Honesty I really liked how crazy Maburahos ending was. It was at least a different spin on a harem end. It was also hilariously perfect.
Wait, how did you burn the plasma just by watching anime on it?
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Fall Anime 2014 |OT2| Idly waiting for the Dog Days of Sabre
- Thread starter Narag
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Honesty I really liked how crazy Maburahos ending was. It was at least a different spin on a harem end. It was also hilariously perfect.
Wait, how did you burn the plasma just by watching anime on it?
Bubblegum Crisis is in a 4x3 aspect ratio, so the black bars caused some burn-in. I really should have thought the whole thing through, but it just never occurred to me.
Ah. Yeah I imagine that would do a number on a plasma.
Kind of unfortunate. I dont think Plasma is visually that much better to be worth the downsides.
You guys are making me interested in Shirobako. I know people hate the Mari Okada involved ones, but they were at least something. Then as time went on, I didn't know what to think of PA Works. It was either full blown drama or uneventful stories (I haven't even seen the last episode or two of Glasslip).
Guess I'll have to give it a try.
Guess I'll have to give it a try.
ThatChairMan
Member
Zeta Gundam 01-02
So Kamille assaults two different military officers for making fun of his name, then steals a Gundam just to attack one of those officers, and finally joins some rebels/terrorists he barely met. Things just escalated so fast, I don't understand. At least he seems like a very interesting protagonist.
So Kamille assaults two different military officers for making fun of his name, then steals a Gundam just to attack one of those officers, and finally joins some rebels/terrorists he barely met. Things just escalated so fast, I don't understand. At least he seems like a very interesting protagonist.
Well then, all hail Log Horizon!
Shirobako is absolutely worth your time. Especially if you want to see how dysfunctional anime production can get.
FelixOrion
Poet Centuriate
NaDannMaGoGo
Member
I actually watched that a coupe days ago after the recommendations and it...was alright. Humor was pretty good but I'm not sure if I'm sold on anything else. The bigger plotpoint and twist seem like an effort to tell a more mature and/or dark story but it just doesn't feel earned in any way and kinda...hmm I dunno, too ambitious for a somewhat tiny project.
Oh no, this PuPiPo ghost is actually the incarnation of the little girls future dead, unborn child. Tragic...I guess.
Definitely quite enjoyable but not great to me.
Puchimas already won it. There's no point in campaigning. You'll just end up being like the third party in a US election.
Turin Turambar
Member
.
He doesn't know Cajun.
Moe~ wont die! I wont let it!
Turin Turambar
Member
But He likes Naruto! This webcomic isn't realistic at all!~~ I give it only 4/10, needs to fix the plot holes.
FelixOrion
Poet Centuriate
even if it dies, we'll always have the mofu
blessed be
Tokyo Ghoul 1
Yesterday marked the start of free, dubbed Tokyo Ghoul streaming beginning here. I watching not expecting much for a dub offered for free, given how the anime market is faring in Italy, but it was pretty good.
I'm guessing that the free stream of the Japanese voiced episodes garnered enough interest to make them decide to go ahead and dub Tokyo Ghoul, which gives me hope Psycho-Pass 2 might follow... and if it does, that would mean BDs getting released and then promptly bought by me.
Anyways, first episode of Tokyo Ghoul wasn't bad. I've only read the first volume of the manga so I don't know much about the story and if the few differences spotted were because of wanting to add certain details missing from the manga or because they added some things showed later in the manga as a basis to give the anime watcher some more info at the start.
Yesterday marked the start of free, dubbed Tokyo Ghoul streaming beginning here. I watching not expecting much for a dub offered for free, given how the anime market is faring in Italy, but it was pretty good.
I'm guessing that the free stream of the Japanese voiced episodes garnered enough interest to make them decide to go ahead and dub Tokyo Ghoul, which gives me hope Psycho-Pass 2 might follow... and if it does, that would mean BDs getting released and then promptly bought by me.
Anyways, first episode of Tokyo Ghoul wasn't bad. I've only read the first volume of the manga so I don't know much about the story and if the few differences spotted were because of wanting to add certain details missing from the manga or because they added some things showed later in the manga as a basis to give the anime watcher some more info at the start.
AnimeGAF IRC made me get it.. haven't watched it yet but I know who to blame if I don't like it.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
YEs it is
its very difficult. there is veryl ittle to object about Shirobako.
The one scene when they went to see the movie together is the first thing that comes to mind. The second is Tarou.
