千と千尋の神隠し：Spirited Away Part 1

Miyazaki actually came out of retirement to make this film. I think that's pretty significant, and should make us sit up and pay closer attention to the intent, the different meanings, tropes, and images in the film. After all, in animation, everything is deliberate. It isn't so much a conscious-expressing art as it is the careful crafting of a fictional piece like a short story. Why would Miyazaki do this? 

So along those lines... 

1) How is the dual fantasy world of Spirited Away different from the dual fantasy world provided in, say, Totoro? What are the distinguishing factors, what purpose does it serve? 

2) The first half of Spirited Away centers around the personal growth and challenge presented to Chihiro. How do you think that Miyazaki is addressing the experience of meeting his friend's daughter?

A survey from 2004 about Junior High students in Japan (READ! really interesting!)
http://www.childresearch.net/RESOURCE/DATA/MONO/EASY/index.html

Japanese children and their fathers!

http://www.childresearch.net/RESOURCE/DATA/SPECIAL/FATHER/FIGURE1.HTM

Actually, this whole site is really interesting... helpful for people doing their projects if they need it. 

http://www.childresearch.net/RESEARCH/DATA_JCHILD/index.html

3) The setting of Spirited Away is really important. Why would Miyazaki set this movie in a bathhouse, let alone a spiritual one? 

Here's a website about water and religious purification : 

http://www.unification.net/ws/theme099.htm

もののけ姫：Princess Mononoke

THANK YOU AGAIN GUYS for being so flexible on Monday. I know it was kind of confusing but at least we mostly got to watch the movie and discuss a little (from what I hear). 

ALERT! If you are reading this, I hope you have thought about what you're doing for your final project. I hope there is some topic that you're interested in pursuing more deeply that you will have ready by Monday or at least by next Friday. Mandatory final project you know! I sent out an email about it, so email miyazaki.decal@gmail.com if you didn't get the email. 

.: . :. .: . :. .: . :. .: . :. .: . :. .: . :. 

So! Discussion questions for Princess Mononoke. It's a movie that's pretty well-known among most people, and I suspect that a lot of you that had scene it came into the class with presuppositions about it. Or at least, being a fairly didactic film, you guys probably can sense a lot of themes that Miyazaki is trying to portray, and have some opinions on it. so.... 

Miyazaki's interview on 

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/m_on_mh.html

A lot of you guys mentioned in your first application sheets, and in class, is that Miyazaki deals with a lot of ambiguities. Moral, social, what-have-you. We talked about the ending, (is it happy or not? Can it even be defined or categorized?), the nature of progress, etc. Here's a quote from Miyazaki that acknowledges his own understanding of the complexity - I don't think he's just condemning or judging.

When you talk about plants, or an ecological system or forest, things are very easy if you decide that bad people ruined it. But that's not what humans have been doing. It's not bad people who are destroying forests.

1) Can you identify one of these ambiguities, and lay out the arguments within it? Defend/advocate for both sides, or the many sides? Where is it difficult to judge or have a definitive answer, and why? 

2) What kind of future do you think Miyazaki wants to see humanity living? (if not the indistrialized Lady Eboshi or the civilized samurai overlord life) What is he advocating for us to do here? How do you personally feel about what he seems to be saying? 

3) What do you think that Miyazaki is trying to say about loss, destruction, time, and consequence? Jenny said, "What happens when we destroy the spiritual sanctuary of our imagination, when we desecrate the innermost place of purity." 

4) How does Mononoke compare to Miyazaki's other films? It was the first of his films to actually use CGI :P 

5) Any personal responses or other comments you wanted to say about the film? 

Somebody cosplayed as San. 

But then again they also dressed up as Totoro. 

Porco Rosso!

Good ole Miyazaki at home with his model planes. 

Hi everyone! Sorry, it's a day late... but better than doing it on Sunday night :) 

So Porco Rosso was originally intended as just a nice, relaxing short film, less than an hour, for weary Japanese businessmen on business flights... but as we've seen, Miyazaki can't just sit and let it go - he puts a lot of thought and integrity into each one of his films, even if some of the concepts (i.e. the postwar masculinity thing) aren't as original as some of his other ones.

