| 1. | (13 posts) | All Publicity is Good Publicity, Right? |
| 2. | (10 posts) | Umm. . . Is Totoro Talk OK? |
| 3. | (10 posts) | Goshu the What? |
| 4. | (9 posts) | Mononoke Differences - US/Japan |
| 5. | (2 posts) | Mononoke Subtitle Accuracy |
| 6. | (6 posts) | Various Mononoke Reviews |
| 7. | (32 posts) | Insectopia (or, A Big Insect Discussion) |
We looked at 162 posts by 53 different contributors.
A virus running amok and the official release of the "Princess Mononoke" DVD, fun week!
Several reviews of the PM DVD floated about, but the posting by Steve Chiavo received the most attention, "Entertainment Weekly's year-end issue lists PM as the #6 video release of the year:
"Hayao Miyazaki's most ambitious work is to anime what Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is to the martial-arts genre: a baroque, self-conscious masterpiece."
Wendy Goldberg didn't see it the same way, "That doesn't sound like very good PR to me. It sounds like "If you liked this tiny genre, you'll love this other tiny genre" Good PR should try to find a larger audience for Princess Mononoke. . . "most ambitious" can often translate into "spectacular failure" (I've written these sorts of comments on student papers when I want to be kind)."
Bryon Lichtenhan wrote, "EW has had many good things to say about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It also won the People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, so perhaps comparing Mononoke to it is good PR after all."
Wendy replied, "I'm saying that it's not good "PR" because it doesn't reach a broad audience. I, for one, would not be moved by this comparison to rent Mononoke (if I didn't know what it was) since I have no clue as to what Crouching Tiger is"
Ryoko Toyama posted a link to the EW review.
Maria Noah posted a tiny little request, "I'm a very simple fan and just want to discuss the lifestyle and philosophical implications of Totoro. I humbly ask for guidance as to where I might find conversation more to the subject I was expecting to see."
Rebecca Ballad replied, "You can talk about Totoro all you like with me! ^_^
Totoro is my favorite film, and was the film that hooked me on Miyazaki's works and anime in general. . . There are not many films that can give me such a good feeling or cheer me up when I am feeling down as Totoro does. My daughters think that a Totoro lives in my parents' backyard (which has several acres of woods). I am inclined to believe them... I just wish I were still a little girl so I could see him too! ^_^
Scott Ryan then started a thread, "I invite you and the mailing list to explore favorite nuances and fleeting moments in Totoro that add so much to the experience. My favorite has to be when Satsuke goes crawling down the animal trail while looking for Mei at dusk and critters not previously seen in the movie scurry out of her way. It's sort of a hint that a forest is a different place by day and by night, and that there is a lot more happening in this forest than we actually get to see in the movie."
Maria wrote, "My favorite part is when Mei is chasing the Little white Totoro! It's so adorable how he seems to solidify the faster he runs!!!!
And the moment that clicked everything for me: WHen Professor Kusukabe and the girls reach Totoro's camphor tree with its accompanying Shinto shrine and they thank Totoro for spending time with Mei. I cried. :)
An offshoot from the previous thread, Scott Ryan wrote (in passing), "I just saw Goshu the Cellist for the first time last week and loved it. The setting is in the Japanese countryside, so scenery is similar to Totoro"
After a couple of "how" and "what is it" questions, Scott added, "A friend of mine translated it. I'll see if he's willing to donate the script to nausicaa.net. There is more info about this movie on the World Masterpiece Theater site. I can see why both Miyazaki and Takahata say they've been influenced by Miyazawa Kenji, and why he is so beloved in Japan. What a great story teller."
David Mankins wrote, "I think _Goshu the Cellist_ would be a marvellous film to show to students in a beginning music appreciation course and to any students being introduced to Beethoven's 6th Symphony. In it, you hear repeated performances, from the halting to the excellent, of various parts of Beethoven's symphony, in a context conducive to listening to the different approaches taken each time"
Ryoko Toyama noted that the DVD distributor is selling Goshu merchandise. The DVD has English subtitles (scroll down a few screens), but is coded Region 2.
A question is asked. An answer given. This is the Way of the Thead. That's the idea anyways. Larry Virden came away empty-handed, but more informed after asking, "Any good pointers to a general comparison between the Japanese and American releases of Princess Mononoke - by footage shown as well as dialog?"
Sandy Straubhaar added another level of questions, "What puzzles me are the teensy differences in footage -- especially the leper woman on the raft next to Kouroku, at the end. I _think_ she's entirely missing in the American version. . . Not to mention that Gaiman's dialogue is uncharacteristically dippy at that moment. . . another silly question on a possible continuity flaw (applicable to both versions). When San argues with Ashitaka toward the end, she mistakenly stabs him with the obsidian dagger. Then he hugs her. Wouldn't that drive the dagger further in? I mean, we know he has spectacular pain tolerance, but really??"
