knives wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 1:55 am
I can’t remember, but does the anime make it clear that the doctor is Japanese? I think that might address some of the problems at hand. Certainly I always felt that these aspects of the story made sense as a distinctly Japanese person having difficulties working within a foreign culture with a lot of the later persecution being in part from xenophobia.
No, it doesn't address them, at least not in the first two episodes. He could be German and nothing would need to change. Everything is assigned to other motivations: Tenma is lauded for politicking well and told that's the real way to success in the hospital, not merit, and by a character who is later revealed to be on the outs for similar reasons.
If I’m reading you correctly it seems like you missed something important about this scene. That doctor is assuming that Tenma got his success through politicking, but in reality he did not. The doctor is asserting the toadyism of the system onto Tenma.
I can’t know precisely what that doctor means by politicking, but I took it to mean Tenma does what the director tells him to do, which is indeed what we see. He did it so naturally he didn’t seem to even notice. It took the mother beating on his chest and screaming at him for him to notice exactly what was being asked of him and why. Tenma was a toady, one whose inexperience and naivety led him to assume that those whom he’d taken as guides were themselves guided by firm moral and ethical principles. The moment he exercised his own conscience against the will of the Director, he was out. That tells you exactly what he wasn’t doing before.
The episodes seemed rather bluntly about how people end up abdicating their own moral and ethical responsibilities in order to reinforce group norms.
Well, in defence of Tenma, he isn’t shown to be venal and careerist like the rest, and he is genuinely surprised that politicking is how to get ahead and that his fiancee is a fickle gold digger. He’s more naive and unconscious about his submission to authority. Hence he needs the chest-thumping wake up call from the grieving mother.
I’m going to guess the show is partly a fall from innocence into experience.
therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:24 pm
I’ve only seen the Go Panda Go! movies and they’re forgettable but short
Mr S and TWBB --
I actually like Panda kopanda (Parent panda and baby panda -- basically) a LOT more than Ponyo (as something aimed at little children).
Gauche the Cellist -- based on a story by Kenji Miyazawa (one of the most beloeved cultural figures of Meiji era Japan) is fantastic. Jarinko Chie (Chie the Brat is the not quite right English name) was both a series and a movie. I think the series is finally slated for subbed release. A very "coarse" show compared to Ghibli stuff -- about lower class Osaka folks, using lots of Kansai dialect. I find it pretty enjoyable all the same (based on watching the unsubbed movie version). Akage no An (Anne of Green Gables) is one of the best of his TV series for World Masterpiece Theater -- and Miyazaki worked with him as staff on this. No English subbed version that I am aware of -- but if you read (and memorized) the book (like my wife) you won't need subtitles. Its physical depiction of Prince Edward Island is fantastic (better than any live action adaptation). Our family had a sense of deja vu when we visited PEI. Takahata and Miyazaki worked on a good number of early episodes of the Lupin the Third series. I have not seen any of Takahata's earlier series. Takahata's first movie The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun (with Miyazaki as a key staff member) was an artistic triumph (though a bit simplistic) modeled somewhat on Soviet animated movies like the Snow Queen (1957). However, it was a flop in the eyes of its studio (and Takahata would not be given the chance to direct another movie for quite a long time). Takahata also made a live-action documentary -- the Story of Yanagawa's Canals. I found this interesting but it is quite different from his animated work.
I am still working my way through the 152 episodes of the Fist of the North Star TV series (only three episodes from the end now!) and just got to the part which completely recontextualises the ending song, which has seemed rather schmaltzy for the previous forty or so episodes in which it has played under the end titles, dealing with the now adult Lin's unrequited obsession with Ken from childhood. Where at the beginning of the final battle of the series (major spoiler):
Spoiler
The main villain of this arc, Kaioh, who has been holding Lin hostage for much of this section of the series, shows how much he despises the notion of "love" by striking one of her pressure points that wipes out her memory of and love for Ken, then sends her off on his horse to fall in love with the first man she lays eyes upon when she wakes, however much of a villain he may be!
