Miyazaki Movies

Miyazaki Movies

Alright, after my last review of Princess Mononoke flowed so well I’ve decided to do a chain review of Miyazaki movies. Almost all of his movies are top-notch five out of five star material, but I’ll even try to watch the ones that don’t really interest me (I’m talking to you Porco Rosso). The list will include:
11. Lupin III

10. Castle in the Sky

9. Porco Rosso

8. Howl's Moving Castle

7. Whisper of the Heart

6. Kiki's Delivery Service

5. Ponyo

4. Princess Mononoke

3. Totoro

2. Nausicaa

1. Spirited Away
I look forward to using this as a chance to learn more and appreciate more about this amazing anime creator.

(Image taken from www.miyazakimania.com)

Funny Pic O' the Week

Image Taken From http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=65641

Princess Mononoke Review

Princess Mononoke, where do I begin? This is a movie produced by Studio Ghibli, and created by the most immaculate of anime and manga creators, Hayao Miyazaki. Princess Mononoke is a beautiful two hour movie about a man who is cursed, and though he cannot change his destiny, he can rise to meet it.

It’s set in a place where gods and demons still roam the deep, lush forests of earth, their forms being extremely large and intelligent animals. The gods have the ability to speak and communicate with humans, however they rarely meet one worth talking to.

That is until Ashitaka, one of the main characters, ventures into their forest. On average this forest is impossible to pass, but Ashitaka asks the forest spirits to help guide his dangerous travel and they do not let him down. After Ashitaka miraculously emerges from the woods he encounters a human civilization called Iron Town.

Iron Town is best known for, you guessed it, the iron it produces. Other villages are jealous of the profit made by this town and try to take it for themselves, but with both the men and women of iron town fighting them off it is basically impossible. There is however, like in most progressive situations, a catch to this Industrial long striding.

Sadly, it’s that the environment must suffer for humanities’ progress. The gods of the forest are not happy with the situation, as the iron that the town needs to mine is located underneath the forest, thus the trees and plants must be uprooted and the woods destroyed, all for the sake of the industry. They decide the only way to protect the forest is to go to war, humans are too stupid to talk to rationally with something as important as the future of the woods and the natural world. They fight it out, and at first the gods are doing well. But then the leader of Iron Town, Lady Eboshi, emerges onto the screen, equipped with guns. When fighting a group of people… weapons help. Lady Eboshi drives them off and the forest is safe to destroy once more.

The most beautiful aspect of this anime is that there is no good side and bad side. There never is in a Miyazaki movie. You couldn’t possibly make this a black and white situation whether you’re naturally on the human side of the forest’s side.

For instance, you may hate Lady Eboshi for killing the forest, but it is hard not to have a deep respect for her when you learn she hires brothel girls for her iron company so they no longer have to sell themselves to get by, and that she cleaned, bandaged, and employed lepers to design her guns when no one else would even make eye contact with the people for fear of catching their disease. She’s a great and strong leader, but she cares more for her people than the environment. Then there’s Moro, she’s the main god in this particular forest.

She’s a huge white wolf with strong protective qualities and a dangerous personality. It is her self assigned duty towards the forest to protect and fight for it when it needs her. She could kill a human easily and often threatens Ashitaka. It wouldn’t be that hard to hate her, then you learn about the human child she’s raised since it was just a baby.

Moro came across a human couple and they were stricken with terror at the sight of her, they left their baby behind as a distraction while they ran for their lives. Moro felt sympathy for the child and raised her as her own, she raised her as a wolf. The baby, now adult’s, name is San Mononoke, and with Ashitaka she is the link between the natural world and the world that human’s have created.

This movie contains some of the most beautiful art work I have ever seen, a feat which Miyazaki throws at his viewers time and time again with every movie. The landscape is breathtaking and realistic. Whether you grade this movie for emotion, music, plot, or artwork, this movie deserves five out of five stars.

(Images taken from freewebs.com)

Red Ring Of Death?

I got an Xbox 360 for one reason and one reason only, OBLIVION! An RPG (role playing game) with drop dead graphics and sound effects to boot. I made an awesome character with twenty two levels on him (that’s amazing). Eventually I beat the unbeatable game. Everything was perfect, until disaster struck.

I started playing Gears of War when Cody told me about this rumor going around called the three red rings of death. It supposedly killed you or something. I shrugged it off, like I did with Baby Blue and Bloody Marry; it couldn’t have been real, I mean millions of people have Xbox’s and I haven’t heard about it yet. Yet.

Cody left later that night. I continued playing. Every time I think about it I wonder what would had happened had I not continued playing. Maybe it would just prolong the inevitable or maybe it would have stopped it completely. Either way I did it, there’s no looking back from here on.

