Chainsaw Man – Are We Overhyping It?

We only have one month left until the Chainsaw Man anime begins its broadcast, and like most people, I think it looks super promising. One glance at my recent Twitter or Instagram art posts will show you that I’ve been obsessed with the series. The trailers for the anime adaptation look beyond amazing, and the cast and crew behind it seem to be a healthy balance of all-star veterans and skilled up-and-comers. Make no mistake, I am really excited for this anime.

But I’m also keenly aware that I may be overhyping it. Well, not just me, but like, all of us.

This might be the most anticipated anime series of all time, just judging from the views that the trailers are amassing across Youtube, and the constant chatter across the internet. Either way, it’s safe to say a lot of people are looking forward to this show, and the fans who have already read the manga can’t stop talking about it (like me). That’s why I want to spend some time today, before the anime premieres in October, to ground everybody—especially those going in blind.

Let’s talk about why Chainsaw Man is popular, what you should expect from it, and why it may not meet your hype.

(No spoilers in this article, but external links may contain spoilers)

First Things First…

Let’s get this out of the way first. Chainsaw Man is NOT “peak fiction.” Chainsaw Man will NOT be the anime that “saves anime.” It will not be the best anime of all time nor even make it in your top three. Or your top five. It may not even be in your top ten when all is said and done. I mean, it might for some people. It might for me. It might for you… but just to be safe, since I don’t know you, I’ll just say it will probably not.

There. Hype, grounded. But let’s talk more specifics…

So, why is Chainsaw Man so popular? Reception from critics appears to be almost unanimously positive, and its sales numbers continue to skyrocket long after the series’ first “part” ended. It’s a rare manga series that has amassed such a large following that it’s already become a massive cultural phenomenon long before its anime adaptation has premiered. In fact, The New York Times and Paste Magazine even have the anime on their “Top Fall 2022 TV shows to Watch” lists (and it’s the only Japanese show on the Times list).

The Title Sells It

One reason for its ubiquity may be its simple title: Chainsaw Man. It’s extremely evocative, descriptive, and catchy. It immediately conjures up images of a grindhouse B-movie or perhaps a dark superhero. It sounds ridiculous but also scary. When people hear the title “Chainsaw Man” and see a picture of the main protagonist with chainsaws coming out of his head and arms, it totally clicks. There’s an immediate understanding of the kind of story it might be, which creates a sense of anticipation.

In comparison, let’s talk about, say, One Piece. I love this series too, but admittedly the title does not really clue you in to anything about the story. That makes it harder to drum up hype for new potential fans, since you have to do more explaining. It’s part of the reason why Demon Slayer I think has become so popular – the title itself sells it.

The Jujutsu Kaisen Effect

It probably is also a benefit to Chainsaw Man that the studio behind it, MAPPA, made Jujutsu Kaisen. Before it was adapted to animation, the manga of Jujutsu Kaisen had no more than a cult following among the people who were reading Shonen Jump at the time. But, since the anime started airing, and the movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0 came out, the franchise has blown up in popularity and people everywhere are eagerly awaiting the sequel seasons. In the meantime, fans are now extra hungry for shows that are similar, especially if they’re from the same studio, and the same magazine.

And it’s hard not to make comparisons between Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man, especially after Chainsaw Man’s creator Tatsuki Fujimoto admitted it himself. They’re both about a teenage boy who joins an organization in modern day Tokyo to exterminate monsters born from human emotions that roam the streets, after becoming part-monster himself. Both series are action-oriented, but also feature good comedy and drama. In general, I feel like the vibe of these two shows are pretty similar, too. Chances are, if you like one of them, you’ll like the other.

That said, if you’ve seen Jujutsu Kaisen and didn’t like it, I would not discount Chainsaw Man just yet. I’ve watched Jujutsu Kaisen—both the show and the movie—and I’ve read over a hundred chapters of the manga. And to be frank, while I think some of the characters are great (Nobara, Maki, and Yuta, namely) and the action is awesome, the way the story is written and paced overall is not my cup of tea, and I don’t love its overly complicated exposition dumps, either. Chainsaw Man, on the other hand, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both times I read it. It also has pretty great, unique characters; the campy yet often poignant writing and brisk pacing of the story is much more my cup of tea; and its world feels far simpler and more cohesive to me. That said, it’s not perfect.

It Didn’t Meet My Expectations

While I can boast that I read the manga before the anime came out, I definitely am not an OG. Chainsaw Man’s original run in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine was from December 3, 2018 to December 14, 2020—the same day the anime was announced. And by then, I hadn’t read it yet. I tried earlier, but after the first few chapters, I found I wasn’t interested. Little did I know, Chainsaw Man is one of those series that takes a second to get going, but when it does, it only gets better and better—in fact, if I were to rank my favorite story arcs in the series, the list would basically be in reverse-chronological order.

That’s probably why the hype surrounding Chainsaw Man after it ended was difficult to escape, with readers high on arguably the best story arc in the series. And I have to admit, every time I stopped by my local Kinokuniya bookstore, the brightly-colored covers of the Japanese tankobon volumes were always so alluring.

The curiosity-laden hype built up in me so much that when MAPPA held their 10th anniversary stage show livestream on June 27th, 2021, I willingly stayed up until 4:00 A.M. to watch their Chainsaw Man panel where the first teaser trailer was revealed. And, like everyone else who saw it that early summer morning, I was totally blown away. Even though I was expecting something good, I didn’t think it would be that good—from the gorgeous compositing and the highly-detailed drawings to the obvious JJK-influenced sakuga action, along with a score composed by Kensuke Ushio, there was nothing more they could have done. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t read the manga yet; MAPPA made a trailer so jaw-dropping it would get every anime fan in the world excited.

CSM anime trailer #1

Not long after that, Tatsuki Fujimoto released his first post-Chainsaw Man manga, and I made my first foray into his work. Look Back, a 140-page standalone one shot, was released on July 19, 2021, and out of curiosity, I decided to read it. It tells the story of two girls who meet in elementary school and grow up to become a manga artist duo.

If you’ve read it, it’s probably no surprise to you that I was, well, surprised. The author of one of the most popular modern shonen battle manga went and wrote a down-to-earth tragic human drama? And one that was so cinematic, so sensitive, so inventive, and so specific?

Needless to say, this changed my impression of who Tatsuki Fujimoto was and what Chainsaw Man might be. I was excited for the anime, but now my desire to jump ahead and read the manga increased tenfold. In September 2021, on my next stop to Kinokuniya, I finally broke down and picked up the first volume. That was a mistake.

I read that first volume in a flash, and realized I was so hooked that I wanted to read more ASAP. And I probably could have just paid the two bucks for Viz Media’s Shonen Jump app and binged the whole thing in a day, but I started it in Japanese, and I wanted to continue in Japanese.

Long story short, I eventually ordered the entire 11-volume set on Amazon JP (which ended up being a bad decision because it was delayed in the mail and I had to wait 2 agonizing weeks for it to arrive and I could have totally just bought it all at my local Kinokuniya, but ANYWAY). After I received the books, I read the entire thing within a week, which is probably the fastest I have ever read a manga series in Japanese. And that’s both a testament to how much I’ve improved in my Japanese studies, but more importantly–how engaging Chainsaw Man was for me—I just couldn’t put it down.

At the same time though, I’m not sure if it totally met my high expectations. In my notes for the series, which I jotted down as soon as I finished it, I wrote: “Was it as good as it was hyped up to be? Nah, but it was very enjoyable.” Just like any other series, there are highs and lows.

Again, I think Chainsaw Man gets better and better as it goes along, and on top of that, it also rewards repeat read-throughs. There are legitimately parts of the story now that move me to tears. At first glance, the series seems like an over-the-top, always-at-11, shonen action gorefest, and it definitely is that at times. But it’s also quiet when it wants to be, poignant, and touches on themes that I’ve never seen another shonen manga address to the same degree—stuff like, the price of happiness and comfort, the consequences of ignorance, the fear of manipulation, and the complexity of love.

But when the anime starts up, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people think the early episodes are nothing special or that it’s “not as good as Jujutsu Kaisen” or whatever. For me, Chainsaw Man’s first great arc starts just a bit before the halfway point of the story. And I think most fans will agree that the last third of the story (volumes 8-11) are an almost-nonstop high. Before that, it’s still good stuff, but admittedly I don’t know if I would put it that far above Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. If we only get one cour’s worth of episodes for the anime’s first season, Chainsaw Man may not truly “pop off” for first-time viewers until the end.

Originally Unoriginal

So what should you expect? And how does it differentiate itself from other Shonen Jump shows like Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen?

To answer the first question, it may be helpful to compare Chainsaw Man to some more shows. I’ll just quote Fujimoto himself:

“I drew Chainsaw Man with the intention of making a wicked FLCL or pop Abara.”

“Chainsaw Man is like a copy of Dorohedoro and Jujutsu Kaisen; and the animation studio behind Dorohedoro and Jujutsu Kaisen is making the anime!? There’s nothing left for me to say!! I’m looking forward to it!!

So yeah, Chainsaw Man unabashedly takes cues and inspirations from various media that have come before it; and it’s not just limited to anime and manga. It doesn’t take a detective to figure out that Tatsuki Fujimoto is a massive cinephile, as every volume of Chainsaw Man has a comment from him declaring his love for movies like Hereditary, Get Out, Death Proof, and Coraline, among others. Plus, almost every manga he’s written, from Fire Punch to Chainsaw Man to Goodbye Eri, has at least one scene with characters either making a movie, going to a movie theater, or discussing movies. Fire Punch in particular is filled with blatant movie references, and Goodbye Eri is all about someone making a movie.

Chainsaw Man is a little more subtle about it, but its film influences are still evident. The title of the series itself was inspired by the classic slasher film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and in general the series has a similar vibe of a schlocky exploitation film, at times. As a storyboard artist, I also find Fujimoto’s panel layouts very interesting because they often evoke, well, cinematic storyboards. One of his trademarks is drawing the same panel composition multiple times in a row to show a progression of action and/or subtle character expression within the same shot. Goodbye Eri, in particular, does this throughout, and with the way most of the panels are the same shape and size, it basically is a storyboard for a film.

But, Fujimoto is a manga artist after all, so Chainsaw Man possibly borrows more from anime and manga than it does from live action media. For Chainsaw Man, Fujimoto has referenced or cited influence from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Jin-Roh: the Wolf Brigade, Junji Ito’s works, Daisuke Igarashi’s works, Berserk, Hunter x Hunter, Gunbuster, the Kizumonogatari films, and even his own previous works.

Also, although I haven’t found anything concrete to suggest that Chainsaw Man was inspired by Go Nagai’s classic manga Devilman, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t. Both manga are gruesome tales about a teenage boy who becomes a devil-human hybrid and uses that power to defeat devils. Also, coincidentally, the musical composer for the Chainsaw Man anime, Kensuke Ushio, also composed the music for Devilman Crybaby—the 2018 anime retelling of the 1970s series.

Not Jump-Like

And perhaps precisely because Fujimoto is aware of all his influences, he’s able to break away from established tropes, especially those found within the shonen genre. Chainsaw Man is often described as a “not Jump-like” Jump manga, and part of that has to do with the significant amount of gore and bloodshed, and its abnormally mature brand of sexual content in a manga magazine intended for pre-teens. But, the key aspect of Chainsaw Man that differentiates it from other Jump series is its protagonist, Denji.

You may have heard the three guiding principles of Shonen Jump before:

FRIENDSHIP!

EFFORT!

VICTORY!

These are the themes that define most of the manga that grace the pages of the magazine, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Jump targets young, impressionable tween boys. As a result of that, many of Shonen Jump’s main heroes act as role models for readers. Think of characters like Son Goku, Monkey D. Luffy, Naruto Uzumaki, Ichigo Kurosaki, Tanjiro Kamado, Izuku Midoriya, and Yuji Itadori. Many of them have big dreams, a love for their friends and family, the desire to work hard, and/or an unbreakable moral code and sense of justice. Several of them are also pure of heart, exceedingly kind and earnest, and even have above-average emotional intelligence and empathy for others.

Denji and Pochita in *CSM* anime trailer #1

Denji is, uh, not like that. Not that he’s an asshole, either. He’s just a kid who was dealt a terrible hand in life, wallowing in endless debt, hunger, and poverty. He has no big dreams or goals because all he can think about is how to feed himself (and his dog Pochita). His biggest aspirations include one day eating toast with jam on it. He doesn’t have an unconditional love for his friends or family because he has none. He works hard, but not in order to better himself as a person, but because he simply needs to, in order to survive. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He’s a simple guy—he doesn’t even know how to make friends, much less get a girl to like him, but he still dreams about one day touching some boobs and getting a kiss.

Yeah, Denji is not a role model for readers to look up to; apart from his poor life circumstances, he’s just an average, horny teenage boy. But in that way, he might be more relatable to most people than the other Shonen Jump heroes. He’s not necessarily a better-written character than Tanjiro, Izuku, or Yuji, but he’s a welcome change of pace from that established norm of the altruistic, selfless hero. Role model-type protagonists are always good to have, but sometimes they can feel like an unattainable standard for people to live up to in real life. Characters like Denji show us that it’s okay to be yourself. And he’s probably the biggest reason that loyal readers of Shonen Jump have gravitated so much to Chainsaw Man as a breath of fresh air.

Actually, scratch that. Power is the reason. Or maybe Makima. Or Reze? Kobeni? Aki? Pochita? There’s actually a lot of surprisingly good characters in Chainsaw Man. Look forward to meeting all of them!

The Indie Filmmaker

But another aspect of Chainsaw Man that I almost overlooked was how weird it is. If you’ve read enough of his work, you’ll know that Tatsuki Fujimoto loves surprises. He loves catching readers off-guard and playing UNO reverse cards (or whatever the literary equivalent of that is). Fire Punch is a series that takes so many weird left turns that it’s impossible to predict what will happen next as you’re reading it, for better or for worse. Chainsaw Man is a more refined version of that, but it’s not afraid to still get weird sometimes.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend an anime convention with someone who had never read Chainsaw Man, and it made me realize how many inside jokes and strange things that don’t make sense out of context there are. Obviously, there were a lot of Chainsaw Man cosplayers there, and most of them wore the standard outfits and looks of the characters from the anime trailers. But how could I explain to him why there was a Power cosplayer with extra big horns? Why was there someone dressed as a car? Why is there a girl with an atomic missile for a head? Why are people repeatedly saying the word “Halloween”? Why are people barking like dogs?

All good questions!

For sure, Chainsaw Man is a bit weird. Fujimoto has a different way of thinking and approaching manga creation than his peers in Jump. In fact, if you’ve read his one-shots like Goodbye Eri or Look Back, or his previous series Fire Punch, he may not strike you as the kind of guy who would be interested in writing a standard mainstream-style shonen battle manga like Chainsaw Man. In a sense, Chainsaw Man itself feels like a bit of an outlier within Fujimoto’s bibliography, which is full of weird, mature, experimental manga telling stories about broken people with messy feelings. It may surprise you that a guy like him had always dreamt of making a manga for Shonen Jump, because he apparently did.

It’s like if an indie auteur filmmaker on the fringes of the industry pitched a superhero movie to a big Hollywood studio, somehow got it funded, and ended up making one of the most critically acclaimed AND most financially successful movies the genre had to offer—all without compromising on his unique style and vision.

‘Concise’-saw Man

Another key aspect of Chainsaw Man that differentiates itself from most of its shonen manga compatriots, and is probably one of the most appealing aspects of it—is that it tells a complete story in just 11 volumes.

For reference:

Jujutsu Kaisen: 20 volumes (and counting)

Demon Slayer: 23 volumes

My Hero Academia: 35 volumes (and counting)

Dragon Ball: 42 volumes

Naruto: 72 volumes

Bleach: 74 volumes

One Piece: 103 volumes (and counting)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (all parts): 131 volumes (and counting)

Shonen Jump manga have a reputation for going on for years and years, volume after volume, and telling stories that span hundreds of chapters and tens of volumes. It’s no surprise many people find some of them daunting to get into. And although the story of Chainsaw Man is technically continuing past its 11th volume in a so-called “Chainsaw Man Part 2,” I don’t think any fans of the series would have been disappointed if the series had ended with “Part 1.” It tells a complete story that resolves all of the important plot threads and character arcs that had been set up from the beginning with an epic, emotional conclusion—and it falls in at just 97 chapters. With the pacing of an anime series, the entirety of that story would be easily covered in a standard two-cour season of television.

For comparison, the manga Your lie in April, which was also 11 volumes in total, was adapted completely into a very well-paced 22-episode anime series. So, I think Chainsaw Man (Part 1) could quite comfortably be adapted in a standard 26 episodes or less.

The question is, how much of the story are they adapting for this first season starting in October? The whole thing? Just half? Many anime debut with just a single cour—that is, 12-13 episodes. And once the anime takes off, more seasons are announced. That’s what happened with My Hero Academia, for example. And considering how high the production quality appears to be on Chainsaw Man, I would not be surprised if they only have time to make one cour for now—likely covering everything from the Introduction Arc to the Bomb Arc. MAPPA’s final seasons of Attack On Titan have also both been about 1 cour in length (Part 1 was 16 episodes, and Part 2, which aired 10 months later, was a standard 12).

At the same time though, MAPPA’s current Shonen Jump darling Jujutsu Kaisen got a full 24-episode first season right off the bat with only a 2 week break in between cours, due to the winter holidays. And considering the MAPPA staff’s seeming openness to mention Chainsaw Man’s later story arcs in interviews, and even express their interest in adapting the manga’s currently ongoing “Part 2,” perhaps a full 24-26-episode complete adaptation of Chainsaw Man Part 1 with no (long) breaks in the middle, is what MAPPA is preparing for us.

Another option is to go the Spy x Family route, where one 25-episode season is being split in the middle by a 3-month break, though that isn’t common.

In any case, I’m just speculating at this point, so let’s move on.

Stay Grounded

I almost forgot that the title of this (very disorganized) article is “Chainsaw Man – Are We Overhyping It?,” and I haven’t really gotten to the grounding-your-expectations part yet. In fact, just by rambling on about Chainsaw Man for so long, I probably only increased your hype for it.

Let’s be honest here. It’s just a shonen at the end of the day. Yes, it’s a little more out-there than your average shonen, but maybe you’re someone who loves the standard formulas of shonen manga, and the ways Chainsaw Man differs won’t be to your liking. Maybe its weirdness will, uh, weird you out. Maybe you’ll find Denji or the other characters annoying or unlikeable. Maybe the relatively short length of the story will cause you to feel less invested.

On the other hand, perhaps you’re sick and tired of shonen tropes, but the ways Chainsaw Man tries to innovate won’t be enough to charm you. Maybe it will still feel too similar to Jujutsu Kaisen or Dorohedoro, or just feel too derivative of the media that inspired it in general.

And even if the manga is any good, what about the adaptation? The staff and cast seem great from top to bottom, with veterans and skilled up-and-coming artists alike. MAPPA also seems pretty confident in the production, considering that they are foregoing a production committee—a standard for most anime—and managing the animation, the promotional materials, and the merchandise all on their own. But will they really be able to meet fans’ massive expectations?