Other than that, its been my favourite non-Twintails show this season.
SliceSabre
Banned
08th MS Team 04-05
You know I said to myself I would drop this if there was pointless tit grabbing in this after all the other harem style bullshit in the other episodes and guess what? Done. Moving onto a different, hopefully better, gundam series.
~wan
You know I said to myself I would drop this if there was pointless tit grabbing in this after all the other harem style bullshit in the other episodes and guess what? Done. Moving onto a different, hopefully better, gundam series.
~wan
MikeHattsu
Member
Merry Christmas!
Ironically, I haven't seen much new anime so there's still a chance I don't feel "wowed" when I watch it. And I haven't seen much/any talk of it on other animedia aside from AnimeGAF. But of course, I will try before I say anything!
But He likes Naruto! This webcomic isn't realistic at all!~~ I give it only 4/10, needs to fix the plot holes.
That's exactly what makes him a connoisseur. If one looks underneath the underneath, Naruto becomes a nuanced analysis of the decay of feudal states, the pitfalls of relying on mercenary organisations to provide defence for your country and of the brainwashing the children soldiers are subjected to in military dictatorships. It's kinda like From The New World, just deeper and less in your face about it. Hence why most peeps tend to miss it.
/truthfacts
Also, Merry Christmas everyone !
phoenix296
Member
Mushishi 13
It's really hard to back out of a commitment.
It's really hard to back out of a commitment.
Gundam Build Fighters Try 12
It's a shame that instead of an amazing battle between the Meijin and Saga we had to deal with Yuuma's mopy ass for most of the episode (and hopefully for the last time). But at least we got to spend some quality time with the Meijin and a proper introduction for his female counterpart. Speaking of which, Lady Kawaguchi is wearing a pair of god damn one-legged jeans.
Who the hell thought this looked good!? Also I'm afraid of what the new character introduced at the episode will bring to the show, my guess is more shitty flirting at Sekai.
Gundam Build Fighters Try Episode 12:
Okay, holy shit, has Alia returned and is going to show Sekai how to build a better Gundam? Along those lines, we have Meijin Kawaguchi III, who now has even more swagger these days, training Yuuma Kousaka in the subtle art of quit being a raging whiner who is self-sabotaging himself and buckle up already. Also, we had better get a real match between Perfect Gundam III and The End in the main tournament or we riot. We are also introduced to the Lady Kawaguchi, the woman who has been in the shadows and the idol of Fumina Hoshino. She too is here to teach a lesson but what that is and why she is doing it is all very murky right now, maybe we should get some insight into that later. Basically what we got here is the start of a training arc, which makes sense since they are at summer training camp, and it is good to see that this series is turning the corner.
I don't think
that was Aila, she sounded totally different and the only similarity in looks is white hair (even their eye colour is different). She also seemed to have a completely different personality from Aila's brashness.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Naruto is the only Anime I've ever watched, and I want to move on to another one. I haven't the slightest clue what to get into. Can anyone suggest one for me?
What kind of tv shows / stories do you like?
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or Hunter x Hunter for something in the same genre. There are a lot of other things people could recommend though. You should probably say what genre of show you're looking for.
R_thanatos
Member
That gundam seed parody was and still is LEGENDARY.
Well it wasn't going to end well .
What you should remember is that the MC sister is much more OP than the MC.
I don't even understand how they all survived the initial fall , so well yeah anime !!
Those who think moe is dead just don't have any imagination left.
Moe comes from the soul. You keep it inside , in your heart.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Spoilers and so forth follow!
This is a film that gave me a bit more to chew on than I expected, if only because the basic premise of the fable seems to be a different thread than the story that is presented in the middle of the film.
So, we know that the folktale is a fairly simple one. A bamboo cutter finds a tiny doll-like girl when he's out farming bamboo and brings the girl home. She turns into a baby girl and eventually grows into a princess who is desired by every man, including the Emperor. At some point, she realizes she is from the moon and that she has to return to the moon on August 15th. When that date arrives, she returns to the moon, forgetting all of her experiences from Earth. From what little I know, I can only assume the story itself is about the transience of life on Earth - that even for a moon goddess, her time on Earth is limited and will eventually be forgotten. It's very, excuse the use of the phrase, "mono no aware". The Wikipedia entry points to that idea by describing more to the folktale, where the Emperor has a chance at immortality but turns it down because he doesn't want to live without Kaguya.
