| 1. | (10 posts) | What is Nibariki? |
| 2. | (15 posts) | Al Gore and Matt Groening Like Mononoke |
| 3. | (9 posts) | Dubs vs. Subs - Again |
| 4. | (4 posts) | Where in the World is the Nausicaa Manga? |
| 5. | (4 posts) | Allegory of Assimilation |
We looked at 113 posts by 46 different contributors.
Interesting week, let's get it on!
James Culbertson asked, "Whenever I read about some sort of Totoro product being sold it always says Nibariki. What exactly is that? A sub company of Ghibli?"
After a few semi-complete replies (which is why you read the summary, right?), Ryoko Toyama wrote, "Nibariki is a company that manages Miyazaki-San's copyright. Since Totoro is an original story by Miyazaki-San, he (Nibariki) owns a right to it with other companies that were involved in the production."
Akito T explained the name, "It means 2 horsepower. And it also means a pet name of his cherished car : French CITROEN 2CV."
Enriko Casarosa remarked (referring to a thread last week), "Thinking about Nibariki and its connotation, I do feel a bit sad about Takahata San ... looks like the engine has only one cylinder now ..."
Ryoko added some more details about Nibariki and Takahata, "It is an office of Miyazaki-San, and Takahata-San has another office. Nibariki is named after 2CV, not after Miyazaki and Takahata.
Technically speaking, I don't think that Takahata-San could be called a "co-founder" of Ghibli, though he was deeply involved in the process of building Ghibli. (Ghibli is funded by Tokuma and Miyazaki-San.)
In the past, Takahata-San had a contract with Ghibli when they decide to make a film. Whether the next contract will be made or not is up to them.
Ghibli needs to keep making films because they hire animators, not contract out. In the past, that means either Miyazaki-San or Takahata-San *had* to direct, and since it is physically impossible for either of them to direct a film in consecutive years, they rotated each other.
However, young generations are coming up. Next two Ghibli films are not by Takahata nor Miyazaki. Takahata-San (or in that sense, Miyazaki-San) does not *have to* direct a film, unless he wants to do so.
My understanding is that Takahata-San is a kind of person who really takes a time (more time than Miyazaki-San does) to decide on his project. I read somewhere that it is rather tough to make him work, and he needs real push (usually from Mr. Suzuki and Miyazaki-San) to start a project. . . When Michael, Teo, and I went to Ghibli in Feb. this year, they said that there are some plans about Takahata-San's project, *but no concrete ones*.
Some fascinating tidbits from Andrew Osmond, "I went to Bristol for this year's 'Animated Encounters' festival. (My full report should be on awn.com next week.) Guest of honour was Matt Groening, creator of THE SIMPSONS and FUTURAMA, presenting his own favourite cartoons. No, they didn't include Miyazaki, but the event is more oriented to short animation anyway. Thanks to an organiser's generosity, I was invited to a small drinks party for Groening the following day. As well as getting an autograph, I was able to ask a couple of questions. The first was if there was a specific origin for Worker and Parasite (SIMPSONS fans should remember them!) The second was whether Groening had heard of Miyazaki.
Answer: Yes indeed, he and his sons loved MONONOKE, and screened it on their oversized home entertainment system. He also knew about SPIRITED AWAY, but hadn't been able to see it yet. (There wasn't time to check re other films, sorry!) He then added the following story: Groening and his kids had been having dinner with one Al Gore (yes, _that_ Al Gore.) Groening's sons were talking to Gore, and the Simpsons creator was worried that they were 'sassing' the man (Groening created Bart, remember). However, Gore then remarked, 'Well, your sons and I agree on what was the best film of the year.' Three guesses, everyone...
Looks like we can add a couple more names to the 'Famous Miyazaki Fan list.' That said, Groening expressed doubt whether 'Dubya' had a similar taste for MONONOKE, which I confess led me to wonder if the US president would be capable of _saying_ it.
Andrew's throwaway comment actually produced the most replies, I am not making this up. Yakko Hudson Saotome put forth, "I'd imagine he'd prolly pronounce it the same way as most members of the unwashed 'merican masses:
/Mono-no-key/
Clarissa Smith added, quot;The San Francisco International Film Festival exec who introduced 'Sen' pronounced Mononoke as "mono (like the disease) key". Crowd did not respond favorably."