I will say, one worry I have about the trailers they have shown is that they don’t seem to touch on the comedic side of Chainsaw Man too much. That key aspect of Chainsaw Man feels missing. But perhaps it makes sense that they would want to focus on the impressive action sequences and dark setting in order to get people hyped. And it certainly looks impressive! The drawings have gotten more streamlined in the newest trailer compared to the original teaser from 2021, and the animation and compositing look absolutely feature-film level. At the same time, though, the desaturated colors in the latest trailer feel drab compared to the bright tones that Fujimoto uses in his color pages and volume covers. But again, maybe that’s just the way the trailer was designed.

Either way, the big question is whether they can actually maintain the degree of quality implied in the trailers throughout each episode over the entire series, and whether or not that ends up mattering either way. In any case, we won’t know until we see the full show once it starts airing in October.

The Future Rules!

CSM anime trailer #3

If you held me at gun(devil)-point and asked me what I’m truly expecting from the Chainsaw Man anime, honestly, I’d have to admit I’m expecting something pretty amazing. Even as a grumpy ol’ jaded lifetime anime-enjoyer who’s been enjoying anime since Dragon Ball GT aired on Toonami and Yu-Gi-Oh! aired on KidsWB, I think we’re in for one of the most exciting shows in modern anime history.

Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z were household names in the 90s. Shonen Jump’s One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach became the “Big Three” in the 2000s. The early 2010s ushered in a new era of dark shonen and isekai with Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, respectively. The late 2010s welcomed in the comic-book inspired mainstream juggernauts One Punch Man and My Hero Academia. And the 2020s have already pushed anime more into the mainstream than ever before with hits like Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen (Not to mention Attack on Titan’s final seasons).

This October, whether you like it or not, amidst what is shaping up to be one of the best seasons of anime ever (Check out My Top 10 Anticipated Fall 2022 Anime), prepare to meet the new face of the anime world, as I think Chainsaw Man is poised to become one of the most culture-defining and influential shows of the decade to come.

…or I’m overhyping it.

Taken for Granted: Experiencing the New Wave of Asian American Cinema

Happy AAPI Heritage Month! This May, I’m graduating from college. And as I contemplate both my uncertain post-grad future and my Asian American identity, I am reminded of a time in my life that felt awfully similar.

A Far-Off Future

My senior year of high school was memorable for several reasons. I had the winning design for our Class of 2017 T-shirt, our marching band was for the first time split into Varsity and Junior Varsity, and my class’s senior prank was so egregious it ended up on the local news (for the record I took zero part in it).

But one thing I had perhaps taken for granted, that I now look back on with pride, is my senior “thesis” project, where I spent a year researching a social issue: the lack of diversity in American entertainment. At the end of the year, I gave a speech to a couple teachers presenting my findings along with a nifty PowerPoint I made.

(For some reason, I was really into the aesthetics of screenplay formatting at the time).

During the Q&A portion of my presentation, one of my teachers asked “Do you see the industry improving in the near future?” That question really shouldn’t have caught me off-guard, but my brain was stuck on the word “near.” I fumbled through a bullshit “Uh…yeah I think so …probably?” response, but truthfully, I didn’t believe change could happen anytime soon.

That summer, I spent some time producing a video essay, in which I talked even more about the issue, specifically in relation to the 2017 Ghost in the Shell remake starring Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi, and how that film was a perfect encapsulation of the state of Asian American representation and whitewashing in Hollywood at the time. In both my senior project presentation and that summer video, I expressed a wistful optimism for what I thought was a far-off future.

Well…surprise! That future arrived only one year later, starting with the debut of the little movie that could, Crazy Rich Asians. Today, as I prepare to graduate as a senior in college with a degree in Animation, I ready myself to enter a film/television industry that’s experiencing radical change. A change that only those of us who came of age before Crazy Rich Asians (and Fresh off the Boat!) can really appreciate.

The Eureka Moments

Growing up in the 2000s and 2010s, I (of course) didn’t see a lot of Asian people like me on TV or movie screens. And the few times they were there, it was often in embarrassing or meaningless roles. Now, I could tell you how this lack of representation made me feel—unimportant, unincluded, undesirable, invisible—but you’ve already heard that from every minority who’s talked about this issue. And besides, those feelings aren’t exactly true for me. At least…not from the beginning. Yes, there were a lot of non-Asian people on TV growing up, but I had no problem enjoying and engaging with stories featuring people who didn’t share my complexion.

Nah for me, the lack of Asian representation on screens originally manifested as a mostly harmless running joke among my friends and family throughout my childhood. Even though I wasn’t tuned into social issues as a kid, I was keenly aware of the lack of Asians (and other minorities) on TV and in movies. It was a fact that I simply took for granted. And obviously, growing up in the SF Bay Area, surrounded by Asian people, and going to school with mostly Asian American kids, then coming home and seeing White people on TV instead, there was literally no way for me NOT to notice something was off about that, even as a little kid. To this day, whenever I spot an Asian person in a commercial or something, I have a trained Pavlovian response to point at the screen, and yell “Asian!”

Is that *EEAAO*‘s Stephanie Hsu in a 2014 Discover Card commercial??

And while those rare eureka-like moments of Asian recognition could be exciting, they were almost always undercut by the realization of what that Asian actor was doing. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve experienced:

“Asian guy! …aaand he’s a nerd…”

“Asian guy! …aaand he’s doing kung fu for no reason…”

“Asian girl! …aaand she didn’t have any lines…”

The more I experienced this as I grew up, what once was a harmless joke slowly stopped being quite as funny. As a teenager I started to learn more about inequality, social injustices, and discrimination. In high school I did that senior research project and video essay. In college, I took my first Asian American history course. All the while, I continued to consume TV and film. And those isolated incidents of Asian recognition-disappointment started to pile up into an annoyance.

Asian guy!

Unimportant.

Asian girl!

Unincluded.

Asian guy!

Undesirable.

Asian girl!

Invisible.

To be fair, it’s not like I was completely starved for proper Asian American representation; I just didn’t find it in mainstream media. In late 2000s, when Youtube was in its early years of existence, Asian American filmmakers and entertainers unexpectedly thrived on this platform. I still remember checking out the latest KevJumba, NigaHiga, and Wong Fu Productions vlogs, skits, and short films on my brother’s iPod Touch late at night instead of going to sleep. And of course, I watched a few Michelle Phan makeup tutorials, just out of curiosity…

Youtube was such an important place for many young Asian Americans like me in the 2000s to the 2010s to find our on-screen representation…but at the same time, I knew we could ask for more. We didn’t want to be relegated to the niches of the internet. We wanted a spot at the cool kids table: Hollywood. And in the late 2010s, our wishes started to come true.

Crazy Weird

I don’t think anybody saw the success of Crazy Rich Asians coming, least of all Asian Americans. I think within the Asian American community there was a lot of hype behind the film, but there was no guarantee that it would interest anyone else. I was hopeful after the success of the TV sitcom Fresh off the Boat, but doubtful if the enthusiasm for the Huang family would translate to Crazy Rich Asians‘ box office success. Especially since Ghost in the Shell (the whitewashing movie to unintentionally end all whitewashing movies) had literally just come out the year prior.

Truth be told, when I was working on my high school senior project, I was aware that a movie featuring Hollywood’s first All-Asian cast since Joy Luck Club (1993) was in development—but would it be successful? Would it change the industry? Would it even be any good?

When I turned up to my local theater on the Saturday afternoon the week Crazy Rich Asians opened in August 2018, I was shocked to find a massive (and diverse!) line of people wrapping around the block waiting to get their tickets.

I have never seen that for any other movie, before or since.

I wasn’t able to see Crazy Rich Asians that day, but I went home excited. Crazy Rich Asians ended up being very successful, and the Asian diasporic community in particular was totally galvanized. Even my mom, who normally isn’t interested in movies, said “Maybe we should go see it.” So, the next weekend, I went with my family.

And well, it was a good movie. But it also felt, like, super weird. Of course I’ve always wanted to see an Asian-led Hollywood movie, but here I was, actually experiencing it.

This is what it feels like?

It was weird. I felt exposed. I didn’t expect to get here so soon. And even though I don’t necessarily resonate with the characters in the film that deeply, just the fact that I was seeing Asian faces and hearing Asian voices in a movie theater, who were nuanced, dramatic, funny, desirable, and important—it was deeply moving. Weird, but moving. And exciting. With Crazy Rich Asians, I think audiences and the industry at large finally started to understand the power of genuine representation.

Take it All for Granted

And the best part of Crazy Rich Asians’ success was that it paved the way for so many more films with Asian American voices both in front of and behind the camera. Crazy Rich Asians was just the beginning. After it, we saw the baton pass onto The Farewell, Always Be My Maybe, Minari, Raya and the Last Dragon, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Turning Red, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and many more I didn’t mention. This is a full-on New Wave Era of Asian American Cinema™ and I’m so here for it. I feel privileged that I was alive to witness the beginnings of it, and hopefully, now that I’ve graduated from animation school, to eventually be a part of it.

And the best thing is—Asian American kids being born today and in the future are going to take this all for granted one day. They’re going to be spoiled! Seeing an Asian person on TV or in a movie won’t be special anymore! They’ll never have to point at a screen and yell “Asian!”

That’s progress!

So now, half a decade after I gave that presentation about the “Lack of Diversity in American Entertainment” to my teachers at the end of my senior year of high school, I finally have a confident answer to the question “Do you see the industry improving in the near future?”

Uh, yeah. I think so.

Hyperlinks / Recommendations:

Five years ago, ‘Ghost in the Shell’ accidentally destroyed a racist Hollywood tradition https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/ghost-in-the-shell-scarlett-johansson-five-year-anniversary
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Becomes Most Successful Studio Rom-Com in 9 Years at the U.S. Box Office https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/crazy-rich-asians-becomes-successful-studio-rom-9-years-1139353/
‘I didn’t need to apologize for being Asian:’ Since its start, YouTube allowed creators to celebrate Asian joy https://www.insider.com/youtube-asian-representation-wongfu-nigahia-michellephan
- NigaHiga https://www.youtube.com/c/ryanhiga
- KevJumba https://www.youtube.com/c/kevin
- Wong Fu Productions https://www.youtube.com/user/WongFuProductions
- Michelle Phan https://www.youtube.com/c/MichellePhan
VIDEO: How These Films Accurately Represent Chinese Americans | Depiction Matters https://youtu.be/6rzvaJgxWOk
BOOK: RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/rise

Why I Stopped Using Flashcards | Read Manga in Japanese – Omake

Hi, I’m Andre, and this is Learning to Read Manga in Japanese…in written form!

But first, I want to sincerely thank everybody who is watching the videos, leaving likes, leaving positive comments, and asking good questions. The channel hit over 100 subscribers recently, and I am extremely grateful.

Thank you!

My goal with the videos is to help manga fans like me study Japanese in a way that makes sense to them and is tailored to them, and it seems like many of you are finding them useful. Again, I’m no language-learning expert—I’ve spent years of my life trial-and-erroring my way through Japanese until I found my footing, and I just wanted to share with people the path I’ve taken thus far…with the fat trimmed off.

Today, I wanted to talk to you guys about some of my up-to-date thoughts about learning Japanese. Plus, I’m going to trim off some more fat: flashcards. I no longer think flashcards are useful.

But first, let’s talk about language-learning in general.

THE SECRET MAGIC FORMULA

I’m sure many of you have searched up things like:

“best way to learn japanese”
“how to become fluent in Japanese EASY”
or “learn japanese fastest method”

…stuff like that. And when you do that, you end up finding articles and videos like these:

“How to Learn Japanese in 24 Hours”
“Learn Japanese While Sleeping”
“HOW TO LEARN JAPANESE INSANELY FAST: 10 SMART LANGUAGE HACKS”
“How to Learn Japanese the Easy Way”
“Speaking Japanese Fluently in 6 Months | 6 Steps to Success”
“Learn Japanese in 30 Days – Scientifically Proven Method”

(these are all real titles of webpages I found)

But, the thing is, there is no secret formula. There is no trick. There are no hacks. There is no super efficient advanced strategy for learning Japanese “fast.” Learning new languages is difficult. It takes time and effort. You can’t do it in your sleep. But it’s also not complicated. The simple truth about language acquisition is this:

USE IT, OR LOSE IT.

If you want to learn to speak Japanese, you MUST find some way to regularly practice speaking Japanese (preferably with a native speaker).

If you want to learn to write in Japanese, you NEED to find a way to write Japanese regularly (preferably under the guidance of a native writer).

If you want to learn how to read Japanese, you HAVE to read native Japanese writing as regularly as you can. (And that can be in the form of manga, newspapers, books, video game dialogue, whatever).

And if you want to learn to understand spoken Japanese, it is IMPERATIVE that you listen to native speakers speaking, as regularly as possible (either in person or through radio, tv shows, movies, anime, youtube channels, etc.)

That’s it. If any of those things is your goal, the above is all you need to do in order to achieve it. Basically, once you’ve laid your foundation and learned the basics of the Japanese writing system and grammatical structure, focus your attention away from study materials and towards native Japanese media/people.

SHONEN TRAINING WEIGHTS

Using language-learning apps, studying grammar textbooks, going through workbooks and study materials, listening to podcasts made for students, and making/reviewing flashcards are all totally okay things to do during the beginning phases of learning Japanese…but ultimately that’s not where the bulk of your learning should come from. Those things need to be shed like shonen training weights.

Unleash your potential like Goku at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai!

Or Rock Lee at the Chunin Exam Section 3 Prelims!

If you are past the fundamentals stage, and your goal is to read Japanese manga, then just do that. Don’t weigh yourself down with other distractions.

“But Andre! When I try to read manga, I have to look up almost everything! Doesn’t that mean that I’m not good enough?” – Worried Person

Rest assured that what you are going through is…

Absolutely…

Positively…

Completely…

NORMAL.

You are learning a new language—OF COURSE you don’t know everything yet.

And realistically, you will NEVER know everything.

WHAT IS “LEARNING”?

Learning a language is a lifelong process. There is no magic fluency switch that once you hit, you will never have to look up a word in the dictionary again. I am a native English speaker, and I STILL run into unfamiliar English words all the time!

So, ARE you good enough to read manga? Maybe, maybe not. But if you keep worrying over it, trust me, YOU WILL NEVER FEEL READY. It’s a leap of faith. Take the leap. Have faith in yourself.

“But Andre! Even words I’ve already looked up, I keep forgetting them and having to look them up over and over again!”

This seems like a big problem, right?

It’s not. This is the learning process.

You run into walls, and you have to learn to climb over them. Over time, you learn to climb faster and faster until eventually the walls that stopped you before, you can now hop over them.

Often when you run into these learning “problems”, that’s when some well-meaning people will advise:

“FLASHCARDS! Make them! Review them! Then you’ll never forget anything ever again!”

Let’s talk about flashcards.

FLASHCARDS: ARE THEY GOOD?

First of all, I want to be completely self-aware here. One of my videos in the Read Manga in Japanese series was all about flashcards and I explicitly recommended using them for furthering your manga fluency. I have taken that video down and I’d like to apologize to anyone who started using flashcards errantly because of it.

Sorry!

I used to believe in flashcards, but at the time I was making that video, I was already starting to question them and was no longer putting it into practice myself. But I figured since so many language-learners recommend it, it must be useful and I felt I should probably talk about it in my video.

Needless to say I changed my mind.

And I know there are a lot of people who swear by flashcards, who don’t want to hear someone rip it apart. Don’t worry—I’m not just going to bash on flashcards for the rest of this post. In fact, why don’t we talk first about what flashcards ARE good for. And when it comes to learning Japanese, I think there are maybe 3 things:

(1) If you are a beginner Japanese student laying their foundation, flashcards can help you memorize your hiragana and katakana. They can help you memorize the vocabulary lists or grammar concepts in your textbooks.

(2) In a classroom setting, flashcards are good for cramming. If you need to memorize stuff for a quiz or exam or presentation tomorrow, making and reviewing flashcards is a good way to approach that.

And finally (3), if you need to memorize something specific for a specific event, then flashcards may be a good way to prepare for it. Let me give an example:

When I was getting ready for my first trip to Japan last summer, I was afraid I would get there and not know how to read any signs or labels. They don’t teach you how to read street signs, business open/closed signs, signs at an airport, restaurant menus, or the buttons on a remote control in the Japanese textbooks I used. Nor are any of those of much focus in most manga either. So since I had no other way to review them organically, I made a flashcard deck to help memorize them. And I can’t tell you how significantly that helped me during my trip.

MEMORIZING VS. LEARNING

Basically, flashcards help you memorize things. But it’s important to make a distinction between “memorizing” and “learning.” When you memorize something, you make it stick in your mind. But when you learn something, you understand how to apply it to new situations. When you decide to use flashcards, make sure you know what you expect to gain from it.

How does this apply to reading Japanese manga? I see it often recommended that while you are engaging with native Japanese material like manga or anime, you should note down every word you don’t know and turn it into a flashcard (which is basically what I used to do).

But the problem is flashcards lack CONTEXT. Especially if you make the basic “term-on-the-front-definition-on-the-back” style of flashcards, simply memorizing the meaning of a word does not help you learn how to use it yourself nor does it protect you from confusion when you see that word again in the wild in a new context. Some Japanese-learners try to circumvent this by putting context in their flashcards (i.e. example sentences). But I think that is a misguided effort. In fact, I think it’s redundant.

READING IS REVIEWING

When you are reading manga, you are right where you need to be. Immersing yourself into native material. Every word you lay your eyes on, familiar or unfamiliar, presents itself to you in the context of the story and the dialogue.

Let’s say you see the word 本当 (hontou) in a manga, for example. It’s a common word so you’re likely to see it again. Guess what? Each time you see the word 本当 again, it’s going to be in a new sentence and in a different story context than when you saw it previously.

Each time you see it, you are reinforcing it just a bit more in your mind. Sound familiar?

It’s (almost) the same thing that happens when you review the word 本当 in a flashcard deck over and over. Each time you see it, you reinforce it.

But the problem with the flashcard deck is that you are seeing 本当 out of context. In the manga, it will ALWAYS be in context. Even if you put an example sentence or two in your flashcard, each time you review that flashcard, you are ONLY reviewing THAT sentence or two. By reading your manga, you will get to see 本当 in a new context each and every time you review it, each time furthering your understanding of how 本当 can be used.

FLASHCARDS: ARE THEY BAD?

To be clear, making and reviewing flashcards is not necessarily harmful to your progress; it’s just a time-waster. All that time you spend carefully crafting and reviewing cards could be used instead for way more reading time, where you’ll be learning new words and reviewing familiar ones in new contexts—a much more productive activity.

So going back to that original question, if you find yourself constantly having to look up the same word in the dictionary over and over again because you keep forgetting what it means, that’s totally okay! It’s either you look it up over and over again until you remember OR you make a flashcard and review THAT over and over again until you remember. Some may advise you to make a flashcard, but I would not.

