#japanese film industry

[banjaibookhunter]

[disease]

NINE INCH NAILS // THEME for TETSUO: THE BULLET MAN [2009 | SHIN’YA TSUKAMOTO 塚本 晋也]

[honeygleam]

the plutonium lab in the man who stole the sun (1979) dir. kazuhiko kasegawa

[object-obsession]

Suzume > Souta Munakata (kind of)

Inanimate Object Characters List | Entry: 27

Again, an ANIME with a sentient object!

... kind of.

I mean, the second main character, despite technically being a human, does turn into a chair and therefore IS a chair for the majority of the duration of the movie, soooooo... I say it counts!

Character: Souta Munakata [chair form]

Movie: Suzume (2022)

There is also a novel adaption of the movie (English ver. 2023) and a manga series (English ver.) soon to be released (in September).

[the-descolada]

it really gets so so old seeing people talking about how certain american cartoons were inspired by anime as a medium (correct) and then immediately claim that they do things better than anime (yeah anime as a whole, sure) because they are comparing it to like. generally the lowest brow shit...rather than the massively influential classics that shaped the entire animation industry in japan and beyond because the entirety of animation history is a worldwide exchange of ideas and styles??? god imagine if people talked about american animation this way. sorry i won't watch spiderverse because my friend recommended me family guy once and it sucked, lalalala i'm plugging my ears now

it's even stupider because the cartoons that have these specific inspirations are doing it entirely out of love for the medium and how the creators were inspired, and the exact same deconstructions and criticism of tired tropes are done within the anime industry. you think monty oum and rebecca sugar and nd stevenson and dana terrace made those specific references and trope twists because they hated anime and thought they were above it? you think nakatani nio wrote that scathing class s trope takedown scene because she hated yuri as a genre? are you serious?

[professionaljester]

watching a drama video where the person doesnt know how the animation industry works

[singull]

Was derping about YouTube the other day and came across a terribly obnoxious thumbnail:

*chin in hands*

[roydeezed]

One thing for those who have watched The Boy and The Heron or will watch it. The Japanese title for it is How Do You Live? And Miyazaki stated he was leaving it for his grandson, saying, "Grandpa is moving onto the next world soon but he is leaving behind this film".

The deaths of contemporaries and friends such as Satoshi Kon and Isao Takahata and also the expected successor of Yoshifumi Kondo were things that have always weighed heavily on the back of Miyazaki's mind.

He recognizes the industry and the occupation for how soul crushing it was, grinding up either the spirit or the physical body of those who work in it. He loves and hates the industry he stands on the peak of and fully recognizes how it will probably be the death of him. And he knows it'll leave him unable to say a lot of things to his Grandson.

So How Do You Live? is a lesson. For his grandson. For himself. For his two sons. And probably for anyone else willing to pay attention.

Hayao Miyazaki is a flawed man that makes things so important to so many people. And I think more than any other film of his, in this you get to pull back the curtain a bit and see him at work. And what should be this giant unblemished titan can be seen for what he is, a sad old man who had higher hopes for himself and has even higher hopes for the people he makes his work for.

It's a beautiful thing to see another's humanity in their work. To look past the artifice and glam of commercialized art and find humans behind it. And humans willing to show their humanity and mortality is even rarer. And something to be celebrated. So when you watch it. Or if you've watched it already. Understand that this film is Miyazaki kneeling down, weary after years of weaving dreams and making mistakes, reaching out and saying to you that he hopes you can do better. It's an old man who's made all the mistakes of the world passing it on to you, hoping you do better, and making sure you know it's okay if you don't.

How do you Live? By making mistakes. By messing up. But still moving forward. And still reaching out.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Gackt - Vanilla 1999

Gackt is a Japanese singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor. He has been active since 1993, first as the frontman of the short-lived independent band Cains:Feel, and in 1995-1998 the visual kei rockband Malice Mizer, before starting his solo career in 1999. He has released nine studio albums and, with forty-eight singles released, holds the male soloist record for most top ten consecutive singles in Japanese music history. Besides being established in the modern entertainment industry and a pop icon, Gackt's music has been used as theme songs for video games, video game films, anime series/films, and television series. In addition to his music career, Gackt has acted and voice acted, including characters inspired by him in video games like Bujingai and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. He also provided the voice samples for the Vocaloid software Gackpoid.

