Singleton-Grave of the Fireflies

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Fireflies are seen as interesting insects because of their ability to glow up at night.  Even though they seem like pretty cool bugs, its sad to say that they only live for a short period of time.  In the anime Graves of the Fireflies, the two main characters are symbolic to the insects.  Seita and Setsuko are brother and sister that are caught up in World War II.  Although things were bad in Japan, like random air raids, they were able to handle themselves along with their mother.  However, this only lasted until the mother of the two children past away.  In the mist of all of this chaos, Seita immediately realized that he had to step up and become a little more mature for his sister.  He does this by trying to provide what he can for her while staying with their aunt.  Even though an aunt is not an immediate relative, they should show compassion and love towards their nephews and nieces, just like all other family members should. This has to be true especially if the aunt is the only family member available to take care of them.  However in the anime, that wasn’t the case.  The two children’s aunt was okay with looking after them at first, but when she found out her sister died, her behavior changed.  She started feeding them less food and verbally abuses them.  For example, she would call them lazy.  After getting fed up with her, the Seita decides to move out.  He and Setsuko moves into a cave like shelter.  Living by themselves, this gave them the aspect of immortality.  They had it mad for awhile, until getting food was hard to do.  They tried to make due of what they had and became creative.  In one scene, Seita actually tried to steal food from a farmer.  He failed miserably, but just the fact that he tried, showed how badly they needed food.  Food definitely became a must once Setsuko became ill.  Seita did everything he could for her, but in the end she died.  Unlike their mother’s death, the two children death was unique because they resembled the fireflies because they didn’t live long either.

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Singleton-Harp of Burma

           

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     Death is the termination of a person biological being.  Being around the present of Death, one can become very sad and have come into mourning.  Death is also very hard to come around when it is associated with a love one.  In the film Harp of Burma, death played a big part.  First, death was portrayed by the young soldier.  When he was sent away to go fight and didn’t return, his comrades thought that he died.  They accepted this belief until they saw him at a passage way.  They were all excited to see him, until he did the unexpected.  He walked right passed them and didn’t say not one word.  Although not physically dead, he was dead to them because he has found a greater purpose to do.  This relates to the reading because it showed a form of heroic suicide.  Even though he didn’t really kill himself, be still detached himself from earthly things in order to fulfill he’s mission to properly bury the corpuses of the other Japanese soldiers.  Also, the film is associated with one of the scenes form Iwo Jima.  In the scene, it presented death similar to that of Harp of Burma.  For examples the letters in the films.  Both letters where around in the present of passing away.  In the Harp of Burma, the letter explained why the soldier couldn’t live amongst his friends anymore.  However in Iwo Jima, the letter was a symbolism of hope towards the young American solider that died in the war.  Another way these two films were alike, was the tow deaths.  In Iwo Jima the captain committed suicide. Like the solider in the other film, his was also heroic.  The captain lost his eyesight due to the explosion that occurred.  To him, he became useless in the war and to his troops.  So instead of counting on, he shot himself with his rifle.  Even though the two deaths were different, they were still link because the spiritual dead young soilder also allowed his comrades to go on without him.  These two films were very good and really brought insight about death.

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Singleton-Gosh in the Shell

        

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    Of course we may have certain traits and characterizes in common, but there should still be something that separates us.  Your identities are the things that you connect with in this world and make it apart of you.  Also, the Main part of Identity is that it should be yours and yours alone.  However Akira, Perfect Blue, and Ghost in the Shell, were all perfect example that showed the opposite of what identity should be.  In Akira you had the government taking experimenting on little kids and turning them into monstrosities.  Then there’s Perfect Blue that questioned how much control we really have over our lives.  Last, Ghost in the Shell displayed how our identity can be easily removed from reality.  From watching these films, now I personally question what do we really control in our lives.  Also wonder if events that were showed in Akira are actually happening or will happen.  The internet also plays a big part of how identities can be manipulated.  Just like in Perfect Blue when Uchida took advantage of Mima’s hyper reality, individuals are doing that in our world.  Every day, people have the potential to pretend to be others and obtain their life.  From there, they can do whatever they want with it.  Ghost in the Shell kind of sort of had both elements in the movie.  In that world, individuals were either mostly human and part machine, or mostly machine and part human.  Either way, each were prone to getting hack by people such as the Puppet Master.  In this movie, a lot of manipulation over identity was really visible throughout the film.  Two scenes that I can remember is when the Puppet Master took control over the woman and the false life of the garbage man.  The garbage man story was interesting because this guy actually thought he had a wife and little girl.  Also he swore with is heart that he was in the process of getting a divorce.  After being captured by the police, his reality became unstable because the life he thought he was living wasn’t real.  He didn’t have any of those individuals in his life.

