was in bryant park if i knewww.) we were in there for like an hr. i bought a spirited away japanese book & a cute pop up holiday card for myself bc i liked the art. i wanted a small spirited away book but they only had the big one and the book that shows miyazakis sketches. i feel like i shouldve just gotten that one, even tho it was more money..maybe on my next trip. afterwards, we went to muji, then the nintendo store. so snows friends are very much gamers. well, they allll are lol & theyre into kpop, conventions, etc so theyre quite diff from my friend group but they were very nice! & they were already talking about stuff like how i have to see their friends room bc she has cool things and how they’ll force me & snow to watch the live action.. demon slayer mugen train musical…lolll yes that. we then went backkk to ktown to eat at abiko curry, which is a spot they go to a lot. it was my first time trying it and omg it was sooo good, i ate it all. ive never had korean curry so i thought it was so cool that i could add a pork chop to it and it was crispy! it was so satisfying lol it was like our first real meal of the day at 8:30. im gonna be thinking about that curry for a whilee. afterwards, we were gonna go to this place called starbucks reserve, which is like a very fancy coffee shop/bar, but we realized we wouldnt have enough time so were saving it for some other time. we got gelato that was nearby and they had such cool flavors!! lychee, guava, plum.. i got a scoop of ube and thai iced tea and they went perfect together omg i want it again. i didnt know how thai iced tea gelato would taste but it tasted exactlyyy like the drink so it was so refreshing after our curry meal. after gelato we went back to the bakery to pick up things we wanted to take home with us. we didnt get on the train until 10:30 so we got home later than i thought & i was soso tired the next morning bc i had to wake up early but it was worth it lol. oh yeah! i forgot to mention but i gave snow their bday gift & card in the car so they opened the gift before we walked to the train station and !!! they loved it so much they criedddd D; it was sweet and also shocking and funny bc like!! i didnt mean to make you cry omggg loll for context, the gift was a framed drawing i made of inumaki from jujutsu kaisen and so they said thats its literally the best gift theyve ever gotten, mostly due to it being handmade and i was like WhaTttt no wayyy. the best gift youve ever gotten?!? they knew i was gonna draw something already bc they didnt want me to buy a gift & wanted something handmade like my art but ofc they didnt know what id draw & didnt really expect me to draw Him. they saved the card for our train ride home bc when they first opened it in the car & saw so many words they couldnt read it yet lol. when snow was on their way to my house they realized they forgot my gift (for my bday) and i was like MY Gift!!?! i really dont know what it could even be… it was fun spending time with them and i feel like its a nice change to hangout with a different friend group. idk like something about it feels fun and refreshing & just different. ofc it depends how comfortable i feel with everyone. but yeahhh, it was a good day & i got to try a lot of yummi foods

(my bracelet fell off and idk where it went:(( it could be somewhere in my room or my bfs room.. i dont believe it fell off at work.. or the shower..but i dont wanna think about thatD: it wasnt really a sentimental one i guess.. but it was like a good bracelet..& old.. &cute:( im hoping it shows uppppp!!!!)

[grad604-kannonhen]

mid sem objects 4

Choker Necklace from great-grandmother:

My great-grandmother was born in the 15th year of the Taisho period in Japan, the very last year of that period (1926) before it changed to Showa. She unfortunately passed away at the end of last year but I heard many stories about her from my grandfather(her son). I did my research paper in my first year about Taisho design and learned about how design in Japan was revolutionised. In short summary, Taisho era art and design was significant as it was when Western culture started to become widely popularised and mixed with Japanese traditional culture. This created a unique style referred to as Taisho Roman in current days to point to the characteristic balance of the merging of Western and Japanese culture where it has a retro yet modern look. Side note, it is also crazy to think that she was alive at the same time as some of the significant Japanese Bungo novelists (mentioned in Kenshi Yonezu's section)...

Earrings from grandmother:

My grandmother on my father's side gave this to me when I was in Japan for year 9. At that point, I hadn't pierced my ears. This reminds me of my ancestors as I heard stories about her and her marriage with my grandfather who was a Korean man. My grandfather passed away when my father was 14. At her time marrying people from a foreign country was still not welcomed and I heard briefly that this led to a lot of difficulties. It astounds me that whilst all that trouble they still married and their three children led to more children like myself and my cousins. It also reminds me that my family is the only one that moved overseas and I always feel disconnected from my family in Japan. It makes me think of the miracle as well as the fragility of family relations. Now my ears are pierced and this is one of my favourite accessories to wear. I don't know what my grandmother felt giving this to me back then, I hope someday I get to know her a bit more.