Gackt released his second single "Vanilla", from his first full-length studio album Mars (2000), on August 11, 1999. "Vanilla" is one of his most popular and commercially successful songs. It peaked at number four on the Oricon Singles Chart and charted for ten weeks. With 248,360 copies sold, it was the 89th best-selling single of the year, and it was certified Gold by RIAJ. The single was later re-released in 2002. It charted for six weeks, reaching number twelve. "Vanilla" is a favourite among fans, particularly because of a live performance from Gackt's Mars tour, which contained a large amount of fanservice with Masa, his guitarist at the time.

"Vanilla" received a total of 72,5% yes votes!

[foone]

AAA games? Pfft. Indie games? Double pfft.

I only play games from the alternate history where Hillary Clinton was elected in 2008 and banned all video games. You can only imagine how weird their underground gaming scene is. People like to call unlicensed games "bootlegs" but they've got actual bootlegged games! I've played games about helping your grandmother in hospice care realize she's a lesbian by reading Sappho to her, at 2am in a speakeasy in Baltimore. The cops raided it the next night, hundreds of Gamers were arrested. They posted pictures all over Friendster of the Baltimore PD destroying the arcades with axes.

I nearly got busted once because I was imaging old disks from a 386 and someone tipped off the gaming cops that there was a copy of Commander Keen in there. I had to prove that I didn't know it, I was imaging the disks blind and then indexing them later, and I would of course turn over any contraband to the proper authorities.

I was already on a watch list because I'd been known to have some gamedev-related activities pre-ban. They can't arrest me for making games back in 2007 when it was still legal, but they do want to keep an eye on me since I have the skills to break the law.

Anyway that universe's bootlegs are mainly PC games. Can't really have console games if there hasn't been a console release since the Wii/PS3/360 era. At one point Nintendo threatened to release the Wii SDK so game devs in the US could make unlicensed games, but that didn't happen as there were quickly no functional Wiis left in the US, except for very rare holdouts that never move. PC games are easy to distribute samizdat and hide on a USB stick or CD-R labeled "nickelback".

Japan's games industry is still going, so the later Nintendo and Sony consoles still exist, but Microsoft got out of the business of course. They sold the franchise to Sega who were hoping to release the 360 successor (the Xbox One in our universe) as the Sega Phoenix but it never materialized, either through their own financial incompetence or because of pressure from the US. There's a lot of international treaties that the US has pushed "and this aid only goes through if you ban games" clauses into. That would have been an official UN resolution if the USSR hadn't vetoed it. For once, thank God for the security council, eh?

I mainly get my gaming news through Japanese gaming sites (through a set of VPNs, since they're blocked at the border firewall), and some tor onion site run by a weird guy in Minnesota who is obsessed with documenting all the underground US games.

There's a lot being worked on, but it's always a tricky trade off. Too much attention and the police might be able to track down the creators, and it's basically impossible to fund underground games, as the VISA/PayPal etc funds get seized immediately. There's a whole task force for that.

Anyway one of the weirdest differences between our two time lines is that they've gone back and edited out gaming from a bunch of movies. Those that they can, of course. War games was just banned because they couldn't remove the tic tac toe ending. The Net just removed the scene at the beginning where she's playing Wolfenstein 3D, by recording some new screen footage and a new voice over. She's fixing a spreadsheet in the new edition.

(Yes, I've seen The Net from this alternate timeline. On Laserdisc, of course. I'm just that kind of person!)

They even edited Star Wars. You know that scene where R2-D2 is playing holochess with Chewie? They edited it to be a board game instead of holograms, because that made it too "video gamey".

Technically it's not illegal to show gaming in a movie, but it needs to be an 18+ film and you have to show the deleterious effects of gaming and/or the gamesters coming to a bad end.

This has affected films less than you'd think, to be honest. They were never great about showing video games even before they banned them.

Anyway, go have fun playing your AAA games with hundred-million-dollar budgets. I only play indie games made by people under a constant threat of arrest for their art.

[swampjawn]

Soooo…. what ever happened to the puppets from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? And why was Santa such a grumpy bastard?

Well, the answer to that first question ended up being a much more complicated story than it first appeared, even complete with a twist ending. And while researching it, I stumbled across the tale of a forgotten Japanese animation pioneer who revolutionized animation industries in Japan AND China, made a whole bunch of propaganda during WWII and the Chinese Civil War, and then created the Rankin/Bass "Animagic" animation style and animated all those classically American classic stop-motion Christmas classics that we know and love. Tadahito "Tad" Mochinaga (持永 只仁).

That's right, Rankin/Bass was an anime studio!

