Untitled

This movie was really intense and I had to take a break halfway through due to how uncomfortable it made me feel. In the second half, the movie becomes really confusing as, much like Mima, we can’t distinguish illusion from reality. I believe this movie achieves its goal of confusing and terrifying its viewers very well and does a good job of clearing up some of the mystery at the end. Had we not learned that Rumi was the one tampering with Mima’s image the whole time due to a personality disorder, I don’t think I would have enjoyed the movie as much as too many things would need to be explained. In fact, I believe some of the dream sequences that we see play out take place in Rumi’s perspective, although this is all up to interpretation.

The main theme of this film deals with how toxic fan culture can become, particularly to mentally unstable individuals. In the first half of the film, we see the people Mima works with get attacked one by one when she leaves music to pursue acting. From bombs being planted in letters to vicious stabbings, all of these attacks are meant to send a message to Mima and force her back into music. When she continues to pursue acting despite these messages, things become more intense. We see her being stalked by a man that is being manipulated by Rumi, which contrasts the ideas on otakus discussed earlier in the course. We came to the conclusion that otakus have the ability to distinguish their fictional desires from reality, creating a distance between the two while still enjoying both. Here, we see the result of the line between reality and fiction becoming blurred as Rumi begins to picture herself as the real Mima and Mima’s stalker believing that he is Mima’s protector. As such, these two seek to kill Mima in order to preserve the new reality they have fabricated in their minds.

Something else I noticed about this film concerned Mima’s acting and how she was constantly pushed to expose more and more of herself, from acting out a **** scene to having nude pictures of herself being taken for the consumption of others. I understand that people have the right to do what they wish with their bodies, but the whole situation seems very exploitative. They take an idol who is known for being very innocent and expose her to the public just to make a quick buck. Many of the people she works with, such as her photographer and her agent, seem to encourage her down this path while it is Rumi who is the only one that gets concerned for Mima being placed in these positions. I think I remember seeing her agent flinch during the scene, showing how even he may think it is too much. Yet, she is still pushed to continue down this path by those around her.

Wow, Death Parade was really a unique anime. The story was framed around these moral dilemnas, in which we, as the viewers, must judge whether characters presented to us are “good” or “bad,” at their essence. (It reminds me of those trolley problems.) Of course, the conclusion that the show arrives at is the fact that nothing is that black and white, and that every person’s life decisions are morally ambiguous. 

Speaking of black and white, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Decim is visually black and white (in terms of his hair and his clothing). His appearance certainly reflects his views: that every person is either good or bad, and that this moral quality can be exposed given enough prodding. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it kind of reminds me of the ideology of essentialism. But in this case, it would be essentialism of the individual, the idea that each individual, at their essence, is good or evil, and that all of their life choices can be rationalized by this essence. 

This seems like a silly ideology, but it certainly pervades through everyone’s thought processes. People are guilty or not guilty, going to the afterlife or going to purgatory, etc. And much like how, in this anime, games are used to decide the fates of the dead, the judicial system kind of seems like a game too; one side wins and one side loses, and both are trying to do everything they can to eke out an advantage over the other while following the rules. And this “game” ultimately decides how society will then judge this person. 

This manga sure knows how to be quite controversial. From the second the whole pooping fiasco finished it was clear the direction this manga was going to take. And that direction would be the radical nationalistic one.

For a manga published in 1998 it portrays an extremely dated viewpoint on wartime Japan and on the events that occured during WWII. Kobayashi rants about how Japan has been brainwashed by America and this brainwashing is still instilled in them to this day. He claims that America and other nations unrightfully took Japanese generals and such to court after the war and they framed all of the bad actions on Japan. I think that this topic in and of itself is very debatable and even though I have learned about all of the history before I don’t really know what conclusion I should come to. On one hand it is true that Japanese generals took a big hit from the war, however, on the other hand these generals had done horrible things regardless of whether or not Kobayashi wants to admit it. Both Korea and China were abused by Japan whether it be comfort women or the rape of Nanking there is clear history to tell us this. Kobayashi attempts to deny the severity of Nanking as well as put down the victims of Japanese occupation with his trivial evidence. I think that Kobayashi is trying to stir even more hate for China and Korea within Japanese society by putting these ideas out there. 