But the folktale serves as a framing device for the "middle" of the film, where we see Kaguya grow from a young child to a young woman. The first act, where we see her grow up in the mountains, depicts a simple rural life where she is free to run barefoot in the forest and have fun with other children. We even see her defy the rules of society when she "steals" a melon and takes a moment to enjoy the fruits of her labour with her childhood friend Sutemaru:
Superficially, I compared this arc of Kaguya's character development to Brave, as Kaguya is taught to become a princess for the purposes of finding a suitor and marrying into a wealthy family. And if this was a Disney film, I'm sure at some point she would have sung "Let it go" or something similar to express how she feels so constrained by the role that her father has defined for her. Of course, this film is much more subtle with its character development, and we see Kaguya constantly struggle with her desire to be free of the shackles of being a princess and her desire to make her father happy. There are constant reminders of this conflict that she feels, most notably at the turning point of the film where Kaguya falls asleep at her "debutante" party.
Trying to describe the most visually arresting scene in the film in words is a fruitless exercise, but you can see a brief snippet in the trailer:
http://youtu.be/9lDrkokymLQ?t=4m11s
But in her dream she breaks free of the shackles of the city and rushes back to her mountain home. She finds that her childhood friend has moved away because the mountain's trees have been farmed too much and the mountain has become "dead". Before she loses hope though, a man who lives on the mountain shows her the signs of life, and explains to her that the mountain will recover in time:
Of course, the film itself a very simple metaphor to describe the position that she finds herself in:
The major complication of the film seems inevitable, albeit slightly disconnected from the major theme of the folktale. She is approached by five powerful suitors, who each try to woo her and win her hand in marriage. They use trite words to try to show their "love" for a woman that they have never seen, spouting pretentious false profundities at her in the hope that she will play the part of the proper princess and respond in kind.
Obviously she refuses to play along, realizing that all they see in her is a possession to be obtained:
If the small through-line in the film is the freedom of art and music, we can see how expressions of artistry can be stifling as well. Using their expressions of love against her suitors is her way to turn those metaphors against them, to try to claim some measure of self-determination.
It's fitting that after she rebuffs her suitors, she has a short scene where she is able experience the freedom of the country again. She runs up a hill to a sakura tree and frolics around like she used to when she was a girl living in the mountains.
It's also fitting that the most tragic scene in the film happens after this scene where she is brought back to reality, when one of the suitors comes back to her not with Buddha's stone bowl, but with more empty words that he knows she wants to hear:
Perhaps this is what ties this part of the film with the opening, because Takahata explicitly ties in Kaguya's desire to escape the social constraints that she finds herself under with the inevitable ending of the folktale where she is forced to return to the moon. The cyclical nature of the word play is very much related to the cycles of life, both on the nobles trying to deceive her for the sake of possessing a wife, and also the fact that her own edict to the men to find these mythical treasures indirectly leading to the death of one of one of her suitors. Presumably, since Kaguya can't "die" in the way that humans can, the angst she is forced to suffer through living on Earth is enough to replicate the cycle of life and death.
I was a bit confused when the film entered its final act. After the five suitors fail to win Kaguya, the Emperor himself takes an interest in her and decides to posses her as well. His incessant desire to posses her is what causes her to cry out for help, forcing the story to its inevitable and predestined ending. Almost out of nowhere, Kaguya suddenly remembers where she is from and knows that on August 15th, she will have to return to the moon and forget her experiences on Earth. When I was watching the film, it felt like an extremely odd transition - like the film was trying to force itself back to the folktale because that's simply how the story must end.
But when I think about how the film considers the transience of life, it makes sense that her departure is sudden and unexpected. Life itself is like that, and you can't plan for when it will necessarily end. And thinking about the film even more, it's perfect how Kaguya's personal desires ties into the transient and cyclical nature of life.
