Veith Botchan

Although the film Botchan was pretty boring, I commend it because of the relevance to my own high school the plot had, and the portrayal of competitiveness in Japanese school systems. The vice principal, "Red Shirt", reminds me of the principal of my high school; I will call him He Who Shall Not Be Named. He abuses his power over other teachers almost exactly like Red Shirt did: firing and promoting and downgrading teachers to his advantage, sneakily. You know, I could have had a much better and stress-free English class if it weren't for the firing of a certain teacher and the hiring of another. Oh, well.

Student Days: boy, what a depressing film. I can totally relate to the poor boy who succumbed to suicide since he felt unworthy in comparison to his little brother. Not that I'm suicidal or anything, it just kind of sucks to have a sibling who's good at everything, who's nice, who's giving, and naturally super intelligent. I love both of my siblings, but between the three of us, I am at the bottom of the intelligence and self-motivation pyramid. I don't know what I would have done if I had gone to school with them or if they were younger than me; they would have been part of the awful competition I felt forced into in high school.

Poor guy.

The rigorousness in Japanese school systems is definitely portrayed in both Botchan and Student Days. From my understanding, both students and teachers striving to be the best make them CRAZY. If I was in Japanese school, I would be too. People expect SO MUCH OF YOU. Then again, people expect so much of you at the high school I attended as well. In this way I see a similarity between my high school and Japanese school.

So yeah, in conclusion, school is hard. The pressure is on for everyone in school around the world, but Japanese high schoolers have it really rough when they're trying to get in to college. I am so so so thankful to be done with high school. So. Thankful.

Veith Ninja Scroll

Ninja Scroll was totally insane. I was really not expecting the amount of blood and gore that was featured. What I'd like to discuss in this post is an issue brought up in class: how far can a good person go before becoming evil? Can anyone actually be totally good or totally evil? Well, not in reality, but in an anime film such as Ninja Scroll most of the characters were either completely good or completely evil. The only figure who wasn't seemed to be that Dakuan Gollum-esque guy. I'm still not totally clear on what his deal was. I hear he was a spy. But anyway, yeah, Jubei was definitely a good guy. Whatever he did was for a gainful purpose, and he was clean and perfect and helped out everyone else who was good.

Most everyone else featured in Ninja Scroll was extremely evil, save Kagero. Those demons were hardcore. They did not let anything get in their way. My personal favorite was the guy with a hornets nest on his back. How creepy. It really is interesting how demons and magical characters can walk around in anime films. That’s what makes these movies so good. I honestly did not know characters like these would be present in many or most animes. The magical aspect of their personalities is obviously important; there’s a whole long chapter about it in the book. Especially important was that nast Oni; his sexual abuse to Kagero was really bad, wasn’t it? I was disturbed.

Now let me just take a moment to discuss my favorite character: that sassy gay guy, Yurimaru. I jsut loved his outfit and his bangs parted down the middle. He, along with the evil so prevalent in Ninja Scroll, really give you the impression that Japan is an open country willing to discuss any issue shamelessly. The fact that they have a word, bishonen, for beautiful men like him in anime is really cool to me. It would be so nice if all Americans were more accepting of homosexuality. The words that we use for gay men are, for the most part, derogatory. Why can’t we have bishonen in all our cartoons?

Veith Akira

Akira is, in the obvious dropping-of-atomic-bomb sort of way, symbolic of the disasters in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a film which explores power and greed, and in what ways power can overtake an individual. I'm going to examine some of the ideals in Akira while trying to think in terms of postmodernism. Though I don't think I quite grasp the meaning of postmodernism yet, my intrigue for it was triggered in our class discussion on Thursday. As Professor McCay stated, postmodernism can be thought of as an outgrowth of some experimentation of modernism. Alright, so here goes nothin'. I will try my darnedest to examine a fraction of the highly articulate plot of Akira.

Having not much of a background in Japanese history, and not a full understanding of postmodernism, I'm going to break this down in the simplest of ways: I will try to analyze ideals from Akira as outgrowth of experimentation of modernism. Much of the film seemed to be critical of modern-day (eighties modern-day) codes of ethics. For example, having been to Japan, I observed that everyone there was extremely polite. But, in a world post-extraordinary atomic bombing, everyone in Neo-Tokyo seemed selfish, and gangs ran rampant through the city. Girls were dressed much much less conservatively than typical real world Japan. The previously extremely rigid school system was totally botched and disrespected. I suppose that these drastic changes are representative of an extreme world where chaos and power rule over all, and people are given no choice but to live like they do in Akira's Neo-Tokyo because they have no choice. Everyone must fend for themselves.

Okay, I know I'm jumping around and not really being continuous here, but I've just given a lot of thought to the roles that females played in Akira. Every normal girl had nothing better to do than to chase around a boy. Which was ironic in comparison to Kyoko, who seemed to be the leader of the Espers, and Kei, who was a total badass. What was up with that??? Was this some sort of commentary on how in the eighties women's equality was rising, but there were still very many stupid sluts? In 1980s Japan what were women's roles in society? I've actually heard that men have priority seating over women on Japanese trains and buses. I'm confused....sorry for this weird rant.

Now I'm flustered, but on a final side note, let me just discuss some of the AWESOME graphics in Akira. My favorite part was when Tetsuo's power overcomes him, and he morphs into a giant baby composed of pumping veins, skin, and intestines! HOW COOL WAS THAT? And also, in the beginning of the film, I recall a part where a montage of Neo-Tokyo was shown, and was absolutely stunning. The vastly oversized buildings, the holographic advertisements; just incredible animation, especially for the eighties.

Tetsuo's power beginning to overtake him

Tetsuo's power has almost completely overtaken him

Wow, there is sooooo much to say about this film. I feel like I haven't even begun to analyze it.

Veith About Me

My full name is Emma Ruth Veith. I don't know much about anime, but I do know that I love Japan and Japanese culture! The photo above is of me in a public park in Nara, Japan. In that park is a GIANT bronze statue of Buddha, and deer roam freely like people, because they are thought to be divine messengers of some sort. They are quite docile and friendly. Over the summer, my sister and I vacationed in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kurashiki, and Hiroshima. It was definitely an awesome trip, and my favorite part was seeing a Kabuki play. It was just so beautiful and their movements and sounds were so highly and gracefullly stylized! But anyway, I am a freshman at Loyola, and I am from New Orleans. I went to Ben Franklin High School, as well as New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. I love animals, namely house cats and sea creatures. In my free time, I like to paint and decorate things. I really like stickers. I'm not very good at talking about myself, so I will keep this short. This is all I have to say. I am looking forward to learning about anime!