What Anime are you watching?

[jonhammstein]

I will watch Arrietty on your recommendation. I didn't elaborate on why I fell off Ghibli after Howl's, but now I will.

I'm probably talking out of my ass, but here goes. Remember when Princess Mononoke got that big North American push, but didn't really catch on the way everyone wanted it to? But then Spirited Away comes along and wins an Academy Award?

Okay, I'm really basing this on nothing at all, but I feel like after that, Ghibli began to chase prestige. And their output became this Oscar-bait assembly line.

Like, you could already see a lot of structural similarities between Mononoke and Spirited, but then Howl's comes next and it's like, really? You're just doing this again?

You know what, I did like Cat Returns, and that's in there somewhere.

This is probably a bad opinion, because like I said, I haven't actually watched anything that came after Howl's Moving Castle, but it's just this feeling I had in my gut. I recall seeing ads for Ponyo and being like, "Nah, son. This ain't it. You can't fool me anymore, Ghibli."

Perhaps I'd simply become a hater.

[B E C K]

You bring up some good points.  I like this post.

I actually thought the whole Princess Mononoke push was them pushing where and when it needed to happen. Because American audiences are too stupid to flock to anything that doesn't have blood or violence so this was Disney's only real chance of making Ghibli mainstream (as their distro deal was in place by this time). It was 1999, in the era of edgy. Whisper of the Heart is also one of my favorites and is the movie that came out before Princess Mononoke. But I don't see North America knowing how to market Whisper of the Heart, especially in the 90's. In trying to push Princess Mononoke, the opportunity was there to piggyback on gods, violence, guns, and fighting. Meanwhile, Whisper of the Heart has a little teenaged girl that writes and a boy with a violin.

I mean, look at this ad:

I remember when I went to go see it, I came out confused and unsure if I even liked it or not. It doesn't help my opinion that San is basically bitchy Nausicaa. I didn't realize she was bitchy Nausicaa at the time because I hadn't seen Nausicaa yet. But having seen Nausicaa many times by now, the Nausicaa movie is the better "tree-hugger monster" film. Nausicaa's an actual caring princess and her struggle feels epic to me. She also has another bad princess as an antagonist. San is like blood-thirsty anime Nell and I find her so annoying.

Did you not like Spirited Away?  I know I'm repeating myself but, man, I really like that movie until she gets on the train. After the train takes off, it loses all momentum for me.  I literally will get up and go do chores or something rather than sit through the end of the movie.

It's a well-made movie. I'm glad it got an award and that award was useable for the studio to continue to make and sell more movies. I think that's a good thing. But we know major awards are a farce to begin with, just the industry deeming where it wants recognition and attention to go. The year Spirited Away won, Catherine Zeta-Jones won an Oscar. Over Kathy Bates, Julianne Moore, AND Meryl Streep. Celebrated pedo Roman Polanski was also given a shiny statue that year as well. So MEH.

Spirited Away's Oscar was the superior nominee in its year but it's also just the standard Hollywood/industry acknowledgment of Miyazaki's talent: "okay, time for his Oscar." Howl got nominated for an Oscar which I think it probably should've won but that was Aardman's year so they got their "time for his Oscar" moment for a Wallace and Gromit movie. Then, for several years in a row, Ghibli work got nominated and then lost to whatever Disney/Pixar thing came out that year because the people who vote for this shit don't actually care about the Oscar for animated films. (I forget if we ever discussed this on my board but there was an article that collected anon comments from the people voting that amounted to "didn't give a shit" and "it's what my kid watched.")

I'm not sure about them producing Oscar bait. What about the films post-Howl seem baity to you?

Also, I need to rewatch Ponyo. Merla and I weren't too impressed when we first saw it but I felt the same way about Totoro once. I wonder if I'll feel the same way upon rewatching it.

[jonhammstein]

Ooh, boy. That Mononoke trailer. How could I have forgotten about Hollywood's penchant for shoehorning in "actor-actors" who have ZERO business trying to be voice-actors. Woof! You know, that shit will never die. Just look at the cast of that upcoming Mario movie.

You're absolutely right. Princess Mononoke is just Nausicaa redux. I remember the part where dude shoots the arrow that rips other dude's arms right off his torso. Other than that, it's all a blur.

Spirited Away? I think I enjoyed the animation more than anything else about it. Uh... those three rolling heads. I think they were supposed to be living daruma or something. I remember it feeling long. Like, wow, this is going on a while. It's probably not even the longest Ghibli, though.

I'm pretty sure my bait comment has no validity. It was more the fact that they continued to be nominated time after time. I'm conflating intent with effect. Like, in reality Ghibli was just cranking out their content as per usual and whether Hollywood took notice or not was beside the point.

