See, I don't even think that stuff is very good. Spirited Away is undeniably beautiful, but I don't think it's a very interesting story.
*blinks* are you kidding?
i don't think i've ever seen a more lucid, haunting, and downright moving exploration of Buddhist ideas of karma, compassion, suffering, and reincarnation on film in my life. it's everything a fable should be: accessible to children, but not too dumb for adults, and profound without being overly didactic and condescending. it's also one of the first kids movies i've ever seen where the protagonist gets ahead by being responsible, respectful, mature, hardworking, and kind.
on top of all that, it's gorgeous.
it's a fucking masterpiece of moviemaking in general, much less Japanese animated moviemaking.
as far as the others go, Akira is just titanic. teenage angst blown up into Japanese monster movie scale with weird pop sci-fi goodness. it's like some kind of New Agey Carrie meets Godzilla on the set of Blade Runner. Ghost in the Shell is, i will admit, kind of basic cyberpunk stuff, but done well. Big O is, if nothing else, a very stylish Batman parody, with the strange juxtaposition of all this surreal quasi-PoMo babble about memory and identity with ludicrous giant robot battles.
and FLCL is just perfect. it's the most joycore thing in the world. it's being a teenager in all its bizarre glory, when nothing makes sense and the girl you're in love with might as well be an alien for all that she makes sense to you. it's odd and funny and heartbreaking and downright brilliant.
There's too many things in this world for me to get into, I don't think it's worth the effort to dig around for worthwhile manga/anime. It seems like a rather needle-in-haystack sort of thing right now.
i've had enough good experiences to convince me that it's worthwhile. presuming i go to Comic-Con i want to spend time talking to the people at the Tokyopop booth a lot this year to see if they can point me in the right direction.
Dudes, it's a *movie*. There's a film, TV and theatre forum just over there. You can opine like your wuffly lives depended on it.
in my (admittedly limited) experience, manga and anime seem a lot more interdependent than American comics and animation, and most manga fans are anime fans and vice versa.
maybe that's part of the experience that draws in more of the youth crowd. it's more of a truly multimedia thing, where the transitions between Shonen Jump and Toonami and cards and video games are more seamless, or at least they seem that way. i don't think kids growing up now tend to think in such rigid categories, and the fluidity of Japanese pop culture across media might appeal to them because of that. |