That's a great moment that both (perhaps for the best) removes Lin's obsessive neediness for a much older man that has itself gotten a little old over fifty episodes, and also turns her into a ticking timebomb for the moment when she wakes up, especially now that she is in the clutches of your generic for the series group of ne'er do wells and their little regional boss, all trying to get her to wake up to become his bride! And suddenly makes that end credits song go from what felt like some iffy unrequited unhealthy mooning on Lin's part to almost unbearably heartbreaking now that it is climaxing every episode!
(If she doesn't get reunited with Bat at the end of this series and wakes to reaffirm their love at some point, this show will have really missed an opportunity!)
Here's a potential contender for disc release of the year: Discotek have just issued the original 1981-3 TV series of Chie the Brat on Blu-ray, which was directed by Isao Takahata. 64 episodes spread over five discs with a total run time of 1500 minutes!
(Although if I could get through 152 episodes of Fist of the North Star, with a total run time of 3500 minutes in 'just' three years, this should be easy!)
colin -- I just got this in the mail, but what with my 50th college reunion (and recovery therefrom) have not had a chance to look at it. (Typhoon Club got precedence for near-immediate viewing). Besides, right now I am following 40+ ongoing anime, so anime viewing time slots are almost full. Soon this season will end, however -- and there should be a brief gap where few shows are airing. I have season Takahata's anime movie adaptation (which preceded the series) -- which was quite interesting -- even unsubbed (and in thick Kansai dialect).
colinr0380 wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2024 4:02 pm
Here's a potential contender for disc release of the year: Discotek have just issued the original 1981-3 TV series of Chie the Brat on Blu-ray, which was directed by Isao Takahata. 64 episodes spread over five discs with a total run time of 1500 minutes!
(Although if I could get through 152 episodes of Fist of the North Star, with a total run time of 3500 minutes in 'just' three years, this should be easy!)
Never heard of this - worth a blind-buy?
Also: Now that Rightstufanime merged with Crunchyroll, should we expect the annual sale (usually in June) to continue?
I only watched a few episodes online before deciding to hold off and wait for this edition, but the few I saw were quite amusing - its mostly about Chie, rather than particularly being a "brat", more being the brusquely practical beyond her years figure trying to keep up with both schoolwork and running her family's restaurant (including making customers pay their bills!) whilst her deadbeat dad is more the overgrown child constantly getting into trouble (mostly due to his chronic gambling addiction) and threatening to mess everything up.
In other news, All The Anime just dropped the announcement and pre-order for the another contender for release of the year, with Macross: Plus in both its four episode OVA and condensed feature film version (my tip is to watch the four episode OVA first) due to be released in October.
(Oh, and whilst on the subject of All The Anime, they've just released a disc edition of A Place Further Than The Universe after six years of that series only being available on streaming)
Chie (the movie) was made right before Gauche the Cellist. Chie (the series) was made right after Gauche and right before Nausicaa. Chie (the movie) marked Takahata's move to working exclusively with Japanese themes. The best way to describe Chie is "earthy". It has a lower-class Osaka setting, lots of vulgarity -- in language and motifs. Very lively also. Here's a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifENZBsLIDA
This movie and series owes a lot to classic Japanese cinema -- from Ozu, Naruse, Shimizu et al to Yoji Yamada (esp in Tora-san mode). The movie really marked a complete divergence in approach taken by Takahata and Miyazaki (despite being collaborators in starting and maintaining Studio Ghibli). Forme, this is all to the good.
As to Crunchyroll, the general guess is that there will still be sales -- but the prices will never be as good as during the best sales during the Rightstuf days. Sentai itself still has some excellent sales for its releases (on its own site) -- but it seems to be the only major anime company that does still do this.
Just finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time.