Kenji Miyazawa bookmark:

I got this when I went to the souvenir shop at Geibikei Gorge in Iwate prefecture. Geibikei Gorge is one of the locations in the 100 Landscapes Japan selection from 1927 as well as being designated the National Place of Scenic Beauty and Natural Monument since 1923. This location and Kenji Miyazawa are incredibly significant for the culture of my born prefecture in Japan. The image depicted on the bookmark is perhaps his most famous work, the Night of the Galactic Railroad. At first I was simply interested in Miyazawa because he is from the same prefecture as me, but through many other influences such as Hayao Miyazaki, Kenshi Yonezu, or Yorushika, I started taking an interest in Japanese literature. Miyazawa's works have a dreamy children's book type of atmosphere, while also being mysterious and almost creepy. His unique world in his works speaks to both children and adults. It definitely fueled my love for beautiful, nostalgic world-building and the unique atmosphere of Japanese literature.

Key of the old house in Japan:

Before I moved to New Zealand in 2010 I used to live in a tiny house located above a restaurant in Japan. This key reminds me of my grandfather whom I never met. I understand this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people if I really dig into it, but ancestry and culture is a crucial part of my creativity. My grandfather on my father's side as mentioned is Korean, and he was one of the people taken to Japan through war. We were quite poor and the house that we lived in was old and broken down. My grandfather had built the place when he was younger as he worked in a factory, the restaurant was his brother's Korean food restaurant. It's sad that I can't go back to that place anymore as the restaurant has taken over. I got this key when I was in Japan in year 9 and it was perhaps one of the hardest times of my life being in a small town as a foreigner who could barely read textbooks at school, but it's also when I started learning how to learn, to work hard for myself, and do things without being told. It's also when I actually got a chance to communicate with my family members and it felt special being back in my childhood home once again.

Picturebooks?

Other than drawing one of my favourite activities as a child was reading picture books. I've had these since being in my old home in Japan, and it's clear that I was very introverted all my life. One of the first examples of creative illustration and storytelling I had was through these picture books and I think it shows through my current interests and works the impact picturebooks has on me. Some of these are Japanese, but some are translated from foreign countries. My mother is very interested in overseas culture and arts especially those from the UK area. I think her collecting these works for us to see has fed our creativity in a unique way.

The clock on the right-hand side is from my mother who had this since she was a student. It depicts Alphonse Mucha's work on the clock face. Again, my mother was really into art culture from a young age and her influences are very prominent in my upbringing. It is said that Mucha was fond of Japanese art, backed up by the point that Art Nouveau has references to the flat, curved, and decorative nature of Japanese traditional art. Likewise, Japanese art during the Meiji era was also influenced by the style of Mucha. His style had a lasting impact on Japanese manga comics as well.

[kamari3]

There isn't anything inherently wrong with adaptations. Neither book to movie nor animation to live-action. The artistic endeavor is neutral in a vacuum.

And I am an amateur. But here is my two cents.

There are some wonderful adaptations that really capture the magic and appeal of the originals, whatever they happen to be. The problem is that more than half of them are insincere or poorly executed, and a lot of us are now... whats a word that means something like 'traumatized' but not quite so extreme? We are that. Because we have seen adaptations time and again that, whether or not they may appeal to wider audiences and people who never looked at the original, are absolutely unsatisfying (if not insulting) to people who had any love for the thing that they adapted.

Take for example the netflix serialized adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The casting is as faithful to the themes and effects as one gets from the novel, with pacing that matches the books nearly beat for beat (with some tasteful cuts and alterations that emphasize the medium of film, which is what they are adapting into).

Next as an example: Howl's Moving Castle. This is an adaptation that is superficially faithful to the book in aesthetics and characterization, which is fun and appealing and satisfying to watch, and hits many of the major plot points beat-for-beat, but which emphatically lacks certain themes and motifs that the original novel was loved specifically for. The themes of war and nature were emphasized in the movie, while the fairy-tale motifs and the more heavily nuanced characterizations and plot intricacies were cut to make room for a completely different message. Miyazaki is a unique individual in that he was able to make these thematic changes while still satisfying at least some of the people who loved the original book.

These are outliers.

