The Warp Pipe

Ghibli’s latest joint, THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY, is coming stateside soon. In anticipation of that, I figured it’d be fun to catch up on as many titles from the studio as I can, since I know my exposure’s woefully incomplete (to count, I’ve only watched PRINCESS MONONOKE, CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO, SPIRITED AWAY and GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES.)

Read my takes on…

• MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO ******* KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE
• PORCO ROSSO ******* HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
• NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF WIND ******* CASTLE IN THE SKY

I wasn’t planning to review PRINCESS MONONOKE here. I’d already watched
it several times – - it was the first Miyazaki movie I’d ever seen, in fact – - and it therefore didn’t fit this feature’s “travelogue of discovery”
conceit.

However, as it happened, the Aero Theater in Santa Monica opted to add
this as a bonus feature to their screening of CASTLE IN THE SKY as a
conciliatory gesture to anybody potentially miffed over their last minute
substitution of the subbed print with the dubbed one (many kudos to the Aero and
Egyptian for pulling off such an excellent, crowd-pleasing programming block in
this CASTLES IN THE SKY series, by the way.) I couldn’t pass up the opportunity
to catch a 35mm print of MONONOKE for free, nor to comment on the experience, so
here we are with me really coming full-circle in my appreciation of Miyazaki’s
body of work after nine films and 13 odd years.

== TEASER ==

For all the compliments to be lavished upon Miyazaki, the most superlative must go to how the man has a true artist’s daring instinct to never repeat himself. There are recurring notions and motifs throughout his filmography, to be sure – - from sky pirates to castles of varying mobility, and from the pure delights of flight to a somber cooperation with nature – - but each effort has a truly distinct tone and identity. So much so that being enraptured with one of his flicks doesn’t really guarantee that the next will captivate (or even necessarily entertain) you. Thus, for as soundly as SPIRITED AWAY and KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE didn’t hit with me, I do prefer that they exist as the products of an artistic vision that bravely ventures to polarizing extremes instead of keeping to safe middle ground.

With this new, wider perspective, PRINCESS MONONOKE still stands firm as
my favorite Miyazaki movie – - a film with no misplaced steps, no unsure notes, no
misaimed gestures and not a single wasted moment. It’s the most tightly-plotted
and briskly-paced flick in this particular pantheon; one where every single
scene flows into the next with clear purpose, confident speed and a sense of fitting inevitability.

MONONOKE wastes no time getting to a breakneck inciting incident in the beginning that expertly entwines a very intimate and dire physical threat with a far-reaching philosophical dilemma. The saintly and deadly Prince Ashitaka defends his village from what at first seems like a rampaging demon – - a horrifying mess of wriggly black worms that turns out to be a blinded and vengeful boar god – - and the ordeal leaves him gravely tainted. Infected with the boar god’s hateful curse, he’s forced to venture out into the world on a few thin hopes. Hopefully he’ll be cured by the legendary, merciful deer god and hopefully, he’ll find retribution along the way on the men whose iron bullet poisoned the poor beast in the first place.

This is all established in under ten minutes of screen time, and it never feels rushed in the way that animated feature’s cramped running times often necessitate. Rather, it has the surety of an epic poem whose every bold line decisively evokes what lesser works would need five lines to express. It operates on that highest discipline of storytelling which can make great and profound points (in this case on conservationism and vengeance) by presenting events simply as they would happen, not by moralizing or even seemingly offering a subjective point-of-view.

Each Miyazaki movie I’ve watched has invited comparison to other works of filmmaking and sequential art. Aside from Shinto legends, perhaps, I can’t think of any adequate piece to point to for MONONOKE. I might drawn an incomplete comparison to Kubrick flicks for the aforementioned narrative objectivity (incomplete, certainly, for how much warmer this is, emotionally) but it really exists in a sphere of its own.

Ashitaka navigates a feudal landscape blighted by chaos and strife; the boar’s curse slowly eating his insides away even as it grants him fearsome superhuman abilities. After a little time, he rescues some wounded soldiers who’ve fallen in a battle with wolf spirits and returns them to their home, the nascent industrial city of Iron Town. There, he meets the unforgettable Lady Eboshi. Like Ashitaka’s sickness, the place and the lady simultaneously embody both the best and worst qualities of urban progress in even its earliest forms.