[B E C K]

I think Ghibli just reached the Disney/Pixar tier where they could shit on a plate and get nominated for an Oscar.

The use of "names" as VAs does still annoy me. I understand now it's just a means to advertise but it doesn't make it any less obnoxious.

[jonhammstein]

It's cynical and gross, but it clearly works. I guess the idea is adults with children don't give a fuck about "cartoons" so there needs to be something for them to latch onto.

Anyway.

I don't know if I talked about this before, but I finished watching Wonder Egg Priority. Kind of dark subject matter to begin with, but it takes a real hard turn towards the end, not that I had a problem with that. What I did mind was that the TV broadcast didn't really have any kind of satisfying conclusion, and the true ending was later released direct-to-blu-ray or whatever.

But then that ending was fucking bunk, too! I don't know if they're angling for a second season or what, but Jesus damn what a letdown.

[B E C K]

I saw clips of the first ep of that and didn't bother with the rest of it. I liked the girl's design but seemed like it'd be another pretentious anime. Is it pretentious?

[jonhammstein]

Uh... yeah, I suppose it's kind of pretentious. Kept me interested for the duration, at least. That ending, though.

I watched Arrietty. Pretty great. Again, though, I have the same problem with it as I did with Earwig -- it feels incomplete! It's like this is just a small taste of something much, much bigger.

For instance, halfway through they briefly introduce that barbarian-looking guy, and then we don't see him again until the very end. You don't do that shit in a damn movie!

"Oh by the way THIS character oh no never mind byeeeeeeeeeeee."

I might as well watch the rest of the Ghibli stuff now, seems like it's all there on Canadian Netflix.

Earthsea
Ponyo
Poppy Hill
Wind Rises
Princess Kaguya
Marnie

How would you rank those?

[B E C K]

Yeah, only the US gets screwed on that front. Americans have to get HBO Max.

Re: Arrietty...  Yeah, the guy that gets introduced is a bit of an odd character. I interpreted his purpose as just a means for the family to peace-out. But I can see where you might've expected more out of the guy. Especially since he was completely unnecessary. The family already had a reason to leave and they were survivalists. They had no need of Savage Sam or whoever to find them another house or lead them away from their current one.

Poppy Hill - <3 it
Ponyo - recall I liked it but didn't love it. I plan to rewatch it eventually to see if I still feel the same about it.
Wind Rises - I remember it being decent. There are people who love this one and love Ponyo. I personally got nothing out of either one but I wasn't shaking my fist at the screen either.
Marnie - Nice to look at, at least.
Earthsea - I literally fell asleep watching this and never cared to try and watch it again. Ursula Le Guin had both the fortune of still being alive to grant the rights to adapt her work to Ghibli and the misfortune of also living to see her source material get butchered by this film.

Princess Kaguya I haven't seen but it's literally the next film I plan to watch when I next sit down to see a movie.

So does your list mean you've actually seen My Neighbors the Yamadas?  I couldn't even sit through that one.

[jonhammstein]

I spend way too much time trying to guess what path a movie is headed down instead of just passively watching and enjoying, and when Li'l Conan showed up I was like, "Oh shit! Is this movie suddenly gonna be about Human Boy and Borrower Boy competing for Arrietty's affection?!" And I don't think that's even much of a stretch, because there are some definite hormonal teen undertones in some of those scenes.

I guess I must have suffered through Yamadas, but I'd be lying if I said I could remember any of it. I bought all those Ghibli DVDs that Disney put out back in the day, and that was one of them. I think it was kind of insubstantial, storywise? Like, it wasn't really about anything other than their daily family life?

You know what? Now that I'm really scrutinizing the filmography, I think Disney skipped a couple back then. I know I don't own Only Yesterday or Ocean Waves, so I'll need to chell out those as well.

[B E C K]

Yup, they skipped them. Only Yesterday was 2016 and Ocean Waves was 2017 and neither officially through Disney at all. The Force Awakens was even used as psuedo-promo for this movie because Disney had Daisy Ridley dub the lead and then released this film two months after TFA.

I looked it up to confirm when Ocean Waves came out and Disney actually "hot potato'ed," for lack of a better term, a handful of Ghibli stuff over to GKIDS while Disney still had the Ghibli distro deal in effect. Up on Poppy Hill has a plot point in it that Disney refused to touch with a ten-foot pole while Only Yesterday, Ocean Waves, Kaguya, and Marnie were flat-out not considered marketable. Disney's gloved Mickey hand was clearly still in the pot when it came to the English dubs because of the actor selection but those releases are officially through GKIDS.

