Nausicaa is a princess and all, but she isn't one from a fairy tail. She's more hands on and actually takes part in the village. This might be due to the fact that she's living in a post apocalyptic era, where they can die any day from something so simple as spores from plants. It's all due to people polluting the earth and causing wars, but some may say it's simply the animals becoming stronger than the humans. It's later revealed that the reason the animals have gotten so strong, is so that they can protect the fresh water from being contaminated by the humans again. It's the earth's way of self-preservation; it means to kill off an unneeded and harmful species, which in this case is the human species. We don't benefit earth in many ways, we do more harm than good with all of our technology. The planet would do just fine without humans, but we've tried so hard to survive that now we're blind by the fact that we're meant to coexist in the circle of life.
Nausicaa herself understands this, and tries to save her village and the rest of the human race, but at the same time tries to save all of the toxic forest and the Ohms, way before she finds out about the fresh water. San tries to only save her kind, which are the animals of the earth, and kills humans in the process. San later realizes that harmony can be obtained and starts to get a viewpoint like Nausicaa. They both have the goal of being the mediators between humanity and nature.
Nausicaa has to save her village from the Ohms, but instead of using the monster to kill all of the Ohms, she finds a more peaceful method that saves both species. She gets the baby Ohm from captivity and offers it up to the Ohms in return for their rage quieting, and she also destroys the monster before it can cause any problems. San tries to stop all the rage inflicting the gods, and gets the help of humans to stop it, especially from Ashitaka. In the end she decides upon living in harmony with the humans and nature by being a mediator even after the Spirit of the Forest dies.
In the end they both save their people and nature, and opening the humans' eyes to the need of coexistence with nature. But honestly, how many ohms do you think those Ohms make when they scream?
Ah! My Goddess: The Movie was another nostalgic film for me, due to the fact I kept up with the anime series back in the day. It was very easy for me to follow the storyline and actually had me go back and recall everything I knew from the series.
All of the Yggdrasil workers were woman, from the people on earth to the commander who only answered to the higher ups who were men. This showed a sense that woman made things go around in the world they lived in, but in the end the men were controlling them as superiors. The woman were very capable and strong, with this there were good and evil. The good side was Belldandy and everyone else, the evil side was pretty much Celestin (a very powerful male) and his accomplice Morgan (the princess of the fairies).
The women mostly had the power in the movie. Celestin had a very strong program and powers of his own, but he still needed to use the powers of Belldandy and Morgan to do anything. This displayed that woman had the strength in the film, but the men had the cunning to manipulate them. The higher ups which all the Yggdrasil workers reported to also had the voices of men, so they don't seem to do much other than command the workers.
Female spirits and demons of the sort also have the sense of strength, compared to their male counterparts. Morgan would be such a spirit, because she freed Celestian due to her rage of losing her loved one. She also made a large misunderstanding between Keiichi and Belldandy by trying to seduce him for herself. She is not just a pawn, but a co-antagonist with Celestin.
This movie was a decent example of the chapter in the book we needed to read. It had many points exemplified throughout the movie, and made it fairly easy to spot. If a goddess came and asked me what I wished for, I'd wish for a means to buy as many C63 AMG Mercedes as I wanted.
Princess Mononoke was very nostalgic for me, because I remember watching this on TV back in my childhood, and now that I think about it, I'm surprised they even aired this on US television! The main reason I loved it back then was for the carnage and awesome magical things going on in the film, but when I watched it this week with a different perspective, it was even more amazing!
There was much evil going on in the film, from the gods turning into demons to the people who cause the gods to turn into such monsters. With evil, there's good; and vise versa. The gods were originally good and protected the land and the humans worshipped them, but as humans got more powerful, they started to relinquish their dependance on the gods. The humans started to use their intelligence to create weapons that could kill gods, and this type of action enraged the gods who have ruled the lands for hundreds of years. Humans were going against the order of nature, and against the Forest Spirit.
There was one human in particular who displayed much compassion for the outcasts of human society, but showed none for nature and its inhabitants. Lady Eboshi is one who buys the contracts of prostitutes from brothels and takes in lepers. She gives them all they want to eat, as long as they work for their stay which isn't easy. On the other hand, she invades mountainsides for iron, destroys forests for wood to keep her iron forge burning, digs up mountainsides and forests to get iron from the sand, and kills any obstacles including animals to get to the iron ore. She's constantly trying to create stronger weapons to get what she wants, so she has the lepers create the detailed weapons for her in the background. This is good and bad, because she's giving them a purpose and somewhere to live, but at the same time she's taking advantage of them because they have nowhere else to go.