Born in 1919, Mochinaga was inspired by early Walt Disney shorts to become an animator. Much like Disney, he built Japan's first ever multi-plane camera rig,

Ari-chan (アリチャン, 1941)

before being contracted to make war propaganda.

Ironically at the same time he was working under Mitsuyo Seo (瀬尾 光世) on Momotarou's Sea Eagles (1943)—a delightful picture about a bunch of cute little animals triumphantly bombing the shit out of those fat, stupid Americans at Pearl Harbor—his biggest inspiration was working on his own exciting propaganda cartoons from the exact opposite side of the same conflict.

But it was during his time working under the Chinese Communist Party that he inadvertently popularized stop-motion puppet animation in east Asia.

Tasked with making a puppet film that satirized the Nationalist Party's leader, but also dealing with an extreme shortage of film in the country, Mochinaga realized that if he stiffened the joints of the puppets, posed them manually and shot them frame-by-frame instead, he could use only the exact number of frames necessary.

He would continue to refine that stop-motion style after returning to Japan,

and eventually catch the eye of an American producer, Arthur Rankin Jr, who had just started a studio with his friend Jules Bass.

The story continues in much greater detail in this video, which completely obliterated my other plans for the month, and which I promise, does actually answer the question at the start of this post. I really didn't expect this project to balloon into an epic that spans an entire century, but in order to understand the ending, you have to start at the beginning!

Seriously though, I think this is the best video I've made yet and you KNOW I spent an absurd amount of time learning 3D modeling/rigging/texturing/animation to make what amounts to just some stylistic icing on the cake, but it's a bit different from what I usually make and youtube can punish you for that so if you do find the video interesting and feel like sharing it with someone you think would also be interested, I will personally show up at your house with an old satchel bursting with deliciously ripe oranges and squeeze all that sweet, sloppy nectar by hand, one-by-one directly into your expectant, gaping maw.

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

Studio TV Solutions presents Half Life VR but the AI are Self-Aware (2020) [not a real movie]. A movie with a totally improv’d script starring a moltey crew who are sure to give you a rip-roarin’ good time!

anyway hi new au just dropped. i’m calling it HLVRAIM. it’s HLVRAI but it’s a blockbuster movie and the science team are played by actors. i have many thought on backstories n stuff that i will stick under a “read more” here otherwise this post will be hella long on people’s dashes. 👇👍 pls care about this i thought so hard and much

Half Life VR but the AI are Self-Aware was put out by Studio TV Solutions in 2020 and destroyed the box office with how fun it was and how well the cast played off one another. The cast was given a general outline for the script with the goal for it to be mostly improv.

Gordon Freeman: Mannie Flores (Dominican American, age 28, he/him) - Popular Youtuber/Twitch streamer (“Radi0Mann”). Got offered the role in HLVRAI thanks to the creative things he’s done in his Youtube/Twitch career. This is his first “official” acting gig. He was pretty starstruck at first, but then as he got to know everyone, he realized they’re all a bunch of dorks (affectionate). - Started off as a gaming channel, but then started branching off into various creative endeavors as he got more popular. He still plays games too though. - One of the things Mannie did in his internet career that hit the mainstream was when he wrote, directed, starred in, and filmed his own movie in just 2 weeks because he failed a bet with his audience. Except the movie was actually really good and funny and heartfelt (i want to say it was about “a man who got left behind on earth after everyone else was raptured because god literally forgot about him”, but i think the concept might’ve been done already). - Met Benji through HLVRAI. They hit it off and now they’re dating. They tried to keep it secret for a while but Mannie had a slip-up during a stream that sort of blew it out of the water.

Benrey: Benji Song (Japanese/Chinese, age 30, he/they) - Started off as a film sound designer in the industry, then through a series of silly willy little events—possibly even shenanigans—got roped into a role in a passion indie film that became wildly acclaimed and flung him into the spotlight. Been an actor ever since, but isn’t the most proactive in taking jobs much to their agent’s annoyance. People never know where he’ll pop up next. Sometimes Benji will sneak in sound designer work behind their agent’s back. - Honestly likes background work more because everyone’s got these expectations of them as an actor that they feel pressured to meet. But he’s also afraid of disappointing people. He’s working on it. - Met their partner Mannie through HLVRAI. Totally was a fan of his streams/videos beforehand though. When they mention that, Mannie gets flustered. - Does music as a hobby. Electronic stuff mostly—enjoys mashing together all sorts of sounds and trying to make them work. After HLVRAI, Mannie’s streams gets cool new music that’s made by somebody going by “johnwicklover1994.” wink

