Veith Harp of Burma

http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC111011-0000173/Japan-to-offer-free-flights-to-10,000-tourists-next-year

Veith Ghost in the Shell

It seems like Japanese anime films are often based around a philosophical obsession with souls, the sense of self, the meaning of life, and how the internet affects these things. At least, that's the implication I got from Perfect Blue, Akira, and Ghost in the Shell. Each of these films relate to one another because each focuses on a main character in confusion of why he or she is alive and what he or she is meant to do.

Each character's identity is somehow affected by technology. Mima is confused about her own actions and personality because of what someone else says about her on the internet. Tetsuo is overcome by the power of government control of technology, and ends up morphing into a giant, pulsating, baby-shaped pile of enlarged veins and intestines. And, quite honestly, I'm still confused buy Ghost in the Shell, but Major Motoko is not really a human. Her actions are completely computer-operated, because really she is a computer.

Well. What does all this mean? Tbh, I don't know, nor do I care, really. I enjoy the films because they are action-filled and look cool. I hate philosophy and I don't like to think about who I am or what I'm living for. However, my boyfriend likes philosophy for whatever reason and his analysis of Ghost in the Shell is interesting. I'm going to attempt to paraphrase it. Generally stating, the human race believes in a greater being or power or whatever. We humans are eternally trying to know what this greater being maybe, so we are forever trying to advance our society. This is how technology came to be. I suppose that Akira and Ghost in the Shell sort of exemplify the extremes of what may happen if the human race ever understands such a great power through means of technology. That is why they are so frickin' confusing! Perfect Blue is more about a female individual's struggle, and I can relate to it better.

Directly after I saw Perfect Blue, something strange happened to me. I got stuck on an elevator alone for about an hour. During that time, I contemplated my existence. I was alone with my thoughts and I began to question my personality, my relationships with others, and why I was alive; why the elevator chose me to trap. In other words, I felt crazy. WHO AM I? EXCUSE ME, WHO ARE YOU?

hehe

Veith Vampire Hunter D

How exciting it is to be able to write about vampires at Halloween time! As a very superstitious person who believes in ghosts and all that jazz, I have always been intrigued by, as well as afraid of, vampires. In fact, when I was little, I refused to sit in the backseat of my mom's van at night because I was afraid there were vampires in the trunk. I've long overcome this fear, but I still like to think about how vampires might be real. Yay supernatural beings!

I've read the first two Twilight books and seen all the movies. But I think that Twilight is stupid and cheesy as hell, and I'm embarrassed that I enjoy the movies. I also think that Edward Cullen is ugly. However, I LOVE this vampire trend. It's so cool that pop culture these days is filled with vampire movies and television shows. True Blood is where it's at. Vampires in Louisiana! Though I've only seen some of the first season, I think it's a great show. What a crazy idea; vampires living in harmony with regular humans, in addition to synthetic human blood for vampires, in addition to vampire blood being an insane hallucinogenic drug for humans. Vampire Bill is so sexy too. I wish I had more to say about True Blood, but I just haven't seen enough episodes.

More vampires in Louisiana: Interview with the Vampire! Vampires in New Orleans! What an awesome movie. I have not read anything by Anne Rice, but I do know I want to visit the orphanage-turned Anne Rice doll collection storage-turned apartment complex on St. Charles. It's gotta be haunted. Anyway, Interview with the Vampire is so awesome. Th best part is when Brad Pitt turns Kirsten Dunst, who had been living in squalor with her diseased dead mother, into a vampire. Then her hair curls and she looks like a doll. So humans become more beautiful when they are turned to vampires. That's so cool! Agh I want to be a vampire.

It's interesting how every writer adds a different characteristic to vampires. I've found a Wikipedia page that compares characteristics of vampires in different cultures and works of fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampire_traits_in_folklore_and_fiction

I think that if vampires are real, they are nothing like Edward Cullen or Bill. They've got to be reclusive, tortured, beautiful beings. Whenever I pass the Ann Rice orphanage, I think that there must be a man living in one of those apartments, but he's not really a man. He's a vampire.

Veith Perfect Blue

Female body image in the world of entertainment is sickening. Both in Perfect Blue and Black Swan the central characters feel the pressure to be perfect; to have a career that is centralized on pleasing everyone that watches them. In the process they are abused.

Nina and Mima. Ha! Look at how similar their names are. Ironic, since the way in which they live, forever struggling to please an audience, are parallel. And they've each got a psychotic (or near-psychotic, in the case of Nina's mother) woman seeking control over their careers. Let's examine Mima. The young, innocent pop star wants to change her image. She wants to be taken seriously; to become an actress in dramas. Simple enough, right? Most famous people like a change of pace at least once in a while. But Mima isn't lucky enough to have an easy career transformation. Since she is so sickeningly admired by boys and men who watch her without any expression in their eyes, and since she is unknowingly the embodiment of Rumi's hopes and dreams, she cannot go and act on TV as she pleases. She ends up being disrespected by men and actually raped during the filming of the rape scene. That was the hardest scene to watch for me.

But anyway, then things get really tricky. With the murders, the crazy fish face-looking guy, insane Rumi, and Me-mania, everything in her world is misconstrued. She literally loses herself and her identity while she’s just trying her damnedest to be a well-loved actress. And that’s the price of fame for Mima, unfortunately.

As for Nina, she’s unlucky enough to have a mother trying to live her unattained dreams through her daughter. She feels the pressure to be beautiful and perfect more than anything, because that is what ballet requires. Her whole world and her identity is distorted like Mima’s, because she cannot take the competition, the pressure from her instructor and from her mother, and the need to be perfect. It probably doesn’t help that she’s lightheaded from bulimia either. In the end she dies I think, I’m not sure really since everything in the film is so symbolic. But it’s because she’s finally done what she has lived her life for; she dances perfectly in her show. But what good was that? Did she do it for herself or for everyone else?

I’ve only discussed and compared the misfortune of two girls in this blog. I haven’t examined the need for help for these types of females. There are too many ballerinas, actresses, and normal girls too, who succumb to everything from anorexia to sexual abuse from men. It is saddening the way body image can take over a girl’s life completely.