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.

Berthier - Grave of the Fireflies

            The film Grave of the Fireflies was a tear jerking movie about two orphaned children during World War II who try to survive in the confused and panicked society they were brought up in. There are a lot of heart breaking aspects to this masterpiece, but the one that stood out to me the most, and was also an extremely important aspect throughout the whole plot, was the fact that every time they would try to get help adults, who were the only people who could potentially help these kids out, were the ones who shunned them and made them feel like they were worth less than dirt. I liked the article we read prior to watching the film because it shed a light on how accurate the movie actually was, and unfortunately how historically accurate the film is extremely depressing. I could not imagine the struggles those two poor kids had to go through, let alone living the way they did. Another interesting thing that I learned after I watched the film was that Grave of the Fireflies was originally a semi-autographical book. This brings to light a lot of the injustices that are going on in our world today that are extremely disheartening. I know that this takes place in the 1940’s but at the same time, there are still many injustices that our plaguing our modern existence. It is now more focused in Africa which is really sad because it is a lot harder to reach out to those in need over there because some of them don’t want the culture to be harmed by Americans. This is understandable, but sometimes there is a place in trying to help out those in need, no matter what the cost. The film also sort of reminded me of the Harp of Burma movie we watched last week because both main characters in the film end up wandering for most of their lives until the day they die. The only difference is that in Harp of Burma, it was the harpists choice to wander and in Grave of the Fireflies it was not. 

Berthier - Harp of Burma

In the film Harp of Burma, the theme of film lies in the main character’s goal to bury his good friends, and honor their lives as soldiers and commodores. The way the movie was portrayed was very minimalistic in the visual animation and you could tell it was made in the 80’s. This did not take away from the heart wrenching plot line revolving around anti-war and caring for humanity. Some argue that the film is not an anti war film, but rather a film that pleas for peace. I do think it’s an anti war film as well as a plea for peace. It shows evidence of both by the way the setting is portrayed and the way the music is placed in the film. The music in the film reminded me of the stereotypical, happy Japanese programming from the 80’s, which complimented the peaceful theme very nicely.

The conflict in the story is that the main character, Mizushima, is torn between staying with his friends in the service and going back to see his family and friends, and paying homage to his good friends who had passed away during the war by burying all of them and dedicating his life to the people he loved. The choice he made was to try to come to terms with the atrocities that happened to his friends and inadvertently himself as well. My favorite part was when he met up with the little boy who was also playing the harp because it really put into perspective how valuable life is and the importance of relationships with our loved ones around us. When compared to the movie, Letters to Iwo Jima, the movie looks extremely bright because no one killed himself or herself in this movie. Even though that is an important aspect of Japanese culture (dying for honor, not killing your self), examining it reality I think at anytime, committing suicide is never a good thing. Putting your life before someone else’s on the other had is considered selfless in most places. I enjoyed this film a lot and would watch it again. 

Berthier - Perfect Blue

            In the film entitled Perfect Blue, things go haywire in the most intense ways imaginable. The overall theme of the whole movie is the idea of the cross over between illusion and reality. The plot line of the film is about the main character, Mima Kirigoe being in a J-Pop group called CHAM! And while Mima was the star of that she had switched to acting in a film called Double Bind. Her fans turn to fanatics and create this unwanted persona for her that she is not used to nor enthused about. Her transformation from normal human being to celebrity pop and film sensation has taken a serious toll on her psyche and sense of self worth. My favorite scene is when she walks into her room to find that all of her fish are dead after the rape scene that she does for double blind. After that she’s seeing hallucinations of herself and how she has become which disappoints her and makes her feel extremely vulnerable. After she stops hallucinating, she realizes that her fish aren’t actually dead and that she just imagined the dead fish in her fish bowl. The significance of this is that fish in Japanese culture are supposed to be a symbol of freedom and fears and she feels as if after the rape scene, those aspects of her are gone and she has no innocence left within her entire being.  This is sad because this happens to celebrities all of the time and lives can be smothered by supposed fans. I feel like the fact that celebrities are put on an unrealistic pedestal that they can’t escape and because of this their illusion becomes their reality. Especially if this illusion surrounds them all the time with TV and magazines telling celebrities how they are when they are really not that way. After a while, I would assume the celebrities would believe it and start to not like the stories about them which makes them not like themselves. This is an extremely sad state of affairs and if I was a celebrity I’m not sure if I could handle it. 

Berthier - Cowboy Bebop

The film Cowboy Bebop is an anime movie filled with intense fist fighting and insane jazz music in the background which adds to the interesting plot line and sets itself apart from other anime and films of it’s genre.  The setting takes place on Mars in the 2071 and is interesting as that is, Mars is set up to look like a lot of American cities such as: New York, San Francisco and Chicago.  The plot revolves around the main character, Spike, who along with his posse is trying to stop a fugitive who’s attempting to release a virus on to the planet of Mars. The capital city of Mars is offering an unbelievable sum of money as a reward to catch the culprit before time runs out. With spike and his crew being bounty hunters, they are gunning to get the man responsible to save Mars as well as get a ridiculous sum of money as a reward. The reason the movie is entitled Cowboy Bebop is because the name of the ship they use to travel around as bounty hunters is called “BeBop”. Overall I was fascinated with the movie and enthralled with the imagery and artwork that the director used in the setting. It was a very interesting set up because of the way the artist who animated the film almost directly mimicked American cities was mind-blowing to me because half of the time I was trying to pay attention to the plot line and the other half I was paying attention to the beautiful artwork and music that was put into the film.

            Another compelling aspect or even some would say controversial aspect about the film, the reference to nine-eleven with the twin towers on Mars. Also the movie was originally titled Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s door but due to copyright laws, the director wanted to avoid any conflict with the copy of the famous Bob Dylan song “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”. As I was saying before I really enjoyed the music that was in the background for all of the fighting scene’s and the intro in this film. The name of the group who performed the score was called The Seatbelts and I would love to get into them as well as into the show series that was before the movie.