            Now that I have seen these films, I think everyone has some control of their lives.  However due to other social factor, I think we are influence to have something in our lives that’s not ours.  For example, as we discuss in class about nicknames and how people view us.  If everyone else is choosing names for us and telling us how we act or what we should act like, then are we really ourselves.

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Singleton-Vampire Hunter D

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Before the film screening on Wednesday, I have never seen Vampire Hunter D.  When it comes to supernatural creatures, I’m more of a werewolf type person.  So, I didn’t really know what to expect from a Vampire movie.  Growing up, I only saw few shows with vampires.  Usually the Vampires I know of are from cartoons, such as, Scooby Doo, Disney Channel, etc.  Since I have witness these productions, I knew the basic of vampires.  They had supernatural abilities, they hate garlic, they can’t stand sunlight, crosses, they didn’t have reflections, and some can turn into bats.  All of these facts are typical vampires.  However, their biggest feature is sucking blood.  I know this is well known to everyone, but in a lot of vampire movies, each uses blood sucking in a variety of ways.  When some vampires suck you blood, you might become hypnotized, some people die, some lose their energy, and others turn into vampire them elves.  Although I knew a huge amount about vampires, I still didn’t know what to expect from Vampire Hunter D.  As I entered the screening and the movie started playing, I was really into it.  There were many aspects of the movies that I liked about the movie.  The conflict and fighting scene were okay, but as the movie progress I started to feel my eyes get heavy.  Eventually I fell asleep towards the end of the movie.

            Vampire Hunter D wasn’t a horrible movie, but it just got boring and tiresome near the ending.  Everything just seemed too predictable and cliché us.  After watching the movie for about a good hour, I already figured out what was going to happen and how the movie was going to play out.  When I go see movies, I expect them to pick my brain as I try to figure out what is going on.  Although, there were a few things I did like about the movie.

            On thing that kept me entertain for awhile was Vampire Hunter D himself, I really appreciated his personality.  He had the whole I’m a loner type personality.  Typically characters with this type of personality stay in danger and can never find time to relax, or truly enjoy their life.  Also, I liked that he was a dhampir, because it showed how he really had conflicts within himself.  He personally chose to be a hero, but his vampire half shows its ugly head sometimes.  This shows how in order to defeat evil; you must have a little evil in yourself.  This really captured my attention.

            On the other hand, I didn’t like the westernization setting of the movie.  To me, this made the movie really dull and ridiculous.  Not only did they live in a western world, but they also had futuristic characteristics. For example, their horses and guns were all mechanicalized.  This was unacctrative to me because I like everything to connect with one another.

            In addition, this movie was very decent for the first time.  I probably will never watch it again, even if it’s to see the last 15 or 20 minutes I missed at the screening.  

Singleton-Perfect Blue

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One thing that I really enjoy doing is watching movies.  Movies are a very important hobby in my life.  One particular genre of movies that I enjoy watching are suspenseful or thriller movies.  So once I learned that Perfect Blue was a psychological thriller, I became exited.  The beginning of the movie was pretty dull, but it pick up as it continued.  An aspect of this movie that really sucked me in was the confusion in the anime.  At certain points in the movie, it very difficult to distinguish between what was reality and what was fake or an allusion.   Although it was confusing at some points, I was stilled enjoyed the film.  In class today, I favored the discussion we had about the film and how it relates today’s society.  For example, the use of the internet in the screening and Facebook.  I don’t use my Facebook that much anymore, but I never thought of how we create these profiles on websites to make a hyper reality or character for ourselves.  On the other hand, when I part take in these websites, it’s not to create something, but just to get connected to others.  But I guess in a way you can become something you’re not on social networks by inserting false or imaginary information about yourself.  Therefore, you are making a hyper reality.