Chris Meadows answered the dialog question, "the original Japanese dialogue actually refers, I'm told, back to an old Japanese fable about a man whose beloved dog died, and he made flowers grow by sprinkling its ashes on the ground. . . So the English version _is_ correct, sort of--there just weren't lip movements to fit in "just like that guy whose dog died and he sprinkled its ashes on the ground"." Or the fact that nobody in the US has ever heard of that fable ^_^. Chris also wrote about the leper woman, "I recall seeing her there for a split second, face and hands unwrapped, looking down at her unmarked hands in wonderment. I was mildly disappointed and kind of surprised that more attention wasn't given to it in the film, but I'm glad that shot was there."
Andrew Osmond posed a possibility to the pain dilemma, "maybe a side-effect of the demon infection means he no longer feels pain at this advanced stage, at least in the areas of his body 'covered' by the mark. (Affecting the nervous system, perhaps?)"
Chris Wallace posted an anti-anti-Disney view, "Sorry to yell, but Disney is not operating in a vacuum here with free-reign to do whatever they want and I grow tired of those who continue to see nothing but nefarious intentions behind anything Disney does in relation to these films.
*Everything* has to go past SG/TS for approval. So the changes we saw in "Kiki" (like extra music) and whatever changes may have been made to "Mononoke" and "Laputa" and whatever changes that may yet to be made to the rest of the films were done with the consent and approval of SG/TS.
On a semi-related note, Hoan Pham asked, "I went ahead on compare it to the fansub I have bought earlier. I've found that the length of widescreen of the DVD version is a bit shorter than the fansub." Another case of being held down by The Man?
Nope, just a technical issue. Lee Johnson explained, "The image *will* be there, it's just that DVD players have a habit of over scanning pictures - which is, of course, better than under scan!"
After the battle to get the Japanese audio track on the DVD, "subtitles or dubtitles?" became the next sticking point. While true subtitles were confirmed in October, the "accuracy" remained unknown. Chris Meadows wondered, "I was wondering if anyone who knew Japanese and had a chance to watch the film had any opinions on how accurate a job they did with the subtitles?"
Tom Wilkes replied, "I thought they were mostly accurate. Stephen Alpert of Tokuma International, one of the two people credited with the subtitle translations, talks in his Mononoke production diary about some of the compromises that were made during the translation process; most of the compromises had to do with understandability and readability. . . The fansub translators, although closer than the Tokuma/Ghibli subtitle script to the original Japanese in such matters as names ("Hii-sama" vs. "Oracle", "Shishigami" vs. "Deer God", and so forth), ran into trouble in some parts of the movie where (in my opinion) they simply made up "something reasonable" for dialogue they did not understand."
Tom has an annotated English script on his site.
A wide swath of PM DVD reviews:
Insects! A good chunk of the threads revolved around those critters. It all started with Chris Wallace posting descriptions to each of the months in the 2001 Studio Ghibli Calendar (as reported last month). His comments about the "Nausicaa" page ("Nausicaa on mehve with Teto on her shoulder spinning her whistle with a insect behind her (the scene after the Torumekian transport with the Pejite Princess on it crashes" prompted Thys Visser to write, "Nope, nope, it is the wrong way round....according to my Nausicaä Perfect Collection Book 1 (p. 15 - 18) this scene describe the one where an Ohmu cases Master Yupa out of the forest."
Chris Meadows replied, "He didn't say an ohmu, he said an insect. So I expect it would be that dragonfly-like insect she had to guide back to the forest, one of those that brought the plane down." Thys jumped back with, "Again, nope, sorry, it is not a Dragonfly. I've seen the calender, and the December panel in discussion. . . The insect in discussion, is very clearly an Ohmu, easily regonizable to its carapace-interlaced shell and multicolored 8 eyes."
At this point Chris Wallace finally got his two cents in, "Please note that the images used in *all* the Studio Ghibli calendars are *not* reproductions of actual cels used in the actual movies (as per a post by Ryoko or someone some indeterminate time ago).
So it may be an Ohmu. It may be a dragonly. It may be a composite of the two. It may be something completely different. That is why I said "insect" and "think along the lines of the (x) scenes in the movie" cause that is what the scene portrayed reminded me of.
Any way ya slice it, it is a cool picture. Enjoy it as such. *grin*
Robin Casady added, "The insect-like creature in quested is a winged beast with sky showing below its body. It is definitely airborne -- not an Ohmu. Many (too many for an insect) insect-like legs are dangling from its body."
To calm the masses, Marc Gregory whipped up a comparison page with a picture of the calandar and a frame capture from the film.
That calmed everyone down and Thys posted, "there is a big difference between the pictures shown in the movie and in the books. My problem is that I've not yet seen the movie (it is yet to be shown here or to be available here. . . that is where the "confusion" comes from: my first impression upon seeing this December panel, is thinking: it must be an Ohmu which Nausicaä is turning/leading away (which I've all seen/read in the books). . . I totally agree: wrong picture or not, it is still a great picture to have on the almanac!"