One other thing about flashcards is just that I personally find making and reviewing them veeeeeery boring. Whereas I find reading manga fun. Back when I used to make flashcards, I never liked how they always interrupted my reading, and I hated having to review them later.

That said, there are people who DO enjoy making and reviewing flashcards. And that’s fine, but if you are that person, be careful not to fall into the trap of spending so much time with flashcards, you forget that reading is your priority. That’s something I think even the staunchest believers in flashcards will agree with me on.

WHAT ABOUT ANKI’S SPACED REPETITION?

Many people love the spaced repetition system of Anki (and other digital flashcard software).

Basically what it does is when you are reviewing your flashcards, it will schedule when each of your cards show up according to how well you know them, with less familiar cards prioritized sooner and more familiar cards later.

The issue with this is Anki doesn’t know what words are actually important for you to memorize or not. If you DO decide to make flashcards while reading manga, it’s important not to enter in literally every single word you don’t know; because it’s likely you won’t see many of them again. It’s especially easy to fall into the trap of making flashcards for obscure words if you are a beginner, since it’s harder for you to tell if a word is common or not (I was guilty of this).

But just by focusing on reading manga (and not making flashcards), you will start to notice what words show up frequently—those are the words that are important for you to remember. The more frequent they are, the more important they are. And since they show up so frequently in your reading, you are also already reviewing them more than any other words. For obscure words that you rarely see more than once, it’s totally okay to look it up once and let yourself forget it until the next once-in-a-blue-moon occasion you see it again.

To those still interested in Anki’s spaced repetition system (despite everything I’ve said), I’d just like to warn you on one thing:

AVOID making or downloading large flashcard decks.

When decks have hundreds of cards in them, cards that are marked “easy” get pushed months—or even YEARS—into the future, and it’s inevitable that by the time you see that card again, you’ve forgotten it. At least, that was my experience. The same cards would constantly cycle between easy and hard, memorized and forgotten, and as more and more new cards were added, the effect became even more pronounced. Ultimately, it felt like I was not making any progress.

Yes, I memorized 本当 months ago, but now that I see it again after all this time, I don’t remember what it means anymore. So what was the point? Did I really “learn” 本当? Will I “learn” 本当 if I review the card again?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The bottom line is, if you know exactly what you want to do with Japanese, tailor your studying to that goal. Step away from the academic study materials and immerse yourself in native material or with native speakers, as much as you can.

If you want to learn how to read manga in Japanese, take care of your fundamentals first (kana, basic grammar), then prioritize immersing yourself with as much reading practice as possible. Don’t bother with flashcards. Using language-learning apps, books, and materials should ONLY be supplemental if used at all.

But also, I want to remind you all that all of this is just my opinion. There are many people who would agree with me and there are many people who would disagree with me. I am simply speaking from my personal experience, and in the end, it’s up to each individual to decide what methods work for them and what doesn’t.

And with that, I want to thank you all again for watching, liking, and commenting on my videos. To those of you who subscribed to the channel I really really appreciate it, but just know that I likely won’t have time to upload videos very often, so absolutely no worries if you want to unsubscribe for lack of content.

Thank you all for reading, and…

…Remember to have fun!

– Andre

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https://www.instagram.com/andre_h.art/

https://twitter.com/Andre____H

“To You, 2,000 Years in the Future” – Lessons in World-Building – Episode Breakdown

Once in a while I watch an episode of a TV series that gives me goosebumps. It either impresses me artistically or it moves me emotionally, the same way some movies do. After all, episodes of a series are, in a way, short films.

So, let’s talk Attack on Titan. A post-apocalyptic fantasy survival anime about the last remnants of human civilization being preyed upon by giant hungry zombies called titans. We follow teenagers Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert, along with their peers as they fight to save humanity and uncover the secret origins of the titans.

Today, I want to focus on season 1 episode 1: “To You, 2,000 Years in the Future -The Fall of Shiganshina, Part 1.” In a way, the premiere episode of a show is the most important one, as its goal is to persuade people to continue watching the rest of the series. Personally, I find Attack on Titan’s premiere to be one of the most impactful in the last ten years of anime. And upon review, I am surprised to find just how much is set up about the world and characters in the span of 20 minutes. So let’s begin the breakdown.

You can check out the episode here: https://www.crunchyroll.com/attack-on-titan/episode-1-to-you-2000-years-in-the-future-the-fall-of-zhiganshina-1

(Directors: Tanaka Hiroyuki and Araki Tetsuro; Writer: Kobayashi Yasuko; Original Creator: Isayama Hajime)

Here’s what I think are the important events of the episode:

Flash-forward: Colossal Titan appears.
The Scout Regiment takes down a titan.
Opening Theme & Animation – “Guren no Yumiya”.
Eren wakes up frightened, crying.
Titans clawing at the wall. A religious Pastor preaches about the wall.
Eren and Mikasa talk to Hannes, who is drunk.
The Scout Regiment returns from their mission.
Eren and Mikasa go home, and we meet Eren’s parents.
Armin is bullied.
Armin and Eren talk about their hopes and fears. (and Armin totally jinxes it)
BOOM! Colossal Titan appears. Titans run amok in the city.
Mikasa and Eren try to save Eren’s mom. Hannes takes them away to safety.
Eren witnesses his mom be brutally devoured by a titan.

Now, let’s talk about what exact function each event plays in developing the world and characters of Attack on Titan.

But first, let’s establish what the goals of this episode are: set up the titan vs. human conflict, introduce the titan-slaying organization, introduce the characters, and create a tragedy that spurs the protagonist to take action.

The very first image we see is that of a pair of geese flying across the sky. Then, we see the Colossal Titan’s hand gripping the giant walls encircling the town of Shiganshina, and its enormous head peering down at the terrified humans below. The geese symbolize freedom. Both the walls and the oppressive monster looking over it represent oppression. The overall mood of the scene is fear. Simple-but-effective messages that communicate a lot. We learn that humans in this world are being oppressed by giant beings like this. And we learn the central theme: freedom vs oppression.

In the next scene, we see a group of soldiers in uniform working together to take down a titan using steam-powered devices that allow them to zip around the trees freely (and allow the animators to design really awesome action sequences). We later learn that these soldiers are part of a group called the “Scout Regiment.” This scene introduces us to the rebellious “monster-slaying” organization that exists in this world. Or in other words, the police or military force.

Through these two scenes we also get a vague idea of the setting: it is set in a time and place that seems medieval or rural; a little low-tech; possibly steampunk.

Then we get the opening theme song and animation. I will admit, while I was reviewing this episode, I almost ignored the opening. But then I realized it actually has a lot of critical information in it. Not only do the music and visuals set the tone for the series, but the visuals alone actually communicate a lot. We learn that the likely heroes of the show are members of the military organization we saw in the previous scene. And we learn that the show will be mainly about this military organization slaying these “titans.”

Then we meet our protagonists Eren and Mikasa. Eren wakes up frightened from a bad dream and with tears in his eyes. If you are reviewing this episode like I am, you will notice that some of the images in his nightmare come from the future. Now unless there’s some canon explanation for Eren’s precognition I don’t know about, I believe this is just foreshadowing.

Next we get two quick, but important shots. First, a shot of some titans helplessly clawing at Shiganshina’s walls. From this we learn about the purpose of the walls: to keep the titans away from humans. So now we have an idea for the kind of infrastructure that is in place to protect humanity.

The second shot we see is of a religious pastor publicly preaching about the divinity of the walls. Now we know about the kinds of religious groups that exists in this world. (This becomes important later in the series.)

In the next scene, Eren and Mikasa run into a soldier, their family friend Hannes, and his fellow peers in the “Garrison Regiment” whose duty is to guard the walls. The problem is that they are all drunk and not at all prepared for any sort of emergency, much less a titan-related one. From this scene we learn a bit about the history of titan attacks in the area: namely that there hasn’t been one in 100 years. Thus, we also learn the general attitude of the people in the town: they are complacent.

Hannes also mentions Eren’s father being a well-respected and popular physician in the area.

The Scout Regiment returns in the next scene after their mission. We learn about Eren’s dream to join the Scouts, who are his heroes, and that he’s very stubborn and hot-headed about it. This is his character flaw; aka the “lie that he believes”; that he will have to grow out of. Mikasa tries to convince him not to join the Scouts, to no avail.

According to K.M. Weiland, author of Creating Character Arcs, “In order for your character to evolve in a positive way, he has to start out with something lacking in his life, some reason that makes the change necessary. He is harboring some deeply held misconception about either himself, the world, or, probably, both.”

Next, we learn that the Scout Regiment’s mission is to travel outside the walls in order to study titans and try to unravel the mysteries behind their existence. We also learn about the attitude of these “heroes”: that even they have lost hope and have nothing to show for their journeys outside the walls and the countless soldiers’ lives that have been lost.

In the face of this, Eren is basically given an escape route: he has every reason to lose his respect for the Scouts and give up his dream of joining them. But, he decides not to give up his dream. His desire remains strong in face of the escape route. He still believes in their mission and will bonk the head of anyone who dares make fun of them.

Next, Eren and Mikasa make their way to Eren’s home. We learn they live together with Eren’s mother and father. The character Carla Jaeger, Eren’s mother, is introduced. She loves Eren, worries about him, and because of that forbids him to join the scouts. We get a hint about Mikasa’s physical strength through Carla, who implies that Mikasa always helps Eren with collecting firewood. Then, we meet Eren’s father Grisha Jaeger who supports Eren’s dream; then leaves on a business trip. But not before he teases what is inside the secret basement, the central MacGuffin for the series.

In the next scene we meet Armin Arlert, a boy who is friends with Eren and Mikasa, getting bullied. We learn from this scene that he is smart, courageous, but physically weak–and ashamed of that. We get another hint about Mikasa’s strength when the bullies run cowardly away when they see her approaching with Eren.

Then, our main trio have a conversation about their hopes and fears. Armin talks about having an interest in the outside world; which was deemed “taboo” by the royal government. Again, we understand a little more about the attitude of the general public. He and Eren share the dream of seeing the world beyond the walls. We now understand what may be the attitude of some youths in this society.

Then, Armin jinxes the whole town of Shiganshina when he insists that someday, the walls will no longer hold and the titans will breach it.

BOOM! The colossal titan appears out of nowhere and kicks open the gate, allowing titans to enter the town; then he disappears. Doomsday. The worst possible scenario occurs. This society faces its ultimate challenge. We learn that titans are creepy as hell: mindless, hungry, man-eating, humanoid giants.

Eren’s mother is crushed under their house. Eren and Mikasa try to pull her out while Hannes tries and fails to engage an approaching titan. We learn that Hannes owes some sort of debt to the Jaeger family. Hannes abandons Carla and runs away with Mikasa and Eren. They are all unable to save her; all they can do is watch her get eaten alive. They are too weak and too cowardish. This is Eren’s lowest point; his abyss, where all hope seems lost.

Carla is eaten, and Eren is devastated. His whole world is destroyed. This entire episode, Eren has been a hot-head, preaching about being a hero and claiming that he is strong and brave. But, he learns in this instant how weak, small, and helpless he is when faced with a real challenge, while being carried in the arms of the cowardish Hannes. This is Eren’s revelation.

Now let’s review:

1. Flash-forward: Colossal Titan appears.	Theme: Freedom vs. Oppression
2. The Scout Regiment takes down a titan.	Introduce Military Organization; Rough Setting
3. Opening Animation – “Guren no Yumiya”.	Series Concept: Military vs. Titans
4. Eren wakes up frightened, crying.	Foreshadow Doomsday; Introduce Eren, Mikasa
5. Titans clawing at the wall. A religious Pastor preaches about the wall.	Protective Infrastructure, Religious Group
6. Eren and Mikasa talk to Hannes, who is drunk.	History; Attitude of Common People
7. The Scout Regiment Returns from their mission.	Eren’s Dream & Flaw; Attitude of “Heroes”; Escape Route
8. Eren and Mikasa go home, and we meet Eren’s parents.	Introduce Carla & Grisha; Macguffin
9. Armin is bullied	Introduce Armin
10. Armin and Eren talk about hopes and fears. (and Armin totally jinxes it)	Taboo; Royal Government; Attitude of Youth
11. BOOM! Colossal titan appears. Titans run amok in the city.	Doomsday; Society in Face of Ultimate Challenge
12. Mikasa and Eren try to save Eren’s mom. Hannes takes them away to safety.	Eren’s Abyss
13. Eren witnesses his mom be brutally devoured by a titan.	Eren’s Revelation

“To You, 2,000 Years in the Future -The Fall of Shiganshina, Part 1”: There are a lot of things established in this 20-minute pilot episode, and it’s done rather efficiently considering, with most of it communicated through visuals and dialogue rather than through expository narration.

We learn about the series concept and theme: freedom vs oppression; a rough idea of the time and place, we are introduced to the main characters, the infrastructure, the military organization, the religious groups, the attitudes of commoners, the youth, and the so-called “heroes”; societal taboos; the existence of a royal government; as well as the series’ MacGuffin.

Along with a clear character arc for the protagonist, Eren Jaeger: complete with a strong desire (join the scouts), a fatal flaw (arrogance), obstacles to his goal (Mikasa and Carla), supporters (Grisha and Armin), a true challenge (titans invade city), an abyss (watching Carla get eaten), and a revelation (realizes he’s helpless).

And we learn a smattering about several other important characters. Armin is brave, smart, yet physically weak. Mikasa is physically strong and cares deeply for Eren and Armin. Hannes was complacent and lazy, but wants to change. Grisha is supportive of his son’s dreams, is a respected physician in the city, and has kept some sort of secret in the family basement.

These solid lessons in setting up a fantasy world and its characters come together for one great episode.

Thanks for reading. Until the next episode.

“My Euphonium” – Writing a Satisfying Character Arc – Episode Breakdown

So today, let’s talk Sound! Euphonium. A simple slice-of-life drama anime series about the members of the Kitauji High School wind ensemble as they prepare for the upcoming Kyoto prefectural competition.

But today I am going to focus on one particular episode: season 1 episode 12: “My Euphonium” in which, our protagonist Kumiko Oumae, a freshman euphonium player, is assigned a difficult section in the music to perfect before the impending competition.

Today I want to talk about “My Euphonium” and how it showcases a well-structured, satisfying character arc.

You can check out the episode here: https://www.crunchyroll.com/sound-euphonium/episode-12-my-euphonium-678393

(Series Director: Tatsuya Ishihara; Episode 12 Director: Ichirou Miyoshi, Episode 12 Animation director: Nobuaki Maruki)

Let’s start with what I think are the important events of the episode:

Kumiko is assigned a difficult section by Taki-sensei.
Kumiko practices it diligently, claiming she “wants to improve.”
Kumiko gets a nosebleed from practicing too much.
Kumiko talks to Aoi-senpai and her older sister Mamiko, who both quit band in the past.
Kumiko plays her euphonium in her room, even though she is disturbing the neighbors.
Kumiko is warned about the two-week time limit by Taki-sensei and she responds “I can do it.”
Kumiko continues to practice, and people tell her she is improving.
Taki-sensei asks another student to play the section alone.
Kumiko runs across the bridge screaming “I want to improve!!”
Kumiko tells Mamiko that she loves playing euphonium.
Kumiko bonds with Taki-sensei. Taki-sensei gives Kumiko a second chance.

Now, let’s talk about what exact function each event plays in Kumiko’s character arc.

But first, as a baseline, I am defining a “character arc” as a character starting off in one place and ending up in another, either physically, emotionally, or mentally. Star Wars shows Luke Skywalker’s journey from whiny farm boy to hero of the galaxy. Cinderella shows the title character starting as an abused family servant to becoming a happily-wed princess.

Alright…on to Euphonium.

At the start of “My Euphonium,” Kumiko is assigned a difficult section in the music by Taki-sensei, the instructor of the Kitauji High School wind ensemble. And she is expected to master it before the prefectural competition in two weeks’ time. This is the challenge Kumiko is given; the goal she needs to strive for. Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, might call this Kumiko’s call to adventure. Essentially, this is where the main conflict sprouts from.

So what is the main conflict? Well, Kumiko wants/needs to master a new section of the music, and she is having trouble. It’s a pretty difficult section, after all, and she has a limited amount of time. But her senpai (upperclassman) Asuka, also a euphonium player, plays it almost perfectly on her first go. So the pressure is on. The problem is that Kumiko’s heart isn’t really in it.

Now, some essential background knowledge: Kumiko has played the euphonium for six years, but she was forced into it from the very beginning by her teachers. At the start of season one, after reluctantly following her new friends who end up joining the school wind ensemble, Kumiko tries to switch instruments, but ends up being forced by Asuka to continue with the euphonium. Over the course of the season, Kumiko comes into regular contact with her classmate Reina, a trumpet player with incredible talent, ambition, and genuine love for her instrument. This inspires Kumiko to try to have the same amount of commitment to the euphonium.

Thus, Kumiko practices the difficult section diligently, and tells herself that she “wants to improve.” I would classify this as the lie that she believes. According to K.M. Weiland, author of Creating Character Arcs,

“In order for your character to evolve in a positive way, he has to start out with something lacking in his life, some reason that makes the change necessary. He is harboring some deeply held misconception about either himself, the world, or, probably, both… this misconception is going to prove a direct obstacle to his ability to fulfill his plot goal. In some instances, it may start out seeming to be a strength, but as the story progresses, it will become your character’s Achilles heel.”

Kumiko’s insincerity is her Achilles’ heel. Kumiko doesn’t actually want to improve; she simply believes that she should want to improve. Her diligent practice may seem to be a strength at first, but it is getting her nowhere in reality.

As a (possible) consequence of this, she gets a nosebleed from dehydration. This is a warning sign. Kumiko’s efforts are being tested. This is her first obstacle. Her first trial.

When she returns home for the day, she bumps into her senpai Aoi, who recently quit the band to focus on her academics. Kumiko also talks to her older sister Mamiko, and remembers how she also quit the band in order to focus on college entrance exams. I would consider these two meetings Kumiko’s second trial. Basically, by talking to two people who had decided to quit band after deciding it was not so important to them, Kumiko is given an escape route. She doesn’t have to obey Taki-sensei and master the section in the music. In fact, she could decide to just quit band and not have to deal with it at all.

So what does Kumiko decide?

Well, instead of giving a clear answer, Kumiko starts playing her euphonium loudly in her room, worrying not about disturbing the neighbors. Seemingly in this scene, Kumiko is declaring that she loves the euphonium. But is she being sincere? She doesn’t say the words out loud; and the fact that we don’t see her face in this scene tells me that the answer is no. In any case, she makes a strong, possibly risky character choice by deciding not to take the escape route.

At school the next day, Kumiko is warned about the two-week deadline by Taki-sensei and she adamantly responds “I can do it.” This is her third trial: the ticking time-limit piles on the pressure.

Kumiko continues to practice, and her classmates tell her she is improving. She begins to feel optimistic. Ten days left to master the part seems to be a cinch. Of course, it’s not going to be that easy. This is merely false hope.