Also back to the brainwashing thing. I think that regardless of whether or not America impacted Japan with their politics and occupation following WWII, America did good for Japan. The Japanese Government were the ones perpetuating the war longer than it needed to be. The likelihood of success continually diminished yet they dragged on the war and inflicted suffering upon the average citizen. They literally brought their country down just an attempt to keep their pride. Obviously America utilized a very severe end game in order to put an end to the war. I don’t know if I can say that this was justified simply because we don’t know how many more lives would’ve been lost if the war continued.

Your Name is a beautiful movie that I did not expect to hit me as hard as it did. I have heard before that it is a tearjerker but it did not prepare me for what I experienced. The time-traveling aspect in the movie confused me though. It took a couple of explanations to get it down. It is a fantastic movie that I was glad I finally watched after it being hyped for over three years.

This was the first time i watched this show. I definitely remember seeing stuff from this show back in the day when i was on tumblr and I actually found it interesting even though i didn’t watch anime. It was surprising that the episodes are only five minutes long, including the end credits and also the extra separate thing that they have at the end. I think the show might benefit from a longer format because it makes the storytelling a little choppy.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Japan viewed different countries, and I was not let down. Within the first two minutes of the first episode, many countries were introduced and their ‘personalities’ were displayed. It was a cute idea to make each person represent their own country, but this makes story-telling a little confusing as you’re generally supposed to remember which country is which or you end up lost. When I looked up the show before watching it, I saw it was based on  a manga from the late 2000s. I wonder how different it would be if they made this today.  

When watching the sub vs the dub, there were more differences than i have seen before when watching sub vs dub anime. Usually, there are only slight differences in sentence structure and the uses of different synonyms, but the dub version had some translations that were not the same.

I had only heard of Xenoblade through it’s inclusion in Super Smash Bros. along with the occasional social media posts by its fan base. I’m not a big fan of JRPGs and most RPGs (I don’t even like Pokemon that much) so I never gave the series a try. But I knew the fan base for this lesser known Nintendo title is extremely passionate about their series, something that I can relate to as a Metroid fan. So I gave the cutscenes we watched an honest shot and wow, was I shocked at how much I fell in love with this story.

Although we were only able to watch a small fraction of the game’s 100+ cutscenes, I still feel like I was able to resonate with a lot of the characters and the commentary on environmentalism this story was trying to tell. From my understanding, Klaus tried to play god and restart the Universe to undo the damage humans had done. He then crafted this story’s world in an effort to avoid the selfishness of humans, creating the Titans and the Blades. However, he came to realize that these new humans were just like the ones in his previous world and gave up on trying to fix the world. Playing god and fixing the world’s problems to one’s liking is ultimately pointless so long as humans have freewill. There will always be those that seek to exploit nature for its resources, damaging the world they live in. Yet, the opposite is also true.

Throughout the story, we see countless examples of humans controlling Blades and using their power to achieve their goals. Due to the connection Blades have to Klaus and the Titans, I believe this story is trying to depict the Blades as a being of the environment. While this could symbolism could easily be used to further show how humans exploit their environment, the story centers around Rex’s connection to Pyra/Mythra and their opposition against those that seek to destroy humanity for the destruction it causes to the environment. I think this is meant to show how the solution to our environmental destruction must come from working with and using the tools provided to us by the environment.

I think that the otaku subculture in the U.S. is awesome. Despite this, I wasn’t a huge fan of the True Otaku film. This documentary prided itself on the fact that it was made “by otaku, for otaku,” but I think that this fact was the documentary’s greatest weakness. It’s great that the filmmakers were excited about their subject, but their seeming disjointedness and lack of both informational and analytical depth was comparable to a superfan rambling on and on about how great their favorite anime is. The film provided surface-level information about the otaku subculture (explaining common terminology and such), but didn’t go much deeper into really uncovering why this subculture exists and what really makes its members tick. Instead, it felt more like an advertisement for anime conventions. My suspicion is that True Otaku would have been better had it been made by filmmakers totally outside of the otaku subculture, kind of like the documentary Trekkies (about Star Trek fans).