I was aware going in that the show shifted radically in its back third. What I didn't expect is that the show up until episode 15-ish was outright bad. Like, it was a struggle to keep going, with only the promise of that shift keeping me going. It's not just that big robots fighting monsters is not that interesting in and of itself; and it's not just that none of the characters resembled a real human being, because they were pitched at such extremes that they alienate the viewer. No--while those things are bad enough, what made the show nearly unwatchable was an approach to human sexuality that I can only describe as morbid. The show fears sex and nudity in all their embarrassments and vulnerabilities, and yet is compulsively fascinated by them, too. The filmmakers saddle each character with an acute, morbid horror of their own and other people's sexuality, which either comes out as aggressive, puerile moralizing or a paralyzing anxiety--and yet at the same time contrives endless ways to make them naked around each other, or to shove their faces into each other's genitals willingly or not. The fascination, for example, of forcing characters to accidentally gaze up women's skirts over and over, while also punishing them for this with social embarrassment or violence is so extreme it becomes ludicrous. It doesn't matter if the characters are 14-year-old school kids or 30-year-old former lovers, the same scenario with the same immaturity replays over and over. And if it's not that, it's characters (usually female) being forced for no reason to just be naked around each other, I guess so we can see them squirm in horror and embarrassment? It keeps happening, episode after episode.
And like a lot of morbid fixations, the show is prudish and moralizing about it. The slightest physical contact, gesture, or eye glance is ruthlessly scrutinized by the other characters, all of whom are itching to accuse each other of perversion--the perversion of having someone accidentally fall on you, of happening to see someone whose back is turned, of happening to be in an adjoining room while someone else has a shower with the door closed. That latter one was kinda psychotic in its anxiety and compulsiveness, the character so consumed by the idea that someone, somewhere, is in proximity to her nudity that she's compelled to throw open the bathroom door and shout and scream about the absolute perversion of the whole thing, thrusting the idea of sex and nudity into a room full of people up til then oblivious to it.
The show endlessly, and revealingly, recapitulates so many of Japan's unhealthiest cultural ideas, and without being aware it's doing so. The creators give no sign that they recognize how bizarre and unhealthy their attitudes are. All this nonsense is of a piece with similar stuff from other animes and, tellingly, disappears entirely when the show shifts gears after episode 15 or so. Once the show seemingly finds its footing, the gross sexual comedy vanishes, characters suddenly explode into maturity, and the show takes off. The thing becomes a fantasia on emotional brokenness, worked through at length and within an increasing set of abstractions. It's like the creators took a while to figure out what they were doing. Indeed, they took so long they ended up without enough time to properly tell their story, so the thing just kinda stops. There's no real ending (I'm guessing End of Evangelion will take care of that).
Boy is this show full of broken, emotionally crippled people struggling with every bit of strength they have just to peek for a moment outside their own skulls and recognize another human being. It's overwhelming and pained to a degree that becomes hard to watch, in a good way. Their struggle to connect is so difficult they have trouble joining together even the various parts of themselves, while at the same time being confronted with a vast conspiracy that seems like a parody of Japan's collectivist social ideals, an attempt to force march humanity into an amorphous oneness. How utterly broken and disjunctive do you have to be as a person to conceive that idea?
For me the show is a mixed achievement. Most of it awful. But there's a solid ten or so episodes that are brilliant and moving, with an intensity rare in any medium. Good enough to make me forget how stupid so much of the first two thirds were. I look forward to End of Evangelion and the Rebuild retelling.
I’m not sure if this is the correct thread to post this, if not please feel free to move it.
I recently bought a copy of the Blu Ray of Suzume from Crunchyroll (via Amazon).
I noticed going through the features that the advertised director’s commentary is nowhere to be found.
Upon checking lots of internet review sites I couldn’t find a single one mentioning the commentary, although in fairness most don’t seem to review the actual disc features. The only site that had a thorough review was BR dot com and they didn’t mention the commentary.
I have been spending several weeks contacting Crunchyroll directly and while they are responsive it’s also clear they don’t know and the final answer is that if their website advertises it, it should be on the disc, which isn’t really a clear yes or no.