The thread went downhill from this point and I'll spare you the details. However, it caused the formation of another thread. . .
After someone gave the opinion that the fate of Studio Ghibli films with Disney was "censorship and rewriting of scripts to suit the conversative American audience", Michael Kerpan wrote, "The Kiki dub was not politically censored, but was massaged into something much more like the other dopey New Age pap that Disney was dishing out (viz. Pocahontas). The moral and spiritual resonances of the original really got munched. (I know because one of my children did a shot-by-shot comparison of the dub, the sub, and the script translation -- it was a long and painful process, I assure you)."
Sharon Westfall replied, "The witch's/baker's/painter's blood got changed into spirit, and Jiji's personality got a total makeover, but other than that, I thought the moral jest of the story (Kiki's adventures and struggle to find confidence) remained in tact.
Line by line comparisons are always difficult to do, especially when dubbing to a different language. I remember watching a live action film (Das Boot?) and switching between the translation and close captioning, and being amazed that there were so many differences between them. Plus, wasn't Kiki's dub taken from another dub? The hot chocolate line and fat, fat, fat line seemed to indicate it was from the Macek Dub transcript and not a Japanese track transcript.
Michael remained unconvinced, The scope of the changes was surprising. There were lots of "little" changes that consistently pushed the meaning in a neo-disney-esque direction. And some chunks of dialog were completely moved around (and re-focused, shall one say) in the Kiki-Ursula section."
Stephen Kawamoto really disagreed with Sharon, "Kiki being dubbed into sugary pap for the kiddies is worse than Maczek's adaptation of three unrelated anime we know as Robotech." Somewhere, a gauntlet is being thrown down.
Deborah Goldsmith wrote, "Kiki is one of my favorite Miyazaki movies, and I did not feel the Disney dub changed the spirit of the movie significantly, with the notable exception of Jiji. And while I didn't care for Phil Hartman's performance, I felt even that didn't "ruin" the movie for me."
Jonathan Miller added, "There's something you seem to be forgetting here.
Kiki wasn't made for us, the anime fans. It was made for *children.* The idea behind the translation of the dub was to make it accessible for children and parents, not for anime fans. Once again, it was all approved by Studio Ghibli.
Honestly, what is more important to you, that the films remain unavailable, or that they become readilly available to the American public with not-perfect (but approved) translations? (With the reminder that more exact scripts *are* available on the net.) Those are your choices, because neither Tokuma nor Disney is in business to cater to just you and me--they're out to sell children's movies to, strangely enough, children.
Some Nausicaa manga thoughts from Dario, "Does anyone know whether the events in Nausicaa were supposed to take place in continental Europe. I think there's some evidence of that in the manga, as well as evidence that might suggest where certain other factions are supposed to have originated from. . . the map in the first volume (Pages 4 and 5) seems to resemble Western Europe, since this would be the only place where an "Inland Sea" (the Mediterranean) and an "Ocean of Salt" (the Atlantic) would meet. Also, maybe this is just me, but it almost looks like the Iberian Peninsula.
Also, are the Torumekians German? It would seem that way. In Volume 2, after witnessing the destruction of the Second Regiment of the Third Army, Kushana says: "I shall wreak revenge upon those who squandered the lives of the Empire's finest and left them to die like dogs! Watch ye from the Halls of Valhalla above that I keep my word!!" (Page 73) This reference to Teutonic and Norse mythology has very Germanic connotations. Also in Volume 2, after the Dorok hostages are freed by Kushana on Nausicaa's behalf, Charuka heads towards the fort held by the Torumekians and thanks them, asking them to surrender to avoid destroying the Dorok lands. After they refuse, he says to himself: "If they'd only surrender, we could avoid using the forest. But no one knows better than they do that the people will never forgive invaders." (Page 163). . .
As for the Doroks... for some reason I can't help but think that they are somehow meant to be descendents of Spaniards. For one thing, the names of the Doroks and Dorok principalities sound very Spanish, and some even resemble the names of Certain cities in Spain.
Miralupa and Charuka stand out. Also, in Volume 2, there is a map of the Dorok lands on Page 13, with cities with names like Shuwa, Sapata, Mani, Tatar. The Goss mountains might be the Pyrenees, I think... but again, this is just conjecture.