Harold Coomer: Hau’oli “Hau” Kaleo-Kirchhoff (Hawaiian/Samoan, age 66, he/him) - Old musician who’s supposed to be retired but once in a while will release a song or even do a concert (but nothing crazy). - Hau’oli is pronounced [hh-ow-oh-lee], but he also goes by “Hau” for the haoles’ sake. :) Kaleo is [kah-leh-oh]. also Hau’oli sounds a little bit like the name Holly so that’s a fun coincidence i didn’t realize until later. - Most of his music is chill island tunes but he has been known to dabble in rock and jazz. - Married to Mose (been together for 30 years and counting).

Bubby: Mose Kaleo-Kirchhoff (German, age 69 [nice], xe/him) - Veteran actor—been in the acting industry for a long time. One of his more well-known roles was in a popular sci-fi series. - Married to Hau’oli (they got married the moment it was legal). - i went with a name that started with “M” cuz when Gordon first asks Bubby for his name, xe’s like, “mmm Bubby.” and i headcanon it’s because Mose was about to say xir own name and had to swerve last minute and the thing his brain resorted to was Bubby lol.

Tommy Coolatta: Luis Tanglao (Filipino, age 37, he/they) - Child star who dropped out of the industry when he hit his teens and then came back years later as a comedian. He has material about how fucked up being a child star was. Will only take acting roles if it interests them. - They don’t care about how the public/media sees him. He’ll speak his mind and call out BS when he sees it. Interviewing them can be a war zone. - Hosts a popular podcast with some buds they discuss things like video games, their lives, news, etc. Just shooting the shit. - Sunkist is their actual dog and she modeled for the png photo that was used. Her name is actually Biko. She is a very good girl. <3

Darnold Pepper: Sage Haven (African American, age 40, he/her/they) - Famous cooking show host who gets offered roles in movies. Got popular by how unconventional her meals and cooking methods are and how funny he is. - Has had multiple food/cooking/baking shows over the years. Every competition-based one they’ve had focused more on good vibes, fun, and encouraging one another rather than drama. One show involved people competing to see who could make the best full course meal with the catch being they could only cook everything in a microwave. Many microwaves perished. - Changed their name to Sage Haven during their transition. They chose it because it reflects his passion and also is a play on the phrase “safe haven”, which is what she wants to be to others. - He has an adoptive daughter named Kit. She helped them think up bits and jokes. She also had to help explain what Half-Life was.

haven’t gotten to gman and forzen’s actors yet unfortunately. thinking gman’s actor could be a talk show host? because that would be funny. anyway thanks for humoring me on my shenanigans. bye

[californiannostalgia]

Things I noticed on my Pacific Rim rewatch:

1. Raleigh had his left arm ripped off while he was piloting the left hemisphere, then had his right arm and leg shredded while he was piloting the right hemisphere. Holy fuck he has been through it. His resilience and battle focus is enough to be recognized by Pentecost, whose solo Tokyo battle was three hours long.

2. Implied that Hercules Hansen was one of the OGs, like Cherno Alpha. Wonder what happened to his copilot before he began drifting with his son. Wonder what happened to the Jaeger he piloted before Striker Eureka.

3. Pentecost says he carries nothing into the drift, but that just means he knows how to match with anyone, right? Wonder what that final drift was like in Chuck Hansen's head.

4. Tendo Choi is in command of the bridge when neither Pentecost nor Herc Hansen is present. I forgot that he reverts to Cantonese in stress situations, love these details.

5. I enjoy the bilinguals of this film. Also really interesting choice to focus on the western rim of the Pacific Ocean: Australians, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, and a badass Marshal who strikes deals with the black market and literally anyone else who will fund the Jaeger program. We get to have industrial apocalypse, alien thriller, and cyberpunk in one film. (Side question: are the Americas' coastlines devastated?)

6. Mako's expressions are so. Agh. Her face shows what she's feeling with unshielded honesty (she feels so much, like Raleigh) but she carries herself like Pentecost: deliberate, controlled. Very much his student (daughter).

7. Newt and Hermann are obsessed with their scientific theories being right, even if it means the possible doom of humankind. Iconic Academics. Also they must be important enough to have helicopters on call, since they run out of one to get to the bridge in time for the final fight.