Taki-sensei (seemingly) rejects Kumiko’s progress and asks Asuka to play the section alone. This is Kumiko’s fourth and final trial and the most difficult of them all. She seems to have failed. This is her worst nightmare.

And we arrive at my favorite scene in the entire series: when Kumiko runs across Ujibashi bridge crying and screaming “I want to improve!!” This is simultaneously Kumiko’s darkest moment, the ABYSS, and her revelation. As she yells “I want to improve! I don’t want to lose to anyone!” and later “I’m so frustrated I could die” this is the first time she is truly being sincere.

Kumiko remembers an experience she had in middle school when she witnessed Reina crying and saying those exact words: “I’m so frustrated. I’m so frustrated I could die.” At the time, they were in a middle school wind ensemble competing in the Kyoto prefectural competition. When the results were announced, their band won gold, but were not deemed good enough to qualify for the Kansai regional competition, which would then lead to the national competition. Most of the members of their band, including Kumiko, were happy to have even received gold, except Reina, who had been aiming for the national competition all along.

Kumiko was always baffled by Reina’s “I’m so frustrated I could die”, her ambition, and her sincerity. But now (in the present) as Kumiko incidentally says the words “I’m so frustrated I could die” herself, at the pit of her abyss, she realizes what Reina was feeling back then. She finally understands her. This is Kumiko’s revelation.

When Kumiko gets home, her sister asks her what the point of trying so hard in band is, if Kumiko doesn’t even plan to pursue music in college or as a career. Kumiko defiantly tells her that there is a point: that she likes playing euphonium. That’s it. It’s that simple. That’s all that matters. After her sister leaves the room, Kumiko sits down and looks herself in the mirror and says the words “I like the euphonium.” This time when she says it, her face is in full view. She means it. This is Kumiko’s second revelation.

Kumiko returns to school that night to retrieve her cell phone that she misplaced earlier. She runs into Taki-sensei and she learns a bit about him. It turns out his father was the wind ensemble teacher of her high school many years ago. Taki-sensei originally never intended to follow his father’s footsteps, but found himself choosing and falling in love with the job anyway. “I suppose that’s what it’s like to have something you enjoy doing,” he says. Kumiko agrees, sincerely. Kumiko now loves the euphonium, and she now wants to improve— but not simply for the sake of improving, but because she loves playing her instrument. From now on, practicing will no longer be an obligation for her, but an earnest desire.

And as a reward for her growth, Kumiko is given a second chance to prove she can perfect the new section before the competition. She is given a new hope.

And finally at the very end, the “Band Instrument-kun” keychain gachapon series debuts “Eupho-kun,” a character that Kumiko has always wanted to see. As Kumiko explains via voice-over, “It’s a lie that the gods smile upon those who make an effort. But today, the gods of destiny gave me a wink.” Things are finally looking up for Kumiko.

Now let’s review:

1. Kumiko is assigned a difficult section by Taki-sensei	The Challenge
2. Kumiko practices it diligently, claiming she “wants to improve”	The Lie She Believes
3. Kumiko Gets a nosebleed from practicing too much without hydrating	Trial 1: Efforts Tested
4. Kumiko talks to Aoi-senpai and her older sister Mamiko, who both quit band in the past	Trial 2: Escape Route
5. Kumiko plays her euphonium in her room, even though her family told her never to because it would disturb the neighbors. We don’t see her face in this scene.	Denies Escape Route
6. Kumiko is warned about the two-week time limit by Taki-sensei and she responds “I can do it.”	Trial 3: More Pressure
7. Kumiko continues to practice, and people tell her she is improving. She begins to feel optimistic	False Hope
8. Taki-sensei rejects Kumiko and asks another student to play the section alone	Trial 4: Apparent Failure (Worst Nightmare)
9. Kumiko runs across the bridge screaming “I want to improve!!”	ABYSS / Revelation
10. Kumiko tells Mamiko that she loves playing euphonium.	Revelation
11. Kumiko bonds with Taki-sensei over doing the things they love. Taki-sensei gives Kumiko a second chance to prove she can perfect the section before the competition	Reward / New Hope

While resolving an arc that started in episode one, “My Euphonium” is also a complete beginning and end itself. Over the course of the show as a whole, Kumiko goes through minimal development as focus is placed on the drama between other members of the Kitauji High School wind ensemble.

But in this episode, we see the culmination of everything Kumiko has experienced since joining this band, finally catching up to her. Kumiko spends much of the show watching others go through challenges, stressful situations, and other drama as an outsider, so it’s incredible to finally see her face her own challenge.

A challenge, a lie, four trials, false hope, an abyss, a revelation, and a reward. All these come together to form what I feel is a very satisfying character arc and one great episode.

Thanks for reading. Until the next episode.

Favorite Films of 2018 & Oscars 2019 Predictions

Hey all. Long time no read. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to update this blog as much as I planned to. I have several essays in the works, though I couldn’t say when they will materialize. Nevertheless, I’m back for a quick post about my favorite films of 2018 and some recommendations, and I’ll also lay down my predictions for tomorrow’s sure-to-be-interesting Academy Awards.

Let’s start with my favorite films of 2018. Strangely, there weren’t as many films this year I was interested in seeing, so I didn’t go out to the theater as much as the previous year. 2018 ended up as the year I began to dive into films from the past and films from other countries.

That being said, there were some gems in 2018, so let’s talk about them.

Shoplifters depicts the lives of a poor family in Japan relying on odd jobs, pension plans, and–yep–shoplifting in order to make ends meet. One night, they decide to take in a young girl who was abandoned by her parents. All seems well, until their lives take a sharp turn that threatens to separate the family.

Probably my number one favorite of the year, this is the one film that I couldn’t keep out of my mind for weeks after I saw it. This is one of the few movies that I wanted to rewatch immediately after the credits rolled. The “sharp turn” is not a “twist” in the typical sense–it is revealed in slow motion over the course of the movie instead of in a single moment at the end, but when I realized it, it hit me like a crowbar into a windshield.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse tells the story of Miles Morales, a typical teenager just trying to survive adolescence. …Until he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and spun up in a plot involving supervillains, interdimensional portals, and various spider-heroes. The worst thing is, he’s suddenly expected to take on the mantle of everyone’s beloved hero, Spider-Man.

This is simply and truly the most unique American animated feature film in decades. This is not the same generic, 3D/CG-animated, Pixar-imitating family film that we’ve seen over and over and over again in American cinemas for the entirety of the 2000s and 2010s. Nope. Fusing together traditional 2D animation with modern CG animation techniques for a unique comic-book-style effect, I feel confident in saying that Spider-Verse will represent a paradigm-shift in the U.S. animation industry the likes of which we haven’t seen since Toy Story blew us away with the world’s first fully CGI animation feature film. Plus, it has a relatable, well-told story with a beautiful character arc for its protagonist Miles Morales, and it’s set amid what should be way too many characters and storylines, yet it magically makes it all work and feel perfectly focused.

Roma Cleo Gutiérrez is a housemaid working in Mexico City, employed by a single mother and her four children. Set amid the Mexican “Dirty” War of the 1970s and filmed in black-and-white.

Surely, a black-and-white, slow-moving, minimal-plot, slice-of-life foreign language film (yes, you have to read subtitles) would be a bore, but I found Roma to be very touching. Well, maybe touching isn’t the right word, but I don’t think I could’ve possibly felt any closer to the main character. I will never forget the unbelievable cinematography and the seemingly impossible long-takes coordinating hundreds upon hundreds of extras at a time. I also followed it and enjoyed it much more than the other highly-acclaimed black-and-white, slow-moving, minimal-plot, slice-of-life foreign language film this year.

Burning Based on the short story “Barn Burning” by the brilliant novelist Haruki Murakami, we follow a young aspiring writer as he solves the mystery of the love of his life, who went missing after she began hanging around a suspicious rich dude played by that guy in the Walking Dead. To make matters stranger, the rich dude doesn’t seem to have a job–just a strange hobby: burning down abandoned greenhouses.

Despite the fact that the major conflict doesn’t start until more than halfway into the movie, I was enthralled the whole way through. The relaxingly slow buildup and slightly unsettling atmosphere that permeates the entire story is what I live for. And the trail of breadcrumbs this movie leaves you is so ripe for discussion, especially because the “resolution”–if you could call it that–is so deliciously ambiguous.

Crazy Rich Asians Humble Asian-American girl Rachel Chu gets invited to her boyfriend Nick’s best friend’s wedding in Singapore. Little does she know, Nick and his friend belong to some of the wealthiest families in Asia.

An Asian-American enjoying and relating to this movie probably isn’t a surprise. But I went in actually not expecting much; I mean, it just looked like a generic rom-com (except with Asians, Asians everywhere). By the end, I found myself thoroughly surprised–I laughed a bunch, felt attached to the characters and their stories, and all the Asian references I picked up on made me feel like I was part of an exclusive club. It was just a good time at the movies.

Mirai Young Kun learns that he is getting a baby sister named Mirai. He is excited at first, but gets frustrated when his parents start to give her more attention than him. Then, he finds a magic portal in the garden that brings him to a grown up version of Mirai. Kun and Mirai go on an adventure to meet their other relatives from the past, present, and the future.

You know you’ve watched a movie at the right time when you realize it is touching on ideas that have been floating around your head. Have you ever stopped to think about what your parents might’ve been like at your age? You really only know your parents as your parents, but they weren’t always your parents, right? Also, what if you could meet your descendants right now? What if they could see you right now; what would they think? These are the kinds of things that floated around my head before I saw this movie, and so it is to blame for those things now becoming permanent fixtures. Otherwise, it’s a very charming movie with cute visuals and director Mamoru Hosoda’s typical warmth.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly When King Vegeta exiled Paragus’ ridiculously powerful baby son Broly to a barely habitable planet due to jealousy, Paragus swore revenge. Now all these years later, his son’s training will be tested when he faces off against Earth’s mightiest heroes, Prince Vegeta and Son Goku, in a fight instigated by a similarly vengeful Frieza.

This movie offers the best anime fight scene ever put to screen, period. From the choreography, to the camera movements, to the effects; and especially the crisp hand-drawn animation, I’ve honestly not seen anything better. (Though nothing can match the pure ridiculousness, outrageousness, and self-awareness of the fight in Kizumonogatari Part 3.)

…And here are some other films that stood out out me this year.

Modest Heroes This is a compilation of three short films by Studio Ghibli’s successor, Studio Ponoc: The first one, Kanini & Kanino, storywise I didn’t find it very impactful, but it has beautiful Ghibli-like visuals and some unique ideas at play. Number two, Life Ain’t Gonna Lose, deals with a really interesting topic that I have never seen explored in film — that of a boy with a life-threatening allergy and how it affects his and his mother’s life — and pairs it with a striking pastel art style. The third film, Invisible, is a depressingly relatable story about a literally invisible man who feels invisible to the people around him. Also stunning animation and a lot of clever ideas. Shows you don’t need to draw a face (or even a body) to depict a character’s emotions.

Free Solo A documentary about rock climber Alex Honnold, and his challenge to himself to free solo–that is, climbing without ropes or harnesses–the 3000-foot shear face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. We see how he prepares, what the people around him think of this challenge, and of course; the epic climb itself captured on camera.

One reason I love movies is that they have the ability, through just visuals and audio, to elicit physical and emotional reactions from me. Having said that, I never thought a film would be able to make my hands sweat like this one. I’m sure everyone who saw this movie had damp hands walking out. Got dry hands? No problem! Just watch Free Solo. And see it on the big screen if possible.

Hereditary Strange things begin to happen to miniature artist Annie Graham and her family after the funeral of her taciturn mother.

This movie disturbed the living hell out of me in a way I wasn’t anticipating and I am impressed by that and I never want to watch it again.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch A young game designer begins work on a game based on the choose-your-own-adventure novel Bandersnatch, the author of which went insane and murdered his wife. The young man starts to see his life turn upside-down in this unique attempt for Netflix of an interactive movie where viewers make the choices…or do they?

As someone with no experience with either Black Mirror or choose-your-own-adventure books or visual novels, I had a fun time trying over and over to get the “true” ending… because I thought I kept getting failed endings…..then I looked it up and realized I got the best ending on my first go-through. The story and the exploration of the themes are really interesting and entertaining, but none of the endings feel satisfactory.

The Favourite Two conniving women fight for the attention and power of the childlike and emotional Queen Anne.

If director Yorgos Lanthimos is on board, sign me up. That being said, this film is a lot less Lanthimos-y than The lobster and Killing of a Sacred Deer, probably due to his not collaborating on the screenplay. But, hey, it still is full of his unique camerawork, trademark directorial style, and witty performances, so I still had a fun time.

First Man A biopic about Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

While I’m usually down for anything involving astronomy and space travel, this movie felt slow even for me, and the beautiful but dizzying camerawork didn’t exactly help. On the upside, the visual effects work is actually phenomenal, especially throughout the entire Apollo 11 mission sequence. Legitimately I could not tell at any point if what I was looking at was real archived footage, practical effects, practical sets & props, green screen, or computer-generated imagery. Of course, it was probably a combination of all of the above, but it looks like real, actual footage.

Wreck it Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet Sugar Rush breaks down, and the only way for the arcade denizens to bring it back is for Ralph and Vanellope to go on a trip to the internet–specifically eBay, to find a spare part–before Vanellope finds what may be her true calling.

Again, just a fun time at the movies. Ralph Breaks the Internet was funnier and more clever than I expected, from beginning to end. Though the third act is a bit been there done that, Vanellope steals the show in the second act with the greatest musical number in Disney history.

Now let’s talk Oscars. This year is a little weird for me, as several of the films nominated this year didn’t really catch my interest, so I feel like I have lot less stake in this year’s winners. The award ceremony itself also just seems like a straight-up disaster this year, too; but that actually makes me more excited to see how it turns out. Here are my predictions! (Updated last on February 23, 2019)

BEST PICTURE Roma

DIRECTOR Roma

LEAD ACTRESS Glenn Close

LEAD ACTOR Rami Malek

SUPPORTING ACTRESS Regina King

SUPPORTING ACTOR Mahershala Ali

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Green Book

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY BlacKkKlansman

ANIMATED FEATURE Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

DOCUMENTARY Free Solo

FOREIGN FILM Roma

ORIGINAL SCORE If Beale Street Could Talk

ORIGINAL SONG “Shallow”

SOUND EDITING Bohemian Rhapsody

SOUND MIXING Bohemian Rhapsody

MAKEUP/HAIR Vice

COSTUME DESIGN Black Panther

CINEMATOGRAPHY Roma

PRODUCTION DESIGN The Favourite

FILM EDITING Bohemian Rhapsody

VISUAL EFFECTS Avengers: Infinity War

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT Black Sheep

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM Marguerite

ANIMATED SHORT FILM Bao

Update 2/24/2019, Post Oscars: 17 out of 24! Slightly worse than last year, but I also did massively less research this year. Haha, not bad.

FLCL – Kazuya Tsurumaki’s Surreal Coming-of-Age Comedy | Contextualized

フリクリ.

aka Furi Kuri.

Or Fooly Cooly.

Or just FLCL.

“What’s it about?”

“Well…there’s a boy. And he gets run over by this alien girl on a yellow Vespa. Then she whacks him in the head with her blue Rickenbacker bass guitar, which causes a horn to grow from his forehead. Then later, two giant robots come out of his horn and start fighting each other, and then the winner starts working at the boy’s family’s bakery.”

“…Uhh..”

“Oh, and..it’s a coming-of-age story.”

“……Huh?”

I’ve always enjoyed observing the puzzled expressions on peoples’ faces whenever I get a chance to talk about FLCL, a bizarre six-episode Japanese animated mini-series from the year 2000–directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki. Sure, it’s a tad unfair to just rattle off the events of the first episode with zero context, but it also seems to be one of the more effective ways to get people interested in this show. Well, more effective at least than offering a vague plot synopsis and saying something generic, like the fact that it’s “every bit as deep and complex” as it is “nonsensical and surreal” (which I’ll get into later).

But what is FLCL really about? How and why was it made? What are its influences? And who is the nutcase who came up with it?

Welcome back to CONTEXTUALIZED, where I’ll be investigating the who, what, when, how, and why of FLCL’s production. In my experience, “contextualizing” like this always makes great works better and the appreciation bigger.

From the start, Kazuya Tsurumaki wanted his directorial debut to be something different. He wanted it to be both accessible to casual animation fans and layered with visual concepts ripe for analysis and interpretation. But above all, he just wanted it to be fun, and something only HE could have made.

Tsurumaki Speaking at Japan Animator Expo 2015.

Born in the year 1966, Tsurumaki grew up in the city of Gosen, Japan–a city known for its tulips, hot springs, and not much else. He spent his early twenties doing key animation for such shows as 1986’s Galaxy High School and 1988’s Maison Ikkoku before landing a job at famed animation studio Gainax, which would shape the rest of his career. He started as a key animator on Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and quickly proved himself to Gainax’s leaders, including director Hideaki Anno, who hired Tsurumaki as his assistant director on his landmark psychological mind-f*ck mecha series Neon Genesis Evangelion, where he eventually worked his way to become co-director of the series finale, End of Evangelion.

Left: Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995 TV series). Right: End of Evangelion.

“Tsurumaki is next,” Anno declared after completing Evangelion in 1997. It was time for Tsurumaki to make his solo directorial debut. He started right away planning and generating ideas for the project, but a year later, he couldn’t settle on anything. So the studio started work on another project: the romantic comedy Kare Kano, from 1998 to 1999. After that was wrapped up, Tsurumaki got back to work on his own project, this time buckling down and finalizing his ideas. “I knew you couldn’t start production whilst worrying,” he reflected during an interview with Japanese site Mynavi News, “So I decided to start off by thinking about the troublesome parts I liked, and not thinking about the troublesome parts I didn’t like.”

“There were times in the planning when things weren’t going smoothly,” said Tsurumaki at Anime Expo 2016, “Anno told me that you don’t have to make something perfect that everyone will love – just do what you want to create.” From the beginning, Tsurumaki always wanted his project to “have a different flavor…Evangelion was so somber, I wanted this to be wacky and outrageous,” he stated at Otakon 2001.

Tsurumaki was told by the Gainax heads that he could do whatever he wanted with the show, so he made sure to plop in some of his favorite things, including giant robots, cats, baseball, vintage guitars, and bikes. “I was very lucky in that respect, because that’s just the kind of organization Gainax is. If it had been some conservative studio I was with, FLCL would never have been any more than an idea,” Tsurumaki reflected.

In fact, many of FLCL’s most iconic elements were merely things Tsurumaki was fond of in real life. For example, Tsurumaki apparently always admired the Italian Vespa motor scooter owned by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto–one of Gainax’s founders and its lead character designer–but could never come up with a good enough of reason to buy one himself. Until he thought: if he could use it as a prop in his series, that would be a solid excuse.

Thus became FLCL’s iconic yellow Vespa.