I was wondering, does anyone own a copy and can confirm they actually have the commentary?
Mr Sausage wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2024 7:04 pm
Just finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time.
I was aware going in that the show shifted radically in its back third. What I didn't expect is that the show up until episode 15-ish was outright bad. Like, it was a struggle to keep going, with only the promise of that shift keeping me going. It's not just that big robots fighting monsters is not that interesting in and of itself; and it's not just that none of the characters resembled a real human being, because they were pitched at such extremes that they alienate the viewer. No--while those things are bad enough, what made the show nearly unwatchable was an approach to human sexuality that I can only describe as morbid. The show fears sex and nudity in all their embarrassments and vulnerabilities, and yet is compulsively fascinated by them, too. The filmmakers saddle each character with an acute, morbid horror of their own and other people's sexuality, which either comes out as aggressive, puerile moralizing or a paralyzing anxiety--and yet at the same time contrives endless ways to make them naked around each other, or to shove their faces into each other's genitals willingly or not. The fascination, for example, of forcing characters to accidentally gaze up women's skirts over and over, while also punishing them for this with social embarrassment or violence is so extreme it becomes ludicrous. It doesn't matter if the characters are 14-year-old school kids or 30-year-old former lovers, the same scenario with the same immaturity replays over and over. And if it's not that, it's characters (usually female) being forced for no reason to just be naked around each other, I guess so we can see them squirm in horror and embarrassment? It keeps happening, episode after episode.
And like a lot of morbid fixations, the show is prudish and moralizing about it. The slightest physical contact, gesture, or eye glance is ruthlessly scrutinized by the other characters, all of whom are itching to accuse each other of perversion--the perversion of having someone accidentally fall on you, of happening to see someone whose back is turned, of happening to be in an adjoining room while someone else has a shower with the door closed. That latter one was kinda psychotic in its anxiety and compulsiveness, the character so consumed by the idea that someone, somewhere, is in proximity to her nudity that she's compelled to throw open the bathroom door and shout and scream about the absolute perversion of the whole thing, thrusting the idea of sex and nudity into a room full of people up til then oblivious to it.
The show endlessly, and revealingly, recapitulates so many of Japan's unhealthiest cultural ideas, and without being aware it's doing so. The creators give no sign that they recognize how bizarre and unhealthy their attitudes are. All this nonsense is of a piece with similar stuff from other animes and, tellingly, disappears entirely when the show shifts gears after episode 15 or so. Once the show seemingly finds its footing, the gross sexual comedy vanishes, characters suddenly explode into maturity, and the show takes off. The thing becomes a fantasia on emotional brokenness, worked through at length and within an increasing set of abstractions. It's like the creators took a while to figure out what they were doing. Indeed, they took so long they ended up without enough time to properly tell their story, so the thing just kinda stops. There's no real ending (I'm guessing End of Evangelion will take care of that).
Boy is this show full of broken, emotionally crippled people struggling with every bit of strength they have just to peek for a moment outside their own skulls and recognize another human being. It's overwhelming and pained to a degree that becomes hard to watch, in a good way. Their struggle to connect is so difficult they have trouble joining together even the various parts of themselves, while at the same time being confronted with a vast conspiracy that seems like a parody of Japan's collectivist social ideals, an attempt to force march humanity into an amorphous oneness. How utterly broken and disjunctive do you have to be as a person to conceive that idea?
For me the show is a mixed achievement. Most of it awful. But there's a solid ten or so episodes that are brilliant and moving, with an intensity rare in any medium. Good enough to make me forget how stupid so much of the first two thirds were. I look forward to End of Evangelion and the Rebuild retelling.
You’ve kind of nailed it, but the later versions of the show functions like revisions of this first draft tweaking and improving things in the margins until it becomes a whole new show. There’s a tendency in the later versions to keep in some of the sex stuff, but in a way that better ties into the idea of the show of broken psychosis. It becomes more like a critique on Japan which Anno has made all the more clear in his later works like his amazing Godzilla film. If you continue though don’t expect any clear closure. It always falls into thematic abstraction.