My room was dark; the walls flickered with colors from the television screen. The open window brought in a cool night breeze laced with the eerie cries of the lurking night. My heart was racing as my character sprinted from the danger to the safety of a group. Suddenly, right as my heart was at the brink of explosion, my Xbox broke down. Metallic noises, like metal hammering metal and rusty iron nails sliding down a chalkboard, filled my room. I was about to shout, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. Red light now flooded my room and shadows of trees danced on my wall with a solemn beauty; my trusted Xbox had crossed to the dark-side.

I quickly evacuated my room wondering if the chick from The Ring was going to crawl out of my television. After semi-regaining my sanity, I bravely walked back into the fray. Alas it was no hallucination, my Xbox was still possessed. Taking great caution I stepped lightly toward the danger.

I unplugged it with a heavy heart, the red rings didn’t kill you; it was worse then that. They killed your 360. After a paranoid night I woke and told my dad expecting to be blamed for the monstrosity, but I was relieved to see he was completely cool about it. It had a warranty. I could always get a new Xbox. But sadly along with my 360 died the many saved characters, and to this day I remember their bravery on the front line of an ongoing virtual battle. The battle of good, and evil.

(Image taken from http://www.stuffwelike.com/stuffwelike/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/red-ring-of-death.jpg)

Represent

OMGWTF! OBAMA MUST BE A TERRORIST!!!
Okay dudes, are you serious? He was trying to be polite to the Japanese Emperor; bowing is a common custom in Japan, as most of you know. So don’t go thinking that the president of America is not on our side. My only critiques on the matter are that, as a member of equal, if not more power, he probably shouldn’t bow so low. Add within the awkward hand shake and you have a major ice-builder. However, you have got to cut him a little slack; he’s a gaijin (foreigner to Japan), and most likely not an Otaku, you can’t blame him for being a little unfamiliar with the culture and it’s salutations.

DISNEY ABDUCTS NARUTO!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just when you thought Naruto couldn't have gotten any worse you are proved to be oh so very wrong!!! Disney XD (and that is not a smiley face people!) has bought the rights to Naruto Shippuden and is airing it on their channel! Don't believe me? Check out this link, but be forwarned it leads to a site of massive propaganda from the greedy fat cats living off of your childrens narrow attention span and junk food eating, television watching habbits!!! Here is the evidence of this terrible terrible crime.
Which leads me to a rant, I absolutely hate Disney.

They slaughtered the deep and beautiful Miyazaki manga, Nausicca and The Valley of The Wind, and replaced it with the bare bones of the story line. You know what? They didn't even use the bones, more like a wax sculpture depicting the ashes of the bones that they lit on fire. Disney destroys every single thing it sinks it talons into, if they didn't originally write the story line than that which is copied is a plot which is ruined.

However, this deal between Disney and the producers of Naruto is going to stab them in the back, my japanese sources tell me that even after the release of Naruto Shippuden (the characters are all like three years older... yay) the television show has continued to lose steam. I am pretty confident that it will take the same path in the United States as it did in japan. So revel in the sweet sweet revenge Otaku, hopefully Disney will just leave anime the Hell alone.

Oh gosh, its a naruto review.

Alright guys, time for a Naruto review.

Naruto is one of those anime that you either really love or really hate. The story starts off in a village called Konoha, where the main character Naruto was born and raised. This town is built like feudal Japan, with lanterns, horses and buggies, and for some reason I’ve noticed TV’s in the background…

The development of objects is pretty trippy, because a light bulb obviously had to be invented before the TV, but that’s not what this anime is about. This anime is about a 12 year old ninja-in-training named Naruto.

I’m not going to lie to you guys, Naruto is annoying as hell. He says what he feels like no matter whose feeling he may hurt, he pouts and whines about difficult assignments, and he almost always rushes into battle without thinking.

He’s probably my least favorite character in the entire anime, including the multiple villains. Naruto’s only redeeming trait is the giant malicious fox demon sealed away inside of him, granting him some pretty awesome chakra strength. Speaking of which, chakra is what the ninja in this anime use to perform super awesome tricks like controlling the environment around them, cloning themselves, changing their features, or changing their features into a hot girl’s and cloning themselves… which actually occurs a lot in the anime.

There are a lot of action scenes, however, they last for episodes at a time so any potential adrenalin rush they could’ve given you is smothered. Between action episodes they throw in pointless, plot less fillers that make you wish you had something else to do but watch this anime… like blog or do homework, or stab yourself in the face.

When will anime producers start to learn that if you fill a burnt turkey with crap, it’s still just a disgusting North American bird stuffed with fecal matter? I suppose that happens when you stop watching the anime, or never start in the first place.

However, there are some redeeming qualities to this show. The diversity of characters it pretty awesome, with over fifty characters to choose from this gives fan fiction and art an uber high amount of potential, which is probably the main reason this anime is so popular. And yeah… It’s got uhh…. Well…. Um… Crud… Never mind, this anime blows. PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF AND DON’T WATCH IT!!!! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!!