Tsurumaki was also thinking about the music in his series. The Pillows were a very unknown yet prolific Japanese alternative rock band formed in 1989; and in 1999, they were discovered by a director making a very alternative show. “Normally, anime uses background music that’s classical—strings, pianos. I don’t listen to that—I like electric guitars, drum sets; i.e., bands. Now, I thought, is there some reason they don’t use bands on anime soundtracks? I thought I’d give it a try and see if it worked out for my show. The Pillows are my favorite band, so even before we started production, I contacted them and asked if we could use their music. And they were very willing.”

Thus became FLCL’s iconic soundtrack. (listen to one track below)

And of course, the title–where did that come from? According to the man himself, the idea came from a music magazine with a CD titled “Furikuri.” Tsurumaki loved the onomatopoeia-like sounds from Japanese-abbreviated English phrases, like “Pokémon” for “Pocket Monsters” or “Buri-Guri” for “Brilliant Green” (a J-pop band).

Thus became Furi Kuri / Fooly Cooly / FLCL.

So, what is FLCL about? Well, it certainly is both “wacky” and “outrageous.” Tsurumaki himself described it** as “full of nonsense. It’s a boy-meets-girl story, but the boy gets run over and hit by her guitar.” It stars a 12 year old boy named Naota Nandaba, who is already sick of life in his small hometown. All he wants to do is be an adult, and when all the adults around him act like children, he doesn’t find it particularly challenging. That is, until intergalactic police investigator Haruko Haruhara literally crashes into his life and forces him to shatter his cocky attitude and learn the truth about growing up.

**From the FLCL DVD Director’s Commentary

In the year 2000, FLCL was officially released straight-to-video in Japan as an OVA (Original Video Animation) across six separate DVD sets, each holding a single episode. Unfortunately, it didn’t reach a huge domestic audience. But in 2001, the (now defunct) U.S. anime-licensing company Synch-Point acquired FLCL for home release in the States; and in 2002, Cartoon Network acquired FLCL for broadcast on its Adult Swim programming block.

A 2003 Adult Swim bumper.

The August 2003 television premiere drew in a surprising amount of views, as did the entire series as it aired midnights on Mondays through Thursdays. On August 12, 2003, FLCL was “ranked No. 42 among all shows on ad-supported cable among adults 18–34.” Its modest, yet surprising success on TV and on DVD brought it to cult-hit status across the west, prompting Adult Swim to broadcast reruns several times between 2003 and 2011, again in 2013 as part of the revival of the Toonami programming block, and once again in 2018 leading up to the premiere of the long-awaited sequel series FLCL Progressive in June.

FLCL also inspired many people working in western animation, most notably influencing such shows as Teen Titans, Steven Universe, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar episode director Giancarlo Volpe has even admitted that the staff “were all ordered to buy FLCL and watch every single episode of it.”

07-11-01 — Left Side (From top to bottom): *Teen Titans*, *Steven Universe*, *Avatar: The Last Airbender*. Right Side: *FLCL*.

So, what makes FLCL so popular? What are its influences?

Let’s dive in. Spoilers Abound.

EPISODE 1 – “FURI KURI” / “FOOLY COOLY”

Right off the bat, episode one–titled “Fooly Cooly”–introduces us to the voice of Mamimi Samejima, a high school girl. We listen to her misquoting boxing tips from the manga Ashita no Joe as baseball advice for elementary school student Naota, who is busily doing his homework. Although he is barely listening to her, he is quick to point out an error in her hand placement on his baseball bat. Both he and Mamimi are right-handed. Mamimi drops the bat and begins to embrace and caress Naota from behind. Naota doesn’t stop her, but he doesn’t let himself be happy, either. Of course, the difference in their ages gives us an uncomfortable feeling about their relationship. Mamimi offers Naota a sour lemon drink, and he vehemently refuses, whining, “You know I don’t like sour drinks!”

Naota and Mamimi.

After the title sequence, Naota tries to tell Mamimi about his older brother’s whereabouts (her ex-boyfriend, whom she is still in love with) when he is violently interrupted by a pink-haired, yellow Vespa-riding, blue bass guitar-wielding girl who runs him over, then thrashes him over the head with her guitar. Haruko Haruhara, as we come to know her, is left-handed.

From the beginning, Tsurumaki wanted to make clear distinctions between two different types of characters***. The first way he makes this distinction is by the characters’ handedness: Naota and Mamimi are both right-handed; they are both deeply flawed and still have a lot of room to grow and mature. Haruko and Naota’s brother Tasuku (whom we never meet) are left-handed; they are both naturally gifted, independent, carefree, and cool. The director, Tsurumaki, is right-handed like Naota and Mamimi.

(***Note: Much of the following behind-the-scenes information and insight from Tsurumaki was pulled from the FLCL DVD Director’s Commentary)

When designing the character of Haruko, Tsurumaki and FLCL screenwriter Yoji Enokido wrote her as “a selfish adult woman who teases Naota,” but when describing her character to other staff members, they would comment “Oh, like Misato [from Evangelion]?” Wanting to avoid comparisons to Evangelion as much as possible, Tsurumaki and Enokido ended up giving Haruko a wild and eccentric personality. They cast Mayumi Shintani (Tsubasa Shibahime in Kare Kano) to play Haruko, because of her unique voice, and further developed the character from there. Haruko’s visual design is partly inspired by the chic style of shoujo manga artist Moyoco Anno (the wife of Hideaki Anno, and friend of Tsurumaki and FLCL’s character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto).

Left: Moyoco Anno’s Happy Mania. Right: Haruko, illustrated by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

After being hit by Haruko’s guitar, Naota discovers a large horn growing out of his forehead. He hides it with a bandage and heads off to school. It’s interesting to note that the concept of a horn growing out of Naota’s head didn’t come until late into production; originally, Naota just hits his head and starts to feel sick afterwards. But, they realized that they needed something more visually engaging to communicate that feeling. When the notion of a horn was brought up, it met with the approval of the screenwriter, Enokido, who liked the subtle sexual undertone. Tsurumaki explains, “Enokido-san writes lots of those kinds of images. How should I say, sexual images… Because he really likes them…[For FLCL] I wasn’t trying to incorporate as much sexual imagery as possible, but Enokido-san really enjoys them, so he kept putting them in.”

One of the most popular fan theories about FLCL, in fact, is that the story is a metaphor for male puberty. Personally, I’ve always seen FLCL to be about growing up in general with no emphasis on sex, though admittedly some of the sexual imagery and dialogue can be pretty difficult to deny at times. It’s no surprise that the same screenwriter who pulled swords out of girls’ chests as a metaphor for lovemaking in Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997) would also go on to equate horns (and later, guitars) with phalli in FLCL.

Left: Revolutionary Girl Utena. Right: FLCL.

In the hills surrounding Naota’s small city, Mabase, there sits a giant iron-shaped factory –another of FLCL’s most iconic images–owned by an ambiguous organization known as Medical Mechanica. Every now and then it sounds an alarm or releases exorbitant amounts of steam. The idea for a giant iron came from Tsurumaki, who at first thought simply that a big “sci-fi iron” would be a cool visual. But as production went on, the iron was integrated into the show’s themes–the iron’s function of flattening things, as Tsurumaki explains it, represents the goal of “making things the same, making things smooth, getting rid of unevenness…That is, making people like Haruko, with ‘uneven’ personalities ‘smooth’, by making everyone the same. I want the iron to symbolize the power to make everyone boring human beings.”

Even though Naota tries his best to hide the horn growing from his forehead, Haruko, who already knows about it and is very interested in it, begins to stalk and pester him. After escaping from a hospital (owned by Medical Mechanica) in which Haruko disguised herself as a nurse, we go to commercial. Fun fact: FLCL’s commercial break bumpers feature a chorus of voices shouting “Furi Kuri”–these are the Japanese voices of Mamimi, Haruko, and Eri Ninamori (a classmate of Naota we formally meet in episode three).

Happening after the break, possibly the most visually striking scene in the first episode is the dinner sequence where Haruko reveals that she’s Naota’s new roommate and his father’s new housekeeper. The scene is animated entirely in black & white manga format, with the camera simulating a reader’s eye following the panels. The reason this was done was to make a potentially boring two-and-a-half-minutes of the characters talking, exciting. This ended up being incredibly troublesome to pull off; however, as it was impossible to do with traditional hand-drawn cells, and it would take up an enormous amount of memory if done in the computer. Nevertheless, Tsurumaki insisted on its inclusion, and after its completion, the digital artists asked him to never do it again.

Approaching the climax of episode one, Naota runs out of the house one evening to meet a depressed Mamimi, who had just bought a large bag of cheap, day-old bread from Naota’s family’s bakery. Either she’s run from her home, or she’s not welcome at her home. The cigarette she is smoking has the words “Never Knows Best” handwritten on it, reflecting the way “Mamimi has given up on the future,” Tsurumaki hints. The idea for this visual came from a postcard Tsurumaki had with an image of a cigarette with the phrase “Joint London” written on it.

“Never Knows Best”.

When Mamimi begins to cuddle up with Naota again, he stops her and breaks the news he meant to tell her earlier: his brother, who is living in the U.S. now with a baseball scholarship, found himself an American girlfriend. Mamimi starts to feel noxious, and Naota feels a sharp pain in his forehead. His horn breaks free from the bandage and grows to the size of his arm, then two 10-foot tall robots climb out and start clashing, dragging Naota along for the ride.

Naota’s robots face off.

Tsurumaki, according to the DVD director’s commentary, wanted to put robots in the show no matter what, even if it didn’t “make any sense.” Eventually, he came up with the concept of robots coming out of Naota’s head episode-to-episode as a part of the plot. The design for the main robot character (who starts working as a helper at the family bakery at the end of episode one), came about because Tsurumaki didn’t want it to look like a generic “Japanese anime robot.” So, he decided to give Canti–the name given to it by Mamimi in episode two–a square head. And, thinking of ways to make it so it wasn’t a plain cube, Canti’s head eventually became a television set.

Naota narrates the opening and closing of this episode: “Nothing amazing happens here. Everything is ordinary.” On his way to school the next morning, he meets Mamimi, who offers him another can of the same sour lemon drink from the beginning of the episode, but this time, after some hesitation, Naota takes a sip.

And that’s episode one.

Now, I could talk about the remaining five episodes just as in-depth as I did for episode one, but I know many of you haven’t seen this show, and I want to preserve some of the mystery. It’s a pretty quick watch, anyway, at 2.5 hours (the average length of a summer blockbuster). As a teaser, I will divulge that in episode two we learn more about Mamimi’s character and her relationship with Naota, episode three introduces us to Naota’s female counterpart and classmate, and episode four goes extra surreal while developing Naota’s character.

For the rest of you who have seen FLCL already, here are some things to think about on your next viewing, including behind-the-scenes tidbits, fun facts, and some analysis by Tsurumaki himself. (Full disclosure, many of these points are taken from the fascinating FLCL DVD director’s commentary).

EPISODE 2 – “FI STA” / “FIRE STARTER”

Naota’s cat Miyu-Miyu is voiced by Hideaki Anno, though he is credited as “?”. Mamimi’s cat Takkun, in order to differentiate it from Miyu-Miyu, is drawn very cartoonishly. Takkun the cat is voiced by Naota’s voice actress Jun Mizuki, who was asked to say “na na na…” instead of the typical “meow”–again, to make Takkun different.

Left: Takkun. Right: Miyu-Miyu.

Speaking of Jun Mizuki, the then 27 year-old voice actress was chosen to play Naota because her voice sounded “intelligent and cool,” even though they originally planned to audition 12-13 year-olds for the role.
At about 8:44, the animation style changes completely for roughly thirty seconds. This distorted, rotoscope-like style is thanks to key animator Shinya Ohira, who is famous for his work in things like: Akira, Tekkon Kinkreet, Redline, Mind Game, Ping Pong the Animation, several other Masaaki Yuasa projects, several Studio Ghibli projects including Spirited Away and The Wind Rises, as well as The Animatrix: Kid’s Story and the Kill Bill anime sequence. Tsurumaki thought Ohira’s style was strange but very interesting, so he decided to leave his style as-is for the finished scene.

29-34-01 — From left to right top to bottom: *FLCL*, *Kid’s Story*, *Kill Bill*, *Mind Game, The Wind Rises*, and *Ping Pong the Animation*.

In the U.S., several murders and other controversial incidents have occurred surrounding deranged Dungeons & Dragons players taking their games too seriously by bringing them into the real world. These incidents gave Tsurumaki the idea for Mamimi’s character in this episode; how she mistakes the TV-robot for the god Canti from the game “Fire Starter” and gets inspired by the game to set fire to buildings in real life.
Tasuku’s jersey in Mamimi’s flashback has the number “3” printed on it: an allusion to Yomiuri Giants third baseman Shigeo Nagashima, whom Tsurumaki describes as “a baseball god.”

Fun fact: the evil robot that comes out of Naota’s head in this episode is missing a left arm. In episode one, the evil robot that comes out of Naota’s head is just a left arm.
Canti has two forms: green and red. Green Canti apparently represents a meek man who takes orders and runs errands. Red Canti, on the other hand, represents “a masculine, strong man…to Naota, that’s his brother,” says Tsurumaki.
Some fans have gone so far with the connection between red Canti and Tasuku that they have crafted a theory that when Tasuku went to America, he somehow got turned into Canti so he can watch over his little brother. Red Canti even pats Mamimi on her head after saving her, like Tasuku did in Mamimi’s flashback.

EPISODE 3 – “MARU RABA” / “MARQUIS DE CARABAS”

The title of the episode comes from the European fairy tale The Puss in Boots. In the story, a cat uses lies and trickery against a king in order to bring great fortune and a beautiful wife to his poor master, whom he gives the fictional title of the “Marquis of Carabas.” Naota’s class is putting on an adapted school-play version of the fairy tale in this episode.
In case you missed it: In episode one, the back of Canti’s head was broken by Haruko’s bass guitar. In episode two, Canti scavenges for the scattered pieces of his head. In this episode we see Canti trying unsuccessfully to glue the pieces together, before Haruko discovers him and offers him a cardboard box to wear instead. As mentioned by Tsurumaki, the FLCL staff thought Canti looked like the famous anime character Sazae-san because of the three open flaps of the cardboard box and his traditional Japanese apron.

Left: Canti. Right: Sazae-san.

Like his comparison of right-handed characters to left-handed characters, Tsurumaki also makes a similar distinction between people who like spicy food and people who don’t, with people who like spicy food seeming more “carefree” and “cool.” Personally, I find it interesting that Haruko makes it clear that she likes spicy food, Naota makes it clear that he doesn’t, Ninamori tries to like it but ends up not being able to handle it, and in the next episode, Commander Amarao pretends to like it at first, but then we catch him in the midst of dissecting it, and he admits he doesn’t like spicy food after all.
Random product placement: When Naota walks into his bedroom after Ninamori has finished her bath, he is drinking Weider Vitamin IN health juice. Apparently they were planning to get an official sponsorship from Weider, but by the time they finished the animation for this scene, Weider backed out of the deal.

Tsurumaki on Ninamori’s rampage: “Ninamori is usually cute, intellectual, and calm, so when she explodes, it’s a huge contrast… People like that are always seriously trying to keep it together. And in the end, it’s scary when they just snap. I wanted to create that feel.”
The classical music featured in the battle sequence in this episode is the “Comedian’s Galop” from The Comedians Suite, Op. 26 by Dmitry Kabalevsky, which was chosen by Tadashi Hiramatsu, the animation director, who is a big classical music fan. This piece is one of many classical songs often played during Japanese school sports meets.

"Comedian's Galop"

Fun fact: Printed on Naota’s lunch box is the word “lover” (in Japanese, “raba”) enclosed in a circle (“maru” in Japanese), in reference to the title of the episode, “Maru Raba.” The title, while chiefly being an onomatopoeic abbreviation of “Marquis de Carabas,” is also meant to call to mind the word “lover” (“raba”), hinting at the possible romance between Ninamori and Naota.

On the meaning of “they’re fake,” the final line of the episode, uttered by Ninamori: “Until now, [Ninamori had] been lying to herself, trying to be a leader and grown-up…Naota does too. But Ninamori has changed from this experience… [She’s learned that] rather than fooling yourself, it’s better to fool others. It’s a little more adult.”

EPISODE 4 – “FURI KIRI” / “FULL SWING”

It was originally planned to send Naota’s brother Tasuku not to the U.S., but to a Japanese high school with a famous baseball team. Eventually it was decided that sending him to the U.S. made his distance from Naota and Mamimi clearer and it required less explanation.
Haruko’s baseball uniform is modeled after the uniforms of the real-world Kintetsu Buffaloes team.

Left: Haruko. Right: Kintetsu Buffaloes.

Commander Amarao is in part inspired by Twin Peaks protagonist Dale Cooper. His name comes from a Brazilian soccer player named Amaral, who once played on the FC Tokyo team in the Japanese Soccer League.

Left: Amarao. Right: Dale Cooper.

Naota apparently hitting his dad with his baseball bat is inspired by real world incidents in Japan wherein children beat their parents to death with metal bats.
Miyu-Miyu decapitating a dummy of Haruko “symbolizes Naota’s suspicion of Haruko’s and [his father’s] relationship. Naota’s started to look up to Haruko, but now that it seems that she’s chummy-chummy with his dad, whom he doesn’t respect, her image has been sullied for him,” suggests Tsurumaki.
The direction for this especially surreal episode is by virtue of animation director Nobutoshi Ogura, who has worked on such films/series as: From the New World, Kare Kano, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Kemonozume, and Mind Game. According to Tsurumaki, Ogura has a passion for 1960s Japanese cinema and enjoys unique artistic expression and complex storytelling.
When Mamimi shouts “Lord of Fear,” she is referencing the prophecies of Nostradamus, a French physician who lived in the 1500s and predicted the world would end in the year 1999.
Naota’s guitar, the Gibson Flying V, was originally going to be given to Haruko (Character Designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto agreed that the Flying V’s dynamic shape would be more iconic), but in the end, Tsurumaki liked the look of the Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar more, so he gave the Flying V to Naota.

Left: Gibson Flying V guitar. Right: left-handed Rickenbacker 4001 bass.

Similar to the distinctions between right- and left-handed people, and those who like spicy food and those who don’t, there are the people who swing the bat vs. those who don’t. This whole time, Naota has been scared to know his limits–he’s always carried his baseball bat around, but he’s never swung it once. The way Tsurumaki puts it, Naota has always accepted three “outs.” He believed that as long as he didn’t swing the bat, the possibility was still alive that he COULD hit a home run. He’ll get a strikeout, but at least then, he can pin it on the fact that he didn’t try, NOT that he isn’t skilled (like his brother).
Tsurumaki on the meaning of Mamimi’s despondent “[Naota]…swung the bat.”: “Mamimi would dote on Naota because he was the kind of guy who wouldn’t swing his bat…but now that he has, Naota is “a bit dangerous” to her. Before, their relationship was controlled by HER, but now that Naota has found his independence, HE has the potential to start controlling their relationship.”