One of the most remarkable scenes comes when Eboshi quickly shows Ashitaka the very root cause of his condition – - her conclave of gun-making lepers. His righteous anger flares at the site of them, nearly compelling his possessed arm to cleave the lady’s head off until one of the lepers pleads with him to show mercy. Is Eboshi to be condemned for corralling such lowly outcasts into her business of war? Or is she to be commended for giving such outcasts a haven in Iron Town they’re free from the scorn of an unfeeling society and able to find the dignity of employment? Is she a demoness clawing all that is good about nature into the blazing bonfire of her ambition? Or are all these brutal forest spirits just as culpable for the hatred plaguing the land?

The hard answers, and the host of others raised in the movie, are refreshingly left up to the viewer.

There’s simply too much for me to sing the praises of than
I have room for.

I could go on at length about San, the wolf
girl of the title, who embodies such an alluring blend of vulnerable innocence and literally bloodthirsty aggression…

I could recount all the thrilling scenes of battle and chase
which make deft action seem so instinctual in these animators’ hands…

I could wax
rhapsodic about Joe Hisaishi’s sweeping score, which is irresitably hypnotizing,
rousing and sublime…

I could extol how fascinating this vision of animist
mythology is with its spooky menagerie of gods, demons, imps and animal spirits…

I could even
simply state how fun it was to watch Ashitaka’s red elk steed, Yakul, in motion, or to see the cackling mercenary monk Jigo do anything…

…but I’m sure you get the idea.

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk

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The ball’s full of chi… and trace amounts of alcohol. Seriously.

Alright… I’m going to have the interrupt the praise train, because
there’s a section smack dab in the middle of this episode that runs a little long. No
points for guessing that it involves Chu.

I don’t know, the notion of Yusuke’s having to square off against this
totally-sloshed drunken master is alright. The parts where he
indiscriminately attacks the ghouls in the audience tickled my sick sense of
humor, and the glib wisecracks the dub team’s obviously inserted over all this
are some serious sarcastic fun. For real – - his fireball’s full of chi and
trace amounts of alcohol? That’s perfect.

The thing about gags, though, is that they need to run a fairly quick
clip – - brevity is the soul of wit, and all that – - and this
particular gag runs a little longer than it should. It’s abetted by a little mild confusion on my
part on how exactly this Chu fella fits into this mythos of underworld ghouls.
Is he a demon? A spirit? Or is he just some dude with a poor sense of
moderation and an even poorer fashion sense? I’m not quite sure what the hell
he’s doing there.

== TEASER ==

Actually, I’ll bring it up again that this show’s been rather notably
free of the sort of mythos building you’d expect from a series that’s 31
episodes into a storyline. Thinking about it, the actually is a good amount of appeal in how YU
YU HAKUSHO is simply about a couple of dudes who beat the shit out of demons.
But still, when Botan makes some throwaway comments about how the ghouls are
cheering on for Yusuke’s defeat because he’s earned a feared reputation amongst
the evil undead, you’d expect a few more explanations would be in order.

Then again, that might take away from the fighting and, let’s be
honest, nobody wants that.

Look up this episode, “Stumbling Warrior” and decide for
yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.

Tom Pinchuk’s
the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk

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Welcome to Winter Watch, a look at the latest anime season. Atsushi is playing a demon for the winter solstice bean throwing. What could go wrong?

Episode 5: Atsushi and the Bean-Throwing Festival
Summary: Atsushi has to dress up as demon for the winter solstice bean throwing. Atsushi is proving to be a very good demon, almost too good.
Air Date: Feb. 02, 2012 / Available on CrunchyRoll for Free Users: Feb. 09, 2012
Run Time: 3:00

Warning: This article may contain spoilers. We suggest you watch the episde HERE first.

Played out?

For the day of Setsubun (a Buddhist ceremony on February 3rd in which beans are thrown at a demon doll to ward odd evil/bad luck) Atsushi needs to dress up as a demon for school. He goes to his next door neighbor Take for a costume. Oddly enough, Take the perfect costume. At school Atsushi is such a good demon, he scares every single kid in school and manages to make his teacher uncomfortable again by falling on top of her. Afterwards he is again thought of a pervert when showing Hina-chan his performance of a demon. Atsumi returns the costume to her neighbor only to find out that the guy is unemployed and his mother blames the actual devil.