For example, earlier in the film, we see that she tries to recapture her childhood by growing a garden and trying to recreate the home that she used to live in:
But after the suitor accidentally kills himself, she recognizes that she can't return home. Her memories are just memories and can't be recreated:
Near the end of the movie, when she realizes that she has to go back to the moon, she has one final chance to return to her home in the mountains. She reunites with Sutemaru one more time, now a grown man with his own family, and they share a moment where they think they might run away together and live the life they might have had if she had stayed in the mountains:
What feels like a complication that comes out of the blue becomes a moment of inevitability. Her anxiety over being forced to become a princess and the fact that the emperor wants to possess her ties into the cycle of life that she represents. Kaguya herself is a cycle, as she explains that another goddess had come to Earth before her and presumably lived through the same experiences. Although Kaguya ascends to the moon rather than explicitly die like a human being would, she herself lives through a cycle of creation and death. Her memories of Earth are taken away from her, and all she is left with is a sense of pathos over what she has lost, shedding tears for a life she is forced to leave behind, much like the goddess that inspired her to come to Earth in the first place:
But because life is cyclical, the film doesn't end with a symbol of death:
Again, it's hard for me to parse the meaning of the folktale because I don't explicitly know what moral the story is meant to impart... or if it is even meant to be didactic at all. I watched the Folktales from Japan version of the story, which you can find here:
http://www.crunchyroll.ca/folktales...-demonic-little-sister-scary-meat-buns-594991
And, as you might expect, an 8 minute version of the story doesn't really illuminate much about how you are supposed to interpret the story. I imagine these are like Grimm's Fairy Tales (or at least the Disney version of these stories), where children are taught these stories at a young age and simply understand what they are supposed to mean.
With that qualifier out of the way, I can only suggest that the folktale, or at least Takahata's version of the Folk Tale, asks the audience to consider how they live their lives, but to not dwell on the past. It is a film that asks its characters to live in the moment of the present, because ultimately that is all we have to go by.
I feel like it makes a nice companion to Takahata's earlier film, Only Yesterday, which also plays with memory and nostalgia. Only Yesterday tells its story through flashbacks, while Kaguya-hime no Monogatari does it by decidedly keeping the story in the present, but both ultimately come to the same conclusions about the nature of life.
And much like The Wind Rises, where Miyazaki has a chance to reflect on his career, you could almost see Takahata considering his own life as an animator in this film. Just as Kaguya moves on to her next phase in life, Takahata is presumably leaving behind his life as an animator with a story that asks the audience to embrace transient nature of simply being alive. He knows he can't direct and make animated films forever, and that it's up to the next generation of animators to take over. Heck, it even serves as a post-script to Ghibli as a studio.
On that note, I will say that there is a sense of pathos watching this film knowing that Ghibli itself is at an end. Sure, there's Omoide no Marni, but it doesn't look like that film set the world on fire... so hope for a non-Miyazaki led Ghibli seems dim at best. What that means is probably the end of traditional hand drawn animated films as we know it. Yes, there will be people who will make animated films, but the idea of taking 5 years to painstakingly animate a film about a man who designed a fighter plane or about a princess born in a bamboo shoot is one that would be simply laughable to a studio like Disney. Even if animated films can be passion projects, the financial realities now mean the use of digital tools and other short cuts that simply compromise the purity that is on display in an Ghibli animated film. Just look at the anime we get now and you can see that even at its best, it just can't compare to either of Miyazaki's or Takahata's final films. In a way, it's similar to the death of film stock, where it is only the handful of directors who are hanging on to a particular aesthetic that are willing or even able to go through the trouble of shooting on old, non-digital cameras. When Tarantino or Nolan finally retire, we'll probably see the end of that type of filmmaking as we know it.
To avoid ending on such a depressing note, I will say that the film is a celebration of the artistry of the medium. I said this of The Wind Rises, and the same is true of this film as well. If you just take the time to really look at what you are watching, you can see the work put into each frame of the film. I'm not the most technically minded when it comes to art or animation, so I can only appreciate the artistry as a layperson, but even I can see why this film took so long to make. Independent of the story itself, you can see this film - this text - as a work of art. It's just that beautiful.
Round, round, go round
Waterwheel, go round
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Birds, bugs, beasts
Grass, trees, flowers
Bring spring and summer, fall and winter,
Bring spring and summer, fall and winter
Waterwheel, go round
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Birds, bugs, beasts
Grass, trees, flowers
Bring spring and summer, fall and winter,
Bring spring and summer, fall and winter
This is a film that gave me a bit more to chew on than I expected, if only because the basic premise of the fable seems to be a different thread than the story that is presented in the middle of the film.