EPISODE 5 – “BURA BURE” / “BRITTLE BULLET”

Alongside the shameless parody of Lupin the Third, is a reference to John Woo’s films, which always have, Tsurumaki jokes, “meaningless pigeons.” (at around the 00:50 mark)

Left: FLCL. Right: John Woo’s Mission Impossible 2.

The South Park scene: Several staff members were fans of South Park, so Tsurumaki let them put in a 20-second scene animated in its signature style. Personally, I love that a show influenced by western animation, itself influenced western animation (Avatar, Teen Titans, Steven Universe, etc., as stated earlier). It’s come full-circle.

Episode three animation director Tadashi Hiramatsu was a big fan of Ninamori, so he made sure in each episode, even after becoming a side character, she would have a new hairstyle and outfit. She is the only character treated like this.

Just a few of Ninamori’s various appearances.

Hiroyuki Imaishi asked Tsurumaki personally to let him handle the key animation for the action sequences in this episode. Imaishi’s signature energy and explosivity can also be seen in: Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, and Space Patrol Luluco, among many other works. He went on to co-found the popular Studio Trigger in 2011.

54-57-01 — Left to right, top to bottom: *FLCL*, *Gurren Lagann*, *Kill la Kill*, *Little Witch Academia*.

Naota’s now presumptuous attitude with Mamimi, who no longer likes him, is highlighted when he drags her off to Cafe Bleu, which has a storefront that was purposefully modeled after a love hotel.
A reference to the “magical girl” anime genre is made when Haruko chants “Furi kuri furi kura furi kuri furi kura” while waving her guitar and producing glitter and sparkles in front of Amarao.
When Haruko sky-surfs on her flying guitar while wearing a bunny suit, this is a reference to the Daicon III and IV Opening Animations, two short anime projects made by the founders of Gainax in 1981 and 1983; respectively, for the 1981 Daicon III and 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai conventions.

Left: FLCL. Right: Daicon.

When deciding what guitar model to assign to the character of the Pirate King Atomsk, Tsurumaki discussed it with Hiroaki Sakurai (director of Di Gi Charat, Cromartie High School, and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.), a guitar fanatic and collector who is often seen walking around with a ukulele in hand. They eventually decided on the rare 1961 model cherry red Gibson EB-0 bass guitar.

The Gibson EB-0 bass guitar.

EPISODE 6 – “FURI KURA” / “FLCLIMAX”

Atomsk’s name comes from the cold war spy novel titled Atomsk, written by science fiction author Paul Linebarger, using the pseudonym “Carmichael Smith.” To be clear, Tsurumaki didn’t actually read the novel; he just thought the name was cool.

There is another black & white manga dinner sequence in this episode, even though Tsurumaki was asked not to do another one. But again, he insisted on its inclusion. In this one, as it goes on, less and less ink is used, and by the end, the drawings are done roughly in pencil, as if the manga artist was up against a deadline and was getting lazier and lazier. This may reflect FLCL’s production, as the schedule was “very tight at the end. Episode six was delayed a month.”
Why does Haruko’s bracelet look like a handcuff with a single, sometimes animated chain link, and why does Atomsk have a similar chain link on his nose?

Left: Haruko’s chain link. Right: Atomsk’s chain link.

Well, as related by Tsurumaki, this is a remnant of a scrapped plot idea. Originally, Haruko and Atomsk were intended to be lovers (as Amarao wrongly suggests in the finished episode). Haruko was a space police officer and Atomsk, the Pirate King, was the wanted criminal in her custody, and they were having a forbidden love affair. While under arrest, Atomsk and Haruko were able to be together due to the handcuffs linking them. But, they were separated by Medical Mechanica, who kidnapped Atomsk, breaking their chain link.

In the finished plot, Atomsk turns out to be a feral entity whose power Haruko is after. Of course, many traces of the original storyline still exist in the finished show, including Haruko’s handcuff-like bracelet.

The giant hand was modeled after Tsurumaki’s real right hand.
Atomsk’s symbol, which periodically appears on Canti’s screen, is the Japanese word for “adult”: 大人 (“otona”) but written upside-down and stylized to form a logo.

Left: Atomsk’s symbol on his beak. Right: Atomsk’s symbol on Canti’s screen.

Twice in this episode, Haruko tells Naota, “You know, you’re still a kid.” The first time, when she’s sitting on his bed with him, it’s because he is still trying to be an adult with her; so she tells Naota that he doesn’t have to be–in Tsurumaki’s words, “he doesn’t have to worry about that stuff yet.” The second time Haruko says this to him, right before she leaves the earth, it’s to acknowledge that now, after all this time, Naota is finally acting like a kid. In that way, he finally grew up.
As Tsurumaki puts it, “Kids who act like kids, and don’t pretend to be adults, are actually more adult.”

While I believe it’s debatable whether puberty, specifically, is a major theme of FLCL, I think it’s unambiguous that “adulthood” is. Here are a few more quotes from Tsurumaki on that theme (these were taken from the “Afterword” section of FLCL light novel 02):

“I don’t believe all children will become grown-ups. They may get older, get taller, pay taxes, and get married, but there are people who will never become grown up.”

“According to [Japanese] law, you’re considered a grown-up as soon as you turn twenty, but this isn’t the case. When I turned twenty, I was still in front of the television, critically hitting Metal Slimes in the Dragon Quest I’d bought at a used game store, and resetting when I got frustrated. A real grown-up wouldn’t have reset…Grown-ups…don’t have the luxury of resetting as they walk through life.”

“Even if we were to talk about economics, we’d still be kids.”

Amidst the outward randomness of FLCL, I love how thought-out and unified the show secretly is. On first viewing, I [and many people] thought it was just bizarre and illogical. On second viewing, I began noticing the subtleties and tenderness taken in developing the characters, as well as the above-average animation. On third viewing, I finally understood the plot, as well as the themes Tsurumaki and his team were trying to convey. It’s one of the shortest stints in anime, but I think it’s also one of the best. And I believe it’s too often written off as weird and nonsensical, and nothing else.

There’s a common saying that “every movie is a miracle–the fact that it got made.” No truer is that statement for me, than for FLCL. In doing the research for this essay, I found the more I learned, the more I realized that half of this show is a random amalgamation of things Tsurumaki liked, things he noticed in his daily life, and spur-of-the-moment decisions. Yet the show still comes together in a (debatably) cohesive manner.

Of course, there is a lot of deliberate randomness in FLCL, but even at its worst, it has some of the most creativity of any modern-era anime. Each episode houses a complete, satisfying character arc with a story that meaningfully continues into each following episode–there are no inconsequential scenarios. In episode one, Naota learns to face his vulnerabilities. In episode two, he learns to be there for others. In episode three, Ninamori takes the spotlight to learn to stop lying to herself, while hinting at this lesson to Naota. In episode four, Naota learns to not be afraid of failure, and that it’s okay to ask others for help. In episode five, he learns to not get full of himself. In episode six, he finally learns to stop being aloof, be honest to his feelings, and stop trying to be an adult.

Naota finally gives in to his feelings with Haruko.

I’d like to leave off with one more quote (from the 2010 MyNavi News interview):

Q: “FLCL is a piece of work that asks the question ‘what does it mean to become an adult?’–ten years later, have you found the answer?”

Tsurumaki: “Oh no, I really don’t know. It’s the same now as it was back then–I still don’t know… But I’ll start off by saying…”

“‘Let us all become children.’”

Naota holds Haruko’s Rickenbacker as he watches her leave Earth.

Agreed.

Sources & Further Reading/Viewing:

FLCL Volume 01 (Light Novel) by Yoji Enokido – Commentary Section w/ Hiroki Sato (Fooly Cooly Producer). https://archive.org/details/manga_FLCL
FLCL Volume 02 (Light Novel) by Yoji Enokido – Commentary Section w/ Kazuya Tsurumaki (Fooly Cooly Director/Producer). https://archive.org/details/manga_FLCL
FLCL Volume 03 (Light Novel) by Yoji Enokido – Afterword with Yoji Enokido. https://archive.org/details/manga_FLCL
FLCL DVD Director’s Commentary. https://www.amazon.com/FLCL-Complete-Blu-ray-Kari-Wahlgren/dp/B004DMIIPA/ref=tmm_blu_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
FLCL World (Fan site) – History Page. https://web.archive.org/web/20090130103639/http://flclw.com:80/history
FLCL World – Interview with Tsurumaki (Fan Questions at Otakon 2001 panel). https://web.archive.org/web/20080510144535/http://www.flclw.com/history/interview-with-kazuya-tsurumaki/
Anime Expo Interview with Tsurumaki and Mayumi Shintani by Guardian Enzo for Lost in Anime – July 2016. http://lostinanime.com/2016/07/anime-expo-lia-exclusive-flcl-interview-tsurumaki-kaziya-shintani-mayumi/
Interview with Tsurumaki by MyNavi News from October 16, 2010. https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20101016-flcl/
“FLCL is the Formula” by Carl Gustav Horn for PULP: The Manga Magazine, including an interview with Kazuya Tsurumaki – June 2002. https://web.archive.org/web/20060508105558/http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.03/flcl.shtml
Crunchyroll “Feature Creative Spotlight: Kazuya Tsurumaki” by B. Teteruck. http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2017/04/03-1/feature-creative-spotlight-kazuya-tsurumaki
August 2003 Cartoon Network Ratings Report. https://web.archive.org/web/20120427010129/http://www.timewarner.com/newsroom/press-releases/2003/08/Cartoon_Network_Takes_Prime_Total_Day_Crown_for_Kids_211_Kids_611_08-12-2003.php

[I updated this essay Aug. 24, 2018 to add in-text links to the sources]

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya: Isao Takahata’s Last Masterpiece | Contextualized

(Spoilers Ahead for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya)

To the world, Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata was an animation director of immense skill and talent deserving of his fame and reverence, but to his friends and colleagues, he was known more for being a couch potato, a procrastinator, a slow worker, and a stickler.

His close friend, Hayao Miyazaki or “Miya-san,” the other co-founder of Ghibli and a lauded director himself, often said that he was convinced Takahata was a descendant of a giant sloth. Takahata’s nickname around the studio was Paku-san–“paku” being the Japanese onomatopoeia for chewing–because of his habit of loudly chomping on his breakfast at work. Takahata, known to be a hardcore perfectionist, was also said to have given up in frustration at multiple points throughout his productions, exclaiming “I can’t possibly make this film!” and giving long, pointless speeches to unlucky staff members on why something “cannot be done.”

Paku-san being Paku-san–lazing around, sleeping, and eating.

Studio Ghibli lead producer Toshio Suzuki swears that Takahata has never finished a film on time or on budget. According to Miya-san, a film at Studio Ghibli typically only takes 2-3 years to complete. But, from the year 2000 until his passing in 2018, Takahata only managed to finish one: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, which released in 2013 after production began in 2006. In those EIGHT years, the young producer on the film, Yoshiaki Nishimura, got married and had two children…

But despite all this, Isao Takahata still managed to create some of the most impressive and unique animated films ever made, from his early work directing such films as Horus Prince of the Sun and Gauche the Cellist, to his days at Studio Ghibli directing Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, My Neighbors the Yamadas, and producing Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and The Red Turtle.

Who is Isao Takahata? Where did he come from? How does he churn out masterpiece after masterpiece with his work ethic? And what was his thought process while making his final film?

Welcome to CONTEXTUALIZED, where I’ll be giving my usual (Huang) opinions on a movie, but also investigating the who, what, when, how, and why of the production. In my experience, contextualizing movies like this only makes them better and the appreciation bigger.

In honor of Isao Takahata, the co-founder and one of the lead directors of Studio Ghibli, who passed away just three weeks ago (at the time of this writing), let’s take a look at the man and the work he did on his final feature film, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

movieposter — *The Tale of the Princess Kaguya* (Kaguya-Hime no Monogatari) Official Japanese Poster

Isao Takahata majored in French literature at the University of Tokyo, from which he graduated in 1959. By chance, he happened upon the French animated film Le Roi et l’Oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird), which opened his eyes to the storytelling potential of animation. So, after graduating from school, Takahata’s first job was at Toei Animation, where he worked initially as an assistant director. Takahata made his directorial debut in 1986 with Horus Prince of the Sun, which Miya-san describes as Takahata proving that animation could “depict the inner mind of humans in depth.” Incidentally, Horus was supposed to take one year to make, but it was delayed twice due to slow production and became 3 years– in that time, Miya-san, who worked as an animator on the film, got married, had his first son, and his son celebrated his first birthday. (Sound familiar?)

paku&miya — Paku-san and Miya-san, c.1987

Later, Takahata directed several TV series such as Heidi, Girl of the Alps, and Anne Of Green Gables. Then, from 1984-1986, he produced Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky while establishing Studio Ghibli with Miya-san and Toshio Suzuki. “Takahata has always been the catalyst,” explains Nishimura, “He discovered Miyazaki, he discovered Joe Hisaishi, and he mentored Toshio Suzuki. Without Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli wouldn’t exist.”

And it was in the mid-2000s when Nishimura was tasked with watching over Takahata while Toshio Suzuki worked with Miya-san on the film The Wind Rises. By the way, between the years 2000 and 2018, Miya-san worked on 16 projects including feature films and short films, and of those, 4 were feature films he himself directed. Isao Takahata between 2000 and 2018 worked on a total of…

…3 projects, only one of which was a feature film he himself directed.

So, of course, Nishimura’s initial task was simply to convince Isao Takahata to take on a new film project. Now, this was only a few years after Takahata’s last film, My Neighbors the Yamadas, flopped at the Japanese box office in 1999. Sick of traditional cel animation, Takahata tried something completely different with The Yamadas, insisting on the exclusive use of digital painting. But that threw off Ghibli’s production system, as many staff members, who had only been trained for traditional pen-on-paper animation up until that point, had to learn new skills, while others were left with nothing to do. This radical change ultimately caused stumbling blocks even during pre-production of 2001’s Spirited Away, much to the annoyance of the director, Miya-san.

yamadas-1 — *My Neighbors the Yamadas* (1999)

Needless to say, Takahata was not feeling extraordinarily motivated to make another film after that. So, from 2005 to 2006, Yoshiaki Nishimura would spend the bulk of his time visiting Takahata’s home for twelve hours a day, everyday, trying to persuade him. According to Nishimura, at one point he started having nightly dreams about Takahata. “I had a film director who didn’t want to direct. An artist who didn’t want to draw. Day after day,” Nishimura confided.

Sure enough, just EIGHTEEN months of pleading and persuading from Nishimura with constant cries of “Why should I have to do this?” from Takahata ensued before he finally accepted, and production began on The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in 2006.

Now it’s important to note that the idea to adapt the source material, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari)–the oldest recorded piece of fiction in Japan’s history, and one known by all Japanese–into an animated film came from Takahata himself.

During his early days working at Toei Animation, he had the idea to get a film made that challenges what Japanese audiences thought they knew about the classic folk tale. At the time, his idea was rejected and forgotten. 50 years later, Takahata, now an accomplished director at Studio Ghibli, proposed the idea to Toshio Suzuki, with the intention that somebody else would direct. In response, Suzuki said, “Well ,if you think it might be interesting, why don’t you make it yourself?” And so, eventually, Takahata finally did.

The classic folk tale and the film share the same basic plot: An infant girl is discovered by a bamboo cutter inside a glowing bamboo stalk. He and his wife decide to raise the girl as a noble princess in a mansion. She is given the name Princess Kaguya, and rumors of her beauty spread across the land. After having to deal with various suitors, her supernatural origins begin to catch up to her, as she realizes her time on earth is coming to an end.

Taketori_Monogatari_1 — The Bamboo Cutter bringing Kaguya home, by Tosa Hiromichi (c. 1600)

Isao Takahata’s biggest contribution to the story while expanding it to a feature film was in completely fleshing out the character and emotions of Princess Kaguya, and making all the motivations clearer. While still trying to keep it somewhat mysterious, he wanted audiences to understand the actions of the characters as if they were people and not distant fairy tale figures, and also to know why Kaguya came down to earth and why she had to leave. Takahata’s version of the story is a thesis on life, the inevitability of death after birth, the weight of other’s expectations, and the impermanence of beauty and happiness.

You could see the film as a culmination of all of Isao Takahata’s philosophies and storytelling tendencies. His iconic “everyday-life animation”, as Miya-san calls it, are “stories with realistic settings that place importance on everyday matters.”

Yoshiaki Nishimura set up a new facility, Ghibli Studio 7, to give Isao Takahata and his group of freelance animators and other staff a separate space away from the rest of the studio for the unique making of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. By August 2011, five years after the official production start date, all that was completed was the script and the casting. Aki Asakura, cast to play the titular role, was chosen from hundreds of auditions. Only after completing the recording of all the dialogue near the end of 2011, did Isao Takahata begin considering what kinds of visuals would suit his film.

Takahata considers *Kaguya*‘s visual style

And the most striking aspect of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya to most viewers are the visuals. The vague watercolor backgrounds and sketch-like characters are rare in animated film, even within Studio Ghibli’s.

Kaguya’s visual style was inspired by the rough gesture sketches drawn in the storyboarding phase by Kaguya animation director and character designer Osamu Tanabe. Takahata, who, since his 1994 film Pom Poko, had been tired of the typical quality of traditional cel animation anyway, and was looking for a way to take Kaguya‘s art in a different direction, noticed that Tanabe’s quick sketches had a kinetic energy and emotional dynamism that clean drawings lacked.

Tanabe's Storyboards-01.png — Osamu Tanabe’s sketches and storyboards

“I’ve believed this for 50 years: when you’re drawing fast there’s passion,” Takahata explains. “With a carefully finished product that passion gets lost. I think that’s a shame.” In the behind-the-scenes documentary for Kaguya, Takahata adds, “Fast pencil, interrupted lines, and areas the paint doesn’t reach. Incompleteness. Not all done up nicely…but catching that moment.”

The inspiration for this style also came in part from two short animated films directed by French-Canada director Frederic Back: Crac! and The Man Who Planted Trees, which both employ painterly impressionistic art styles, independently hand-drawn by the director. The impressionistic style of My Neighbors the Yamadas was heavily inspired by Back’s films.

In an interview with Wired UK, Isao Takahata explains that to make an audience believe in a fantasy world, detailed three-dimensional drawings or 3D CG animation are needed. But when depicting everyday life, it needn’t be so detailed, because the audience is already familiar with it. They don’t need to be convinced of the existence of nature, of ordinary people, of ordinary buildings, etc.

“With [this film] I went further along this direction to have the audience vicariously experience the instant the artist rapidly sketched what was occurring in front of his eyes. I aimed to have the audience vividly imagine or recall the reality deep within the drawings, rather than thinking the drawings themselves were the real thing. This would allow the viewers to feel moved by the actions and emotions of joy and sorrow of the characters, and sense nature teeming with life, in a more evocative way than through a seemingly real painting,” says Takahata.