Yet why is his film still so filled with motifs that we know mean something more; he's making statements about the old and new, and the nature of humanity. So many things just seem to come out naturally as he makes a film to his perfection. 

1) What are some of the themes/motifs that you noticed in Porco Rosso that we have seen before in Miyazaki's films? What do you think it says about him as a filmmaker, or his disposition, or the points he's trying to make about humanity? 

But though the film is about that, perhaps it's nearly completely self-indulgent for Miyazaki, because he loves pigs and airplanes... and both are in Porco Rosso. I uploaded scans from the manga　飛行艇時代　「雑想ノート」(The Age of Flying Boats - Daydream Notes) for your reading/browsing pleasure. It's in Japanese but you can get the general gist of it. 

Interesting stuff. HERE IT IS! DOWNLOAD

As you can see, Miyazaki is absolutely obsessed with airplanes. This is partly due to the fact that during World War II, Miyazaki's father Katsuji was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by his brother (Hayao Miyazaki's uncle), which made rudders for the Zero fighter plane. So Miyazaki grew up surrounded by flight, but it's of a very different sort than those that were made for the World War II purpose. Think even about Nausicaa and Kiki.

2) What are some elements of flight that you've noticed in the films so far? What do they mean symbolically, literally, what do they mean to Miyazaki? What does it mean, to be able to fly?

Finally, Japanese salarymen. Did you know that Japan is the only country with a condition called 過労死 karoshi, death by overworking? Up until now, people would be hired by a company and stay with them their whole lives.... there are a lot of stereotypes about "sararimen" and it's often parodied in manga and anime... you guys probably have seen or heard something about it. 

Here's a wikipedia article about it: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman

Salaryman "Timeline"

3) Reading these articles, or knowing what Miyazaki's target audience was for this movie, how do you think he constructed it? What are some aspects of the film that you notice that might have been conceived because of the target audience for the film?

Have fun posting!

魔女の宅急便：Kiki's Delivery Service Part 1.5 (Some Other Links)

Happy Spring Break (return thereof?) 

So as a reminder, people were talking about the importance/role of dependence on the formation of "self"... for lack of better word. Whether it be school, or parents, or even social structure, to what degree they are influential. 

Here are some other links that I think you guys might find interesting, concerning the pros and cons of what is being called "helicopter parenting" by U.S. experts.

Interesting quote from "Anatomy of Dependence" by Takeo Doi, a Japanese psychologist.
遠慮：enryo
"Enryo is restraint or holding back, with the idea that a person must not presume too much on another's good will. in a parent-child relationship, there is no enryo. In other relationships, enryo decreases proportionately with intimacy and increases with distance. "

I just wanted to comment that this concept of the "narrowing system," where there is one path to success, is becoming a global thing, mainly in capitalist nations. Even though we read Nation of Wimps, many of you know that this is not just an American thing - scholars in Japan have been talking about it for years. This has been attributed to some very general cultural reasons are: emphasis on efficiency, and the necessity of conformity for harmony.

Some links from the NYTimes:

The hikikomori trend (people withdrawing from society). This will be more important once we get to Spirited Away - keep in mind the baby, and Chihiro's own struggles. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15japanese.html?sq=japan%20parent%20hikikomori&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all

This one is a defense of helicopter parents:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/in-defense-of-helicopter-parents/?scp=7&sq=japan%20parent%20hikikomori&st=cse

This week we're starting Porco Rosso, so I don't think we'll have more questions for Kiki... 

And sorry I failed on posting last Wednesday!! 

This week we'll have some Porco Rosso resources up early for you guys to check out after our discussion and we can discuss it more indepth then. 

魔女の宅急便：Kiki's Delivery Service Part 1

So we talked last week about what kind of statement Miyazaki is trying to make by placing Kiki's Delivery Service in the kind of setting that it is in. After all, it is a coming-of-age story, and the kind of coming-of-age that Miyazaki would like to see happen in youth of Japan.

Please read his treatise on Kiki here:  http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/kiki_foreword.html
I'd also recommend for you to read the book excerpt 

Here are some questions to get you thinking... respond to a specific question, respond to each other, or respond to it in general :) 

1) What are the characteristics of this society/world? How is it different/similar to ours? Chronologically, geographically, etc.
2) as a sort of a follow-up to question 2, what do you think that Miyazaki is trying to say about the ideal conditions for coming of age?