So, we know that the folktale is a fairly simple one. A bamboo cutter finds a tiny doll-like girl when he's out farming bamboo and brings the girl home. She turns into a baby girl and eventually grows into a princess who is desired by every man, including the Emperor. At some point, she realizes she is from the moon and that she has to return to the moon on August 15th. When that date arrives, she returns to the moon, forgetting all of her experiences from Earth. From what little I know, I can only assume the story itself is about the transience of life on Earth - that even for a moon goddess, her time on Earth is limited and will eventually be forgotten. It's very, excuse the use of the phrase, "mono no aware". The Wikipedia entry points to that idea by describing more to the folktale, where the Emperor has a chance at immortality but turns it down because he doesn't want to live without Kaguya.
But the folktale serves as a framing device for the "middle" of the film, where we see Kaguya grow from a young child to a young woman. The first act, where we see her grow up in the mountains, depicts a simple rural life where she is free to run barefoot in the forest and have fun with other children. We even see her defy the rules of society when she "steals" a melon and takes a moment to enjoy the fruits of her labour with her childhood friend Sutemaru:
Unfortunately for Kaguya, her father seems to believe that the heavens have greater plans for their miracle daughter and decides to take her to the city to be raised as a proper princess. She is forced to abandon her life in the mountains and her friends, while she is forced to learn the rules of "proper" society. I think it's fitting that as we see her rebel against her training, she finds joy in the one aspect of becoming a princess that still allows her to express herself:
The koto, and music in general, becomes a through-line in the movie, as it represents both the freedom to express herself but also the cyclical nature of life (and of the film itself).
Superficially, I compared this arc of Kaguya's character development to Brave, as Kaguya is taught to become a princess for the purposes of finding a suitor and marrying into a wealthy family. And if this was a Disney film, I'm sure at some point she would have sung "Let it go" or something similar to express how she feels so constrained by the role that her father has defined for her. Of course, this film is much more subtle with its character development, and we see Kaguya constantly struggle with her desire to be free of the shackles of being a princess and her desire to make her father happy. There are constant reminders of this conflict that she feels, most notably at the turning point of the film where Kaguya falls asleep at her "debutante" party.
Trying to describe the most visually arresting scene in the film in words is a fruitless exercise, but you can see a brief snippet in the trailer:
http://youtu.be/9lDrkokymLQ?t=4m11s
But in her dream she breaks free of the shackles of the city and rushes back to her mountain home. She finds that her childhood friend has moved away because the mountain's trees have been farmed too much and the mountain has become "dead". Before she loses hope though, a man who lives on the mountain shows her the signs of life, and explains to her that the mountain will recover in time:
The trees will bloom again, just as she will after she wakes from her dream and resolves to make the best of her situation by throwing herself into learning how to be a proper lady. Her time in the city is as transient and cyclical as the seasons and the harvest in the mountains, and there is hope that at some point she will be free of the obligations placed on her by her father and be able to be herself again.
Of course, the film itself a very simple metaphor to describe the position that she finds herself in:
Round, round, go round
Waterwheel, go round
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Birds, bugs, beasts
Grass, trees, flowers
Flower, bear fruit and die
Be born, grow up, and die
Still the wind blows, the rain falls
The waterwheel goes round
Lifetimes come and go in turn
Lifetimes come and go in turn
Waterwheel, go round
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Go round, and call Mr Sun
Birds, bugs, beasts
Grass, trees, flowers
Flower, bear fruit and die
Be born, grow up, and die
Still the wind blows, the rain falls
The waterwheel goes round
Lifetimes come and go in turn
Lifetimes come and go in turn
The major complication of the film seems inevitable, albeit slightly disconnected from the major theme of the folktale. She is approached by five powerful suitors, who each try to woo her and win her hand in marriage. They use trite words to try to show their "love" for a woman that they have never seen, spouting pretentious false profundities at her in the hope that she will play the part of the proper princess and respond in kind.
It's the type of metaphor that Shakespeare himself would make fun of in his own sonnets, because these comparisons are simply empty words.
Obviously she refuses to play along, realizing that all they see in her is a possession to be obtained:
She uses their words against them, giving them the impossible task of finding these objects that they have used to try to describe her beauty.
If the small through-line in the film is the freedom of art and music, we can see how expressions of artistry can be stifling as well. Using their expressions of love against her suitors is her way to turn those metaphors against them, to try to claim some measure of self-determination.
It's fitting that after she rebuffs her suitors, she has a short scene where she is able experience the freedom of the country again. She runs up a hill to a sakura tree and frolics around like she used to when she was a girl living in the mountains.
However, her happiness is short lived as she is quickly taken back to reality when a child bumps into her and the child's mother prostrates herself in order to apologize.
