| 1. | (52 posts) | Why Disney in Japan? (and other issues) |
| 2. | (8 posts) | New "Castle in the Sky" Music |
| 3. | (20 posts) | Writing a Paper about Miyazaki/Ghibli |
| 4. | (6 posts) | UK Mononoke Rating |
| 5. | (9 posts) | Conan on Italian DVD - Remarks |
We looked at 136 posts by 52 different contributors.
Revisiting the Disney topic again. Proceed with caution!
The thread continues! Despite the length, it's much more quoteable. Let's start with Chris Collette, "I am curious about one thing, however. Disney being the mass distributor in Japan makes sense, but if they have no real plans to do releases outside Japan (and TS is indifferent about the matter), why should they continue to sit on the rights to them?. . . Is it a sort of stubborn mentality that's like "either the potentially best distributor gets the rights or no one gets it"?"
Chris Wallace replied, "It may very well be that Tokuma Shoten and Disney hoped that the desire and demand they had witnessed on Nausicaa.net, the Miyazaki Mailing List, and other anime-themed sites and lists represented a "decent" market (maybe 5-10 million copies of sell-through) which would have warranted their release in the United States. . . Disney may be waiting to see how well "Mononoke" sell-through does. If it is "strong" (however Disney defines that), then I expect "Castle" will go to DVD/VHS. . . the VP in charge of the deal at BV stated to myself, Michael Johnson, and Larry Green that the goal of BV in taking this deal was *not* to sell to us, the "rabid Ghibli fan". :-) It was to sell it to folks who think "cartoons are for children" and that elusive "teen market". Events seem to show that those markets are not ready to accept Ghibli films, yet. . . Disney can push these films successfully in that market (J/A) and TS may very well be content, for now, to make money there. Once Disney and TS have sold through that market, and have the profits in the coffer to afford a more aggressive plan to sell these films around the world, they will probably start pushing them."
Scott Ryan had another idea, "Why would Tokuma need to go to outsiders to do this? Also, why would the deal include movies that have already been readily available in Japan for years and years? With the exception of DVDs, which weren't part of the arrangement, the Japanese market is probably already saturated with most of the movies in the deal. I don't see why Disney would sign up to manufacture inventory they know in advance they'd have trouble unloading. I think the "cold feet" theory makes more sense."
Bruce Franklin replied, "I asked some Japanese about this and I'm basing this reply on what they told me. The main problem was that Tokuma wasn't doing a very good job marketing these films. Because of high prices (even by Japanese standards) a sell-through market barely existed. . . It was Disney's idea to create a sell-through market by pricing the films accordingly and actively promoting them. As has been noted by others, Disney has a long history of successly marketing products in this mannner. Since people had been renting instead of buying there was no market saturation problem. . . It also seems that they're preparing the market for DVD releases by pulling the VHS and LD versions. . . Disney isn't dragging their feet, they're pacing the market and letting demand build up again."
Chris replied (to Scott's message), "As I hypothesized, Tokuma Shoten may have wanted to take advantage of Disney's ability to market "to the faithful". I mean, you pretty much know a Disney film is going to do well in the US, yet they work very hard on marketing it anyway to ensure it does well. . . And yes, it does on the surface sound kind of silly. Your "cold feet" theory may very well be the correct one."
A slight detour from Thomas Bay, "What are they thinking!!!! All of my friends and me are in the age range of 15-23. Ever month we try to watch anima. I just had around 28 people crammed in my basement just this weekend to watch PM. . . What is BV thinking that they don't have a good foot hold in the "teen market"??? They would have a even larger following if they put out a movie more than once a year (as long as it's good)."
To which Chris wrote, "Did you and those same 28 folks see "Titan A.E."? And "The Iron Giant"? If you said "Yes!" then well-done. But note that a lot more folks in that age group did not, as both films still tanked something fierce at the general cinema. . . If "IG" and "T.A.E." had done well, I am sure we'd see the Ghibli films out there. But they did not, so we don't."
Chris Meadows added, "Let's hope, then, that Shrek, Atlantis, and Final Fantasy all do well. Perhaps they will cause Disney to rethink a few things."
