Forum - View topicIsao Takahata: Endless Memories
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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All in all, a great tribute, it even made me seek out watching all of Takahata's early pre-Ghibli works that wasn't Horus or Lupin that I had already seen. When even your weakest film (Yamadas) is still in the realm of quite good and your baseline is above that, then you are a master director, no ifs, ands or buts. And if Isao Takahata had to go out, then with Tale of Princess Kaguya, he went out on the highest note possible.
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Peter Hunt
Posts: 86 |
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What a disappointing, average final section for this otherwise excellent run of articles.
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Anime World Order
Posts: 390 Location: Florida |
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Because of what was requested of me, I deliberately didn't approach the piece in the way that I did my panels (including my Takahata retrospective one), podcasts, or magazine articles. I guess that was a mistake from your perspective, since what I wrote is far more casual in tone relative to the others, but I believe I did what was asked. |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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I don't mind the flippancy of tone for the final article as it makes for a change of pace and makes the send off for Takahata not too ponderous. That being said calling Spiriting Away or The Wind Rises "middling" is objectively wrong, Mr. Surat.
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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We may not have as many stay-at-home housewives today, but I take issue that evening baths and noodles are "unknown" over here... We might not have the family all gathered under the kotatsu, but the joke of Dad getting up and everyone piling "Oh, while you're in the kitchen..." requests on him is universal.
Charlie Brown, near the end, in their Saturday-morning series and post-Schulz specials (like "It's Christmastime Again, CB", which always gets shown with the classic), gave up on stories, and just presented isolated five and ten-minute vignettes transcripted from the week-long comic-strip arcs, verbatim...Complete with the four-panel rhythm of a punchline every fourth or fifth line. Yamadas was taken from a popular Japanese newspaper comic strip, and the short unconnected mini-stories work exactly the same as the Peanuts vignettes, except that Takahata adds the "philosophical haiku" to show us how Epic the daily life of the average family is-- Azumanga's vignettes would often go into funny facetious anime-humor "epic" overdramatics to show how serious we take these daily battles, and David Ogden Stiers in the Yamadas dub gives it that perfect straightforward serene-philosophical delivery to punch up the gag. |
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omiya
Posts: 1844 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Real life tanuki http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201808110001.html
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FireChick
Subscriber
Posts: 2458 Location: United States |
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Wait, what?! Seriously?! And we only found this out JUST NOW?! How did we not know this?! This adds so much more weight to Grave of the Fireflies! |
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olderthandirt
Posts: 5 |
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I had a chance to give a talk on The Tale of the Princess Kaguya at Mechademia several years ago. The movie is quite a modern take on the story. Very pro women. I have found it a good movie to introduce older individuals to anime.
A copy of the talk can be downloaded at: https://studyinganime.com/gazing-at-a-princess/ |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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No, "tragedy porn" is about right. Grave of the Fireflies is very in your face. Manipulative?!? Eh, about anything (food, people, movies, books, etc.) that evokes feeling from you is manipulative. I will agree that there are "types of manipulation" that are more annoying. I saw a CG animated film from Disney recently that I didn't like. It was a well-made film BUT the way they went about the story and the targeted demographicking was very annoying. Way too much use of character stereotype tropes. It just felt -- faker than usual for NuDisney and that's saying something! The psychological films with people mentally disintegrating in front of your face or the business with kids dying in the most preventable ways are the hardest ones to sit through. I've certainly never wanted to watch any of those films again. There are about 3-4 films I know I'll never watch again because they're difficult to experience. There are more films that I just think are pure junk that I won't bother again if I remember I disliked them to begin with! There are a few anime features on that list including a recent film that was shown at a local film festival. Grave of the Fireflies IS on the list to rewatch -- I've got the darn film on Blu ray and DVD -- but it's been something I've put off again and again because of newer stuff and just the feeling I should wait until the day I REALLY want to feel depressed! |
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Shiflan
Posts: 418 |
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I remember that having been noted in the script when I first watched Grave back in the fansub days. How/why it did not appear in any of the liner notes, etc, in the official western releases is beyond me! |
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andyos
ANN Associate Editor
Posts: 266 |
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IIRC, Takahata mentions running away from the bombings in an interview included on a US DVD edition of Fireflies. I bought it about ten years ago - don't know if current editions include the interview or not.
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uguu
Posts: 220 |
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I may have missed the part about the key animation (I swear I recall specifically ctrl+f-ing for comments on animation.... but I'm not gonna say 'you edited it in since then' since I can't prove it and maybe I just had a weird brain fart) But my point still stands that you were quite dismissive of Chie in a very vague way. |
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andyos
ANN Associate Editor
Posts: 266 |
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(Sarcasm) Well, I'm sorry I can't prove that I wouldn't edit my own review to steal your point. (Have you any idea how insulting you're being?) I mentioned the single animator in the 2nd para on Gauche: '...According to anime expert Ben Ettinger, it was largely the work of just two artists. They were Takamura Mukuo, who drew all Gauche's backgrounds, and an artist who's referred to in different sources as either Shunji Saida or Toshitsuga Saida; he drew all the key animation, albeit with a big team of in-betweeners.'
And if you'd like chapter and verse, I was specifically referring to Ettinger's review of Kaguya at http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/the-tale-of-princess-kaguya , in which Ettinger refers to 'Gauche the Cellist (1982), in which animator Toshitsugu Saida drew all of the key animation and artist Takamura Mukuo drew all of the background art.' As for your other complaints, I refer you to my previous message. |
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andyos
ANN Associate Editor
Posts: 266 |
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.... ah, but I see I was sloppy, and wrote 'Toshitsuga' when it should have been 'Toshitsugu.' I _will_ edit that now, but I fully acknowledge my carelessness in getting it wrong first time - apologies.
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uguu
Posts: 220 |
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I've disagreed with Ben Ettinger's opinions in the past but at least I generally understand why he dislikes something I like, or enjoys something I don't. I'm not sure what your generally critical so-so reception of Chie boils down to beyond the finale.
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