She's offered a small sliver of hope after she's reminded of the burden of the status when she reunites with her childhood friend, but even that hope is fleeting, as we can see near the end of the film.
It's also fitting that the most tragic scene in the film happens after this scene where she is brought back to reality, when one of the suitors comes back to her not with Buddha's stone bowl, but with more empty words that he knows she wants to hear:
He is probably the most self-aware of the suitors and is probably the only one who comes close to "seducing" Kaguya. But the words cut her more than he would know, because although nothing would make her happier than to simply go back to the mountain, she knows that to him these are mere poetic pleasantries.
Perhaps this is what ties this part of the film with the opening, because Takahata explicitly ties in Kaguya's desire to escape the social constraints that she finds herself under with the inevitable ending of the folktale where she is forced to return to the moon. The cyclical nature of the word play is very much related to the cycles of life, both on the nobles trying to deceive her for the sake of possessing a wife, and also the fact that her own edict to the men to find these mythical treasures indirectly leading to the death of one of one of her suitors. Presumably, since Kaguya can't "die" in the way that humans can, the angst she is forced to suffer through living on Earth is enough to replicate the cycle of life and death.
Go round, come round, come round
Come round, O distant time
Come round, call back my heart
Come round, call back my heart
Birds, bugs, beasts
Grass, tress, flowers
Teach me how to feel
If I hear that you pine for me
I will return to you
Come round, O distant time
Come round, call back my heart
Come round, call back my heart
Birds, bugs, beasts
Grass, tress, flowers
Teach me how to feel
If I hear that you pine for me
I will return to you
I was a bit confused when the film entered its final act. After the five suitors fail to win Kaguya, the Emperor himself takes an interest in her and decides to posses her as well. His incessant desire to posses her is what causes her to cry out for help, forcing the story to its inevitable and predestined ending. Almost out of nowhere, Kaguya suddenly remembers where she is from and knows that on August 15th, she will have to return to the moon and forget her experiences on Earth. When I was watching the film, it felt like an extremely odd transition - like the film was trying to force itself back to the folktale because that's simply how the story must end.
But when I think about how the film considers the transience of life, it makes sense that her departure is sudden and unexpected. Life itself is like that, and you can't plan for when it will necessarily end. And thinking about the film even more, it's perfect how Kaguya's personal desires ties into the transient and cyclical nature of life.
For example, earlier in the film, we see that she tries to recapture her childhood by growing a garden and trying to recreate the home that she used to live in:
But after the suitor accidentally kills himself, she recognizes that she can't return home. Her memories are just memories and can't be recreated:
Life can only move forward, and as much as you want to return to a simpler or happier time in your life, you can't. You can only face what is ahead of you.
Near the end of the movie, when she realizes that she has to go back to the moon, she has one final chance to return to her home in the mountains. She reunites with Sutemaru one more time, now a grown man with his own family, and they share a moment where they think they might run away together and live the life they might have had if she had stayed in the mountains:
But even though she is happy living in a moment of literally limitless possibilities, as she flies through the sky with Sutemaru in his arms, they both realize that this moment is just a fantasy. That life has pushed them forward, and continues to push them forward. They both accept this fact, even if they want to revel in the moment for as long as they can:
The scene ends with Kaguya simply disappearing, becoming a fond memory for Sutemaru who has a responsibility as a husband and a father to think about his life now, rather than a life he might have had if he had married Kaguya.
What feels like a complication that comes out of the blue becomes a moment of inevitability. Her anxiety over being forced to become a princess and the fact that the emperor wants to possess her ties into the cycle of life that she represents. Kaguya herself is a cycle, as she explains that another goddess had come to Earth before her and presumably lived through the same experiences. Although Kaguya ascends to the moon rather than explicitly die like a human being would, she herself lives through a cycle of creation and death. Her memories of Earth are taken away from her, and all she is left with is a sense of pathos over what she has lost, shedding tears for a life she is forced to leave behind, much like the goddess that inspired her to come to Earth in the first place:
But because life is cyclical, the film doesn't end with a symbol of death:
The image we are left with is Kaguya as a child, and the reminder that life will simply continue.
