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.