Lee Johnson jumped back on the Disney thread with, "In retrospect i think that, yes, Disney bought the world wide rights to the films so no one else could. Not, however, because they feel these films are a threat to their reputation or because they feel they could make a huge profit from marketing these films world wide. . . By having the world wide rights to these films Disney can concentrate on releasing them in Japan without worrying that any other global releases are going to put sales in Japan under threat. . . So, yes, Disney bought the world wide rights to these films so no one else could - To protect their marketing plans in Japan."
Joe Monson disagreed, "It has been pointed out here before (multiple times) that **Tokuma** approached Disney about this deal, not the other way around. Therefore, I don't think Disney bought the (almost) worldwide home video distribution rights to the films simply to lock them away in a closet somewhere. That makes absolutely no financial sense. . . Disney would not spend that kind of money just to keep someone else from distributing the films. . . The distribution rights in Japan were part of the deal, so they didn't buy the worldwide rights to protect the Japanese rights. It was all part of the same deal."
Lee replied, "Okay, i guess i put my foot in my mouth. . . I guess disney got the ultimate "buy one get one free" deal... Anyway, i think from now on i'll adopt Miyazaki's apathetic towards all this marketing nonsense. It takes the fun out of everything."
Sharon Westfall commented, "So one might conclude, Disney got "suckered" into paying too much for the Ghibli collection? ^_^. . . Unfortunately, it's not fun, it's business. I feel very fortunate to have discovered Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's animation, cause obviously, mainstream discovery outside of Japan was not meant to be. When it was announced back in 1996 that Disney bought the worldwide distribution rights, I jumped for joy. Now I'm just tired.
The positive side to this...
The DVD's are coming out in Japan anyway. Because it's by BVHE, the prices are more reasonable, which is a good thing for the Japanese
consumers as well as us overseas export fans. Also, they seem to be coming out with at least an English subtitle on them.
Marc Hairson wrote about an overlooked issue, "no one has pointed out that Disney is actually in a bit of financial trouble. No, they're not going bankrupt, but they're also not the money machine they were in the 90s either. ABC (the network they own in the US) isn't doing well, they're scaling back their GO.Network online, have you seen how thin the selection of goods are at your local Disney Store lately?. . . When the top brass are nervous the folks at the level where the Ghibli films are being pushed may not have a lot of incentive to "push hard" for something that is is seen as a) "risky" and b) "not invented here". Simply getting "Castle" out to home video at this point is more than "a few pennies""
Bruce Franklin posted a related messsage on the failure of PM and the relative success of Kiki, "According to the insider I talked to the film *lost* money. The total take world-wide has not recovered the ten million dollar payment to Tokuma, the dubbing costs (with well paid talent), the distribution costs or the advertising costs from the attempt to take the film wide. . . By typical anime standards KIKI was major success. However, compared to the average Disney release it was only a modest one. By the best estimate I could get TLM2 has taken in five times as much as KIKI and it's still selling fast. Those are the kind of figures Disney is used to getting in their video releases and it's what they expect. If they thought Ghibli films were a cash machine LAPUTA would have been on the shelves long ago."
Bruce Jones was taken aback, "wowsers! I had no idea it was so much :">. Was that just to show Mononoke Hime in the theatre? If it was then I retract some of the stuff I've made in previous posts...I didn't think the exact amount had been made public yet."
This thread actually stared in the previous one, but it warrants it own header. It started with this from Ryoko Toyama, "PM was the *only* film that was required for Disney to release in theaters. Others were intended for video release from the beginning." This caused Bruce Jones to wonder, "Why did they go to expense of re-scoring Laputa then? There is no point of anything over a 2.0 stereo mix for a video release."
Chris Meadows replied, "The most likely explanation is that Disney was planning a *possible* theatrical release contingent on how well Mononoke did--and when it flopped, had to rethink their options. These companies are only (run by) human(s), after all; they have to start prepping for things well ahead of time."
Michael Johnson theorized, "If, by "they", you mean Disney/Buena Vista Home Entertainment, I suppose
that it could have been for one or more of these reasons:
* To bring the music up to date to bring it closer to current North American tastes.
* To add music to scenes without music, to make it compatible with current trends in North American attention deficit disorder. ^_^
* To make it possible for the film to be presented theatrically, if Disney should decide that it is profitable to do so.