So Takahata decided to have his animators maintain the rough quality of Tanabe’s sketches in the final drawings. One of the animators on the film, Shigeru Kimishima, joked, “Usually we have what’s called a clean-up stage. But here, we’re supposed to leave the stray lines and the rough lines and animate them…After 23 years, there are things I’m doing for the first time.”

Left: Tanabe’s Storyboard, Middle: Cleaned-Up Key Animation, Right: Finished Film

To complement this specific animation style, Takahata had longtime Ghibli art director Kazuo Oga create lightly-painted watercolor backgrounds. Of course, this was a radical idea as well, as Oga was used to painting hyper-realistic backgrounds for films like My Neighbor Totoro and Takahata’s own Only Yesterday, while using a different type of paint–poster color–which is cheaper and easier to control than watercolor.

And this may be a coincidence, since I have found no evidence of this specific thinking from the director, but many of the shots in the film remind me of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

Woodblock_Print — Left: Woodblock print by Torii Kiyonaga (c. 1783), Right: *The Tale of the Princess Kaguya*

Kaguya also has a scene of characters sharing a fruit together, an activity that seems to pervade many of Takahata’s films. In 1988, Grave of the Fireflies protagonist Seita portions out a watermelon for his sister Setsuko. Then, 1991’s Only Yesterday documents the main character Taeko’s first time eating pineapple with her family. And in 2013, childhood friends Princess Kaguya and Sutemaru continue this tradition when they share a stolen melon from a nearby farm. And this through line is, of course, not lost on Takahata, who was unsatisfied with the way cutting into the watermelon was animated in Grave. “It looked like tofu,” he says. Thus, Takahata and his Kaguya animators spent time studying and drawing the subtle motions of a knife going into the tough skin of a melon.

This is the kind of minute detail that Takahata would focus on throughout the entire production of Kaguya. In 2012, he would spend many of his days staring at the screen of the “Quick Action Recorder,” painstakingly looking through his animators’ drawings frame by frame to check the movements and timing. In this way, Takahata is a true perfectionist; and he shows how concentrated on his work he can be, once he gets over his initial laziness and procrastination.

Surprisingly though, Takahata is not an artist himself–that is, he doesn’t draw. The Kaguya storyboards are drawn up by the animation director, Osamu Tanabe, who draws based on discussions with Takahata, who will describe in words what he wants to see, or sometimes act it out. According to Miya-san, one of Isao Takahata’s greatest strengths is his eye for composition.

Despite his strengths however, let’s not forget how slow and behind schedule Takahata tends to work. Storyboard production on Kaguya began in 2009, but by Autumn 2012, they were still not even close to being finished. Without a finished storyboard–the rough base for clean animation–there could be no finished animation. And the film was scheduled to be released (alongside Miya-san’s The Wind Rises) in July 2013. Thus, in December 2012, Nishimura had no choice but to shut down general production on Kaguya for a month, so that Takahata and Tanabe could finish the storyboards. Alas, in the end, the film was delayed even further to November 2013.

In 1998, Isao Takahata took a trip to Montreal, Canada (recorded in the documentary Journey of the Heart – Isao Takahata 世界・わが心の旅〜高畑勲). In one part of his trip, he visits the French Canada animator Frederic Back, whom he developed a relationship with after being impressed by his short film Crac!. They discuss each other’s films, talk about trees and plants and wildlife, discuss how humans can live in harmony with nature, and Back takes Takahata outside to plant an oak tree.

Somewhere in Montreal, Canada in a wide stretch of land previously owned by Frederic Back, there is an oak tree planted there by Isao Takahata. That fact delights me.

Takahata, left, and Frederic Back, right, planting an oak tree.

During his trip, Takahata also paid a visit to Upper Canada Village, a historical park that accurately depicts the lives of those living in the mid-19th century. Everything there is powered by water, steam, animals, or by man. They use traditional tools and simple machines. On recommendation of Frederic Back, Takahata also visits the native Haida nation of North America, a tribe whose culture believes in the symbiotic relationship between humans and wildlife. Although today, they enjoy modern commodities, the Haida have not forgotten their roots. They still use traditional fishing methods, they only take from nature what they need to survive, and many things are made by hand: totem poles and canoes are hand-carved, and hats are hand-woven from cedar bark.

Haida man, left, carving a totem pole with Takahata, right, watching.

Now, what does this 1998 vacation have to do with The Tale of the Princess Kaguya? One major theme in the film is the importance of nature and wildlife to Kaguya’s character. As Takahata says in an interview with Close-Up Film, it’s not that Kaguya has a particular interest in nature, but that she grew up surrounded by it.

It’s clear from the beginning of the movie, that Takahata wants us to notice the presence of nature in the characters’ lives. Kaguya herself, of course, is born from a glowing bamboo shoot. When Kaguya is an infant, she seems to laugh and grow in response to various things around her: first the wind blowing through the trees, then the flowers of a plum tree blossoming, then the little frogs hopping around her home. Throughout her childhood, we see her gazing in awe at bamboo stalks, saying hello to wild hogs, and playing in the rain. She enjoys running around with the neighborhood boys, led by an older boy named Sutemaru as they sing songs, hunt birds, steal fruits, and go swimming.

In between the actions of the main characters, we also get frequent cutaways to flying crows, leaves swaying in the breeze, flowers, a birds’ nest, bamboo shoots, deers, a bird catching a fish in the lake, etc.

We also see scenes of the bamboo cutter hand-weaving baskets, and Sutemaru’s family carving wooden bowls with man-powered tools and simple machinery, reminiscent of ones seen in Takahata’s trip to Canada.

To Kaguya, nature, and all the things that come with the simple country life, represent her childhood–a time when she felt truly free and happy. But, after her father begins to discover piles of gold as well as expensive robes inside other glowing bamboo stalks, he and his wife take Kaguya to live in a mansion in the city, convinced that she was fated to be a noble princess. At first, she takes to it, excited to live in a big building and wear beautiful clothing. But she soon finds that becoming a noble lady means giving up freedom, individuality, and passion.

Takahata shows Kaguya fighting the etiquette lessons from Lady Sagami and refusing to wear the traditional makeup–which involves plucking the eyebrows and painting the teeth black. When she is given the name “Princess Kaguya”–meaning “Shining Princess of the Young Bamboo” by Lord Akita, a commemoration party is held for her. However, while all the noblemen from across the land are invited for the three-day celebration, tradition dictates that Kaguya must sit alone with her handmaiden in a separate, dimly-lit room. After overhearing partygoers deride her and her father, question her nobility, and mock her looks, she bursts out in a flood of anger and frustration.

This is my favorite scene in the film. It’s the most messy, impressionistic one visually, and combined with the editing, sound mixing, and music by Joe Hisaishi, the emotion of the scene is explosively raw and unfiltered. It completely swallows me–when I first watched it, my face flushed, and I’m not sure why. It was as if I was embarrassed to witness Kaguya’s deep, flagrant emotions exposed.

Kaguya runs into the woods, attempting to look for her childhood friends, only to find a lone coal worker, who teaches her about the fleeting quality of life. He assures her that spring will come back, as long as she is patient and endures the winter. It is after this conversation that Princess Kaguya decides to follow her father’s and Lady Sagami’s wishes and become the noble lady they want her to be, giving them happiness and satisfaction while sacrificing her own. This is also when Takahata shows her well-meaning, but utterly oblivious father giving her a bird in a cage as a gift, which she immediately sets free.

As rumors of the new princess’ beauty spreads, the mansion is surrounded by men wanting to marry her, and even to just catch a glimpse of her. Unable to leave the mansion herself, Kaguya’s handmaiden once brings her a branch from a cherry blossom tree. Kaguya is eventually confronted by five nobles looking for her hand in marriage. In their proposals, they each compare her to a rare treasure: For Prince Kuramochi, she is like a jeweled branch from the mountain of Horai, for Prince Ishitsukuri she is like the stone begging bowl of Buddha, Lord Minister of the Right Abe compares her to a robe made of Chinese fire-rat fur, Great Counselor Otomo likens her to the jewel on a great dragon’s head, and Middle Counselor Isonokami compares her to a swallow’s cowry shell.

However, Kaguya has no interest in marriage, despite her father’s insistence that it will guarantee her happiness. She thus gives the suitors the impossible tasks of finding and bringing to her these five rare treasures…(A) to test their devotion, (B) to get them to leave and (hopefully) never come back, and (C) to convince the crowds of lower-class men to go home as well, so that she can leave the mansion to see the cherry blossom trees in person…

…And she does just that. Kaguya rubs off the makeup–as Lady Sagami retires from the household in frustration–and she, her handmaiden, and her mother leave the mansion to see the cherry blossom trees. It’s interesting to note that in the original folk tale, the five nobles never mention the five treasures; Princess Kaguya comes up with them with no explanation and sends them to retrieve these treasures for no clear reason. Takahata’s change, I feel, is one of his most clever additions to the story.

When they arrive at a cherry blossom tree, Kaguya is overjoyed and so relieved to see the beauty of nature in person again. As promised by the coal worker, it seems spring has returned to Kaguya’s life, at least for this moment. She dances around the biggest cherry blossom tree she finds, and in doing so bumps into a peasant family. They bow down to her and beg for her forgiveness and quickly leave, the two children running around the dirt path–as she once did in her childhood.

She is quickly reminded of her “noble princess” life waiting back home. Spring may have returned, she learns, but it too is temporary–the joy she last felt during her childhood was temporary. It’s no coincidence that Takahata made a major motif in this scene cherry blossoms–a symbol in Japanese culture for the impermanence of beauty and life, as they bloom quickly and die quickly. Back at the mansion, Kaguya builds a miniature version of her and her parents’ old home in the countryside, and the nature surrounding it in the garden. Still, it seems, the memory of her childhood is what is most precious to her, and one of the few things that comfort her in the mansion.

Three years pass, and the five noble suitors begin to return. But, all fail in some way or another to win over Princess Kaguya. Prince Kuramochi and Lord Minister of the Right Abe bring her shams of the treasures she tasked them to find. Great Counselor Otomo tries but fails to retrieve the dragon’s jewel. Prince Ishitsukuri returns not with the stone begging bowl of Buddha, but with a simple flower and a promise–a promise of devotion, a promise to leave the nobles’ life and run away together, to be one with nature, to freely laugh, to cry, to sleep, and to sing–in other words, exactly what Kaguya wants. But the Prince’s sincerity turns out to be a sham as well, as a former wife of his appears and exposes his shallow, trickster, womanizing ways. Lastly, Middle Counselor Isonokami dies while trying to retrieve a swallow’s cowry shell–news of his death reaches Kaguya, who falls into a shock as she shoulders the guilt.

Fed up with all of the lies, the shams, the death, her guilt, and her helplessness, she tears up her miniature garden, declaring it all fake, as her mother consoles her and pleads for her not to blame herself.

The last straw comes when the young Emperor of the land attempts to woo her into his court. The Emperor, like the others, sees her only for her outward appearance–to him, she is a prize to be won. In her desperation, Kaguya unknowingly calls for the moon to save her.

“All this happiness that you wish for me has been very hard to bear,” Kaguya tells her father. But, though her life has been difficult, she cannot help but feel regret and sorrow for having to leave the earth: the place she was born, the place where she learned to laugh and to cry, the place where she felt anger, frustration, joy, guilt, love, and happiness all for the first time. On the moon, there is no color, there is no life and no troubles either. In contrast, the earth is full of color, full of life, and full of both wordly anguish and joy. Takahata wanted to play up this contrast in order to clarify why Kaguya wants to stay on earth in the end, and to affirm to the audience that life on earth is ultimately good, as well as “cyclical…birth, growth, death, and revival–as in the songs I wrote for the film. I consider this to be the basis for everything,” Takahata says.

moon vs earth — Left: Moon, Right: Earth

Speaking of the music, it was in October 2011 when Takahata began to think about what he wanted from the musical score. Takahata, himself a music enthusiast, wrote the songs “Warabe Uta (Child’s Song)” and “Tennyo no Uta (A Celestial Maiden’s Song)”. “Warabe Uta” reinforces the theme of man and nature in harmony, and is sung by the country peasant children whom Kaguya plays with during her childhood. “Tennyo no Uta,” which is an extension of “Warabe Uta,” is sung by Kaguya once when she is a child, and once more when she is an adult. The lyrics of this song hint at Kaguya having to return to someone waiting for her.

By the end of 2012, Joe Hisaishi was hired to compose the score for Kaguya. Surprisingly, this veteran Ghibli composer, who worked on all of Miya-san’s films, had never worked directly with Takahata before. But, Hisaishi always felt a debt of gratitude to Takahata, who made him famous by hiring him to write the score to Miya-san’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Immediately accepting Takahata’s offer, Hisaishi set off to work on the main melodies for Kaguya.

Hisaishi & Takahata 02.png — Takahata (left) and Hisaishi (right) discussing the musical score

And, of course, Takahata doesn’t make the process easy. For every piece, he asks Hisaishi to try again and again until he turns in a song that Takahata is satisfied with. “Takahata-san probably doesn’t have a clear vision of what he wants,” Hisaishi says, “He works by process of elimination. It’s hard, but it’s worth doing.”

Sometimes, reusing previous melodies for later sequences seems to work better than composing new ones. For example, in the scene where Kaguya first arrives to the mansion and begins running and dancing all around, Hisaishi originally wrote a song with a very upbeat, joyous tune. However, Takahata was not satisfied–he wanted something slightly more melancholic, as if there was joy, but Kaguya is situated just outside of it–he wanted a song that was happy, but hinted at her tragic destiny. It turns out, the melody from the earlier rain scene during her childhood captured that perfectly.

After Kaguya reveals to her parents that the moon is coming to retrieve her in just a few days, she takes one final trip back to the countryside, where she runs into a grown-up Sutemaru. Their reunion is joyful–and in a moment of pure magic, the two run to the edge of a cliff, leap off, and begin flying around the country. In his original description of the scene, Takahata wrote two key phrases: “the power of life” and “the leap of life.” To Takahata, Kaguya being found in a bamboo shoot represented her birth, and her unwillful return to the moon represents her death–this flying scene thus represents her longing to continue living. The music of the scene was also wrestled over quite a bit. Joe Hisaishi ultimately decided to reuse the melody from Kaguya’s childhood, connecting her days with Sutemaru in the countryside as the most joyful in her life, both when she was a kid and now as an adult.

But, her joy soon ends, as the day comes when the moon kingdom takes her back. The whole force of the mansion’s guards, led by the former bamboo cutter is no match for the moon’s celestial beings. Kaguya is taken from her mother’s arms, while she fights and tries to justify the pain and sadness of earth that give way to understanding true happiness–something not present in the nothingness of the moon. Tragically, Kaguya is put in a magic robe which causes her to forget all her experiences on earth.

In order to reflect this tragedy, Takahata wanted an appropriate end credits theme to close the film. For years, Takahata had been a fan of the singer Kazumi Nikaido, and in November 2012, he reached out to ask her to write and sing a theme for Kaguya’s ending. In an initial meeting, Takahata tells Nikaido he wants the ending song to be soothing and calming–not sad–to be somewhat ambiguous in terms of the emotion. “It’s not a remedy for helplessness, but an acceptance. It’s not resolved, but it’s reality,” says Nikaido, as she absorbs Takahata’s words.

Nikaido & Takahata.png — Nikaido’s (left) and Takahata’s (right) first meeting

As they leave the earth, Kaguya takes one final look back on the planet, a tear rolling down her face, as if her heart still remembers the emotions it felt there. The celestial procession disappears into the light of the moon, and before the credits roll, Takahata shows us a final image of Kaguya as an infant. And the ending theme, called “Inochi no Kioku (When I Remember this Life)” starts to play:

“The warmth you gave me, deep, deep down, comes to me now, complete from a time long past…Everything of now is everything of the past. We’ll meet again, I’m sure in some nostalgic place. Everything of now is hope for the future…”

In 2013, Isao Takahata left us with what would unknowingly be his final film. Surprisingly, he has stated after the release of Kaguya that he planned to make more films, despite how long it took to convince him to make Kaguya. Takahata was lazy, hungry, slow, a perfectionist to a fault, and possessed no drawing skills, yet he was able to direct great animated films time and time again. Like his Tale of the Princess Kaguya, Takahata made a deep impression on everyone who knew him and his work; he faced hardships and caused trouble throughout his life and career, yet he still managed to find room to appreciate art, admire nature, and laugh.

Isao Takahata was born into this world in Autumn and he left in the Spring, leaving behind a life that will never be forgotten.

The trailer for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya:

Research Sources & Recommended Viewing:

1) Isao Takahata & His Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Documentary) – A behind-the-scenes doc about Isao Takahata and the making of Kaguya https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/isao-takahata-and-his-tale-of-the-princess-kaguya/id953064686

2) The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (Documentary) – A behind-the-scenes doc about Hayao Miyazaki and the making of the Wind Rises, with a few sections about Takahata http://sjsu.kanopy.com/video/kingdom-dreams-and-madness

3) Starting Point: 1979-1996 (Book) – A collection of essays and speeches written by Hayao Miyazaki and interviews with Hayao Miyazaki, with one essay dedicated to Paku-san https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Point-1979-1996-Hayao-Miyazaki/dp/1421561042

4) “Interview: Isao Takahata – The Tale of The Princess Kaguya” (Close-Up Film) (Interview) http://www.close-upfilm.com/2015/03/interview-isao-takahata-the-tale-of-the-princess-kaguya/

5) “Studio Ghibli’s Isao Takahata on Animating His Final Film” (Wired UK) (Interview) http://www.wired.co.uk/article/isao-takahata-interview

6) The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Journal) – The original story, translated by Donald Keene, professor of Japanese studies at Columbia University www.jstor.org/stable/2382982

7) Journey of the Heart – Isao Takahata 世界・わが心の旅〜高畑勲 (Documentary) – A documentary about Takahata’s trip to Canada, visiting Frederic Back, Upper Canada Village, and the Haida nation https://youtu.be/1CXVc36EYT8

8) “Slow on the draw: Takahata Isao’s long road to The Tale of the Princess Kaguya” (BFI) (Article) http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/slow-draw-takahata-isao-tale-princess-kaguya

9) “’Why Do Fireflies Have To Die So Soon?’: A Tribute To Isao Takahata, 1935-2018″ (rogerebert.com) (Article) https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/why-do-fireflies-have-to-die-so-soon-a-tribute-to-isao-takahata-1935-2018

10) Making of Only Yesterday (Documentary) – Behind-the-scenes doc about Takahata’s 1991 film Only Yesterday (Omoide Poroporo) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jb8zG-EXes&t=251s

11) “Isao Takahata- The Other Master” (Video Essay) https://youtu.be/anQeqlax0qk

TOP 17 FAVORITE FILMS OF 2017

I made the resolution at the beginning of 2017 to watch more movies than ever before. 76 movies later, and an average of 1.5 movies per week, including movies I saw in-theaters or on-demand, I definitely beat my last record of… 22…

Here are my brief thoughts on every 2017-release movie I watched. Well… just my favorites, ranked from my least most favorite at #17 to my most most favorite at #1.