The people of Eftal seem to also be Europen, from what you can see of their crests (Page 85, 86) and also earlier on Pages 33 and 38 on the brig from Pejite carrying Rastel.
Also, the parts in the manga about ancient Eftal seem to point to Europe between Spain and Germany... like France and Italy.
Havel Ormaci replied, "It wouldn't be the first time that German words are used in combo with Japanese manga or anime for that matter. There is a fascination with some Japanese re: things Germanic (and I don't mean just Benz and BMW) like military weapons, some degree of obsession with the Axis past, and a great respect for the quality of Germanic products. . .
The Holy Emperor (Namulith) was most likely not Germanic though, rather, from the looks of it, Nausicaa seems to resemble a whole host of
European influences all mixed up as he had done so in previous works. You could assume that Namulith was trying to simply sway Kushana by using terms she might have much better reference too, the two serpents bound to destroying each other, and her reference to Valhalla may well be an indication that she is norse. Her armor does seem to have a hint of norse, viking like demeanour, so does her decor. . .
the first time I saw Nausicaa I wasn't aware that it was Japanese, I was more thinking that someone in Europe had created it, though there was no sample I could think of. Seeing the windmills and the valleys and fields I was reminded a lot of Holland. Though there was no damm, the country image, together with the fair haired folk that had a celtic look to it could have had me fooled. I also watched it a long time ago when I had zero knowledge of Japanese so I just made it all up in mind as I watched it as a child (that was well before I looked at the manga, which appeared less European in comparison.
We know Miyazaki was influenced by things European, Kiki is just as good an example as any other, and so is even Laputa, whose characters also look quite central European. Porco of course is too obvious.
My, who knows, could Miyazaki have been far more directly influenced by "Der Ring des Nibelungen" which 4 dramatic Operas by Wagner have some curious similarities to Nausicaa? The notion is the same in the Ring, that this world they know will be destroyed and is unavailable. It deals with greed for power and wealth, and a very perverse world order which at the time of Wagner was a popular and often agreed upon concept, parallels of todays world (today being relative of course) in a story placed, what may appear to be in the past.
Julio Gea-Banacloche posted, "I have thought about it for a long time, myself, but unfortunately I have ended up concluding that figuring out the geography of Nausicaa is about as hopeless as trying to figure out where Kiki's town is located.
The only solid piece of evidence is actually not in the manga itself, but in a map that Miyazaki drew for the poster enclosed in the third
volume of the Animage wideban edition. I don't believe this map has appeared in any of the English editions. It shows the Dorok lands and, to the north of them, the Sea of Corruption, and on the Sea of Corruption, in big kanji, it says "Asia."
So, if we are to believe this, since the Sea of Corruption is to the West of the Valley of Wind, it follows that the Valley of Wind is on
the *eastern* shores of Asia. But there is no shore on any real map that has Asia on the west and a "salty sea" to the East *and* an
"inland sea" to the southeast; unless we assume that in the centuries in between ours and Nausicaa's time, the lay of the land changed
considerably, through flooding or earthquakes or something like that.
As for the manga's internal evidence, I agree that, to me also, the Torumekians always looked kind of Aryans, and the reference to
Valhalla only added to that impression; but the Doroks looked more like central Asians to me, and the whole war had an (anachronistic)
flavor of "Teutonic Knights versus Mongol hordes."
In any case, the Nausicaa manga started out with many European-looking elements, but the second half felt much more distinctively Asian. There are no more references to a Valhalla; instead, Yupa speaks to Kushana of "the path of Asura", as if that was something she should naturally know about (Asura is a hindu demon which became known in the far East through Buddhism); Selm and Charuka also mention Asura, and Charuka clearly views salvation and damnation in Buddhist terms, when he thinks about Miralupa's karma.
In this context, I have to point out that the reference to a "Gotterdammerung" is a translator's interpolation, justifiable (maybe) but misleading. What Namulith tells Kushana in the original is simply "let us forge our own "tasogare" kingdom." "Tasogare" means "twilight" or dusk, also figuratively as in "the twilight years" (of one's life, for instance). Applied to the gods it would, indeed, mean Gotterdammerung, but Namulith does not use it explicitly in this way. Nausicaa herself, talking to Selm a little later, when she refuses his offer to join him in the forest, says "I will live out my life with the people in this "tasogare" world". . .