Only Yesterday will be a mixed bag for you, I think. I did enjoy it. I do want to emphasize that. I enjoy it to the point where Merla and I have seen it multiple times. But the old lady faces did put me off at first and still do to this day. (I uploaded some else's desaturated gif with this post. It was the best example I could find of it without taking too much time searching for a better pic.) Every other person makes this damn face. Other than that face, it does have nice bg art. Things like the school yard, the town at night, and the educational safflower interlude are neat. (I'm being sarcastic on that last point but I did like everything with the safflowers.)

Narrative-wise, it's a solid story with an ending that's not terrible so much as being a tad questionable. The story is an 80's-era OL Christmas cake takes a vacay into the idyllic countryside while recounting moments of her childhood in the 60's. It's very much a woman's story but it also feels like a snapshot into history. It also has some interesting musical choices. (I looked up the music and apparently a lot of Eastern European folk songs are used the movie.) So this movie won't provide any action or fantasy but if you're looking for something quiet to chill with some cookies and a cup of coffee, you could pick worse things than this movie.

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

I haven't watched a Ghibli movie made in the past 25 years to my recollection. I may have seen part of Ponyo when my niece was little, but she's seventeen now and it's so long ago I don't even remember anything except she wanted to watch it constantly back when she was adorable.

[jonhammstein]

Yeah, I watched Only Yesterday and that puffy cheek thing was real off-putting. I don't think anyone in her memories does that, though. But then literally everyone in the present does. It's so weird.

What the heck is "OL Christmas cake"?

I definitely preferred the scenes from when she was a kid, but the whole family dynamic was a little yikes. I mean, probably accurate, but still hard to watch.

[B E C K]

Watched Princess Kaguya and I give it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars... ....for the last half of the movie.

I can appreciate the artistry. I'm not knocking down the intent and love that went into this film because it's clearly there.  But nothing actively proceeds in this movie until the suitors arrive which is about halfway through.

This movie is like the watching a film about the world's most beautiful woman wearing the world's most beautiful dress standing in the world's most beautiful elevator. Loads of people would pay to see that but she's literally doing nothing but standing there. Then halfway through, the elevator stops and a man with a hatchet finally starts chasing the woman.

The first half of this movie feels bloated as hell. I fast forwarded a bunch because I was getting bored and almost shut this off. I'm sure everything that needed to be said could've fit into twenty to thirty minutes max. Instead, it was double that.

It appears this film, while critically received to very high reviews, also bombed. Why? The budget could've been shaved with a leaner film and a leaner film would have been better received by the casual filmgoer. (And, yes, filmmakers have every right to make what they want and screw appealing to the general audience. If Ghibli actively felt this way, then more powet to them.)

That said, this film's not for the majority of Ghibli fans who just want Howl's Castle 2.

This movie is very highly praised but I'm used to having fucky opinions. I mean, I actually like Earwig and the Witch. Kaguya has 100 at Rotten Tomatoes and Earwig has like 34. But holy shit, I can't pretend to be interested or feel anything for the first part of this movie.

[B E C K]

Yeah, I watched Only Yesterday and that puffy cheek thing was real off-putting. I don't think anyone in her memories does that, though. But then literally everyone in the present does. It's so weird.

What the heck is "OL Christmas cake"?

I definitely preferred the scenes from when she was a kid, but the whole family dynamic was a little yikes. I mean, probably accurate, but still hard to watch.

OL = Office Lady
Christmas Cake = Unmarried woman over 25 years of age

Taeko's a 27 year old unmarried office lady.

Supposedly, the choice to have weird faces in the present vs none in the past was apparently a stylistic decision to distinguish the two periods.

[jonhammstein]

That's so odd. I feel like the way people looked in her past are just how everyone looks all the time in every other Ghibli movie, but then in the present everybody's face squishes and squashes "realistically" and it looks so fucking alien.

Jesus to that Christmas cake. So the implication is that it's aged and toughened and nobody wants it? Fucking bleak!

[B E C K]

Because no one should want Christmas cake after the 25th of December. I guess. I assume it's a cultural thing. Like how fried chicken is a Christmas food over there.

[jonhammstein]

My knowledge of Japan is gleaned almost entirely from anime, but it's always seemed to me like Christmas over there is less about gifts and more about getting laid.

[B E C K]

It's romantic and you should feel bad if you're single. Or something. Which makes Santa's involvement in the holiday all the stranger imo.

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

God damn...so I'm 43 and unmarried...that makes me King Tut without the incest, I guess.

[jonhammstein]

So I watched Earthsea, and it was... fine? I seem to remember people disliking it to the point of being offended by its very existence. I know absolutely nothing about the source material, so maybe that helps?

[B E C K]

I can't even critique it on that level. It just straight up put me to sleep. Ursula Le Guin hating didn't it endear me to try again.