            As far as the movie go, I felt that identity was really lost in this film.  Partially Mima, Uchida (Me-Mania), and Rumi .  While watching this movie,   I thought all three of these characters where all nut jobs.  Mima for starters, really got on my nervous in this film.  She disappointed me in this film because she allowed others to take control of her life.  Personally I felt that she didn’t really have a set identity, she didn’t even know who she was.  After becoming an actress/model, she started seeing an imaginary version of herself.  This really spooked her, and affected her mentally.  Even though see kept arguing with hallucination about who was the real Mima, she still wasn’t sure herself.  Another character that had an unstable personality was Uchida.  Similar to Mima, I also thought he lack a personality as well.  Also, as the movie shows, he didn’t even have a true purpose in life.  He was just really heavily obsessed with Mima.  As we point out in class, he had tunnel vision.  The movie reveals this by the placement of his hair, covering his left eye.  This is why sometimes I refer to him as one eye guy.  On a bigger note though, he was so caught up in Mima’s life, that he too was devastated when she changed careers.  As a result, because he really didn’t have a personality, he was able to be trick by hyper reality.  For example, once he created that website for Mima, Rumi started to use it and manipulate him.  He thought so highly of the pop star Mima that once he meet the  real one, he tried to rape and kill her, which he received from the pop star Mima (Rumi).  Last, Rumi was a little similar to Uchida.  She too wanted Mima to return to her innocent self.  At first Rumi seemed normal, but toward the end of the movie we find out that all the killings were because of her.  The killing were a way of getting back at the individuals who played a part what Mima has become.   In a way I find it funny because even though she felt other were also controlling Mima, she was doing the same thing as well.  Rumi unstable personality really shows at the end of the screening when the director shows Rumi dressed up as Mima.  This was a really big shocker to me.  I never knew that people can get caught up in others lives so much that you try to take them out and become them.  Another weird scene was when Rumi was in the mental institution looking at her reflection.  This was abnormal because Mima was the image shown in here reflection.

            Not only did the unstable personalities intrigue me, but the use of women in media.  From watching perfect blue, we can tell how society uses women in the media world.  As this relates to Mima, it was enough for whatever she was doing.  For example, once other found out how popular she was getting, they wanted to shift her role in life.  Also once he became an actress, that wasn’t enough either, she had to be a model.  This is also true in life today.  Once a talented woman shows her potential in on area, unless they want to, society tries to then sell whatever other talent that person has.  For example Beyonce, when she was discovered, she was a singer.  However, now not only do she sings but she also acts as well.  To be more extreme, some people may take a good looking singer and use her as a sex image for magazines.

            Last, the roles of celebrities are to basically entertain other people.  No matter what celebrities do, they are no doing it just for themselves because their audience places a big part in their career.  The public kind of chose how successful an individual gets.  Therefore, once individuals become celebrities, they become a type of product for the enjoyment of others.  Wheatear its acting, singing, modeling, etc, all of these skill are marketable and  controlled by society.

            Perfect Blue was a very entertaining movie.  It really got me to see how celebrities are use in our daily lives.  Now I wonder how many individuals in this business actually control their own lives.  I also wonder how far they will go to satisfy others before they lose themselves.