* To tease us. ^_^
Ryoko confirmed Chris' suspicions, "After the relative success of Kiki's video release, Disney got ambitious and started looking into the *possibility* of theatrical release of Laputa. They had to do something about the sound mix anyway, and they decided to re-score Laputa with full orchestra. However, it was not because Disney was required to release Laputa in theaters, as in the case with Mononoke.
And under the current market conditions, it is unlikely that Laputa would be released in theaters. But it just means that it will be video released as it was planned in the first place.
I quoted a section from the "re-scoring Laputa" page on Nausicaa.net (Joe Hisaishi speaking), "According to Disney's staff, foreigners (non-Japanese) feel uncomfortable if there is no music for more than 3 minutes (laughs)." Of course, it turned out not to be the root cause, but it did reveal something interesting for Bruce Jones, "it's so true - I always twitch in my seat when there is no action on the screen or music playing."
After the revelation above, Lee Johnson posted some observations on music and film, "two recent examples of Disney films "Dinosaur" and "The Kid". I've seen both of these and, watching them after having learned of the re-scoring effort for Laputa, I watched with an eye (ear) for the music. The music (ambient background, or "mood", music) *does not* stop for more than 30 seconds in the 1hr20mins of "Dinosaur", and in "The Kid" the music is almost as constant. Normally this wouldn't bother me (or probably anyone), but because I was aware of it, it became very annoying. So, Michael's statement that "To add music to scenes without music, to make it compatible with current trends in North American attention deficit disorder." is probably the more accurate reasoning. "
The MML once again became an academic research ground when Weiwen Kung wrote, "i'm doing my film project on miyazaki films. We're supposed to choose a genre, so I just wanted to know if I could even consider his films as a genre at all. . . which films (i only have to choose four) would probably be best to support that."
Michael Rieper replied, "I know we all probably consider Miyazaki a genre in his own right, but you have your work cut out to establish him as a genre to someone unfamilar with his work. It would help if your professor knew him and his work before hand, but that is unlikely. . . I do think it is possible because many of his films contain the same themes, thus making them like a genre.
The way I attacked it was to concentrate on the common themes of: nature (Nausicaa, Totoro, Mononoke, Laputa), young females as heros (Nausicaa, Sheeta, San, Satsuki/Mei, Kiki, Fio), and the common styles of Miyazaki (flying scenes, detail in background, understatement, magic, etc.).
Things went a little haywire when Julio Gea-Banacloche posted, "How about "magic realism"?. . . It fits "Porco Rosso" (which I just watched; it's great), and probably also Totoro, and (stretching things a little) Kiki. "Whisper" is more pure realism, and Mononoke is more pure magic, but you can also include them as showing the boundaries of the genre. . . you could try and tie everything together as showing Miyazaki's evolution "From science fiction to magic realism" (and possibly, beyond that, to just straight magic, if "Sen" is an indication, but this may be getting out of hand already). This is assuming that Laputa fits in as a transitional piece, which I suspect it probably does."
Jesús Muñoz Escobedo didn't agree, "I don't think that Ghibli films can be classified as magic realism. Magic realism is about including fantastical or mythical elements.. but not too many, I'd say. . . Not all Ghibli films can be classified as this, because most of those worlds are "Fantasy worlds" (Laputa, Mononoke, Nausicaa, Kiki). "Porco" I think gets real close, but we accept so "easily" that he has a pig head that it kind of "loses" the magic (a key element in the narrative techinque discussed is that it must be a small-yet-decisive situation. If we had too many magical/fantastic events, it would turn into a fantasy novel)."
Michael Wojcik wrote, "MR, defined technically (rather than, say, regionally), can reasonably include works by authors as distant as Mark Helprin, Salman Rushdie, and TAWADA Yoko. . . What distinguishes MR from other fantasy modes is that realism isn't subordinated to fantasy; the fantastic elements may add color and serve as plot devices, but the overall unfolding of events is constrained by reality.
Rather than "Miyazaki-style magic realism", which strikes me as a term of convenience rather than a description, perhaps Weiwen Kung might want to define, say, "Ghiblish films" as a genre (or as a sub-genre of something broader, like SF/fantasy cartoon animation), including the Ghibli films and other work by Miyazaki and Takahata. Some high-level description of all or most of the feature-length films would probably be called for, but it could be relatively brief, followed by focussing on four.
