Which is mainly about anime...
Jul. 13th, 2002 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaks...because we FINALLY found a store that will rent us just about anything. I mean, largest city in the nation, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to find a place for anime rental... but noooo, NYC is uniquely designed to keep one from finding its neat little specialty stores. There isn't a single place in the phone book with the words 'anime' or 'manga' in the store name, and 'comics' means American comics most of the time, so I've been examining comic book stores and video stores since I got here. Next attempt: a cross-stitch/embroidery/thread shop. Nearest place with 'cross-stitch' in the store name is in South Jersey. No entries in the phone book under yarn, thread, or even fabric stores, and the embroidery supplies category is full of wholesalers. I swear, the NYC Yellow Pages are intentionally obfuscatory, and let's not even talk about the Internet...
Anyhow, I finally found a place, and it isn't too far away. We rented Whispers of the Heart a couple of days ago, which was magnificent. It wasn't directed by Miyazaki, but it was written by him and directed by another person at Ghibli; as a result it doesn't have the 'Miyazaki movie' feel to it, but a slightly different tone which is just as enjoyable. It has the affirmation of life in it that is Miyazaki's strength, but it isn't entirely running on his personal motifs-- they're there, but the director has other motifs which turn up as well. Which is fascinating, because I have a tendency to relax into Miyazaki movies; I don't know what to expect, but I do know his major themes, and I can see how his work fits into the arc of his life and his career as an artist. Since this isn't a Miyazaki movie, it hovers just outside or beyond that arc, and it wouldn't fit neatly into a chronological list. Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro are very clearly consecutive movies; Mononoke Hime is part of the strand of ideas that have grown from Nausicaa. Whispers of the Heart-- well, I'd have to see Porco Rosso to really see if Whispers is as singular a film for Miyazaki to be involved with as I think it is, since Porco Rosso has actual tie-ins to Whispers. But Whispers seems to me to be collaboration in the best sense, in which the work produced is as good as the individual product of each person involved (not better-- one cannot better the best of Miyazaki) but different from either.
I realize that this says nothing about the film content, but I think this is one of those movies it's best to go into not really knowing anything about, not because there are any dramatic plot twists or anything, but because it can then unfold like life. And also because I am attempting to avoid trying to describe it, because it is a movie that made a very deep personal impact on me and I know I couldn't do it justice. Still, my mental shorthand for it is two words: Miyazaki's KareKano.
So there was that, and I've rented the first two tapes of Gasaraki for this evening and am greatly looking forward, and my Shamanic Princess DVD came and proved to me that DVD designers could occasionally put a little more thought into things. Shamanic Princess, as some of you may know, is my Favorite Anime of All Time. It has one and only one flaw, namely the spectacularly appalling opening sequence. The DVD is arranged in such a way that there is no way to fast-forward through the opening sequence. None. Because they did two DVD chapters per episode and blocked off fast-forwarding within chapters. This is not the way to design a decent disc. Still, what should I expect from Bandai? And it's a good translation. I will bring it to school in the fall and inflict it on people. (Somebody's computer plays DVDs, right?)
Other than that, I have been deeply traumatized by the state of academic criticism, because, well, I was wandering through a Barnes & Noble and noticed that they have a small shelf of academic criticism on anime, which is certainly a new thing, if not necessarily a good one. Some days I like academic criticism. Other days I run into a Freudian critique of Neon Genesis Evangelion. My head hurts. Freudian critics, as Bryn Mawr people who were paying attention to some of the terrifying essays various of us were assigned to read for different classes last year will remember, have a problem dealing with the different nature of the Japanese symbolism surrounding women. It is such a problem that at least two of them based interpretations of Japanese folktales and literature on the appallingly oxymoronic concept of the 'phallic mother'. That is the actual phrase. The person attempting to critique Eva was driven into using it. I will leave it to people who have seen Eva to apply. Votes please on whether I should laugh hysterically, become furiously angry, or both.
Also, CHOBITS is rapidly becoming my favorite CLAMP series by being an absolutely perfect combination of Clover and Card Captor Sakura except obviously going somewhere profound and different. Oh, and except for being not-quite-ecchi. Unfortunately, CLAMP are never going to finish Clover while they have this to play with, but the main character is an absolute delight, the series is hilarious as well as terrifying, and I am an admitted sucker for CLAMP's version of girlie pictures. Also, I look forward to the future of any series in which the second volume is seventeen times better than the first.
For those of you completely unfamiliar with CHOBITS, it's set in a near-future where computers are shaped like people. They aren't artificial intelligences (probably), but they're programmed to do computer things in a way simulating human interaction. This is a world where you get messages from an electronic BBS by watching your computer write the messages on a tiny chalkboard. Where lap-tops are cute little kids ("She's adorable, and I don't have to buy her an extra seat on the train...") and where screen-saver mode means the computer does a little dance. And where the protagonist finds a computer with her memory wiped in the trash, and has to teach her how to act like a proper, well, person... It only goes a little sketchy, because his computer is a babe, but she's also mentally an incredibly sweet twelve or so, and he's a decent guy. The undercurrents are serious and philosophically complex, and the whole thing's wicked funny with a kind of techy humor I haven't seen before.