Again, it's hard for me to parse the meaning of the folktale because I don't explicitly know what moral the story is meant to impart... or if it is even meant to be didactic at all. I watched the Folktales from Japan version of the story, which you can find here:
http://www.crunchyroll.ca/folktales...-demonic-little-sister-scary-meat-buns-594991
And, as you might expect, an 8 minute version of the story doesn't really illuminate much about how you are supposed to interpret the story. I imagine these are like Grimm's Fairy Tales (or at least the Disney version of these stories), where children are taught these stories at a young age and simply understand what they are supposed to mean.
With that qualifier out of the way, I can only suggest that the folktale, or at least Takahata's version of the Folk Tale, asks the audience to consider how they live their lives, but to not dwell on the past. It is a film that asks its characters to live in the moment of the present, because ultimately that is all we have to go by.
I feel like it makes a nice companion to Takahata's earlier film, Only Yesterday, which also plays with memory and nostalgia. Only Yesterday tells its story through flashbacks, while Kaguya-hime no Monogatari does it by decidedly keeping the story in the present, but both ultimately come to the same conclusions about the nature of life.
And much like The Wind Rises, where Miyazaki has a chance to reflect on his career, you could almost see Takahata considering his own life as an animator in this film. Just as Kaguya moves on to her next phase in life, Takahata is presumably leaving behind his life as an animator with a story that asks the audience to embrace transient nature of simply being alive. He knows he can't direct and make animated films forever, and that it's up to the next generation of animators to take over. Heck, it even serves as a post-script to Ghibli as a studio.
On that note, I will say that there is a sense of pathos watching this film knowing that Ghibli itself is at an end. Sure, there's Omoide no Marni, but it doesn't look like that film set the world on fire... so hope for a non-Miyazaki led Ghibli seems dim at best. What that means is probably the end of traditional hand drawn animated films as we know it. Yes, there will be people who will make animated films, but the idea of taking 5 years to painstakingly animate a film about a man who designed a fighter plane or about a princess born in a bamboo shoot is one that would be simply laughable to a studio like Disney. Even if animated films can be passion projects, the financial realities now mean the use of digital tools and other short cuts that simply compromise the purity that is on display in an Ghibli animated film. Just look at the anime we get now and you can see that even at its best, it just can't compare to either of Miyazaki's or Takahata's final films. In a way, it's similar to the death of film stock, where it is only the handful of directors who are hanging on to a particular aesthetic that are willing or even able to go through the trouble of shooting on old, non-digital cameras. When Tarantino or Nolan finally retire, we'll probably see the end of that type of filmmaking as we know it.
To avoid ending on such a depressing note, I will say that the film is a celebration of the artistry of the medium. I said this of The Wind Rises, and the same is true of this film as well. If you just take the time to really look at what you are watching, you can see the work put into each frame of the film. I'm not the most technically minded when it comes to art or animation, so I can only appreciate the artistry as a layperson, but even I can see why this film took so long to make. Independent of the story itself, you can see this film - this text - as a work of art. It's just that beautiful.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
My complete television catalog that I watch is Naruto, Always Sunny, Game Of Thrones, and I watched all of Breaking Bad. I don't watch much TV other than that.
I'm not exactly sure. Kind of like Naruto I guess.
I don't really know. I guess similar to Naruto.
I'll check both of those out. Thanks
EDIT: Hunter x Hunter looks super cool. I think I'll watch that first.
MikeHattsu
Member
Gintama 037
What it says.
And don't forget to buy Jump early so you don't have to fight over the last copy.
What it says.
And don't forget to buy Jump early so you don't have to fight over the last copy.
Jex
Member
lololololololo
IGN has that covered, thankfully.
Plz try and keep it to gifs and/or image flirting kk ty.
MikeHattsu
Member
Hi-sCool! Seha Girls 03
Funny.
The first part of this episode is more like the table bits in Gdgd Fairies, and the second part is Space Channel 5. A not that funny episode compared to the first two then
Funny.
The first part of this episode is more like the table bits in Gdgd Fairies, and the second part is Space Channel 5. A not that funny episode compared to the first two then
Jex
Member
Literally the only decent character in this series is a character from another show!
Still, I'm glad that the GBF writers seem to have tacitly acknowledge that he was the greatest builder/fighter after all.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Naruto is one of my favourites as well. You might like:
Full Metal Alchemist
Bleach
Really recommend FMA.
Can't have sex drives during wartime. That'd make genetically engineered children piloting giant robots seem unrealistic. Gundamu is serious business.
Jex
Member
I'm sorry but this post is like, totes really long. Can you like, summarise it? Like, on a 100 point scale, what would you give Kaguya? 88? 89?
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