This time around the events in the episode didn’t feel too crammed but they weren’t all that funny. To be honest, I feel like the notorious boobs-in-the-face situation is played out. While Atsushi’s innocence was something to laugh at, it didn’t really serve a purpose for the story other than: it was there. The siblings’ neighbor, Take, is an interesting character. He seems to be this show’s Ms. Bellum (from the Powerpuff Girls), since you can never see his face.

Verdict

At the end of those three minutes, it is just that: another three minutes of Atsushi and Atsumi. I don’t feel a whole lot of satisfaction, but I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my time either. Accusing Atsushi of being a pervert has been used too much now. I truly hope the gags get better.

Watch on CrunchyRoll

– Geo (sora_thekey) 24/7 geek! — Follow me on Twitter: @sora_thekey

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Article

What exactly is it that makes this show so great?

Since I started writing articles on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I’ve seen a variety of reactions. These range from praise and approval to distaste and, for lack of a better word, hate. However, a lot of people simply wonder what makes the show so great. What’s the big deal? Why are teenage and adult men watching it? What’s the appeal? So I’m here to do my best to answer those questions.

Warning: The following article is lengthy and filled with candy-coloured-cartoon-ponies. You may experience sudden joy, eye-opening or general mouth-smiling, none of which I will apologise for. If you are uninterested in the subject matter, feel free to leave now. Curious? Read on…

Not just for kids?

The lines separating things that are considered “for kids” and “for adults” are blurring more and more all the time. Even within the Whiskey Media family of websites, we have grown men building LEGO space ships and playing collectible toy-based video games.Still, many people can’t get past the fact that this show was created for a young, mostly female audience. So how then, on the internet, has it amassed a predominantly male teen to young adult fan base?

Honestly? It’s not at all what you’d expect for a “little girl’s” cartoon. Think of it as you might think of animated Disney films. Were they primarily made for children? Yes. Can they also be enjoyed by adults? Absolutely. A lot of the confusion and distaste towards Friendship is Magic simply stems from the “My Little Pony” brand in general, which is actually quite understandable. What do you think about when you hear My Little Pony? You think of little girls playing with dolls, two-dimensional characters, and tea parties. That’s not what this show is.

The main draw is inarguably the characters. They’re different, they’re interesting, they don’t even always get along… they’re actuallyflawed. At one point or another, each of the main characters basically has a full-on mental breakdown. Considering this is a cartoon all about friendship (which sounds corny as anything, I know) there’s plenty of negativity thrown in, to the point where the show actually gets… kind of dark on occasion. Take this clip for example, suggesting the reason Pinkie Pie appears so happy and cheerful on the outside is because on the inside she’s actually frightened of everyone laughing at her:

It’s actually very easy to relate to the characters; Twilight Sparkle buries herself in her studies and as a result is initially quite anti-social, scoffing at the idea of making friends. Applejack works too hard and is often too proud to let others help her, to the point where she nearly works herself to death. Rainbow Dash can be a show-off and egotistical but deep down she’s worried what people will think of her if she isn’t the best at everything she does. Rarity… you get the idea. The characters actually have issues, they aren’t perfect, and people can relate to that. Regardless of age or gender. It makes the characters much more believable.

Of course if the show was only about character flaws it would actually be pretty depressing, but it helps reel things in. The characters even develop a little over time, learning and overcoming most of their flaws. Most of the time viewers love the characters for all their little quirks. The show is well-written and the characters are entertaining and in many cases just plain funny.

As for the actual content of the episodes themselves, they’re not all tea parties and sleep overs and pillow fights like you might expect. They actually revolve around the happenings in the ponies’ home town and the rest of their world. They have have families, friends and jobs just like you and me. It’s actually not so different to lots of the “slice-of-life” anime shows out there.

Production Values

Lets not beat around the bush here: this cartoon is fantastically made in just about every aspect. From a visual perspective everything looks colourful, engaging and full of life. It’s flash-based, which means it could have ended up looking quite static, bland and lazy, but the designers and animators give everything buckets of personality, especially thanks to the facial expressions of the characters. It actually looks quite similar to Panty & Stocking, though considering that anime was based on things like The Powerpuff Girls, that’s actually not a big surprise (Lauren Faust, the creator of Friendship is Magic, previously worked on The Powerpuff Girls).