These directors' mastery over narration and art, their craftsmanship and the team they used to make it happen, are skillful because they are able to pull off adaptations like this, which diverge from the original but still pay loving tribute to it. They understood the medium they were adapting from (the written novel) and how it works to tell a story, and what needed to be done to translate that into the new medium (animation/movie). That they also took creative liberties that did not detract terribly from the material is a perk of their mastery, not something just anyone can pull off.

Now look at the Musical Cats' movie adaptation. This adaptation is superficially faithful in form and aesthetic, but lacks certain elements of the original material which detract from its enjoyment. Just like with the above example, it provides equitable visualizations, and hits most of the plot beat for beat, but the execution is done without understanding of how and why the original was appealing, how and why it worked as a musical, and therefor was unable to translate that to a movie adaptation that was satisfying to watch. (I would also argue that the director also didn't understand the medium of films, the very thing they were adapting into, but that is neither here nor there). The lack of understanding of the way Cats works as a musical means that all the perfectly normal and unremarkable techniques and attributes of the film were applied in a way that detracted from the value of the material they were adapting, and the new material that was introduced was even directly contradictory to the original message of the musical! [see this video essay for a better detailed explanation of the whys exactly -- he says it better than I can].

This is bad. And it is typical.

Now, these examples have been comparing books to multimedia (animation and movies). Now we have to compare animation to live action.

Animation and Live Action are not the same medium at all.

Animation is a medium that is carried by its color theory and its control of shape to bring emphasis to the emotions and themes in the story. It is carried by its use of exaggeration, whether thats with wacky comedic disproportion or in the way that tears stand out when sliding down agonized faces. The visual techniques necessary to differentiate impact are nuanced and vital to proper execution. There is also plot, sound design, and many other things that go into it, but the big difference between Animation and Live Action is the visuals.

Live Action is carried by the combinations of different shot angles, lighting, and choreography. Live Action is restricted to the proportions of the real human body, and it is the way the body is used that expresses emotion. Distorting these proportions in Live Action like one does in Animation is only ever even considered in Horror movies, because Body Horror is a thing.

Live Action facial expressions cannot convey the same range and intensity that Animation facial expressions can. Which means you need to add other Live Action ways to show emotions and emphasis.

So, when translating a medium that relies on visuals and vibrant color theory to a medium that is carried by lighting and choreography, you have to reconcile and adjust to the difference. You have to translate the emotions conveyed in the animation's every frame into something that Live Action can understand, and very often, live action movies don't bother to do that.

Look at the Avatar: the Last Air Bender adaptation for an example of this. Many of those shots are a near perfect match of the animation, but because of that, it lacks the impact it had in the animation. Shot for Shot does not translate between Animation and Live Action, and that means the adaptation needs to accommodate for it and keep the mood and vibes.

The adaptation loses impact and emotion, changing the value of the show entirely. it makes what is supposed to be a narrative about Joy and Fun being the Power you need to make the world a better place into gritty serious nonsense.

It's the same reason the 3D adaptation of the Lion King also failed to work: there was no accommodating the emotional execution of the original 2D's colors and exaggeration. it's like if you took a letter written in Japanese and translated it 'literally' into English: it would be pronounless gibberish with no accommodating for the intricate nuance that certain words and phrases actually mean.

That's just my observations, though. Take that as you will.

I don't know why, but live action adaptations of animes are always insta-cringe. The characters that are so lively and fun in animation elicit secondhand embarrassment the moment they're portrayed by living, breathing human beings.

[luislosing]

I have a theory

about Kwazii's backstory.

This one is a bit of a stretch so buckle up kiddos.

SO: who is our favourite orange, boot wearing, adventure loving cat?

You thinking what im thinking?

[Edit:] I found these photos after i posted this but i think it's pretty important] He has a sword. This is from the Sword fish creature report.

Backstory about Puss in Boots: (from wikipedia) "Puss in Boots" (Italian: Il gatto con gli stivali) is an Italian fairy tale, later spread throughout the rest of Europe, about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for his penniless and low-born master.

The first written account of this tale is from 1550 by Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, who included it in his The Facetious Nights of Straparola. Other texts were published in 1634 and 1697.

If you look at these dates carefully, you may see that they line up pretty well with the Golden Age of Piracy:

Coincidence? I don't think it's a coincidence that a story about a sword wielding, thieving cat would be very similar to the acts of real-life pirates.

