Mai himes greatness explained.Starseeker said:
[spoiler:b5c97a6299]
never seen the anime actually but I seem to remember that the manga was the typical thin-story-but-look-fanservice! type of manga that there are several thousands of allready.
Anime
- Thread starter marko2te
- Start date
[spoiler:b5c97a6299]
never seen the anime actually but I seem to remember that the manga was the typical thin-story-but-look-fanservice! type of manga that there are several thousands of allready.
Cimmerian Nights said:
Well, I thought Perfect Blue was great, and I'm not sure what you mean by fem-centric. But yeah, Kon's movies are usually very whimsical, love it or hate it. His Tokyo Godfathers is one of the best anime comedies ever made though.
You might want to try Eden of the East (ongoing), it's from the same director as GiTS:SAC series. Overall, though, anime sf is rarely any good. Non action-centric ones are especially rare to find. You might want to try Cassehern Sins and Dennou Coil if you want good sci-fi, but you'd need to be resistant to anime melodramatics.
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Estrogen-heavy.Ausdoerrt said:
I would classify those both as "chick-flicks" and are clearly geared towards the sensibilities of teenage girls. All the suspense and tension in Perfect Blue (although well done) is predicated on the fears and anxiety from a female perspective. It was fun, but I figured out "who dunnit" way before the end, which made the rest of the movie rather masturbatory.
I think the terms manga and anime are used way too often to encompass everything that comes from Japan, when they are really just mediums that are broken down in genres just like anything else. The Japanese manga and anime market in Japan is pretty segmented and targeted towards specific demographics. That's not to see it's completely exclusive, but there seems to be a mange/anime for every age/interest/sexual orientation you can think of.
I'm not really fond of whimsical, estrogen-heavy books, TV, movies, anime, whatever, so those 2 were just not my cup of green tea.
If Millennium Actress had a more domestic scene, with western actresses and was on the Lifetime network I wonder if you'd still praise it as much.
AskWazzup
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Can someone recommend any recent gems? I watch anime quite seldom, but it seems that over the years i have seen all the best that anime has to offer. I generaly don't like "goofy" anime, i'm more into titles like:
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Monster
Berserk
Vampire Hunter D
Blood - The Last Vampire
Hellsing (the original non OVA version)
Ergo Proxy
Has anything similar surfaced recently?
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Monster
Berserk
Vampire Hunter D
Blood - The Last Vampire
Hellsing (the original non OVA version)
Ergo Proxy
Has anything similar surfaced recently?
Cimmerian Nights said:
Another way to look at it is, of course, as commentary on an important social problem. Since it's not a US thing, tou might not know much about it, but the idol market in Japan was about as bad as the movie depicted. And the perspective was necessary to more clearly present the poor treatment of women in modern-day japan. So I think you're mistaken on the "chick-flick" part.
M.A. was a bit of a chick-flick, though, agreed, but it also did a good job at giving a nice overview of Japan's history over the last 60 years or so.
True, and the terms are often misused. It is, however, the fault of the US market, because there anime and manga are treated more as a genre, plus the products tend to be within few major categories, because the rest of the stuff is not marketable in the US.
No offense, but do you find any movie with a main female character "estrogen-heavy"? Just wondering. I mean, testosteron-heavy anime exists as well, but I usually find it pretty ridiculous, because it's not inventive and always follows the same formula, thus offering no food for thought.
Then again, compared to Kon, Miyazaki's movies are far more concerned with the 'shoujo' characters, and often take a pretty feministic stance.
Not if it were made by Hollywood. Because we all well know how the Americans "adapt" Japanese plots for their market. So most of the intresting products from Japan would have a niche market in the US at best. I mean, look at the anime popularity in the US, most of it is stuff that's already similar to Hollywood - explosions, 'epic' music plus some melodrama.
On the other hand, the Japanese do know how to make live-action anime adaptations, although for a movie like M.A. it's be pretty hard because of the limitations of the live-action film medium.
