MML Traffic #59 for week 4 - July

By Lawrence Lin


Table Of Contents Mailing List Stats For This Week

We looked at 64 posts by 38 different contributors.

Introduction

    A not-too-busy week, but with some interesting threads.

1. Political Maneuvers

(3 posts): "Sen" on NNN Weekly Magazine

Deborah Goldsmith wrote, "KTSF in San Francisco carries Japanese programming on Saturday and Sunday nights, and they broadcast "NNN Weekly Magazine" every Sunday night. They had a minute or two on the opening of "Spirited Away." . . The only new item was Miyazaki posing for photos with a member of the Japanese government I didn't recognize. His name and title flashed by quickly, and my kanji was only good enough to recognize the character for "minister". He was an elderly gentleman."

Felix Wong added, "He is minister from the finance ministry, but I don't think he is the Finance Minister. . . He was there to see the movie with his grandchildren, I think."

Ryoko Toyama posted a funny tidbit, "He is Mr. Shiokawa, the Minister of Finance. He said that he loved the film, and was sad when the film ended because he wanted to be in the world a bit longer.

He is a popular character, since people cannot tell if he says such things as "Sorry, I don't remember" because he is a shrewd politician, or he is really senile. (No, I'm not joking.)"

2. Barbican Details

(4 posts): Barbican Dates

Joe Curzon posted an detailed schedule of the Barbican festival, now in handy table form on the Nausicaa.net 2001 Festivals page. After Chris Kuan wondered about some of the ratings, such as "12" for "Porco Rosso" instead of the "U" (Universal, like "G" in the US) given by the BBFC; Andrew Osmond wrote, "Checked with my Barbican contact; the certificates were given by the local authority, not the BBFC."

3. No Pants for Nausicaa

(9 posts): Nausicaa's outfit

Allan Lawlor wrote, "Some of my friends just saw Nausicaa, and they are CONVINCED she doesn't wear any pants. I showed them the Nausicaa.net FAQ, but that's not enough to convince them they saw something different."

Keith Andreano replied, "In the manga it's obvious, and in any good quality videos. I've heard that it's hard to tell in some poor quality videos, but no one in the anime clubs I've been in seriously thought she had no pants on. Maybe they are just teasing you! ^_^;"

A more tongue-in-cheek responce from David Mankins, "Here we see illustrated yet another of Nausicaa's amazing powers: she's able to keep those pants clean and white while wandering through the spore-spewing rotwood."

Derek Doyle added, "As usual, there's a perfectly good scientific explanation for these 'miracles' of hers. Clearly a major component of the purifying miasma is ammonia, a highly effective bleaching agent. :)"

Michael Wojcik chipped in, "Not amazing at all. The pants are made of a glazed, white, self-cleaning ceramic. They're a little stiff, but they never need ironing."

A slightly more disturbing angle from Keith, "I doubt ceramic pants would be very comphy, maybe they are just polyester with Scotch-Guard(tm)! ^_^;

Personally, I'd LIKE to see her without pants (I *am* a fanboy! :)

<drool>"

The FAQ now contains a picture of Nausicaa to illustrate the point.

4. The Obligatory "Sen" Thread

(10 posts in various threads): Sen related info, Sen related news, Sen release in HK?, Screen Daily and Screen International, New Sen review, Good start for Sen, cont'd, <No subject>

More "Sen" tidbits from around the world (wide web). Ryoko Toyama reported on the rush to theaters, "Toho says that more than 2 million people saw "Sen" in the first day, which is a record-breaking pace. Toho expects "Sen" to earn more than 20 billion yen (Mononoke earned 19 billion) and says that it might even break Titanic's record (26 billion yen).

Now, this is what the distributor says, and we all know that things sometimes don't turn out as we expected. We've seen many films that had a spectacular opening but went nowhere in the end (e.g., Pockemon in the US). Still, it is a good news."

Ryoko also posted, "The site of Famitsu, a game magazine, has several Sen related articles on-line. They are in Japanese, but some of the pictures are worth looking even if you don't understand the Japanese."

It also appears that "Sen" will appear in Hong Kong by the end of the year, "According to Houchi Shimbun, it is "almost certain" that "Sen to Chihiro" will be released in Hong Kong in November."

Andrew Osmond spotted Mark Schilling's review of "Sen" in the Japan Times (and a similar one in Screen International). Andrew also wrote, "The new issue of Screen International has an image from Spirited Away on the fromt cover, accompanying a story on the Japanese box-office. Written by Mark Schilling, the report confirms the film's opening four-day weekend gross as $15.8 million (1.9 billion yen) with 1,463,921 admissions. This is a new record for an opening in Japan, beating AI, The Phantom Menace, Mission Impossible 2 and The Lost World. . . Comparing the opening of Spirited Away with that for Mononoke, Schilling says the earlier film was bettered by 91.2% for admissions and 83.4% in terms of box-office gross. Schilling notes, however, that comparisons with Mononoke are tricky. Mononoke opened on 223 screens on 12th July, before the summer holiday; Spirited came out on 336 screens on the first weekend of the vacation."

Mike Arnold posted a brief synopsis of his experience.

Quickies

    Enriko posted a notice about his new "Sen" artwork. A petition to get the Japanese audio track on the European release of "Princess Mononoke". Yuk Tang noted some similarities between "Nausicaa" and "Final Fantasy 8". Andrew Osmond noted the (somewhat notorious) annual Animerica swimsuit issue. The Ghibli Museum is opening on October 1.

Conclusion

    Next week is a "fifth of the month" week, look for the next issue August 9th.

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