Puss in Boots originated in Italy, although it has been translated, adapted changed to fit themes in Asia, Africa and South America.

Here is a little trivia about Kwazii:

It's hinted that he is from somewhere in East or Southeast Asia, although it's largely been irrelevant to the franchise.

In the Philippines version of Puss in Boots; - ...the helpful animal is a monkey "in all Philippine variants", according to Damiana Eugenio -(Wikipedia)

A monkey? Did you mean:

Paani?

Who is from India.

And India is in Asia. Specifically South Asia. Next to Southeast Asia.

Hmmmmmm. Still a coincidence? I still have more evidence.

(From Wikipedia) - It was also adapted by Toei as anime feature film in 1969, It followed by two sequels. Hayao Miyazaki made manga series as a promotional tie-in for the film. The title character, Pero, named after Perrault, has since then become the mascot of Toei Animation, with his face appearing in the studio's logo.

Hmm, an orange cat, from Japan, based off the story of Puss in Boots? Where have I heard that before?

Kwazii...

Another thing. Why I mention Paani is becouse he is very similar to Kwazii. They both have a 'mysterious' past that we dont know much about. (An excerpt from the Octonauts Wiki) - In general, he shares a lot of qualities with Kwazii. Physically, he has a similar pale, light grayish gamboge palette and a long tail. Personality-wise, he seems just as if not more daring, along with being impulsive and rather acrobatic. He even gets stopped by Captain Barnacles before he does something without thinking and runs off before the other characters can catch up with him in a way that intentionally mirrors Kwazii doing the same thing. They also have a shared love for cooking, eating snacks (such as pudding), and telling stories.

You know who else is an orange adventure loving cat?

Calico Jack, who is the oldest Octo-agent, Kwazii's grandad, and a pirate. Who wears a funny black hat and boots? (Technically one boot and a peg leg) Who wears a belt and (i think) has a sword?

(Excerpt from the Shrek Wiki) - he [Puss in Boots] is a smooth-talking cat with a Spanish accent, usually wearing a cavalier's hat, a belt with a sword, a small black cape, and small Corinthian boots.

[Edit:] Although the Puss in Boots movie solely starring Puss was released in 2011, that specific adaptation of Puss in Boots first appeared in the 2004 Shrek Movie.

You know what else appeared in 2004 and was released in book form in 2006?

THE OCTONAUTS

Which Brings Me to My Final Conclusion:

I think Kwazii is somehow related to the story of Puss in Boots, whether it be himself, Paani, or Calico Jack.

We dont know enought about Kwazii's past to determine his backstory, or what happened to his parents, (as they are never mentioned). However, i think this might be a decent speculation into Kwazii's Mysterious Pirate past.

And one more thing:

Dont think i forgot that kwazii is based off Meomi's one eyed cat. (From the wiki) - 'Kwazii was based off of Meomi's late one-eyed cat, Eco.' Im gonna make that fit this theory somehow.

Again, this is just a theory, probably isn't true but i love to speculate. Lemme know if you want to see more Octonauts theories.

Sorry for the long post lol <3

[nox-artemis]

Kentaro Miura

It took me awhile to get my thoughts in order. Honestly, as well intentioned as they are, a constant stream of fan tributes on Twitter and Tumblr more-or-less telling me how to process “The End” of Berserk with Miura’s death didn’t do a lot to console me, so I had to take some huge steps away from social media and only conversed my feelings with my other close Berserk fan-friends.

It was very surreal waking up yesterday morning to a friend messaging me simply saying, “did you hear the news?” When shit like that happens, I go onto my Google stories app and scroll through. I didn’t find anything really worth getting too upset over (maybe a bit sad that Queen Elizabeth II’s doggo died?) so it hit me to check my Twitter feed instead.

And that’s when I saw it.

We all know death is inevitable, and life is pretty much spent prolonging the point to that inevitability as well as preparing ourselves for when it happens to us or someone close to us. Being part of the Berserk fandom was the only time we all collectively had this on our mind not only for someone else but for someone we never met or really knew that much about. We only knew Miura through his magnum opus – and that was good enough for us. And no matter how much we discussed the worst-case scenario – pondering how the story would continue and how WE would continue – it still wasn’t enough to prepare us for this amount of shock. Hearing Miura had died and that the Berserk we know and love under his direct supervision is over truly felt like losing a long-lost friend.