Yeah, I know I could be writing ad copy, and I've probably bored you all to death by being anime-obsessive. But hey, what's LJ for? And I'd like to put in a good word for this series, because it's a long one and I want to see it sell well enough that it'll all come out in English. Especially since it's in the new right-to-left Japanese format. And has pretty, pretty pictures.
Anyhow, I finally found a place, and it isn't too far away. We rented Whispers of the Heart a couple of days ago, which was magnificent. It wasn't directed by Miyazaki, but it was written by him and directed by another person at Ghibli; as a result it doesn't have the 'Miyazaki movie' feel to it, but a slightly different tone which is just as enjoyable. It has the affirmation of life in it that is Miyazaki's strength, but it isn't entirely running on his personal motifs-- they're there, but the director has other motifs which turn up as well. Which is fascinating, because I have a tendency to relax into Miyazaki movies; I don't know what to expect, but I do know his major themes, and I can see how his work fits into the arc of his life and his career as an artist. Since this isn't a Miyazaki movie, it hovers just outside or beyond that arc, and it wouldn't fit neatly into a chronological list. Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro are very clearly consecutive movies; Mononoke Hime is part of the strand of ideas that have grown from Nausicaa. Whispers of the Heart-- well, I'd have to see Porco Rosso to really see if Whispers is as singular a film for Miyazaki to be involved with as I think it is, since Porco Rosso has actual tie-ins to Whispers. But Whispers seems to me to be collaboration in the best sense, in which the work produced is as good as the individual product of each person involved (not better-- one cannot better the best of Miyazaki) but different from either.
I realize that this says nothing about the film content, but I think this is one of those movies it's best to go into not really knowing anything about, not because there are any dramatic plot twists or anything, but because it can then unfold like life. And also because I am attempting to avoid trying to describe it, because it is a movie that made a very deep personal impact on me and I know I couldn't do it justice. Still, my mental shorthand for it is two words: Miyazaki's KareKano.
So there was that, and I've rented the first two tapes of Gasaraki for this evening and am greatly looking forward, and my Shamanic Princess DVD came and proved to me that DVD designers could occasionally put a little more thought into things. Shamanic Princess, as some of you may know, is my Favorite Anime of All Time. It has one and only one flaw, namely the spectacularly appalling opening sequence. The DVD is arranged in such a way that there is no way to fast-forward through the opening sequence. None. Because they did two DVD chapters per episode and blocked off fast-forwarding within chapters. This is not the way to design a decent disc. Still, what should I expect from Bandai? And it's a good translation. I will bring it to school in the fall and inflict it on people. (Somebody's computer plays DVDs, right?)
Other than that, I have been deeply traumatized by the state of academic criticism, because, well, I was wandering through a Barnes & Noble and noticed that they have a small shelf of academic criticism on anime, which is certainly a new thing, if not necessarily a good one. Some days I like academic criticism. Other days I run into a Freudian critique of Neon Genesis Evangelion. My head hurts. Freudian critics, as Bryn Mawr people who were paying attention to some of the terrifying essays various of us were assigned to read for different classes last year will remember, have a problem dealing with the different nature of the Japanese symbolism surrounding women. It is such a problem that at least two of them based interpretations of Japanese folktales and literature on the appallingly oxymoronic concept of the 'phallic mother'. That is the actual phrase. The person attempting to critique Eva was driven into using it. I will leave it to people who have seen Eva to apply. Votes please on whether I should laugh hysterically, become furiously angry, or both.
Also, CHOBITS is rapidly becoming my favorite CLAMP series by being an absolutely perfect combination of Clover and Card Captor Sakura except obviously going somewhere profound and different. Oh, and except for being not-quite-ecchi. Unfortunately, CLAMP are never going to finish Clover while they have this to play with, but the main character is an absolute delight, the series is hilarious as well as terrifying, and I am an admitted sucker for CLAMP's version of girlie pictures. Also, I look forward to the future of any series in which the second volume is seventeen times better than the first.
For those of you completely unfamiliar with CHOBITS, it's set in a near-future where computers are shaped like people. They aren't artificial intelligences (probably), but they're programmed to do computer things in a way simulating human interaction. This is a world where you get messages from an electronic BBS by watching your computer write the messages on a tiny chalkboard. Where lap-tops are cute little kids ("She's adorable, and I don't have to buy her an extra seat on the train...") and where screen-saver mode means the computer does a little dance. And where the protagonist finds a computer with her memory wiped in the trash, and has to teach her how to act like a proper, well, person... It only goes a little sketchy, because his computer is a babe, but she's also mentally an incredibly sweet twelve or so, and he's a decent guy. The undercurrents are serious and philosophically complex, and the whole thing's wicked funny with a kind of techy humor I haven't seen before.
Yeah, I know I could be writing ad copy, and I've probably bored you all to death by being anime-obsessive. But hey, what's LJ for? And I'd like to put in a good word for this series, because it's a long one and I want to see it sell well enough that it'll all come out in English. Especially since it's in the new right-to-left Japanese format. And has pretty, pretty pictures.
