Favorite Anime

No worries, man. I think that most people believe that political violence (a broader category that includes war) is sometimes justified, even if only in defensive situations, but that they don't always like saying so in that many words. I haven't really thought/read enough to say with confidence how common it is in the US as opposed to other countries. The foundations of the modern theory of just war can be traced back to Augustine, but of course most people don't formulate their political opinions on the basis of the history of philosophy. I'm definitely not a fan of the "my country right or wrong attitude" which I think underpins a lot of hawkish attitudes, both because I think that it's used to justify atrocities and because I don't think that love of country means unconditional approval of whatever the current administration is doing. The country as a whole is, of course, much larger than the government. (And to be clear, this was my attitude prior to last November too.)

Agreed. I'll add this quote by Stephen Maturin, a (fictional) half-catalan:

“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander

God save us from the lengths people are prepared to go to protect arbitrary human made political constructs. My patriotism goes as far as "My country, if it is right" and even then I'll retain my right to be skeptical about the motives

This thread has been blessed by Eru.

Heard there is a new Ghibli computer game coming out

GKIDS is doing a one-day theatrical release of Mary and the Witch's Flower, which is the first film from Studio Ponoc, which was set up by Ghibli alum Yoshiaki Nishimura (producer of Princess Kaguya and When Marnie Was There). The film is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (Arrietty, Marnie) and is (like a lot of Ghibli films) based on an English children's novel. I'm not familiar with the source material but the trailer looks pretty good. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to a theatre on the 18th; they're doing one showing apiece for the dub and sub versions.

Also, I went on a bit of an anime soundtrack mashup binge last night (following the related videos suggestions from a Kanye West x Kill la Kill mashup that I was first linked to from another forum years ago) and some of them are actually pretty good beyond just the novelty factor (IMO).

So I saw Mary and the Witch's Flower tonight and since the theatre closest to me has begun participating in Fathom Events stuff it wasn't even a long drive. The film was ... I'll say "not great", I guess. It was by no means bad, but it felt kind of unexceptional. If you're a fan of Ghibli's house style then the movie feels entirely of a piece with most of their output, especially Yonebayashi's previous two films. Although in terms of story, this one could be better described as "Kiki's Delivery Service meets Castle in the Sky", although the black cat in this one doesn't talk. It was very pretty to look at but most of the characters felt underdeveloped and the plot didn't do much to explore the interesting elements of the setting. I'm not sure how much of this falls on the source material, in part because I don't know how faithful of an adaptation it was. I'm not the world's biggest Yonebayashi fan but honestly I think this is his weakest film, which I don't really like to say at the outset of a brand-new studio, but yeah. :/

By coincidence I've also finally begun watching the TV version of Little Witch Academia which aired last year. It's based on a pair of short films directed by Yoh Yoshinari, a longtime Gainax and subsequently Studio Trigger animator who has a lot of really impressive work (and also moonlights as a My Little Pony fan-artist ). The characters in the short films were very endearing but because of their lengths there wasn't a ton of plot, though the basic story and themes were charming. However, their greatest strength was the quality of the animation, which was just a joy to watch in its own right.* Because of the realities of TV anime the series does not look quite as good, though there are moments that they clearly saved up time and money for and those consistently deliver. Unfortunately it hasn't been especially gripping on the story front and the main character failing at everything has started to get a little old but I'm gonna give it a few more episodes at least. Might skip ahead to the second half where the tone reportedly changes.


*For example, this is the first scene of the first OVA (dubbed in Portuguese 'cause it was the first good quality version I found on YouTube).

Wow, there are movie houses showing anime? That's pretty cool. I suppose it's little art house theatres, which hang on like bookstores these days.

There are actual arthouses like The Charles in Baltimore that show anime films sometimes, but a lot of releases are super-limited ones (in this case, one night only) distributed in the same way as stuff like the LOTR-EE revival screenings some years back, which is nice for me since there wouldn't've been any screenings in my county otherwise.

One of the girls I've recently met on my course is a big anime fan and a bit of a Tolkien geek (well, a novice compared to some of us here, though I did give her my old 1st Edition of Hammond and scull's The JRR Tolkien Companion And Guide as I no longer needed it, having upgraded to the recent expanded 2nd edition ), I don't know her very well yet, but she seems a pretty cool, quirky person, maybe I should mention the forum to he sometime, been quite a while since we had any regular newbies join.

Not sure that someone who is interested in jumping into Hammond & Scull can be described as a novice.

Anyway, only you can say if you think she'd appreciate Forumshire's brand of weirdness, but I'm sure we'd all welcome a new face. And I always appreciate more activity in the anime thread.

Eldorion wrote:So I saw Mary and the Witch's Flower tonight and since the theatre closest to me has begun participating in Fathom Events stuff it wasn't even a long drive. The film was ... I'll say "not great", I guess. It was by no means bad, but it felt kind of unexceptional. If you're a fan of Ghibli's house style then the movie feels entirely of a piece with most of their output, especially Yonebayashi's previous two films. Although in terms of story, this one could be better described as "Kiki's Delivery Service meets Castle in the Sky", although the black cat in this one doesn't talk. It was very pretty to look at but most of the characters felt underdeveloped and the plot didn't do much to explore the interesting elements of the setting. I'm not sure how much of this falls on the source material, in part because I don't know how faithful of an adaptation it was. I'm not the world's biggest Yonebayashi fan but honestly I think this is his weakest film, which I don't really like to say at the outset of a brand-new studio, but yeah. :/

Shame, I saw a trailer that looked really good. Will still give it a go though.