It wasn’t just that the Berserk we know of is “over”, but that Miura didn’t have to die. He was only 54: not a young age, but not an old age either, especially by today’s standards. He could have seen the end to his magnum opus the way he envisioned it, yet he died of something so avoidable but is only brought about by a great deal of stress (from what I’ve read). It was always a morbid open rumor that so many of Miura’s infamous hiatuses were actually mental and/or physical health breaks, so the older or more conscious of us fans, while always eager and anxious for a new chapter, learned to not take them so personally. Miura was a spellbinding artist and storyteller, but he was also a human with his own life and conflicts that he was entitled to address at his own pace. This isn’t meant to blame anyone (at the very least, maybe to address some societal/industry issues), but it’s troubling enough to remind everyone – as the story of Berserk has demonstrated – that you need to take care of yourself physically and mentally, and while everyone struggles in life, you don’t have to struggle alone.

I always despised this weird cult of youth that insinuates that life isn’t worth pursuing once you hit your mid-thirties, and how some people so engulfed in their youth insist that they wouldn’t mind dying by the age of 50 or 60. It’s a shame when people live by that because there’s so much to live for beyond your youth – as I’ve learned, I only started buckling down when I transitioned into my thirties. Miura could have had a longer life ahead of him, going beyond Berserk and into his other endeavors, professional and personal, but that will unfortunately never happen now.

Everyone knows I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on Berserk. Most of you found out about me through my blogging several years ago, and I’m pretty proud that I was never the sort of fan that groveled at Miura’s feet and treated Berserk as some untouchable holy book: there were things I disliked about Berserk and things that disappointed me about Miura’s writing, but there were SO MANY MORE THINGS that I loved about Berserk and was proud of Miura for, and I wished him to continue his advancement in narrative growth. He did so and we watched it happened.

And, by meeting so many friends and acquaintances through the fandom, we saw a lot in ourselves change too. It’s surreal how we always joked that it would be one of us fans who would die before Berserk ended or the worst-case scenario of Miura dying; maybe some of us secretly preferred for that happen. But when we weren’t waiting around for another chapter… look at how much we’ve done with our lives! We graduated high school, undergrad, grad school, started and advanced our careers, traveled the world, got together, popped out a kid or two!... And while we experienced a lot of downfalls and tragedies that coincide, can you believe how much we have accomplished together?

We were all personally inspired, motivated, persuaded by Berserk in different ways: a lot of us were inspired for the better and admittedly, some for the not-as-good (if spending countless hours on Tumblr has taught me, there were definitely some toxic fan takeaways that had to be confronted). I’m not going to go to the point of saying that I now live my life by Berserk’s philosophy to a T or live as a reflection of certain characters (because I’m pretty sure that Miura was trying to tell us to NOT live your life like some particular characters) but it certainly helped to brings some aspects of life and existence into perspective, through the lenses of so many characters. Berserk also inspired me to write more, an already favorite pastime of mine, and how I should go about writing and planning a story, taking cues from Berserk on how to and how NOT to write and approach things in my own way, which I think is for the best in the long run. I can only dream that I’ll be published someday – which doesn’t have to be a pipe dream because it’s still much more possible than impossible. And so many other have done the same, creating our own stories and works.

And OF COURSE Berserk inspired me to be a little bit badass from time to time in moments of frivolity and seriousness – but it reminds us all that being badass and being a kinder person who tries to become the best version of themselves are not mutually exclusive. We definitely need more of that in today’s world.

We all made our own little bonfires of dreams happen, and because of Berserk existing, there will be a lot more beginnings than endings, and I don’t see a lot of bonfires being extinguished anytime soon. Miura poured his heart and soul into Berserk and its characters, and while he has passed on, his characters and lessons will live on through us and everything we create and how we live our lives (hopefully for the better).

I was happy to share all of my thoughts with you all – and I’ll continue to do so, since the mythos of Berserk has been a major backdrop of my creative mind for over fifteen years now and there is still so much to dissect and speculate. Personally, I don’t see Berserk ending just yet, if only because I’d be surprised that Miura or his publisher didn’t have some Operation London Bridge type plan in place in the event that this happened (Berserk is, after all, a major title that most likely brings Young Animal a lot of revenue). Again, I never treated Miura or Berserk as divine untouchables, so if there are plans in place to continue Berserk without Miura (BUT with his permission) or just on how to wrap up the story to give it a fulfilling conclusion, I personally would be okay with it (as a friend of mine put it, it’d be more of a tribute than an imitation). Going beyond our lifetimes, works will continue to be interpreted and reinterpreted as they have since time immemorial; perhaps Berserk will reach that point someday.