Another example would be Jigo, a traveling monk who Ashitaka (main character) meets on his way to see the world with "eyes unclouded". He gives Ashitaka help with money and also gives him a meal and information. Jigo is revealed to be a hunter who has been given pardon by the Emperor of Japan to kill the Spirit of the Forest or "Nightwalker". He takes advantage of Lady Eboshi and uses her troops to be meat shields against the animals of the forest. He is evil to both humans and nature, but only shows partial compassion to humans. He gets Lady Eboshi to kill the Nightwalker and takes its head, but fails his mission when Ashitaka and San stop him.
It must be something about relations between race and compassion. One feels more compassionate to one's own race rather than another. That can be between different species of animals and even nationalities of humans. It's just how humans work, it's complicated.
Grave of the Fireflies was a really touching movie, but the way it was presented was very monotone. It was monotone because the dramatic scenes and the action scenes were not as overly-emphasized as we are used to in today's movies. The fire bombings weren't filled with gigantic explosions and all, but they still had an impact on the movie's environment. This is probably how it truly went down in Japan during the war taken from the author's personal experiences. One moment there was an entire town, and everyone fleeing for safety, and the next there is nothing but rubble as far as the eye can see. The main point was brought across, just not in a way for entertainment, more like an educational sense.
Throughout the entire movie, you can see the brother-sister bond holding strong through everything. Seita never once forgets about Setsuko's well being, and in fact, it's his entire purpose for the film. His survival depends on the survival of his last family member, Setsuko. From the beginning he is always carrying Setsuko and taking care of her, he also does all that he can to make sure she is happy. The small happiness that he runs out of is the fruit drops. Nearly all of them are eaten by Setsuko, which is fine with Seita because her happiness is his happiness. Seita even starts becoming desperate by stealing food for his sister, and looting houses as the residents evacuate for fire bombings. Setsuko feels the same for her older brother, as she always tries to help out around their home which is a bomb shelter. She cleans the shelter out, and makes mud food for herself and Seita. She doesn't know dirt is not edible, but despite that, she never forgets to make Seita a portion as well.
Society isn't as kind as the brother-sister relationship. You see that most people are indifferent to death during the movie, and it's probably caused by the war. Even children are not sheltered during the war time in this movie, because the aunt takes out her frustration on Seita and Setsuko. She gives them less food and crap quality portions at the dinner table. Even after Seita tell his aunt about he didn't want to tell Setsuko about their mother's death, she goes and tells Setsuko behind his back and complains when Setsuko cries at night. The aunt obviously can't piece two and two together. Another scene that illustrates this is when the farmer catches Seita stealing food, and even gives the reason and evidence that Setsuko is sick and needs food. The farmer goes on to beat Seita senseless, and even takes him to the police. The policeman doesn't do anything to Seita, which is good and bad because he didn't get arrested, but he also didn't get any help. A similar situation happens with a doctor who diagnoses Setsuko with malnutrition and that she needs is food, but he does nothing to help her get better.
The children are ephemeral and immortal because their lives are so short compared to the average life span of a human being, but they live on looking back on their past. The two children have extremely hard struggles during their short lives and eventually die without anyone caring except each other. "Mono no aware" comes into play here because the film is the last struggles of the two children, and it is a beautiful thing to see. The film shows them looking back on the past and future, just observing. This is a way to say that even though we don't remember them, they remember us. Eventually people will all die because it's an inevitable fact, so somewhere in the world, there are graves for everyone.
In American society, death is something of a taboo. It's just something you don't openly talk about ion public and is never a good topic to bring up in a conversation. Death is avoided, and life is expected; once life is threatened, everything gets really serious. The Japanese openly embrace death and see it as just reality. They don't dance around the subject because it's just a part of life, something that is inevitable. Why avoid something that is inevitable? Life is celebrated in Japan, and life is lived to the fullest, and hopefully with honor. They have many different ways to die. Natural death is there, and is expected, so nothing too big there, except for maybe the close family and friends. Death via suicide is another story. Suicide is a common thing in Japan and it happens after dishonor or a great failure of some sort. It's kind of the easy way out, but it's something along the lines of removing their useless self from existence to get out of the way for other people. In America, death is a big thing, but suicide is like really bad. It's seen as the coward's way out, and is looked upon really badly. There's also death in war, which in the Japanese sense is one of the greatest ways to go, because you have so much honor dying for your country. The American sense is the same, but the main difference is seppuku, which is stomach-cutting. One will preserve one's honor by committing seppuku to not be captured and become a POW and being tortured to spill secrets of the army, and also in some cases to not hinder the unit's mission success.
