| 1. | (7 posts) | Nausicaa and Ashitaka Watercolor Painting |
| 2. | (21 posts) | Nausicaa and Dune |
| 3. | (4 posts) | Papers and such |
| 4. | (4 posts) | Studio Ghibli Watercolors |
| 5. | (7 posts) | Whisper of the Heart Reviews |
| 6. | (2 posts) | Nausicaa.net down/up |
| 7. | (1 post) | Happy 9th Birthday! |
We looked at 101 posts by 56 different contributors.
Welcome to the first issue of MML Traffic. No neat stats like top posters of the week since the brown.edu listsev doesn't support the STATS command.
Griffin Waldau finished his Nausicaa and Ashitaka painting. Reaction was uniformaly positive, Chris Meadows commented, "My X session has a new background at the moment. :)" It's replaced his previous sketch as my background too. Griffin has a mindboggling array of sketches and painting in his gallery - a highly recommended visit.
Anton Celestial started the thread with, "Apparently Miyazaki did read Dune and it seems that Nausicaa was greatly influenced by it. I haven't searched the list yet, but can someone please provide insight." Andrew Osmond replied, "This is an old chestnut. afaik, the only direct evidence that Miyazaki read Dune is the passing comment I mentioned in my article. This comes from Shappatsuten (Starting Point) 1979-1996, p544, pub Tokuma Shoten. It's also mentioned in Ryoko's Nausicaa FAQ" David Moisan chipped in with, "I wrote an article about this in 1992 or so: "Nausicaa and Dune: The Intertwined Worlds of Frank Herbert and Hayao Miyazaki" for Mark Weiss' old newsletter; it is--or was--in the archives." Steven Feldman then dug up the article from the archives.
Carlene Gong asked, "I'm specifically looking for "official" or "prominent" character articles on Eboshi; not quite "official" or "prominent", but what I mean is that I want nothing short of something written formally, scrutinizing over Eboshi and her traits, motives, or past." Mike Arnold replied, "Can you read Japanese? As far as I've been able to find (over years of looking) there's still very little serious English language work on anime available." He pointed out a Comic Box special issue focused on Mononoke Hime (in Acrobat format).
Matt Lind has been working on a paper, "The focus of the paper will likely be on how graphic novels are, in fact, a serious literary technique." David Mankins commented, "'Serious literary technique' is in the eye of the beholder, I think. Intelligent people can find enrichment by spending a good deal of time examining the nuances and meaning of the _Nausicaa_ graphic novels. That may be sufficient to qualify them for consideration as serious literary works." Mike added, "Go to a library and try looking up English language works on postwar Japanese literary history and criticism. You should be able to find some good ideas there."
Carlene reported, "I don't know if anyone else on this side of the Pacific/Atlantic saw them on the net (they were put up three months ago . . . and the archives don't say anything)" I replied, "Those have popped up in various locations (aint-it-cool, etc). They aren't from the museum, they're from the 1999 Totoro calender." Ryoko Toyama added, "I must say that Ghibli people were unhappy when they found those pictures at the Aint-it-Cool site. (I know since I heard them say so.)" Links to shops that sell Ghibli goods are available on the shopping page.
A bunch of comments kicked off by Evan Talbott:
I have seen many many many movies. Probably as many as is humanly possible to see by the time you're 15. A lot of those movies had some sort of romantic element to them, if not being a romance itself. And yet the one movie that struck me as the most real, plausible, and down-to-earth was a little animated Japanese film called Whisper of the Heart.!Minor Spoiler warning!
I love this movie. I really really do. I loved it the first time I saw it (a few months ago), and having recently seen it again, I found myself swept up in it all over again. Unfortunately, a lot of critics have just passed it off as "sweet" and "charming", and not going much deeper than that. But its quiet, introspectiveness is every much as moving as the epic sweep of Princess Mononoke. I can safely say that this is exactly what a first teenage love is like. How do I know that? Because I've lived it.
Timothy Fox added, "What most impressed me was her courage. The kid can barely carry a tune and knows it, but trusts her beloved, opens her heart, and lets the song come out. And in front of grandpa and all his crew of Baroque instrument enthusiasts! (Which is why Disney must NOT put a more polished vocalist in the dub!)" Tom Tanida chimed in, "Now I'm sounding fanatic, but that's one of the great thing about Ghibli films... they are elegant and simple on the surface, but underneath they are extraordinary profound."
Nausicaa.net went down for a few hours on 4/12 due to Jeremy Blackman (and the server) being shuffled to a new office. After some beating of skulls Jeremy was able to get the machine back on-line. He commented, "I'm honestly starting to think about finding colocation for my boxes to avoid this sort of situation."
Hello,Speaking on behalf of all the owners, I'd just like to wish the mailing list a very Happy 9th Birthday. Amazing that in nine years we've come such a long way in bringing awareness of Studio Ghibli's work to everybody.
A heartfelt 'Thank You' goes out to all of the subscribers of the mailing list for it is you that make what the mailing list is today.
Take care!
Theodore Hua
Co-Owner of the Miyazaki Mailing List
Castle of Cagliostro and Grave of the Fireflies will be shown at the Long Beach Japanese Animation Festival (4/21), Andrew Osmond published an article in The Guardian wondering why Princess Mononoke isn't playing in the Britain, Listen to an English version of "Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa".
Saw Castle of Cagliostro this week at the Grand Illusion. A great film even if the presentation wasn't exactly smooth (subtitiles were backwards at the start of the second reel). Looking forward to it's release on DVD (4/25 hopefully). Whew! The first issue is done, all comments and suggestion are welcomed.