Berthier - Ninja Scroll

The 1993 anime Ninja Scroll was an intense blend of fantasy and reality of Shinto values and intense crime fighting scenes that meshed to create a fascinating plot and character structure. The symbolism that came along with the film was very evident and came through well regardless of the fast paced plot line.  The main character, Jubei, has been considered by some to be a Japanese Robin Hood. When the comparison was first brought to my attention, I didn’t really see the resemblance. The only the thing I could really see being close to a “Robin Hood” like act was when he saved Kagero, the love interest in the story from being raped by one of the demons Tessai.

            I was originally confused by how much rape was in this film. It was almost considerably alarming. The thing that intrigued me about it though was that American films really don’t mesh these types of serious ordeals with the fantasy world. Japanese Shinto culture on the other hand is very keen on mixing both of the two ideals together, which is very foreign to all American films. This movie was originally very hard for me to understand because there were so many different characters and the plot line really didn’t all come together until about twenty-five minutes into the film.

I thought it was interesting how Kagero was portrayed. She was at first somewhat of a mysterious character, but when her secret is revealed and the audience finds out that she can’t be loved because anyone who even kisses her will fall to their knees and parish, the movie starts to make much more sense. My favorite part of the whole movie is when the seductive demon named Benisato is trying to get secrets out of Jubei and the snake tattoos come off of her body and surround him. Then when Kagero comes behind Benisato and she has the most poisonous snake come out of her genitalia and Kagero got attacked, the movie goes haywire! What Benisato did not know was that when the snake bit Kagero it was the end of Benisato’s life. I thought that was genius and would watch this movie again.

Berthier - Akira

Akira was an anime film made in 1988 set in a post-modernistic society in Tokyo, Japan.  The year is 2019 and the world is in pure shambles. The movie starts off with a large explosion and then the camera angle dives into the city of Tokyo with very fast moving camera editing as well as dark backgrounds and odd camera angles. By doing this, the director does a very good job of setting up the illusion of chaos throughout the film as well as creating chaos to be a surrounding theme within the plot. In the way of introducing characters, the director seems very sporadic and vague as each different character comes into play. This I can only perceive as another deliberate move by the director creating the awareness of confusion and instability throughout the city of Tokyo and possibly the world.

            I immediately fell in love with the characters in the film. Not necessarily for who they were but what they represented. After watching the whole film it was easy to assume that Kaneda, the leader of the bozozuko was like a father to the main character, Tetsuo. When Tetsuo gains telekinetic powers and has the ability to destroy all of mankind, he starts to resent Kaneda and lash out towards the idea of being a cog in the biker gang and wants to gain his independence. This represents the idea of Japanese family values and family values in general and how after a certain amount of time the young ones want to rise up and be there own independent being.

            I’ll admit, after watching the film for the first time I was needless to say, baffled. The ending scene when Tetsuo turns into a large blob and explodes and one of the mutant children goes on to explain “it has begun,” was one of the most mind blowing endings for a film I had ever witnessed.  After watching it a few times, I realized more and more how the over bearing message was that power can really corrupt people and no matter what circumstance, too much power is never a good thing. This message was extremely relevant for the time the movie was made because in 1988 Tokyo was ran purely by corporations.  Overall, I really enjoyed the film and would watch it again.

Berthier - Hi, How are you?

Hi freshman seminar classmates. My name is Neil Berthier. I am a second-semester freshman at Loyola. I was born here in New Orleans, but I moved up to Connecticut when I was six or seven. I am an only child and I love my parents and dog. I was really into skateboarding as a kid which then caused me to pick up a guitar. For some reason I just thought skateboarders played music, therefore I should too. After that, I fell in love with music and it became all I did. I love most every type of music and would like to think that there is good to all types of music (even commercial music). I didn’t really like mainstream sports as a kid. I hated teams and I liked doing my own thing for the most part. When I first moved to Connecticut, I really hated it and did not think anything was better than New Orleans. Over time this view changed drastically. I grew to love the northeast and found a really strong punk scene within the midst of the beautiful woods of New England and grew to love the northeast for everything that it had to offer. With all of this being said, I am a music industry studies major here at Loyola and am now currently in two very active bands. One band is called Donovan Wolfington and we are based out of New Orleans. We all met here and are best friends who like to write songs and play shows together. It’s really fun. The other band that I play lead guitar for is called MLK and we are based out of Connecticut. They still play shows while I am in New Orleans and we’re both putting out 7 inch records in the very near future. Now that I am at college I am slowly realizing every day that all I want to do is tour and make enough money to not have a boring job that I hate. I’m really excited to take this anime course and the rest of my classes this semester are pretty interesting as well. I still watch reruns of Dragonball Z.