Eldorion wrote:By coincidence I've also finally begun watching the TV version of Little Witch Academia which aired last year. It's based on a pair of short films directed by Yoh Yoshinari, a longtime Gainax and subsequently Studio Trigger animator who has a lot of really impressive work (and also moonlights as a My Little Pony fan-artist ). The characters in the short films were very endearing but because of their lengths there wasn't a ton of plot, though the basic story and themes were charming. However, their greatest strength was the quality of the animation, which was just a joy to watch in its own right.* Because of the realities of TV anime the series does not look quite as good, though there are moments that they clearly saved up time and money for and those consistently deliver. Unfortunately it hasn't been especially gripping on the story front and the main character failing at everything has started to get a little old but I'm gonna give it a few more episodes at least. Might skip ahead to the second half where the tone reportedly changes.


*For example, this is the first scene of the first OVA (dubbed in Portuguese 'cause it was the first good quality version I found on YouTube).

Interesting, might check it out

Yeah, definitely don't let me stop you from watching anything. I sorta glossed over the subject of art and animation in my earlier post but it bears mentioning that Mary's excels there. I hope you'll share your thoughts here when you get to see it!

Yeah, I will certainly see the movie as it is so closely related to Ghibli, although, I didn't much like Ariarty, and I haven't seen the Marnie one.

Think this was what I saw, (the opening scene) but from the other trailers I came across while looking for it, the rest seems a tad more goofy:

The opening scene (prologue) was my favorite part of the movie; really good stuff.

Shame it didn't seem to follow up :/

I love that song...

kaguya ending spoilers:

I'm glad we got a Joe Hisaishi and Isao Takahata collaboration before the latter retired.

Very much me feeling on the whole scene too

Such beautiful happy music, but with a heckload of conotations into the bargain

Actually, that clip is from a newer concert series where he also does the music from the newer movies. (He previously did a big concert of the soundtracks at Bodukan.) I also found this from 2017:

That's really cool! I'll make a mental note to watch the rest later.

RIP Isao Takahata, co-founder of Studio Ghibli and an all-time great among animation directors in any country.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/06/national/oscar-nominated-japan-animation-giant-isao-takahata-dies-82-reports/

He was one of the last directions from the earliest years of the modern anime industry still working. His first film, Horus: Prince of the Sun from 1968, can be a somewhat jarring watch and I don't think it's aged great, but it's one of the most influential anime films ever made. Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday are classics of course. He has lots of other great works. Gauche the Cellist is delightful. World Masterpiece Theater was really cool. But ultimately I think The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is his best work, and one of the greatest animated films ever made. That it was also his last film, made so late in his life, is even more remarkable. He will be missed.

Also, he's always been sort of a hero to me as someone with zero ability at the visual arts, in that he is an exceedingly rare example of a director of animation who doesn't draw his own storyboards or cels (and in his own words "can't draw", though I think that's a slight exaggeration). He started working in the anime industry after earning a degree in French literature from the University of Tokyo, and he took influences from world literature and film when writing his films, though many of them are steeped in Japanese history, culture, and folklore. But I think they remain very accessible, with perhaps an asterisk attached to Pom Poko and the tanuki.

The documentary Isao Takahata and his Tale of the Princess Kaguya, made during the production of that film, is a fantastic look at the man and his work. One of my favorite parts is how he complains about a shot from Grave of the Fireflies that still rankled him 20+ years after the fact and how he wanted to do things differently that time.



And this is a really nice retrospective on his works that someone posted on another forum:

Sad news that went right past me at the time, I had no idea. I'm glad he finished The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, as Suzuki said in the (other) Ghibli documentary, he had to keep an additional producer working closely with Takahata, if not he would never finish anything.

I hope Miyazaki gets to finish his upcoming movie, (one can only hope with these things) even if The Wind Rises was such a masters work and a fitting end, Miyazaki at the top of his game.

GKIDS is doing their "Studio Ghibli Fest" series of events again this year, where each month one film from the back catalog gets a special nationwide release. Typically one night showing the subtitled version and one night showing the English dub. I've never gotten around to going to any of them before, but I'm thinking about more than usual this year. Whisper of the Heart is playing next week and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is in December.

Actually, it's been an unusually busy year for watching anime movies in theatres (compared to the baseline of zero or maybe one ). I saw the Code Geass sequel movie a couple months ago and I'm gonna catch the Sound! Euphonium sequel movie in a couple weeks. I would have seen the second Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel movie back in March, but the showing at the particular theatre I went to was evidently cancelled with no word sent out (even though my e-mail was in the system from having pre-ordered online). I was pretty annoyed at the time but I ended up catching a couple other movies that night to make the drive worth it, so it worked out pretty well, even though there's still another month or two of waiting left for Fate.

Nice, I like both of those. Whispers of the Heart is a strange artifact, considering what sadly happened to its director, but I enjoy it a lot. Did you see the recent Ghibli documentary on Miyazaki's recent work? Very interesting. Will be interesting to see what comes of it. Laputa is in the cinemas here now, if my gf was here I'd probably go see it, but I think I'm too lazy to do so on my own.

As for other anime, always up for recommendations.