In Harp of Burma death surrounds the group of soldiers as they try and complete their mission during WWII. It's not realized until the end, where you find out why one of the soldiers stays back instead of returning home with his comrades. He stays back as a traveling monk to give all of the fallen soldiers a proper burial, and he says that it may take him his entire lifetime to complete, but he believes that was the reason he was sent to Burma. The amount of bodies shown were endless, and they were all rotting out in the open with nobody to care for them. The Japanese soldiers that died at the American hospital were all buried together with no names on the tombstone, and a quick prayer service was given to them. During war, death is to be expected, but one cannot understand how bad unless one was there to experience it in war itself.
The movie Letters From Iwo Jima covered death as well, but in an entirely different view. They had a scene where a soldier was blinded by a grenade, and instead of trying to survive with all his might, he committed suicide. It may seem like a coward's way out, but his actions were for his comrades and Japan. He didn't want to hinder the unit's mobility which would be a great disadvantage for them, and he didn't want to be captured as a POW by the Americans and be forced to give information about the unit's missions and tactical strategies. Another scene was where the captain who was wounded and trying to escape called it quits and asked his assistant to behead him. This plan failed when an American killed the assistant as he was about to give the death blow, but then a soldier who owed his life to the captain 3 times over came along and helped him commit suicide with his own Colt .45. This aspect was a way of dying with honor on his homeland of Japan. These are all aspects of death that are carried out in different ways, and eventually we will see these aspects of death during our lifetime, that's because death is just a part of life.
With people come identities, but what is an identity? Is an identity what we define ourselves as? Or is it what other's/society defines us as? It's very hard to try and figure this out, because underneath it all, we know we have changed ourselves, be it big or small, to please other people and to fit in. Nobody likes being an outcast, and everyone would surely like to be friends with others. These are the questions raised in the movies watched in our anime seminar class.
For me, Akira brings the question of "Who are we living for, ourselves or society?" This is brought about because the identity of so many characters are brought into light. Who's my friend? Who's my foe? Who am I? These are all brought up in Akira at different points in the film.
Perfect Blue brought different things to the table. It made me think "Do I really have control of my life?" Throughout the film, identity of oneself is brought up again and again. With so much technology these days, and nearly all information being on the internet, one can get mixed into the mass of information, for everyone to see. You throw your identity as a person on the internet every time you log into something that has your information, or even as simple as a search query. This allows for a copy of your identity on the internet, but do you really have full control of who sees it?
Ghost in the Shell brought up the biggest question, "What defines an identity?" With the Project 2501 being an AI, one would assume it's just a computer program, but one of man's greatest fears arises. It forms a conscience and makes an identity for itself, the Puppet Master. This makes one wonder if we are really a person of our own, or just a ghost in a shell. The ghost can be interpreted in many ways, and for me I see it as a conscience that occupies a shell. Being a person of our own for me means that we are a whole with our bodies. Our physical appearance is also part of our identity, and if we lose that, we're just a conscience that may have a personality and preferences, but those are really just emotion. A ghost in a shell is a believable concept, because what if we're just reborn into new bodies where our memories are wipes to be overwritten by our new "life". What's in your shell?
My view of vampires is like that of a cursed god. From what I know and choose to believe, vampires are immortal, able to turn into bats, and have superhuman strength. With all of this power, they also have sacrifices to make. The obvious ones would be the need for human blood, weakness to the sun, and a vital weak point exposed on the body. They’re like cursed gods because they have so much power, but have to stoop down to lesser beings to keep alive. They are portrayed as evil most of the time, but I think that is due to the fact that the humans who right the stories are fearful of the vampires themselves. There may even be vampires in the modern day world who are eating hotdogs right now in NYC.
Vampirish looking woman (Betty White) eating a hotdog.
Taken from SodaHead.com
The vampires in Vampire Hunter D were of the stereotypical type, ones that were evil and old royalty, even in the modern setting in the movie. I did like the fact that they included dhampirs in the movie; because that shows that the author knew something. The story in Vampire Hunter D was very simple. A damsel in distress gets kidnapped, a quiet stranger agrees to help her, they develop feelings, and the stranger, who becomes the hero, saves the damsel from the villain. This sounds like a plot in an “old west” film. The transitions in the movie sucked, and were very jumpy. I didn’t like that aspect at all; in fact, it was the thing I hated the most. The setting was pretty cool, it seemed like in the 90’s the popular thing was old western-type setting with technological advances like lasers and robots. D had a robot horse and I was surprised because I saw the heroine use whip. I thought the film would be old technology, but it had crazy stuff like kids with lasers. The only things I can compare this to are the Twilight Saga, the Underworld Saga, and Count Dracula from Sesame Street. Every film has different takes on vampires, so it’s up to oneself to believe what they want. Vampires eating hotdogs in NYC is very believable after seeing Underworld.