I haven't seen _PR_. _Kiki's_ I could see as MR; what's important is Kiki growing up. Flying is contingent to the story, not necessary. _Totoro_, on the other hand, I would consider not MR but marchen (a fairy tale). It's all about magic, with realistic elements as setting.
Nausicaa_, in the SF manner, offers explanations for various fantasy elements, including its setting in the far future. _Totoro_ relies pretty much exclusively on the "special access" explanation popular with modern fairy tales: there's a numinous world "below the surface" of the modern world, so to speak, and children (or some other group) have special access to it. . . I can't comment on _PR_ (is it basically a beast fable? that would weigh for decreasing analysis but against increasing wonder, since beast fables are understood as metaphorical). . . _Mononoke_ is historical fantasy; like in _Nausicaa_, its fantastic elements are pervasive and there is actually quite a lot of analysis of them, which would seem to buck the trend. . . I think _Mononoke_ isn't completely inconsistent with the pattern, but it could certainly be argued that in it Miyazaki synthesizes aspects of both the earlier and the later films. . . _Sen_ looks like it will be marchen again, but this time without the special access device - Chihiro's parents get caught in it too. It's the wonder of _Totoro_ with the pervasiveness (and malignancy) of _Mononoke_. It seems to fit too.
Julio replied, "this would not have occurred to me at all if I hadn't just seen Porco Rosso. I mean, there is this totally surreal feeling about this guy with a pig's head walking around the streets of Milan in his trenchcoat...and everybody seems to accept it as normal, and everything else in the story feels really quite realistic. . . As I said above, there is plenty of wonder, but not from the magical element itself. Porco's face does function as a rather obvious metaphor, though."
Michael wrote back, "_Mononoke_ was widely identified by critics and audiences as topical, if only metaphorically; look how often it gets called an "eco-fable". So there's a sense in the audience that it too "brings the wonder home", even despite its setting. And _Sen_ seems like it will largely focus on this dichotomy between the world of the mundane (home) and the world of the supernatural (wonder). . . from your description it sounds like the standard beast fable mechanism, with anthropomorphic animals or animal-form humans serving essentially as human characters, their animal characteristics simply symbolizing character traits.
To return to the original question, it's interesting to look at the range of traditional genres Miyazaki's movies cover: SF (_Nausicaa_, _Laputa_), Bildungsroman (_Kiki_), Marchen / fairy tale (_Totoro_, _Sen_), beast fable (_Porco_), historical fantasy (_Mononoke_). . . I think there are similarities of sentiment through all of them, particularly a sense that personal growth and/or redemption comes from
opening yourself to the complexity and wonder of the world, and that achieving your potential comes, paradoxically, from learning something about your limitations. Or is that too glib?
David Mankins jumped in with, "I don't think it is a standard beast fable. . . The film is populated by *humans*. Marco/Porco has an unexplained curse that has turned him into a pig. Gina wonders aloud how to lift his curse, once or twice characters catch a glimpse of him in human form. . . Of all the Ghibli films, I would say that _Porco Rosso_ is one that is most clearly an example of magical realism (rivalled only by _Kiki_)."
Julio replied (to Michael), "It *sounds* a little too glib, but I think it could be rephrased into something I would agree with. Definitely, accepting that you cannot do it all alone, and accepting the help--and the love--from others who are actually there for you, is an important part of it. . . It is pretty obvious that Kiki's magic is meant to be, at that point, a metaphor for talent, for the creative ability; it is explicitly placed side by side with Ursula's artistic talent, and both are acknowledged as being equally mysterious gifts. And Ursula's painting is meant to infuse us with the same sense of wonder as Kiki's "real" magic, and somehow it does."
Andrew Osmond posted a whopper of a message, which I'll reduce to his suggestion ^_^, "When it comes to tying Miyazaki (not Ghibli) films together, I found another entry in the Encyclopedia of Fantasy interesting. This is what the EOF says about 'Story.' The writer, once again, is John Clute.