Nevertheless, we can still glean a lot from what True Otaku gives us. To me, the most interesting part of the documentary is when it follows Dust Bunny in her creative process of designing a costume for an upcoming cosplay competition. Maybe it’s because I love the creative process so much, no matter what is actually being created. To be honest, before this documentary, I kind of disregarded cosplay as something stupid. But I really respected Dust Bunny’s craftmanship and artistry in designing her costume. I can almost see her as an “economic unit” in the otaku subculture, but instead of being payed in economic capital, she’s being paid in shadow cultural capital. In addition to being an “economic unit” of sorts, she’s one of many conduits for idea exchange within the otaku subculture (i.e. she’s influenced by other cosplayers, thus creating her own cosplay and contributing specifically to fans’ idea of Kirin while also inspiring other cosplayers in general).

Speaking of economics, one thing that became very clear as I was watching the documentary (that surprised me) was that a lot of people spend a lot of money at anime conventions. When we talked about economic capital and cultural capital in class, we talked about them as if they were two independent axes. However, at anime conventions, it seems like they are somewhat related to each other; if you spend more economic capital on merchandise, you can acquire more shadow cultural capital (”anime clout”). From many of the interviews, I got the impression that people buy a ton of merchandise to kind of prove how much of an anime fan they are. To extend this idea, one might say that Dust Bunny is investing a large amount of her economic capital into acquiring shadow cultural capital when she is designing her cosplay. (However, the creative side of me says that she spends all of this economic capital just because she enjoys her creative process so much.)

Despite all of this, I think that it’s wrong to compare the capital exchange within an anime convention to the capital exchange in the outside world. After all, both consumers of merchandise and cosplayers have to bring economic capital from the outside world inside (in boomer speak, make money in the real world) in order to engage in their activities. Anime conventions aren’t self-sufficient; they rely on economic stimulus from the outside world in order to operate. I guess it’s for these reasons that the otaku subculture is called a subculture, and isn’t a culture unto itself. It’s a dependent fragment of society that has internal capital exchange, but isn’t separated from everything else.

“You may live to see man made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

-Nikola Tesla

I have a high regard and respect for movies from Studio Ghibli, and I hope to watch them all eventually. This is the first time I’ve viewed Studio Ghibli, and they lived up to their reputation with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, an inventive and piece that any viewer can tell is created for the love of the art and not for the money. 

The main protagonist is Nausicaä, the princess of the Valley of the Wind. Her happy homecoming with Lord Yupa illustrates how in the thousand year aftermath of the seven days of fire, humanity has lost its industrial and aggressively capitalistic foundation system, and The Valley of the Wind is very much a gemeinschaft, with the people respecting and cooperating with each other. A hierarchy exists, since Nausicaä and her father are monarchs, but this monarchy is idealistic, her father being a gentle king, our heroine being a calm and loving princess. This image rejects the industrial society we have built, giving an example of a true community in which people flourish. 

The true message of the film, however, comes through with the fact that the beautiful Valley of the Wind is under constant threat by the toxic jungle. The world-building here is particularly excellent, as insects are its main inhabitants. Insects are the most diverse and abundant group of animals on earth, and it would make sense that they would become dominant animals after the seven days of fire, since many species can even survive nuclear explosions. There is a testament to the intricacy and unknowable contents of nature, as Nausicaä discovers that these insects are not aggressive animals, but protecting the forest that needs ample time to renew itself. Another contribution to this theme is the mysterious Ohm. With their feelers, they revealed to Nausicaä that the Pejite pilot was still alive. They do the same thing to resuscitate Nausicaä. It is never explained how they are able to do this, and that is why it is humbling to the human species. Although we are able to make such bounds and learn so much, there are some mysteries of this planet that we cannot solve, and questions that don’t need to be answered. 

Humanity’s hubris rears its ugly head through the Tolmekians (less so, but still, through the Pejites). The Tolmekians masked their ambitions of conquest under those of unification, as many powers have in our own time. Furthermore, they ignore the patterns that humanity has seen. They are aware that the giant warrior was something wrong in the cosmic sense, they were a result of human arrogance and had scorched the earth as a consequence, and yet the Tolmekians believed that they were somehow better, that they could do what ancient humans could not. It is interesting that while the Valley of the Wind uses futuristic gliders, the Pejites their unique flying craft, the Tolmekian aircraft all looks very antique. They even look a little antique to us, more like World War II aircraft than the sleek fighter jets we have now. They are also notoriously flimsy, foreshadowing that Tolmekian brute strength is a delicate facade, as when things turn, their soldiers do as well, deserting.