After the calandar discussion ended, Scott mused, "What possible use could the ancients have had in mind to genetically engineer insects to gigantic proportions? For pollinating gigantic flowers?"
Andrew Osmond replied, "I think it's very possible that there's no answer beyond 'it seemed a good idea to Miyazaki at the time.' I don't know that he was concerned with building a rigourously worked-out ecosystem when he wrote the early chapters of Nausicaa. . . there's quite a handy all-purpose get-out suggested by Yupa in the second Perfect Collection (p12). He says, 'Old legends say that in the age before the Seven Days of Fire, (humans) had the skills to control the well-springs of life. . . Which, if you think about it, can 'explain' just about any bizarre Sea of Corruption lifeform you could care to invent!"
Things rolled along to environmental concerns. To a theory that fresh air is harmful to the insects, Bryon Lichtenhan replied, "I just figured that they had some kind of natural filter that allowed them to "evolve" in The Sea of Corruption. If indeed the fresh air was poison to them, how were the Ohmu able to attack, and the insects able to continue to attack the plane that crashed outside of the valley?"
Scott wrote, "Not as poisonous as miasma is to people, but when the insects leave the Sea of Corruption, they die. Nausicaa urges the Ohmu that chased Yupa to return to the forest for its own sake. . . Hmm. Upon reflection and review, maybe you're right. Nausicaa's plea to the ohmu to return could have had more to do with just defusing the situation than the ohmu's well being. After all, a baby ohmu did somehow find its way into the Valley of Wind AT LEAST once, and perhaps many times."
Andrew went to the source for details and posted, "Yupa says later (PC3, p34), that 'A long flight through air that has no miasma is quite an ordeal for insects.' The implication is that they can survive outside the Sea of Corruption, but not indefinitely. . . Re the baby ohmu in the valley - I presume Scott is referring to Nausicaa's dream. Personally, I'm not sure if that's a memory of an actual event in her childhood, or just symbolic..."
Yes, another thread shift! Scott tossed back, "I'm inclined to think it was a flashback. The other dreams we see in the story are Kushana's daydream of her mother drinking poisoned wine then saying good bye to her before leaving for the front. . . I assumed Nausicaa's flashback to childhood was Miyazaki's way of showing she had always understood insects, even before studying them, and that she was always a compassionate person. . . If it was supposed to be symbolic, what would you say it was supposed to mean?
Okay, clear the runway... Andrew's just been given the go signal. ^_^
Andrew didn't post one of his 250+ line monsters, but did get some points across, "Remember though, you also have Nausicaa's dream-encounters with the 'nothing that eats people,' which seems to reflect her guilt and anxieties. . . there's the brief sequence where Nausicaa dreams of seeing the baby ohmu in the valley AGAIN. . . In that case, the symbolic meaning is clear - it reflects her fear at being 'left behind' by the Ohmu as they sacrifice themselves for stupid humans. . . As I said before, I'm not sure if the _first_ 'baby ohmu in the valley' dream was a literal flashback or not."
He then took a stab at the symbolic meaning of the first dream, "What it said... revealing to Nausicaa the deep and eternal conflict between man and nature (you have the line 'Humans and insects cannot live together in the world.'). . . in the dream (manga version*), the valley people say 'As I feared... She (Nausicaa) has been posessed by insects.' (PC1, p127.) If this was a real event, would they be quite so relaxed about her teen fascination with the Sea of Corruption? Also, when Mito later tells Nausicaa 'You seem to be going ever deeper into the world of the great insects...' (p219) one might expect him to refer directly to the childhood incident, but he doesn't. No-one refers to it all, afaics."
Not enough insect talk for you? Joe Curzon posted a tidbit about why insects today aren't gigantic. That thread spilled into nanotechnology, (I'm not making this up) big gas sacks, and dragons
Chris Kuan noted that the Official Korean Nausicaa site is now active. Many people received their PM DVD. Scott Ryan posted links to (what he thinks) are Ashitaka's mount and Miyazaki's inspiration for the Horseclaws. Tom Wilkes and Co. posted a detailed English summary of the first videotape in the three-tape set, "The Making of Mononoke Hime". Russell Watanabe spotted plugs for some Studio Ghibli films in the LA Times. Best Buy has a pretty good deal for the PM DVD ($22.99), and Lee Johnson plugged Play247.com's £15.99 price. Derek Webster saw a poster for "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi", and Ryoko Toyama reported that the movie is being recorded in DD EX/DTS ES 6.1.
No issue next week. Reason? I'm heading to the Rose Bowl (and the accompanying 20 hour drive). Anyone have anime shop recommendations in the LA area? Thanks for reading and see you next year.