'Part of the definition of fantasy is that its protagonists tend to know
they are in a Story of some sort, even if at first they do not know
which one; at moments of recognition they find out just which Story it
is that has, in some sense, dictated them. It would of course be
injudiciously restrictive to claim that all fantasy texts convey a sense
that their protagonists are under control of an already-existing
Story... it is, however, the case, that the protagonists of many fantasy
texts are explicitly aware they are acting out a tale. [Clute quotes
Brian Wicker's book The Story-Shaped world.] The job of a fairytale
[says Wicker] is to show that Why? questions cannot be answered except
in one way; by telling stories. The story does not contain the answer,
it is the answer.'
I'm cautious about extending this idea too far, but I think it brings out interesting connections between many Miyazaki works, and not just his Ghibli films.
Weiwen (remember him? he original poster?) decided on another path, "wow, thanks for all the responses ^_^ . I've been doing a little research myself and I thought maybe I could run some of it by you all. It seems that a lot of anime in general follows a "Hero's Journey" type of structure, and Miyazaki's films follow it as well, more or less. It's only a generic (and immensely simplified) outline so it can be very flexible in its interpretation and progression depending on the individual story. I think it's possible to apply this to the films I've watched (Mononoke, Nausicaa, Kiki, Totoro) EXCEPT for Totoro....does it seem possible to anyone else? if so, PLEASE TELL ME."
David pared down the list to it's titles:
..."Hero's Journey":
"Ordinary World"
"Call To Adventure"
"Crossing the Threshold"
"Special World"
"Approach to the Inmost Cave"
"Ordeal"
"Reward"
"Road Back"
"Resurrection"
"Return with the Elixer"
Chris Meadows chipped in, "It seems to me that the formula could apply to Totoro, as well. It's just that the "trials" are milder. In fact, it would seem like you could almost do a "compare and contrast" paper on it. I seem to recall that Miyazaki himself has said somewhere that the story was about them visiting a fantasy world, but having to return from it, for if they had stayed in the world of Totoro they might have gotten stuck and not been able to go back."
Marc Hairston wrote, "the list that Kung gave is the outline of stories given by Joseph Campbell in his classic book "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and, yes, it basically applies more or less to *all* stories and myths. I'm back (and still recovering from) A-Kon this weekend. . . one of the talks there was Crispin Freeman (the VA who played Tylor in "Irresponsible Captain Tylor" and Touga in "Utena") talking about anime and the "Hero With a 1000 Faces". You can see a short blurb about the talk. . . Anyway he showed a video where he'd cut snippets of Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell with excepts from various anime which provided examples of what Campbell was saying. He used Nausicaa a couple of times and Totoro a couple of times. . . *last* weekend I was in Houston and saw the Smithsonian's travelling exhibit of Star Wars and Mythology where they went step by step through Campbell's stages showing where each occurs in the Star Wars saga. . . Seriously, it sounds like Kung has made a good start and I'd urge anyone else who's interested to look up either Campbell's book or watch the videos of Moyers' interviews with him."
Michael finished off the thread with, "I think "*all* stories" is probably too broad (I could pull two dozen works of fiction of my shelves that don't fit into Campbell's system without a great deal of forcing), but it is indeed generally applicable to many narratives. Perhaps too generally; for my money, Campbell was just generalizing and popularizing work done more rigorously by various structuralist narrative theorists. . . That said, I think it's a perfectly reasonable vehicle for discussing Miyazaki's movies. . . I think it might be interesting to augment it with some of the older, more specialized work, though. I know at least one of Jack Zipes' books has a very readable explanation of Propp's system; it would be interesting to look at Miyazaki's plots (particularly the more Marchen-line ones, such as _Totoro_ and _Mononoke_) in those terms."
Andrew Osmond posted a number of news items, the biggest discussion maker was, "The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is reportedly inclined to give Mononoke an '18' certificate, meaning only suitable for 18s-and-over. Before the storm starts, this opinion may well be revised before the tape is released."
Well, the storm began almost immeditaly. Lee Johnson wrote, "For the Americans, that's equivalent to an NC-17 rating. I'm not surprised. I doubt there will be any uproar from anime fans, although those who have seen the film already may want to defend it (personally i think it is a bit steep, but the alternative would be required cuts by the BBFC, which would be even worse IMO)."
Mark Yates added, ""18" ? as others have touched on - this is somewhere between a 17 and a NC17. . . a 18 in the UK is not "box-office death" - many, strong subject matter / violent films that get 17's in america get 18's here. And there's no stigma attatched to this certificate (such as some cinemas / video chains not showing films of this certificate).