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Or then again I might, being that I worked in Tokyo for 4 years, and still go back regularly. I currently have 3 (well, 2.5 my daughter is only half) Japanese chicks living in my house. Maybe you can see why I'm not ignorant, but on the contrary quite jaded to that sort of drama. I'm fighting to restore a proper hormonal equilibrium in my home, and Millenium Actress isn't helping.Ausdoerrt said:
See where I'm coming from bra'? Don't let them fool you, Japanese men aren't as in charge as their egos want you to think. Nor are the women all submissive, wilting flowers, that let men walk all over them. Like many things in Japan it's a lot more multifaceted than that.
I think that aspect you mention only served to build a good suspense story (which Perfect Blue is) nothing more.
Well only as it relates to and is seen through the eyes of a starry-eyed, flaky teenage girl. The history only served as a backdrop for her whimsical little flights of fancy. No thanks. It's not like there was any reflection on the events by her, it was all her self-indulgent memory trip, which belittled the gravity of the war and whatnot going on around her.
Of course not, female protagonist doesn't automatically equate with chick flick. It's the thematic content, and I clearly see in MA an attempt to appeal to the sensibilities of a teenage girl. I'm not saying it bad or not well executed, it just doesn't touch me and I felt silly watching it. I'll say it again, I'm not interested in some flaky chick's whimsical little flights of fancy.
Yeah so the medium of anime is used as an umbrella term in America. I recognise that that's a fallacy and when speaking of anime I need to peel the layers back a few times to find things that appeal to me. Anime in general is not intrinsically interesting to me. Like I asked before it is clearly segmented to appeal to different demographics, that's not to say my interests are so narrow that I didn't enjoy Perfect Blue as a pretty good suspense movie. But untimately when it became a remake of Single White Female I had to roll my eyes. Again, it was good, but I would find something that appeals to my sensibilities I would enjoy it more a la Ghost in the Shell - there you go - female protagonist but by no means estrogen-heavy (none of you wiseasses has suggested GitS 2 to me yet either
).That's not really my point. I'm wondering if MA were exactly the same except with western acrtresses and settings, and you walked in the room and your sister/g.f./mother whoever was watching, I question if your reception of it would be the same.
I think that the "foreign-ness" of anime is sometimes in and of itself some of the appeal.
^ Well, you make a decent case, and I'm not going to argue, since, well, I'm a Satoshi Kon fan, and arguing with me about it is sort of pointless 
I do realize that the Japanese society is more multi-faceted in reality, and also that the depiction in Perfect Blue is outdated as well (society does change, and pretty quickly), but hey, it's movies' job to exaggerate things to make a difference. Although, whichever way to look at it, women in US and in Japan are on two different sides of the spectrum.
I also did like Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers more than P.B. or M.A., because I prefer humour and cynicism to melodrama.
Well, I didn't realize that you meant the GitS movie until now. I personally find the series much better, because it's much less obscure, and chooses to comment on societal patterns and politics rather than personal problems. If anything, GiTS1 movie was, in a sense, a movie about a single woman's "flights of fancy", except taken from a different angle. I also wouldn't recomment GiTS: Innocence unless you're a devout Mamoru Oshii fan, because it was trying way too hard to be intellectually loaded, and thus ended up being a collection of quotes from classics of Western poetry and philosophy, with a storyline that does not end up making much sense. Needless to say, it's far inferior to the first movie.
I do realize that the Japanese society is more multi-faceted in reality, and also that the depiction in Perfect Blue is outdated as well (society does change, and pretty quickly), but hey, it's movies' job to exaggerate things to make a difference. Although, whichever way to look at it, women in US and in Japan are on two different sides of the spectrum.I also did like Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers more than P.B. or M.A., because I prefer humour and cynicism to melodrama.
Well, I didn't realize that you meant the GitS movie until now. I personally find the series much better, because it's much less obscure, and chooses to comment on societal patterns and politics rather than personal problems. If anything, GiTS1 movie was, in a sense, a movie about a single woman's "flights of fancy", except taken from a different angle. I also wouldn't recomment GiTS: Innocence unless you're a devout Mamoru Oshii fan, because it was trying way too hard to be intellectually loaded, and thus ended up being a collection of quotes from classics of Western poetry and philosophy, with a storyline that does not end up making much sense. Needless to say, it's far inferior to the first movie.