8. Final goodbyes between Stacker Pentecost and Mako Mori.

9. Mako and Raleigh are two of many orphans who had no intention of surviving the war that took their families. Raleigh's last sacrifice was simultaneously the most selfless and selfish thing to do. Good for him to have survived, Mako would've found it hard to forgive him.

10. "Stop the clock."

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

With the ongoing strikes, are you still working on your comic? Or are you scabbing?

...are you under the impression that I, a Japanese resident who has no career in the film OR TV industry, who is making FREE comics as a hobby on my off time, is somehow a part of the Writers Guild of America, a Union for Hollywood writers?

I support the WGA and the SAG for striking, and I think it's excellent that they're demanding better work. That all being said... I'm not in any way related to the industry or the unions.

If you have somehow gotten the mistaken impression that doing ANY writing during the strike is 'scabbing' then I dare you to head on over to Ao3 and try that shit over yonder. See how far you get.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Machiko Kyō (Rashomon, Floating Weeds, Older Brother Younger Sister)— Considered an early sex symbol in Japanese cinema. Also just an ethereal beauty who can also go feral/unhinged in a glorious way.

Judy Garland (Meet Me In St. Louis, A Star is Born, Summer Stock)— Judy is the GOAT when it comes to classic movie musicals. The voice of an angel who deserved so much better than she got. She can sing she can dance she can act she's a triple threat. Though she had a turbulent personal life (her treatment as a child star by the studio system makes me mad as hell like Louis b Mayer fight me ((she was made to believe that she was physically unattractive by the constant criticism of film executives who made her feel ugly and who manipulated her onscreen appearance by capping her teeth and using discs in her nose to change its shape and Mayer called her "my little hunchback" like imagine hearing that as a child and not having damage)) she always goddamn delivered on screen and in any performance she gave. She began in vaudeville performing with her sisters and was signed to MGM at 13. Starting out in supporting parts especially paired with mickey Rooney in a bunch of films (she's the best part tbh) she eventually transferred to the lead role. She is best known for her starring role in movie musicals like the iconic Wizard of Oz (somewhere over the rainbow still hits hard and is ranked the top film song of all time), meet me in St. Louis (Judy singing have your self a merry little Christmas brings tears to the eyes she is that powerful), the Harvey girls (she looks like a technicolor dream and sings a catchy af song about trains), Easter parade ( dancing and singing with Fred Astaire), for me and my gal, the pirate, and summer stock ( with pal Gene Kelly who she helped when he was starting out and he helped her when she was struggling). But she also does non- singing just as well like the clock ( her first movie where she sings no songs and is an underrated ww2 era romance), her Oscar nominated a star is born ( like the man that got away she put her whole soul in that and I have beef with the fact she lost to grace kelly ((whom I love but like still not even her best work)), and judgement at Nuremberg (a courtroom drama about the nazi war criminal trials). Outside of film she made concert appearances to record-breaking audiences, released 8 studio albums, and had her own Emmy-nominated tv series. She was the youngest (39) and first female recipient of the Cecil B DeMille award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. Girl was a lifelong democrat and was a financial and moral supporter of many causes including the civil rights movement (she was at the March on Washington and held a press conference to protest the 16th street Baptist church bombings). She was a friend of the Kennedy family and would call jfk weekly often ending the calls by singing the first few lines of somewhere over the rainbow (she thought of them as Gemini twins).She was a member of the committee for the first amendment which was formed in response to the HUAC investigations. Though she died far too young and tragically she remains an icon for her work and her life. As a girl who didn't feel like i was as pretty as everyone else I have always felt a connection to Judy and I just really love her.

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Machiko Kyō:

Judy:

Judy's voice alone qualifies her for at least top ten hottest HOT VINTAGE MOVIE WOMEN. She was a truly incredible swing singer, with a stunning voice on top of her technique. Her short dark hair looked incredible in just about any style. Have I mentioned her swagger? I can’t do it justice with words. She had swagger. She was funny as hell, and clever too. Incredibly charming and cool. I adore her.

Her eyes, her voice have bewitched me

I mean how can you beat the one and only Judy? She's beautiful, her smile is contagious, the way she sings with her whole body. You can't help but love her.

Beautiful woman, love her singing voice. And she can do everything between happy or silly and angry or heartbroken

[elizadraws]

Bulgarian Music in Studio Ghibli films

”Myth has it that Orpheus was born in what is now Bulgaria. It seemed to be fact, not myth, that his daughters are still singing there”

These words were written by the New York Times in the remote 1963 — the year in which the largest Bulgarian folk ensemble crossed the Iron Curtain to conquer an entire continent with its cosmic art.