What’s arguably even better than the visuals is the audio. Especially the voice acting, with talent like Tara Strong (Twilight Sparkle) at the helm–who’s extensive voice work can be seen here–it’s not hard to see why it’s so good. Plenty of cartoons have good voice acting though, but how many of them have fantastic musical numbers like this:

There isn’t singing in every episode, which is good because this isn’t supposed to be Glee: The Animation, and honestly if they did do a song every week I doubt they could put anywhere near the same amount of effort and care into each song. Not only is the music great, but it’s spawned an insane amount of remixes, mash-ups and original music on the internet, like this and this and eventhis.

Parodies, homages and references

Okay, this is where the show gets “geeky” and lots of this stuff is for the older viewers, or at least, it’s appreciated by older viewers in a way that the “target audience” simply won’t get. The writers of Friendship is Magic include dozens of references to celebrities, other TV shows, movies… stuff that just flies right over younger heads while still keeping the show entertaining for everyone. Listing them all would make this article a million miles long, but there’s a list here you can check out.

Here’s my personal favourite. Happen to be a Star Trek fan? This may blow your mind a little: the antagonist for the two-part season 2 opener is a character named Discord – the mischievous spirit of chaos and disharmony. Sound familiar?

Yes. That’s the voice of John de Lancie who many of you know as the character “Q” from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager playing… well basically playing Q from Star Trek. To see that in any cartoon is awesome. If you’re more of a Star Wars fan,check this out. To read about the I Love Lucy homage and The Music Man homage from recent episodes, check out my articles hereand here.

All these references just top off an already very enjoyable cartoon, it’s a bonus for the older fans.

Of course there’s only so much I can say about a show and what makes it good or bad, so if you’ve read this far and you’re interested, check some episodes out on YouTube. Still not interested? Then perhaps the show just isn’t for you and that’s fine too, it’s not for everyone. Either way, don’t let “society” tell you what you can and can’t watch. Life’s too short for it to matter.

I’ll leave you all with a quote I’ve recently taken a liking to, which you may or may not agree with, but I actually think it’s quite profound:

Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

― C.S. Lewis

Daniel Newton moderates Anime Vice and runs the community twitter @AnimeVicers. Find his personal twitter and more here.

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As a note – - I don’t crush on a lot of toon abbes, but I’ve got to say that new bob Talho cuts for herself isn’t doing her any favors.

Ha! As somebody with a number of relatives who’ve gone to polytechnic
institutes, digs at engineers make me snicker in a very fond and special way.
Yes, the mecha team taking daily breaks to head bang to an out-of-date track
blasting on the loud speakers is likely one the keenest insights into real human
behavior that this show has ever offered. Just so spot on.

Then again, it took that gag to finally make me realize how the commercial
bumpers are designed to look like the cover of a record’s A Side and B Sides -
- after 30 odd episodes of repetition – - so maybe I shouldn’t be goofing on anybody for being
out of touch.

A more serious tract, then…

== TEASER ==

While we’re talking about realistic insights into human behavior, I’ve
got to say that Holland and Talho’s relationship has been feeling a lot more
authentic lately. Why’s that? Because they’re arguing incessantly!

Seriously,
it turns out that the reason there’s been all this tense build-up about Renton’s
sister’s history with Gekkostate simply because she was Holland’s ex.
That’s why Talho got so testy about Renton would be putting “her blood” into him during
that critical transfusion? At first, it seemed anti-climactic, but now I
realize how brilliant it is for its prissyness. Brilliant and true.

I suppose the next lingering character mystery’s going to pertain to Maurice,
who’s been gradually drifting away from his Mama. He isn’t with the other kids
after that hilarious film reel (with its long overdue exposition,) and that
would seem to bring full circle an arc that started when he got in trouble for
getting lost in the streets however many episodes back. That slap Eureka gave
me carried a lot more significance in the long run!

Watch this episode, “Change of Life’” here and
decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.

Tom Pinchuk’s
the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk

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