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Singleton-Botchan

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I thought both Botchan and Student Days were messed up films.  In Botchan, you have this teacher from Tokyo who moves to the west to teach kids.  Once he arrives there he’s welcomed by the faculty and gains respect for one of the math teachers.  As the film goes on, Botchan realizes that the students are very cruel and unfocused.  They harass him constantly and show no interest in their education.  Not only do they disrespect him in the classroom, but they also mistreat him outside the class.  One scene in particular where they annoyed him was when they were stopping on the floor above him as he was trying to go to sleep.  After living in the town for a while, the vice principle mentions that someone is probably manipulating the kids to do those things towards him.  With this piece of information, Botchan assumes that the other math teacher in controlling the kids.  Botchan confronts him and later learns that it’s not him, but it’s the vice principle whose advising the students to act the way they do.  Eventually, the two teachers spy on the vice principle and catches him talking about how he tries to get rid of the two.  Once hearing this, the teachers let him know that that are aware of his plan and that justice will be serve.  So, they start to fight him and his sidekick, who is nicknamed buffoon by Botchan.  At the end of the movie, the two teachers leave the town and go their separate ways.  In Student Days, this student tries to pass this exam in order to get accepted in to school.  After failing the first time, he tries to study harder so he can do really well.  As the movie goes on, a love interest is introduced in the film.  He really liked this girl and planned on proposing to her after he passed the exam.  Later, the film reveals that he has a younger brother who also plans on taking the test.  However, the younger brother is not as serious as the older one because he’s using the first exam as a practice run.  The older brother eventually gets annoyed by the younger one because he’s studying really hard, while the younger one is just carelessly over looking some information.  This causes the older brother to go study somewhere else.  While he’s gone, his love interest comes over looking for him.  Since he’s not there, she starts to spend time with the younger brother.  At first he doesn’t think anything of it because the younger brother knew how he felt for her.  After the exam, the older brother discovers that he failed again, but his brother past.  So, he goes home and catches his brother and the girl in the room together.  They were cuddling and he overheard his brother telling her that he wished that his older brother passed.  The girl reply back by saying the older brother wasn’t as smart as he was.  This makes the elder brother highly upset and he goes out to get drunk, and at the end of the film, he drowns himself.  Personally, I thought that the teachings and leanings in the two films weren’t present in the film.  In Botchan, the students were being too out of control and over whelming for Botchan to really teach them.  The students in this film really didn’t care about their education because they were too busy being control by the vice principle. In Student days, no one was teaching the students how to prepare for the exam.  The students were on their own and had to find their own method of studying. To me, it seemed that the eldest brother was the only character who was actually studying.  Everyone else was just going with the flow.  For example, the older brother’s friend didn’t study and failed the exam; however, the younger brother also didn’t study as much and still passed.  So, in both films education wasn’t heavily expressed in the two movies.  My high school experience was a little similar to Botchan.  Just like the students messed with Botchan, the students at my school did as well.  If any teacher was a push over, then they might as well be prepared to get targeted.  One teacher that I can remember was my sophomore adviser.  He was a biology teacher and a relatively nice guy.  The students took advantage of his kindness and did a lot of horrible things to him.  One thing I remember that they did was stealing the mouse off of the school computers in the classroom and on top of that, they stole his personal laptop.  He eventually quiet because he couldn’t handle his class.  I felt bad for the guy, but you had to be tough to teach at my school.

Singleton Kenneth-Ninja Scroll

             I know in class, we talked about how The Japanese not believing in all bad or all good.  Ninja Scroll showed elements of bad and good in the film.  The movie was about a samurai named Jubei. As we discussed in class, Jubei was like Robin Hood.  For example, in the beginning of the movie when one of the guys he was fighting laughed at him for only accepting twenty pieces of gold from a small village, even though his service was worth much more.  However, Jubei didn’t care because he knew that was all they were able to give. He was very reasonable with the poor and took what they could give him as payment. Jubei also established some morals and values for himself.  A few codes or morals that he followed are loyalty and respect.  The movie proved that he had loyalty by him completing and following through with the missions he took on.  He also showed his respectfulness by not having sex with the ninja girl, even though that would have got rid of his poison.  As the movie goes on, he gets caught up fighting against the eight Devils of Kimone. Each of the eight devils had a special power, for example the leader Gemma, was able to reincarnate himself and the Oni Tessai was able to solidify his body into rock form. 

           Symbols of rebellion in the film are the shogun of the dark in their plan to take over and regain power over the government from the Tokugawa who were currently in power, as well as Gamma and the devils of Kimone using the shogun of the dark to help defeat Tokugawa and create their own powerful reign of terror. 

          Another aspect of this film that captured my attention was the woman is the film.  Even though they might not have been as strong as men when it came down to fighting, they still had an edge over the guys. For example the ninja girl Kagero had a strong poison in her body that killed anyone who tried to have sexual contact with her. I think this showed how women could be a sort of powerful poison to society.

          This was a very great and interesting movie. It really got me to think of anime in a different light. Though this movie was very simple in style, it was good in presentation and content.