Finally, there is yet another strange bit, in the last volume, when Nausicaa is resting next to Ohma in the snow, and looking at one of
his big teeth, she notices some marks (a "trademark") in "the old world's writing". The "writing" is actually kanji and it reads "Tokyo" and something about manufacturing. So Ohma was "made in Japan", and since it was found buried in Pejitei we may conjecture that the two places were not all that far apart, which again would point to an all-Asian (far-Eastern) setting.
More Nausicaa manga thread action from Stephen Kawamoto, "I read http://www.comicbox.co.jp/e-nau/yoko.html.
Though Miyazaki claims no religious beliefs made it into his works, Nausicaa shows that his subconscious efforts were apparent to Yoko.
The enmity between Torumekia and Dorok people is a distraction from the truth that Nausicaa seems to have intuited: do not waste what you cannot consume.
When Nausicaa realizes that she may become her people's destroyers rather than their savior, in order to save her people, she destroys what could be the salvation of her people, thus saving them from total annihilation.
This is similar to the threat to indigenous peoples today, in that when they become civilized and eat as Westerners do, they become well-fed and die of diseases that never ravaged their people prior to modern life: diabetes, heart disease, cardio-vascular disease.
The Ainu Mushiri suffered the assimilation into what is now called Japan, to the point where they forgot their own traditions and culture except through anthropologists' notes -- this is the future of indigenous people worldwide.
Michael Wojcik replied, "This reading is not *completely* unlike the one I propose in [1], where I describe the manga (particularly in its last chapters) as antihumanist. (Note that's "antihumanist" - "opposed to the philosophical strain broadly called 'humanism' which arose during the European Enlightenment, holding human beings to be capable of perfection or continual and unending progress and establishing human beings and human activities as the overriding concern of future human endeavor", or something like that - not "anti-human". Andrew Osmond has also posted extensively on antihumanism in _Nausicaa_, eg in [2].)
However, I think that your statement above slips between two meanings of "[Nausicaa's] people". The eggs in the crypt were meant to be a new kind of human being. They never represented salvation for Nausicaa's "people" in the narrow sense of the inhabitants of the Valley, or even of any of the people alive in Nausicaa's time. The eggs only save "her people" in the very broad sense of the long-term survival of something she might recognize as human. Significantly, the Torumekian king does *not* consider the egg-people human. So the manga doesn't seem to equate the people Nausicaa is destroying with the ones she's saving, if you see what I mean.
We also disagree somewhat on Nausicaa's motivation. I see her as willfully acting to foreclose on the future of the human species (read broadly to include the egg people), on the grounds that there should be limits to how drastically humans ought to alter themselves and their environment. That's antihumanist. You see her as acting in the interests of her group's survival in its present form rather than for the long-term survival of humanity in whatever form. That's not a particularly antihumanist position. . .
I'd like to point out that there's a large, complex, and divided body of work by indigenous thinkers and others on responses to cultural difference, conflict, and assimilation; it's a complex topic that can't be usefully reduced to "assimilation is bad", I think. . . while assimilation may be "the future of indigenous people worldwide", I don't think that's certain quite yet. . . the idea of _Nausicaa_ as (in part) an allegory of the assimilation of indigenous people is an intriguing one, particularly when set next to the use of the Emishi in _Mononoke Hime_, and a comparison of the plight of the Emishi with that of the forest kami.
Andrew Osmond added, I think Nausicaa's speech suggests both motives. The essence of humanity (as with all life) is its capacity to change and evolve. Shuwa is opposed to change, therefore fighting it makes sense on both humanist and environmentalist views. Re the question of what's Nausicaa's most _fundamental_ concern - the future of humans, or the future of the planet - it seems impossible to tell. Maybe that's deliberate...
Michael Johnson almost forgot the 11th birthday of the MML and the 5th birthday of Nausicaa.net. Christopher Macdonald finds some more details on the spiffed-up DVD of "Grave of the Fireflies". Alvaro Suarez notes that "Sen" (or "El viaje de Chihiro") will make it to Spain in August. Marc Hairston notes that Viz will publish the "Spirited Away" film comics.
See you next week.