Berthier - Spirited Away

            Spirited Away is arguably one of Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest works of all time. The story and artwork bridged gaps between American cartoons and Japanese anime for all generations, which is what we’ve been talking about all semester. It’s about a girl named Chihiro who is about ten years old and her family is moving away from the home she’s lived in all of her life. Needless to say she’s not happy about it, but this original theme of dealing with change and adjusting to the new ways of things is set up by this instance of Chihiro moving. She crosses a bridge with her parents and then something magical happens where she crosses into the spirit world and meets a boy named Haku. There are to be no humans in the spirit world so when Chihiro sneaks in after dark and can’t get back into the real world, Haku takes care of her, gets her a job at the bath house and introduces her to some interesting characters. One of these characters is named Yubaba is technically the antagonist of the whole story because she gets in Haku’s way of trying to help Chihiro get back to her world. In the end of the story Chihiro gets back to her world and reunites with her parents and both Haku and Chihiro learn to love each other and learn the meaning of friendship together. Not exactly the typical type of anime we’ve been watching for the majority of the year but this is definitely one of my favorite anime’s of all time. The artwork and the way the story is laid out for the audience is extremely surreal, yet the emotion that is evoked through the characters is extremely compelling and is something that the whole family could enjoy. Then again, Disney is extremely good at making “feel good” films that lure people into watching over and over again. I think the main reason for this is because in every Disney movie, the characters are extremely lovable and the audience can relate to the personalities of the characters. I recommend this movie to anyone who loves anime or just interesting plot lines in general. 

Berthier - Nausicaa

In Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, it was another anime tale of apocalyptic warfare with a heroine who is extremely swift and could be considered one of Hayao Miyazaki’s best characters. My problem with this movie was that I was not that impressed by the acting or content. The art was fabulous as usual. Although, Nausicaa is cheerful and loving, she cannot escape the plague of letting rage out at times. I really enjoy the aircraft that she flies one because for some reason it reminds me of the Star Wars trilogy in the seventies. That trilogy was one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. My favorite part of this movie was the ending when Nausicaa cares for the ohms and thinks they will stop for her but they run her over and she almost dies. That sounds extremely morbid and cynical, but the reason it is my favorite scene in the film is because it truly shows that there is a divide between humans and wild animals. As humans we are born with natural emotions and can get extremely attached to things very easily. This can be frustrating for a lot of humans because when we think of animals and how loveable and different they are from us, the emotions are not reciprocated most of the time because their ability to love is not nearly as notable as a humans’ or for some animals even existent. For example, cats use humans all of the time. Statistically, cats will always like the person who feeds them the most because they are their provider. That is the only reason though. If you stop feeding the cat, it will eventually lose interest in you and almost always find someone or something that shows a more dominant figure. In the end though, this movie was extremely intriguing and in terms of artwork and staying to the format of classic anime films, as well as being generally entertaining and stimulating. I would definitely watch this movie again. Watching this film again would probably shed a new light on the film that I had not seen before. 

Berthier - Howl's Moving Castle

Hayao Miyazaki has created yet another awe-inspiring anime with the film Howl’s Moving Castle. The film is about a girl in her late teens who works at her dead father’s hat shop. The immediate connection I made was to Alice in Wonderland because of the mad hatter and the fantasy aspects in Howl’s Moving Castle. The fact that they were both animations and the direct differences between both American and Japanese animation is simply astounding. Another strange occurrence that I thought about was how in the beginning it seemed very similar to the film The Wizard of Oz. The main reason I saw this parallel was because when she meets Howl, the wizard, he takes her on this wild magical journey that she never would’ve expected to go on without his help. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy also goes on an amazing journey in which she meets an envious witch who is the witch of waste and casts a horrible spell on her because the wizard Howl has set out to court Sophie. The are a lot of differences but one of the main differences is that Howl’s Moving Castle is a lot more intense and way crazier than the Wizard of OZ which is expected because of the Japanese nature and ruling to genuine anime surrounding the film. I couldn’t help but notice that the film was extremely well thought out and how things rolled on top of each other for poor Sophie was extremely enticing while still making somewhat complete sense. Also what was interesting throughout the film was that at the end it was very unconventional in terms of anime because most anime’s do not end very happily and this one was pretty stable especially considering the anime we have watched before in this class. I enjoyed the utter fantasy throughout the film because it was something we hadn’t seen in all of the other anime’s. The other anime that we have watched was a statement on post apocalyptic warfare and very serious subjects that also come into play in this movie, but not so much as the other films. 

Berthier - Princess Mononoke

 The film Princess Mononoke is, hands down my favorite anime film we’ve watched so far and might be my favorite anime of all time. The imagery and artwork the director used is unbelievable and I can honestly almost call it mesmerizing. I don’t understand why people compare it to Pochohantis because they are completely different. Pochohantis was extremely American in the sense that it was made my Disney, she was beautiful and everything was pretty perfect in that movie. The first time I saw Princess Mononoke, I didn’t know what was going to happen or how the ending of the film was going to pan out. Even though the film was made in 1999, I felt that the movie was way ahead of it’s time and deserved a lot more credit than the directs major hit film, Spirited Away. Don’t get me wrong, Spirited Away was also amazing and in my mind, the mastermind of all of these films, Hayao Miyazaki, can do no wrong in terms of movies. At the same time, I enjoyed Princess Mononoke so much more than I did Spirited Away and I know a lot of people who feel the same way that I do. I think a lot of the appeal of Spirited Away was that it was very commercially successful and had a lot of things that Americans could relate to. Princess Mononoke was a little bit more out there than Spirited Away and that might just be my personal taste but overall Princess Mononoke was just a better movie in general. My favorite part was when they killed the boar god and the wise woman of the village comes up and honors him and then he decays away. I liked this part especially because it recognized and stayed true to the Japanese religion of Shintoism and the quote was spoken so beautifully from the wise woman. Also that part was very climactic while still being extremely calm at the same time, which I found really astounding because to create that emotion while still keeping true to the storyline was simply remarkable. It was a great film that I can truly call one of my favorites.

Berthier -Ah! My Goddess

            The Japanese anime film Ah! My Goddess was the most true to what I would expect a modern anime to be, as far as films we’ve watched through out the year. When I say this, I’m really focusing on the fact that this, in my mind is the most science fiction or even farfetched anime we’ve watched to date. As far as the manga series goes for Oh, My Goddess, I was not as impressed with it as I was with the film. The supernatural feel of the whole film is awe inspiring and the way they portray women, as dominant characters through out the film is very classic and semi formulaic for most anime films. I mean this in the most positive way. I also mean that I think it’s interesting that in American culture, this type of model is a rarity and at the end of the day, I think we should be more like the Japanese with our cartoons and films because in real life not everything has a happy ending and the Japanese recognize this and make it into a pure art form for everyone to love or hate.

            I like how memory is a factor in this film that some people fail to address. As in other anime we’ve watched such as Cowboy Bebop and Ghost In the Shell, it is shown that the loss of someone’s memory is extremely traumatic because not only do they not know who they are anymore, but they also find it hard to comprehend what’s going on around them. Also, it’s hard to trust people when knowing what is real doesn’t come as easy as it does for others.

I like how we watched A Clockwork Orange in class because it really brought to light a lot of the things that I was missing while watching the movie. Mainly, the aspect of brainwashing throughout the film and how brainwashing people doesn’t actually make people good or happier or whatever the main goal is of the person brainwashing. It essentially just destroys peoples sense of reality to the point where they don’t even make the connection to life that they would normally.