Honorable Mentions: Split, Night is Short Walk on Girl, A Ghost Story, Kizumonogatari 3: Reiketsu, It, and Molly’s Game.

Here is my list on letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/andrehuang/list/favorite-films-of-2017-ranked/ (may be updated or changed)

UPDATE 2/27/2018: The Florida Project definitely deserves to be placed in the top five. See my review here.

(17) It Comes at Night – Directed by Trey Edward Shults

Tense, suspenseful, and mysterious, It Comes at Night really impressed me when I saw it in theaters last Spring. What’s going on outside? Who are these people? Can they be trusted? What comes at night? It’s like a whodunnit mystery scenario crossed with a psychological horror. It’s Junji Ito-esque the way it explores human behavior when put in a horrific situation, without feeling the need to explore the situation itself. In fact, there’s not a drop of exposition throughout the film–you slowly come to understand what’s going on by listening to the natural dialogue. Unfortunately, the characters are not particularly memorable and I could definitely do without the (few, albeit) jump-scares that ruin the subtle, eerie atmosphere. Apart from that, it’s a great piece of psychological horror-thriller storytelling, and it had one of the most haunting endings of the year.

(16) Baby Driver – Dir. by Edgar Wright

The most impressive thing about Baby Driver is that the entire film (well, most of it) is edited and choreographed to the beat of the music on Baby’s iPod. As a result, the film has a natural rhythm and pace to it that elevates the soundtrack as the soundtrack elevates the picture. Almost like a pseudo-musical. On top of that, there are some nail-biting car chases and great action sequences that lead to a satisfying climax fit for a summer crime blockbuster. While the characters failed to really grab my full interest, I still think it’s a blast for the story and soundtrack alone.

(15) Dunkirk – Dir. Christopher Nolan

There is very little dialogue, there is virtually no plot, the central conflict is very impersonal, and the characters are paper-thin. We follow a few characters, but we never learn much of anything about them. The “main character”, if you could call him that, barely speaks a word. So what’s the draw to this film? Well, it’s completely about the event and the setting itself–the Allies evacuation from Dunkirk during World War II. It’s a hyper-realistic look into the experiences of the soldiers during this war, basically putting you in their shoes–on the beach, in the water, on the boats, in the sky. They don’t force in a narrative or character piece–the film’s only goal is to give you the experience of being in the battle, and for that, I found it really unique and surprisingly moving.

(14) Call Me By Your Name – Luca Guadagnino

One of my favorite story genres is the Slice-of-Life. You get to explore characters, relationships, and settings more than worrying about plot or themes. Call Me By Your Name is a well crafted, very gradually-paced love story. The romance feels organic and motivated. While the characters themselves aren’t always riveting, I found that their developing relationships were. As Elio’s passion for his girlfriend dwindles, he starts to notice burgeoning feelings for Oliver, who, to his surprise, returns them. It’s not a stereotypical story about homosexuality where the couple must battle prejudice or disapproval–it’s a simple, unpretentious love story like any other. I was also surprised by the acute sense of place in this film–by the end, I also felt like a summer resident of Professor Perlman and Elio’s home in Italy. My one issue with the film is that in its deliberate slow pace, not every scene is particularly engaging or productive.

(13) Good Time – Ben & Joshua Safdie

A modern-day crime-thriller version of Of Mice and Men. The story of an unlucky man who unintentionally digs a hole for himself trying to make a good life for he and his brother, then in trying to get out, ends up digging the hole deeper and deeper. Robert Pattinson leads with an amazingly convincing off-personality performance that kept me clinging to the edge of my seat. Apart from a certain side character I couldn’t care less about and some uneven camerawork, I found Good Time to be a simple, …good time.

(12) Wonder Woman – Patty Jenkins

I don’t typically like superhero movies, but like everyone else, Wonder Woman caught my attention for being the big-screen debut of a classic female superhero. It was thrilling, fun, the action scenes were beautifully composed (despite the possible overuse of slo-mo), and it was emotional too. Like many others, I also teared up a bit at the powerful no man’s land sequence, where Wonder Woman courageously marches through the battlefield alone, deflecting bullets with the background music swelling. The villains may be a little underwhelming, the special effects unimpressive, and the ending a bit lukewarm, but other than that, Wonder Woman is definitely a powerful movie.

(11) The Disaster Artist – James Franco

The Disaster Artist was my most anticipated movie of 2017, and of course with high anticipation comes high chance of disappointment. What I ended up getting was a mishmash–an incredibly fun and FUNNY movie with some real heart. I teared up throughout the movie out of laughter, and ended up tearing up by the end of the movie out of sympathy for James Franco’s Tommy Wiseau. But alas, I was also disappointed with a few elements. Having read the original memoir, I feel the movie misses many of the nuances of the two leads’ relationships and a lot of the obstacles they had to overcome. The Disaster Artist is a really fun standalone film. If you’ve read the book, you may need to prepare for a slight letdown. But whether you’ve seen The Room or not, it’s an unconventional success story that will keep you in stitches.

(10) The Killing of a Sacred Deer – Yorgos Lanthimos

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is the very definition of psychological horror. There’s nothing physically or visually terrifying going on–it’s just about a Doctor’s family one-by-one getting sick and a neighborhood boy with mental issues. The music is eerie, some scenes uncomfortable, and everyone speaks like a deadpan robot, but if you were to just hear about the events that transpire, you may not find it particularly out of the ordinary. But underneath it all is a nightmarish story of revenge, of fear, of anxiety, of death, of guilt, of life, of morals, and of anger. It’s also a bit of a black comedy, with ridiculous events and strange dialogue delivered completely stone-faced, constantly making the audience question whether or not to laugh. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is vastly uncomfortable, eerie, and darkly comedic (I think?): an altogether unique experience.

(9) Ingrid Goes West – Matt Spicer

Ingrid Goes West is another tale of one well-meaning person consistently making poor decisions and getting into worse and worse situations. It’s also a satire of social media culture that touches on obsession, stalking, dishonesty, pretentiousness, personality disorders, and the human need to be noticed and accepted. The unbelievable actions Ingrid takes over the course of the film in order to simply get noticed by an Instagram celeb are sometimes funny, sometimes cringy, sometimes pathetic and sad, and sometimes shocking. But because we all understand the human need to belong, we understand and empathize with her. This leads to a surprisingly fun character-focused drama with biting social satire and a surprisingly satisfying emotionally-charged conclusion.

(8) Get Out – Jordan Peele

In a very impressive debut for writer-director Jordan Peele, Get Out tells the story of a black man who goes to his white girlfriend’s home to meet her parents. And where a situation like this could easily be expanded into a comedy sketch, Peele does something very unique in turning it into a horror-thriller with social commentary, and even some comedic moments. It’s a drastically exaggerated what-if scenario with an amazing twist that lets subsequent viewings be completely different experiences, especially when you consider the level of detail placed in the film that foreshadow the twist.

(7) Blade Runner 2049 – Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve did the impossible with Blade Runner 2049 by making a sequel to an almost 40 year-old cult-classic masterpiece that surpasses the original to become a modern-day science fiction masterpiece. The world is made richer, the philosophy deeper, and the discussion is no longer on “Is he or isn’t he?” but “does it matter?” It’s no longer about quantity of life, but quality. The themes are complex, the production design and cinematography are superb. Its deliberately slow pace is cut from the same cloth as 2001: A Space Odyssey and THX 1138. If you are a fan of pure, thoughtful, contemplative, brooding science fiction with a tinge of action and film noir, Blade Runner 2049 is a must-watch.

(6) I, Tonya – Craig Gillespie

For those who don’t know the story of ice skater Tonya Harding, I, Tonya is an absolutely fascinating film. Told in a mockumentary covering the events of her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, as well as the events leading to the Nancy Kerrigan incident, we get an inside look into the high-intensity life of this infamous figure. From her troubled parentage and her troubled marriage to her troubled career as a U.S. figure skater. The mockumentary style keeps the energy high with narration, frequent cuts to interviews, and several fourth wall breaks. And as funny and entertaining as the film is, it can also be shocking and effectively heartbreaking, too.

(5) The Big Sick – Michael Showalter

The Big Sick was marketed as a romantic comedy, but I actually found myself getting more engulfed in the drama of the situation than the comedy. Either way, it’s refreshing to see an interracial couple featuring an Asian man leading a relatively big Hollywood romantic comedy-drama. I like the themes of family, of religion and tradition, and of cross-cultural anxiety that were explored. Kumail Nanjiani is hilarious, and Emily Kazan is perfect. The Big Sick is funny, insightful, touching, and nail-biting–an all-round good time.

(4) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Martin McDonagh

One of the biggest surprises of the year for me, Three Billboards is a story where one woman’s seemingly simple, well-meaning actions to get justice for her daughter’s death engulfs the town into a chaotic cycle of anger, hate, and negativity. Now, surprisingly for me, we get to see how her actions constantly come back to affect herself in ways she didn’t predict. I expected McDormand’s character to be angry and comedic through the whole film, but we also see her moments of levity and her moments of grief. And the film gives the audience a chance to see and understand both sides of the conflct. So, instead of telling you who’s right, it gives you the evidence and asks you who’s right. Each of the main characters are superbly developed and well-written. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is simply captivating.

(3) Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Rian Johnson

The latest episode of Star Wars blew me away the first time I saw it. Upon review, and a subsequent viewing, I still think it’s a darn good Star Wars movie. I fully stand by my opinion that it contains some of the most jaw-dropping moments in the entire saga. I love how daring Rian Johnson was–how many risks he took, how many expectations he completely flipped, all in order to allow a 40 year old story to grow and expand; to remain healthy, vibrant, and relevant. J.J. Abrams lined up the shot for Johnson with the Force Awakens, Johnson hit it racing straight into the sky with The Last Jedi, and next with Episode IX, it’s up to Abrams to see that it lands.

(2) Lady Bird – Greta Gerwig

Lady Bird sunk its talons deep into my psyche. And it took me some time to realize why. The story of a teenager going through social and academic stress, applying for college, and fighting with their parents is not uncommon. But Greta Gerwig’s decision to anchor the story on the core mother-daughter relationship is unique. Even though Lady Bird is apparently not autobiographical, the writing and the dialogue still rings so true and so personal. It’s made me think about my own relationships–those with friends, those with family. I haven’t gone through the same experiences as Lady Bird does, yet they still speak to me on a deep level. They encourage me to continue trying to better myself, to learn to appreciate my place in the world, to appreciate my mom and dad, and to try and make a life for myself that I can appreciate. It also makes me weary and nostalgic for my hometown (like Lady Bird’s, also in NorCal). It’s warm, affecting, authentic, and softly nostalgic.

(1) The Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro

The Shape of Water. The shape of love. The shape of incompleteness. The tale of love and loss, the princess without a voice, and the monster who tried to destroy it all. Every director loves the films they make. Every screenwriter loves the scripts they make. Every actor loves the roles they perform. But seldom do you see a film with its creators’ love and passion imbued so plainly and yet so subtly that it seeps into the hearts and minds of its audience. Only Miyazaki consistently does this for me. Spielberg, Tarantino, and Wes Anderson come close. Guillermo del Toro nails it with this latest effort. Alluring visuals, enchanting music, and unabashed writing all come into play in The Shape of Water. On the outside, the premise of a mute woman who falls in love with a fish-man is certainly ridicuous and sounds almost unseemly. But the movie is completely unafraid of ridicule or disgust–it plays the fairy-tale adult love story genuinely and fully. It asks audiences to take a leap and try to see beauty and goodness in the strange, the different, the unknown, the other. In my mind, it succeeds–The Shape of Water is truly strange and (thus) utterly beautiful.

Spirited Away (2001) – Nothing Short of a Masterpiece

I first saw Spirited Away when I was about 5 years old, back before I even recognized the difference between Japanese and American animation. It’s beyond my recollection whether this was the first film from Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki that I’ve watched, but it is the only one that has remained—at least in small disconnected, hazy fragments—a part of my memory. Last December, after discovering the VHS tape buried in a closet, I saw the film once more and it astounded me. When the tape ejected, I wanted to immediately push it back and see it again. Instead, I decided to hold my breath and wait for another time. And in the 300 or so days I spent waiting, the movie sat simmering in my head. And without realizing, I sat patiently right through the film’s 15th anniversary. And like a shining light, at the end of November in 2016, with my academic stress at its peak, it was announced that Spirited Away would be screening again in theaters for a limited time. It was time to stop waiting.

spaw15th — *15th Anniversary Celebration promotional image*

Spirited Away is a 2001 animated film from Japan, produced by Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It has won several awards including an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and to this day, it is the highest grossing film ever made in Japan, with a box office total of over 30 billion Japanese yen. In it, a young girl named Chihiro and her parents find themselves lost in a world of spirits, and in order to free her parents from a curse, she is forced to go to work in a bathhouse run by an old witch. Now, I wrestled a lot over why this movie had such an effect on me, and to be honest, I still have trouble pinning it down. I’m not sure if I will be able to write anything that truly does justice to the feelings and thoughts that this film inspired in me, but I’ll give it my best.

The first suspect here is the marvelous art and design. The animation itself is so full of energy and life, down to the tiniest details in foreground and background objects, even animating little unique quirks each individual character possesses (one example is Chihiro’s habit of putting her hands up to her shoulders whenever she’s scared). Hayao Miyazaki demonstrates in this film his brilliant direction of visual storytelling. The very first scene is especially impressive: in the first shot we see a note from Chihiro’s friend saying “Chihiro, good luck. Hope we meet again!”, then in the very next shot, we see Chihiro lying in the back of a moving car, surrounded by cardboard boxes, and holding in her hands a bouquet of flowers, on which the note is attached. Chihiro, in this shot, is clearly less than pleased. From this we already learn two very important aspects of her character: (1) that she is moving away from home, and (2) that she is not happy about it. We learn both these things purely by visuals; no expository dialogue required, and to top it off, all this in less than ten seconds.

spawapathy — *Chihiro is moving and she is not happy about it*

Another thing that struck me about the art in Spirited Away are the colors. When you think of Spirited Away, what color(s) quickly come to mind? For me, I immediately think of the color red. Sen’s outfit is red, the bathhouse itself is red, and even some of the spirits are red. I don’t know if this was a conscious choice, but it’s certainly interesting that no other Miyazaki movie has such a dominant color in its palette.

Now the aspect of the film that typically receives the most acclaim is the set and especially, character designs. To add my voice to the singing of its praises would be unnecessary, but I’m going to do it anyway. The world of Spirited Away is bursting at the seams with creativity, artistry, and imagination. The beautifully painted landscapes and the wonderfully atmospheric, mysterious buildings in both the spirit world and the human world are simply unbelievable. It all feels incredibly, magically real; and part of that is due to the characters inhabiting it. There’s chicken spirits, radish spirits, giant babies, stink monsters, masked apparitions, a man with eight arms, and much, much more. It sounds impossible that all these creatures can live together in the same world and be in the same movie in a logical way, but somehow it works, and just adds to the magic.

spawspirits — *Chihiro waits while spirits exit a bathhouse elevator*

Spirited Away is also multilayered with many themes and messages including ones about growing up, gaining new responsibilities, becoming independent, loneliness, friendship, trust, et cetera. But ever relatable to me, is the theme of moving to a new place and trying to fit in. Starting off scared and homesick, Chihiro eventually warms up to the spirit world and, by the end, actually feels a small sense of heartache leaving it. I really relate to this because I also sort-of had an experience of moving to a new place by myself and leaving behind my close family and friends. I went to an art “summer camp,” over 300 miles away from my home for four weeks. Of course, it was nothing close to the fantastic and frightening adventure that Chihiro has, but this first time away from home for me (for more than a few days) did conjure up similar feelings of homesickness, loneliness, and anxiety in me, at least at first. By the program’s end, though, I couldn’t bear to leave it.

Now let’s take a closer look at Chihiro. I spent a lot of time thinking about why I enjoyed her character so much, and the thing is, she starts off very apathetic, really whiny, and constantly crying. But what makes her still likeable regardless is that we understand why she is acting and feeling this way. Like I mentioned earlier, from just the first 10 seconds of the film, we learn that she is moving away and that she is displeased about it because she is leaving behind friends. Her reason for being unhappy or “whiny” is made clear to us from the start and we are able to relate to her as a result. Being scared, having seemingly everyone against you, being forced to face new and sometimes scary things, and not being able to fit in—these are all part of the experience of moving to a new place, and they’re all things almost everyone can relate to. But by the end of the movie, Chihiro doesn’t just remain victim to all of these challenges; she grows up, becomes independent, and learns to face her fears and resolve them.

One scene near the beginning of the movie and one scene towards the end of the movie work very well together in showing this growth. The first scene shows Chihiro running down a flight of stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs and crashing into a wall at the foot of the steps. While not badly hurt, she is clearly shocked. The second scene, near the end of the movie, shows Chihiro running down a flight of stairs, while leading another character, and lightly bumping into a wall at the foot of the staircase. However, this time, she is not screaming and she instantly recovers and continues running without skipping a beat. The character she was leading down the stairs crashes into the wall and is undeniably flustered. I just love the parallelism between these two scenes and the way they subtly and visually show just how much Chihiro has grown.

spawstairs — *Parallel staircase scenes*

Another prevalent theme I found in the film that I haven’t seen anyone else mention—and is very relevant to today’s society—is discrimination. When Chihiro is first admitted into the bathhouse and given a job, she is constantly being rejected, neglected, and harassed by spirits for the sole reason that she is a “human.” Not only is there a theme here about trying to fit in with others, but I think there is also a message here about unfounded prejudice. By the end of the film, however, the spirits learn to value Chihiro, not for her “race” (i.e. human), but for her inner character: for her dedicated work ethic, her friendliness, and for her integrity. Thus, the film is not just a journey of maturation for Chihiro, but a journey of maturation for the spirits as well.

spirited-awayracism — *Discrimination in the bathhouse*

I also really admire Spirited Away for not being afraid of leaving questions open: it confidently does things without explicitly explaining what or why. There are all kinds of creatures and characters in the film that we don’t learn much about, yet you can still imagine long histories and interesting lives behind them. There are many buildings, areas, and other physical parts and non-physical laws and ideas in the spirit world that are strange and unexplained. And many people might find that these unexplained things leave them feeling unsatisfied by the film’s conclusion, but for me, they added layers and depth to the characters and the world. I am in awe of how vast and mysterious the spirit world feels even after going through a whole adventure within it. Sure, there are many unexplained things, but in my opinion, none really need to be explained.

Spirited Away is a marvelous, absolutely spellbinding animated film. The characters are so well-developed and well-written, the world is unbelievably imaginative, the music is beautiful, and the animation is breathtaking. I honestly don’t have any issues with this movie, nor have I found any glaring or even subtle flaws with it. Spirited Away affects me emotionally, it constantly gives me goosebumps, and it just completely blows my mind the amount of work, thought, and love that is so evidently imbued into its production. For that, it is nothing short of a masterpiece.

verdict: A+