Honestly, and many have thought so too, Berserk was also meant to be cosmic level in both scale and concept. The plot is so grand and Byzantine that, even under Miura’s direct supervision, I always had a hard time envisioning how a story of this scale would conclude. As much as we love to hate him, a final showdown between Guts and Griffith seems too simple, too “good vs. evil”-esque for Berserk. Maybe having a low-key, vague but optimistic and bittersweet wrap up is what is best for Guts, Casca, and their new-found family. But that’s just another one of my fan speculations.

Regardless or what is to become of Berserk now, I think it’s safe to give adulations. We all came across Berserk at different times in our lives and stuck with the story for different reasons. For some of us, it was just another series that our friend from the campus anime club recommended to us; for others, we were drawn in from a morbid curiosity of its dark notoriety in anime circles. A few of us read for the gratuitous violence and the clout (because we all know you’re so deep and hardcore [/sar]), but a lot more of us read for the journey and the characters that we became a part of. The heaviness of Berserk made us confront a lot of trauma and even relive our own. For some of us, understandably, it was not a good idea to dive deeper (and maybe somethings could have been handled better); for the rest of us, it helped us cope, if not entirely through the story itself, than through the support network we made for ourselves in this fandom and its many realms (some realms, I argue, are more caring and nurturing than others).

From time to time, I always wonder if I would ever “grow out” of Berserk. There were indeed several times I took a step away from fandom and have tried to reduce my exposure to the story - but I always came back in some way, because the essence of Berserk has never left me and never will. Humorously I envisioned myself actually forgetting about Berserk for several decades, decades in which I work at my career, raise my family, mourn my elders, but continue living my life, only to go on the future internet in my mid-50s to find out… Miura is STILL working on that ending, sitting at his desk in the same pose as that famous monochrome capture of him, only he’s grayed and wrinkled, like the great Miyazaki.

The possibility of that future is over, but there are so many others.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Honestly I can admit the movie is a little shaky on it's writing.

I still feel like the Movie has an anti war theme cause Miyazaki was feeling anti war at the time, understandably so. But the war plot is shoved a lot into the background and I feel this wasn't really the movie to put it in.

Not to mention how the plot beats move from one to another.

The whimsy is okay, but I tend to watch other ghibli movies more. It's not even my favorite Ghibli movie. Not even in my top five.

But I've always been a fan more of the ideas or concepts presented in film, and a good concept or character writing that's highly relatable can save an okay movie for me at times, but it highly depends.

If theres one sole reason I come back to the film, and that's Sophie herself. Sophie I find is one of the most realistic and down to earth characters that I connected to in a Ghibli movie.

She's a bit of a wallflower, very responsible, obsessed with her work and doesn't even consider doing anything else besides running her father's hat shop.

She's also frumpy and doesn't see herself as attractive.

I absolutely adore the scene early on where she's looking in the mirror and trying on a new hat she just made, and then frowns, coming to the wordless conclusion that it doesn't look good on her. Compared to how beautiful her friends are.

There's also the subtle plot element of the curse. In where I think the curse changes her to be how she always presented herself in mind and body.

And once she becomes an old woman, its almost a blessing in disguise for her. Like she has a blast. She can be as grumpy, and frumpy and do what she wants without so much fear of judgement or physical appearance. Cause it's more an attitude of "well I'm old now I can do what I want"

I also like that she was never really interested in Howl romantically at the start, when all the women were fauning at him. It's just through gaining a deeper understanding of him that she fell in love.

The movie does have it's issues, and sometimes I don't think the other characters are fleshed out as Sophie, and the magic building isn't explained that we'll, but maybe that's explained more in the book. (I don't know I haven't read it. But it's on my list)

But Sophie pretty much saves this movie for me. And it's almost scary how Miyazaki can get into the mind of a young girl, cause a lot of female Ghibli characters are outstanding and I can see myself in them, and I think it's cause he writes his girl characters as people without such a huge focus on romance.

But I know your milage may vary. As I said it's not even in my top five Ghibli movies, but it does provide a nice comfort brains off movie (in an Alice and wonderland type of way) with a strong female lead, and some days, that's all I want in my entertainment.

Somebody is gonna have to explain to me why everyone likes Howl's Moving Castle.