Veith Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a visually beautiful, extremely engaging movie. The plot is so so crazy, and its perfect Japanaese oddities are what make it so AWESOME, and appealing especially to teenage girls like myself.   It is clear, by the time Hayao Miyazaki made this movie, he had enough respect and artistic liberty to create anything he anted. No longer was he really trying to make an impression by raising awareness to the public of environmental destruction, as in Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa.

And although Miyazaki did make sure there were underlying elements that were a commentary on how Japanese traditions are deteriorating and Japanese children may be becoming lazy under influence of the west, what really makes the film so good is the beautiful spiritual and fantastical aspects. And, of course, there was Chihiro's spunk and strength that allowed for young girls to look up to her. But what I'd really like to discuss is those fantastical things, and I'm just going to go ahead and relate to them on a personal level.

I've been feeling really lonely lately. This always happens around winter, and I've just been feeling like escaping from reality a lot due to certain events. I've been making art, focusing on trying to create things that represent other universes, space oddities, and just funky stuff as a means to feel better. And, cheesy as it is, Spirited Away just inspires me so much. I cannot stress enough how intrigued I am by Japanese culture, how much the aesthetics of all their cute stuff in modern culture, as well as their traditional art, really appeals to me. And all of the characters in Spirited Away are so COOL. They are as beautiful as they are strange. I really look up to Miyazaki and whatever team of artists created the spiritual world and the creatures in Spirited Away. Because when I watch the movie, I really feel like I've been spirited away, in some gorgeous Japanese world where everything is harmonious and okay.

And now on a side/end note, I'm just going to stress how much I like Japan and how much I've learned in this Japanese Anime course. Although I could learn much more about how Japanese society works, I feel I have enough of an understanding to know that Japan is a pretty harmonious place. I've been think a lot about what Professor McCay said about how in Japan individualism isn't really stressed. And that's so cool, duty is so important to them. Japan's got a crazy awesome thing going on, and some really awesome movies come out of there. I LOVE JAPAN! It's been a really awesome calss :)

Veith Nausicaa

Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke are pretty similar in a lot of ways. Since they were both made by Miyazaki they look alike, and have the same theme of man vs. nature.

An interesting thing that I noticed about both movies is the size of the animals that inhabit the forests. In both Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa, the forest animals are HUGE. Insects in reality seem like specks to humans, but in Nausicaa they are 1000 times bigger than the people. I think the exaggerated size of the creatures is intended to be symbolic of their significance, because they are more important in the cycle of nature than humans are. Like we discussed in class, the earth doesn't need humans. So perhaps Miyazaki was making this point clear by having the animals in the films be so much larger/ greater than humans.

Anyway, i'm a tad confused by the overarching messages in each of the movies. I'd say that there is a constant struggle for humans to adapt to nature and, well, tame it. Because there's definitely a human need for nature, it's just so confusing as to how we're really supposed to treat it. I'd like to compare two scenes: the first, from Princess Mononoke where Eboshi gives Akitasha a tour of Iron Town, and second, the scene in Nausicaa where Lord Yupa discovers Nausicaa's lab of non-toxic plants. Each system (Iron Town and Nausicaa's lab, I mean) has a purpose for benefitting humans, and in both scenes someone is being enlightened on how another human or system of humans is utilizing nature for the benefit of mankind. Nausicaa searches for a pant to cure her father, and Eboshi uses the forest to build weapons and run her city. I don't really know what I'm getting at here. I guess I'm saying that these scenes are representative of the different ways that humans use nature, and that humans will never stop having the need to use it, even if that means destroying it. But then again, is the relationship between nature and humans cyclical? Even though natural disasters happen, and we're polluting the air all the time and all that jazz, everything seems to resolve itself enough for us to get by. And as he world goes on, technology advances, and maybe humans won't need nature anymore. Maybe that's why everything happens, because as we established before, nature doesn't need humans, and maybe we just need to leave the earth eventually.

I've confused everyone, haven't I? I don't know what I'm talking about