| 1. | (2 posts) | Nausicaa in One Sentence |
| 2. | (2 posts) | Princess Mononoke Video Ranking |
| 3. | (6 posts) | Really Big Anime Poll |
| 4. | (3 posts) | Nan and Joe and Miyazaki |
| 5. | (14 posts) | Disney's Atlantis vs. Laputa, Or Is It? |
We looked at 72 posts by 43 different contributors.
In a hurry, no intro is really necessary, right?
Marc Hairston, while perusing "The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Films" by G. Young, spotted this write up of "Warriors of the Wind", "Standard fare sci-fi; Space princess rules giant insects". He commented, "(If it makes you feel any better, most of the films in there didn't even get that much of a write up.)" Tom Tanida posted his own synopses of other films (tongue firmly in cheek):
Whisper of the Heart: "Standard coming-of-age fare; girl gets boyfriend and obsesses over writing book."
Grave of the Fireflies: "Typical war story; boy & girl live in cave after parents killed."
Porco Rosso: "Ordinary mid-life crisis story about a flying pig who defeats air pirates."
Kiki's Delivery Service: "Flying girl witch comes to big city; has to learn how to fly again"
Ryoko Toyama posted the Top 10 video rentals chart for Canada (from the National Post's Arts & Life section):
No US totals however.
Sean Gibbons noted, "In the biggest anime poll ever, 200000 people, two Miyazaki characters placed among the top 12 (out of 100) of the best characters. Totoro was ranked at number 7 at Nausicaa was ranked at number 11." Marc Hairston posted a more detailed list:
Under the character list:
1. Doremon
7. Totoro
11. Nausicaa
14. Heidi
36. Conan (from 'Future Boy Conan')
David Mankins noticed that Lupin III: Cagliostro's Castle was ranked #36 on the series list. Shun Chan passed along the polling site (in Japanese)
Robin Casady wondered, "There is an ebay auction of a cel that claims to be from a Miyazaki film called "Nan and Joe". . . Anyone know about such a film, or where the cel might be from?" Frederic Goetzinger replied, "In spite of what the seller wrote, this not a Miyazaki film, but a recent WMT series: "Wakakusa monogatari: Nan to Jo sensei" (Tale of the Young Grass, Nan and Miss Jo), based on Louisa May Alcott's "Little Men"." Ryoko Toyama posted further clarification, "the charachter designer was Yoshiharu SATO, the supervising animator of "Totoro". . . Miyazaki-San wanted to have Yoshifumi KONDO as the supervising animator of "Totoro" at first, but Kondo-San decided to do "Grave." (Two films were made at the same time.) So Kondo-San (who used to work at Nippon Animation) introduced Sato-San to Miyazai-San." A cel picture from Nan & Joe.
Jee Hoon Lee started a lively thread with, "OK, I just watched the QuickTime trailer for Disney's Atlantis...nautilus like sub, girl with what seems like a glowing blue necklace, mysterious robotic figure. . . Hello?? Have I seen this before?? :)" Michael Johnson tried to steer people towards an archived thread, but the cat was out of the bag. Noah Selsby played the (in his own words) "friendly neighborhood knee-jerky-Disney-basher" (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), "I can see it now... some Disney suit decides they have to postpone the release of Laputa because it is too similar to their "superior" movie and will distract the audience. Laputa in 2010."
Others brought along a big chunk of NaCl, David Athay wrote, "Isn't a little early to be calling this film a scam off of Miyazaki's or other animators' work. I mean all that Disney has released is a short trailer that is not even 75 seconds?. . . I realize that Miyazaki is a great artist and his work does affect other animators, but I think some of us on this list are just a little too eager to jump and cry foul where Disney is involved." Chris Meadows wrote, "Come _on_, people, I'm as ready to bash Disney as the next guy. . . at least wait for them to do something worthy of bashing before we bash them. . . I am just so sick of all this knee-jerk Disney bashing. To reiterate, I'm not overly fond of Disney myself, but let's at least wait 'til we can be sure they did something worth bashing them _for_ before we start." Noah wasn't about to give Disney any slack:
1. ominous floating blue "power crystal" (perhaps the source of Atlantis' power?)
2. glowing blue pendant (perhaps linked to the bigger crystal)
3. robot (again, not clear at this point, bit of a stretch)
4. Atlantis nuke
Marc Hairston replied, "I've seen the trailer several times. . . never thought of it looking anything like Laputa. And I still don't. . . it's not like Miyazaki invented the concept of a magical crystal with tremendous powers within. The man is great, but don't give him *that* much credit. That's a longstanding motif in fantasy literature and films. . . The number of Disney animators who have seen anime/Miyazaki films is growing, but based on what my friend above has said, it's still a minority, I'd guess something like 10%"
*** New *** Visit Marc's Nadia/Atlantis page for intelligent discussion on the aforementioned topic.
Scott Ryan posted his translation of the Mononoke Hime book, circa 1993. It's quite different then what actually made it to the screen. AnimeOnDVD reported that the Princess Mononoke DVD's release date is now 12/19. No denial/confirmation from the Powers That Be.
This concludes our broadcast of MML Traffic, see you next week.