The 1975 release of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, a compilation album of modern arrangements of Bulgarian folk songs, further popularized Bulgarian music, and in 1977, a vinyl record featuring the folk song “Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin” (Eng: Come out rebel Delyo) began its journey aboard the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts.

From this point on popularity from the West spread to the East, and Bulgarian folk music made it to the entertainment industry, including legendary Japanese anime films, like the cult cyberpunk “Ghost in the Shell” or the heartwarming Studio Ghibli features.

In this short article I write about two occasions of Bulgarian music playing in Studio Ghibli’s films.

The record that inspired the creation of “Only Yesterday”

“Only Yesterday” is a 1991 Japanese animated drama film written and directed by Isao Takahata, based on the 1982 manga of the same title by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone. Set in rural Japan, the film draws parallels with the peasant lifestyle present in Eastern Europe.

The original work is a compilation of short stories about 11-year-old Taeko’s daily life in 1966. Director Takahata had a hard time making it into a movie since the manga, told in the form of a memoir, has no plot to hold a feature. Together with producer Toshio Suzuki, they came up with the solution of bringing the narrator of the story, adult Taeko, into the movie. But there is a curious anecdote about how this idea came to mind.

Taeko picks safflower as the Bulgarian song “Malka moma dvori mete” plays in the background. © Studio Ghibli

In a 2021 interview with students from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, producer Suzuki recounts how a record of Bulgarian songs performed by the children choir “Bodra Smyana”, introduced to him by director Takahata, inspired the creation of the movie. Moved by the cosmic voices of the children, they decided to make “Only Yesterday” a musical. He also recalls what a tiring process it was to acquire the rights to the music, but if you’ve seen the movie, I am sure you will agree that it was worth it; the haunting, beautiful songs with the pastoral images of farmers picking flowers contribute to one of the greatest scenes created in cinema.

Producer Suzuki showing the record that inspired the creation of ”Only Yesterday”. Source: Studio Ghibli’s Twitter

In “Only Yesterday”, we can hear two songs from the album Bulgarian Polyphony I by Philip Koutev Ensemble. The upbeat “Dilmano Dilbero” [Eng. beautiful Dilmana] sets a happy mood as the protagonist gets changed and ready to go on the field. As the scene shifts and Taeko starts narrating a sad story about the girls in the past picking safflower with their bare hands, the song and mood shift as well.

While the first song has a fast rhythm, with lyrics about pepper planting that can also be interpreted figuratively, the second one, “Malka Moma Dvori Mete” [Eng., a little girl sweeps the yard], is a ballad about a young girl who is forced into marriage but has never known true love.

Both compositions sing about life-cycle events like marriage and the regular coming of the harvests, with lyrics perfectly fitting the setting and plot of the movie, which makes me wonder if the filmmakers chose them by chance or if they had someone translate the words.

Bulgarian Cosmic Voices Enchanting Howl

“Howl’s Moving Castle” is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, loosely based on the 1986 novel of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones. Set in a fictional kingdom the movie draws inspiration from various places in Europe. One of them being Bulgaria.

The story focuses on a young girl, named Sophie, magically transformed into an old woman, and a self-confident but emotionally unstable young wizard, Howl, living in a magical moving castle.

A sketch of a Star Child. Source: The Art of Howl’s Moving Castle

If you’ve seen the movie, you surely remember the scene when Madame Suliman ambushes Howl and tries to strip him of his magic powers. Star Children encircle him and his companions; their shadows grow big, dark and intimidating. They start dancing and chanting unintelligible magic words and are almost successful in their devilish act.

This scene, together with the music played in the background, have been a favourite of many fans of the film. Some even recount it giving them nightmares when they were children.

Star Children encircle Howl in an attempt to strip him of his magic powers. © Studio Ghibli

It turns out, however, that these aren’t any incantations, but the lyrics of a folk song. In Bulgarian. And a love song! Contrary to popular belief, the lyrics have nothing to do with magic and are actually about a boy taking his sweetheart, Dona, to the market to buy her new clothes. The excerpt used in the movie is very short and a bit altered from the original, but the words used go like this: Trendafilcheto, kalafercheto, Done mamino, translated as “the rose, the costmary, my darling Dona”.

I am planing a follow up article where I will post the translated lyrics together with a brief explanation on how they are related to the movies.

If you want to comment on or add something, I would love to hear!

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