But "18"? This is completely unbelievable. The violence is never gratuitous(sp?) - there's no sex, no drug use, no nudity. For a film such as "Starship Troopers" - a film crammed full of violence - some of it very gory and shocking to get a "15" at the cinema (all be it for it to be revised upwards on video) - to be deemed less disturbing than Mononoke!!!!!????!!!
I'm flabbergasted!!!!!! This film should be a "12" - almost equivalent to a PG13 in the US. . . To give it a 18 will make audiences think it's another Urostokidoji (sp?) or something!!!
Heyadol wrote, "Did I miss the Ashitaka/San sex scene or something? NC-17 is reserved for extreme violence and soft core porn (excessive gratuitous nudity), and most of those movies make the appropriate cuts or just go unrated and straight to video. Mononoke is less violent than NGE and that show was rated PG in the UK! I agree that it's better than cutting it too a lower rating (and none of this affects me anyway since I'm in America) but that rating sure seems excessive."
Lee reasoned out the possible rating, "Don't be too shocked. Remember, although the violence is never gratuitous and is animated it *does* involve animals - a big dislike by the BBFC. The opening 5 minutes are more than enough to warrant a 15 cert. . . I was taken aback on first viewing by the strength of the violence, but after watching the film i understood that it plays an integral part of the story. . . The BBFC impose much tighter certificates on video releases than on theatrical releases - they have to, the potential for an under age audience to see the film is much much higher. . . You never ever see *blood soaked* violence in 12 rated films, and it is not very common in 15 rated films (remember, video releases)."
Andrew's message contained another big piece of news, but it received much less attention, "SPIRITED AWAY is the official English title of the new Miyazaki film."
Stefano Marone posted about the Italian DVDs of "Future Boy Conan", "remember: only original soundtrack and the almostcomical italian dub... no subs. That's limits the market...
About the dub... it's funny how we now "quarrel" about dubbing subtleties and finesses... in the first 80's in Italy "Japanese cartoons" were a hit, and flooded the market on the TVs ( with all the polemics about japanesecartoonsallbloodandviolenceandsexanddiseducativeallmadbycomputers)... the flood made quick and low costs dubbings a necessity.For Conan I think that there are no more than ten voice actors in all the cartoon, holding amain character and many lesser each ;)
Chris Meadows replied, "Of course, number or lack thereof of voice actors is not necessarily a limiter of quality. The English dub of Famous Detective Holmes, "Sherlock Hound," had only four voice actors (three male, one female), and it's probably one of the best English dubs I've ever seen."
Lee Johnson added, "Maybe, but I defy you to find Conan anywhere, with original Japanese language, on DVD and for £48.47p for the complete series. . . I love the italian theme tune. Have to admit that i chuckled though - great catchy cheerful sounding theme tune runs atop images of the earth being completely obliterated."
Francesca Ferrario wrote, "I think that the voice that dubbed Conan in the tv series was brilliant, sexy and evocative (for being a 12 years old). And I quite liked the music too, if you don't mind me saying. yes, maybe the other characters weren't so good, but I don't think it's the case of being so snobbish about it."
Stefano wrote back, "If I were snobbish I wouldn't have bought the whole series. :) I was just merely merrily joking. ;) Tell me that Lebka had a nice voice ( I really think he was dubbed by a girl) and that all Indastria's scientists and soldiers doesn't sound like dubbed by the same two guys pinching on their nose..."
Stefano posted an online store that carries the DVDs, then followed that up with, "Just for all the British people reading, before the choke,I wished to state that the £ sign meant ITL (Italian Liras), not British Pounds ;)"
Work at Studio Ghibli! (sort of). Mike Arnold posted the final part of his translation of a SAITOU Minako book. The Mononoke Symphonic Suite Giveaway is complete. Chris Collette posted the tracklist for the "Grave of the Fireflies" Image Album; Deborah Goldsmith made an English translation. Fukumoto Atsushi noted that all of the Studio Ghibli ekonte (storyboards) are being republished. Larry Greenfield's brush with Miyazaki. A picture of Miyazaki's car, courtasy of Michael Johnson.
Finals are over, yippie! Expect issues in June to be released on Friday. See you next week!