Mr Sausage wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2024 7:04 pm
Just finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time.
Thanks for sharing your impressions Mr Sausage. I saw the show for the first time earlier this year without knowing much going in and like you was equally puzzled, although not in all the same ways. Since shows of anyone fighting robots isn’t typically my thing, with the exception of Patlabor, but even there it is for me about showing some of the typical Japanese human interactions and peculiarities, rather than the robots, I also felt that the early episodes of Eva didn’t do much for me. And like you I was pretty impressed by the back third with one exception. One of the last episodes - I forgot right now if it was 24 or 25 - basically went completely into the philosophical headspace of the characters to the point where I felt they forgot the animation and then not really resolving anything in the last episode. Although if you see the End of Evangelion it actually does feel more like an ending.
One of the areas that irritated me about the show was the fact that I’m supposedly watching 14 year olds who don’t behave like teenagers but like adults entangled in all kind of love triangles and fantasies. The fact that much of the show portrays an immature or unhealthy attitude towards sex didn’t really take me by surprise, at least not anymore. After having lived in Japan for nearly a decade now, I may have become numb or conditioned to the fact that a part of the population seemingly values seeing little schoolgirls in hypersexualized outfits and poses and that it is not unusual to see 50 year old women dressed up in Cinderella costumes. It doesn’t surprise me that Japan’s supposedly conservative facade and attitude towards sex finds its outlet in extreme unhealthy ways of dealing with this repression and animes are one way of this becoming visible (albeit a relatively mild one). But I did feel frustrated by the fact that none of the entanglements of the characters within the show did get properly addressed and external forces ending a chance of a resolution.
At the same time compared to other animes I now have seen it is a show that I have to assume was groundbreaking at its time in the way it does address many philosophical concepts and whose style of animation set trends that many still follow today.
It will be interesting to see what you think of the End of Evangelion, which at least for me was some reconciliation with parts of the show I previously didn’t like or at least didn’t care for as much.
I have not seen the Rebuild episodes as I may be foolishly waiting for a box set combining them all.
The Patlabor movies are great, and have the good sense to save the mindless robot action for the end, where it becomes an exciting release of tension. I think they might be the best examples of Tom Clancy-esque techno-thrillers I've ever seen.
I wouldn't say I was surprised by the puerile sex stuff in Evangelion--I've seen enough anime to recognize all the tropes, like the sexualization of minors, the fetishism and consent issues, the fact no one acts their age (this goes in both directions), ect. But the fact that it just wouldn't stop happening when I already wasn't enjoying the rest of it made everything twice as unpleasant. Gender and sexuality issues in anime and manga are actually a recurrent topic of discussion between me and my wife (tho' she's far more knowledgeable about anime and manga than I am, having consumed way more of both). I basically wrote my post just so I'd stop badgering my wife about it, who I have to say was very patient about my endless intrusions to rant at her.
Mr Sausage wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2024 1:47 am
I wouldn't say I was surprised by the puerile sex stuff in Evangelion--I've seen enough anime to recognize all the tropes, like the sexualization of minors, the fetishism and consent issues, the fact no one acts their age (this goes in both directions), ect. But the fact that it just wouldn't stop happening when I already wasn't enjoying the rest of it made everything twice as unpleasant.
I guess my reaction to the early episodes wasn’t quite as strong as yours, and I found them more annoying than unpleasant, but you are nicely summarizing many issues that often turn me off anime. I’m sure you have seen way more than me, as I only started last year to see my first show (Lain based on this forum’s recommendation - and still my favorite to this day), but are there any shows you would recommend that deal with these topics in a more mature way?
Oh, I'm pretty sure Lain was only the second anime series I'd seen when it came up for the film club (but it's my favourite, too!). I can't do much recommending--I've seen plenty of anime films, but only a handful of series, and most of those were for the anime watchalong on here. You should be asking people like feihong, kerpan, knives, etc.