I tried to re-dip my toe into Ponyo and was just bored ten minutes in.  Maybe I'll try again another day.

[jonhammstein]

I watched Ponyo tonight. It was cute, but the third act got a little wonky when suddenly the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. Like, what? Beautifully animated, though, holy shit. Considering it's their follow-up to Earthsea, it pretty much blows that one out of the water.

Oh, I watched Ocean Waves the other night, too. I liked it, but it was a little short. Kind of made me think of Golden Boy, but with all the horniness removed.

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

So what was the point?

[jonhammstein]

Haha. Golden Boy is pretty dang horny.

Poppy Hill was great! So scandalous...

[B E C K]

Merla re-watches it a lot and she likes it as a cute romantic movie. So anytime I see her watching it, I tease her with "oh, you're watching this lovely movie about a brother and a sister" and she'll be all "no, stop it."

I kind of wish the incest thing wasn't a plot line. I think it would've worked better for him (the boy, don't recall his name, ha ha) just to see that Umi/Meru had the same photo that included his dad. And together they find out more about who his dad was as a person. I get that "oops, ur my bruther; ha ha, wait, ur not" makes for better drama or whatever but still... Frankly, I thought the whole Latin Quarter thing along with their daddies being killed in war was sufficient drama that the incest wasn't necessary.

[jonhammstein]

Also, it was a pretty cheap fakeout. Like, you see the picture of her dad, and you see the boy, and it's like wow they sure do look alike! And maybe it's just a symptom of being a Ghibli movie, she totally has the same face as him anyway. There's that scene when they're on the boat together racing out to meet the third guy from the old photo, and I think he's over her shoulder and they pretty much just look like twins.

Haha, but no, we tricked you! No familial relation whatsoever!

Honestly, they should have just gone for it. Remember when she fiercely confesses to him, and she's all, "I totally don't care if you're my brother, dude!"

I was like daaaaaaaaaaaamn. But then they're like PSYCH.

Still a great movie, though.

[B E C K]

It's the same-face at work. When Merla and I were first watching this movie, we kept making jokes about the two kids being other Ghibli characters. Her dad looks like he could be her older brother. The dads in the photo could be the same man.

[B E C K]

Story time!

I was randomly browsing anime selections on Tubi—as an unemployed person is wont to do—and was surprised to find "The King's Avatar: For the Glory." This is the inferior movie prequel to my favorite Chinese animated series The King's Avatar. I've seen it already and so continued scrolling, musing how interesting it is to find donghua of all things on Tubi. Low and behold, I find a second entry for it!

Now, if you don't use Tubi, the thing about it is that you can't change languages. So anything with a dub and sub will have two distinct entries. E.g. they have Toradora in sub and dub so it's listed twice. Two entries means there's a fuckin' English dub?

I went back and checked it out and it's actually dubbed in English.  For context, the series on the whole has no English dub.  There's a live-action version on Netflix and that also has no English dub.  So I'm really curious as to why this movie actually got a dub in the first place.  It kinda reminds me of the bygone VHS days where sometimes a random anime movie would be dubbed, released, and sold as its own thing despite other media existing for the characters but not getting a modicum of the same attention. Like Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer or Tenchi Muyo in Love being thrown onto the Sci-Fi channel's anime line-up.

It's not the worse dub by a mile.  Being our ages and having lived through the era of shitastic dubs, very few dubs these days rival the garbage that popped up in the 90's and early 00's.  It makes some awkward choices but its worse offense imo is that nobody gave two shits about the names.  Like, they reeeeeeally didn't give a shit.  I was watching some of this thing and was legit wondering if they outright just renamed characters into Anglicized names.  But no, they call Ye Xiu (yee shuu) "Yachiyo," Su Miqiu as "Soomoochiya" and his sister Su Mucheng (muu chahng) as "Mooching."  Sometimes they get really close with Mucheng, making "Mooching" into "Moo ching."  If they just didn't insist on the "ching" part...  The Yachiyo thing is insane though.  He's the main character.  At least try to get his name right.

I'm going to randomly link the video below because no one else on YouTube has apparently noticed this was dubbed yet so there's no other clips containing the English version:

[jonhammstein]

Hahaha! Holy shit, those mispronunciations are glorious.

Reminds me of when I briefly checked out Genshin Impact, which is a Chinese game bursting at the seams with Chinese-named characters, and was faced with the realization that, "Uh oh... guess I'm gonna have to figure out what all these Qs and Xs are for now..."

[B E C K]

X and Q seem pretty much like "sh" vs harder "sh."  In The King's Avatar, it's actually a plot point that the main character's name is Ye Xiu but he used his brother's name Ye Qiu in his esports career.  Therefore, the two names—where the only difference is the x and q—get said together a bunch and the difference is more audible.