3) What is realistic / unrealistic about this? 

Then we talked on a more personal level about the way that we, or youth, are formed. In a sense, there is responsibility both from the society, and the institutions in place, and our parents, who reinforce those institutions. (Institutions meaning schooling, work, etc. as a way to become successful or satisfied) I figure that we, being Cal students, have sort of all tread a similar path in terms of how we "got here." We all went to elementary, middle, high school, took AP tests / SAT, clubs, fulfilled requirements, etc. 

1) What part do you think that these institutions have in the formation of a child, to adolescent, to an adult? 

2) What does Miyazaki seem to say about these things, based on Kiki's experience? 

3) What is your own personal experience with these things? 

Here is the "Nation of Wimps" article that I was talking about last week. It's the one about how "helicopter parents" actually are harming their children in terms of their ability to make decisions, and their ability to accept the truth about their limitations or about themselves. 

Take a look! It's 7 pages but you can read what you like. It's really interesting and informative. 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20041112-000010.html

Okay all! See you tomorrow!

隣のトトロ：パート２

Sorry again for the late post. My computer went out of commission because of a blown battery - don't worry, we're all good now.

On Monday, we discussed the double-function that the film Totoro seems to serve.
On one hand, as many of you mentioned, a harmless and fun adventure; a good childhood memory.
On the other hand, there is a more desperate, sinister current (as shown through Miyazaki's chilling interview here) that implies that even the creation of the film Totoro is a sort of escapism for adults.

Questions!

1) How could Totoro possibly be escapist for adults?
2) Regarding your answer to (1), what are the implications of that idea on the integrity of the film, for you? As in... does that make the film more meaningful, or more

Also, we talked about fantasy and reality, the overlay between the two worlds and if that's portrayed as a positive thing or not.

3) What do you think about the mesh between the fantasy and real worlds?
4) How does spirituality factor in? As a crutch, or as something that is necessary, beneficial, and essential to growing up? (or, as we discussed, the concept of childish belief in providence or "good things" to solve real problems?)

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This week, we'll be doing Kiki's Delivery Service. disclaimer: I know that I crow over it but seriously don't feel pressure to *love* it. I don't want people to feel obliged to praise any of the films if they don't feel that way - that's the point of the class, to understand people's differing opinions about the issues that Miyazaki raises.

Read this before class:

.: Miyazaki's foreword to the 1989 魔女の宅急便 (Witch's Delivery Service - Kiki's Delivery Service) Artbook
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/kiki_foreword.html
(This is actually really interesting, since 1989-90 is exactly when the Japanese economic bubble crashed in a very similar situation to the one that we are in now.)

" In this era, poverty is not so much material as spiritual... In an era when leaving the security of one's home is no longer anything special, and living among strangers means nothing more than going to a convenience store for anything you need, it might be more difficult than ever to achieve a real sense of independence since you must go through the process of discovering your own talents and expressing yourself."

.: An excerpt from a book called "Unmasking Japan Today: The Impact of Traditional Values On Modern Japanese Society," written in 1996 in collaboration of a Japanese and non-Japanese woman. I don't necessarily agree with the reasoning behind all of the statements made, but I definitely think it's indicative of the kind of struggles that people thought 90's youth in Japan were facing. Hopefully we can get some input from our classmates :)
Book excerpt here
Please read the section from bottom of page 75 - 82, from Junior High to High school students.

I don't usually assign reading but I'd like you guys to take a look at it before class. It's interesting and very short stuff, so don't be lazy please! (Even though it took me till Saturday to post this....)

隣のトトロ：パート１

So! Sorry about the super super late post.

Last week we talked about kind of the idyllic, nostalgic feel of Totoro. How he seems to capture the elements of childhood, fantasy, kindness, and imagination so well, and how he uses the overlay between fantasy and reality to delight and disarm us.

So I want to ask, what is your personal connection to the movie Totoro? It can be
1) insight
2) experience from your past
3) things that make it seem mostalgic
4) Miyazaki's message
5) particular parts that hit you
6) etc...

whatever.

Post away!