Yep, the Kadama (Kodama?) were the little white clicky things (if they were green, it’s time for your theater to clean its projector:)).
As for Kite, it’s a movie, somewhere in the 90 min range IIRC. And, yeah, it has a good dark, gritty texture to it - very noirish - and the cinematography is very good as well. Storywise, I found it only marginally more interesting than Cool Devices 7: Yellow Star.
::rereads::
Geez, I’m discussing Cool Devices in the Princess Mononoke thread? That’s not right…
I’m always surprised when people criticize the English-dubbed version of Princess Mononoke. It’s certainly much, much better than the English-dubbed version of…well…every other anime I’ve ever seen.
I liked Kiki’s Delivery Service, probably more so than Princess Monouke. There was something about it that was…odd yet familiar. It’s hard to describe.
I watch a lot of Anime and I think the dubbed version was pretty darn good.
Marc
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I was pretty surprised by Lady Eboshi myself. I expected to see the good environmentalist beating the evil industrialist. The fact that things were more complicated then that made the movie that much more enjoyable.
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I didn’t really care all that much for the ending. But then I dislike the ending to most anime.
Marc
I’ve seen Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service, but I didn’t realize the same creator was involved. I’ll be looking for more movies by Miazaki now.
I enjoyed both movies myself, but even better was how much my kids enjoyed them as well. Its hard to beat watching your three year old jump up and cheer at the climactic scene, as she did with Kiki’s. A better response than the glazed look that Disney’s films induce. (Oddly, they’ll still watch the Disney stuff over and over, but rarely give repeat viewings to the anime.)
I’m wondering though… I’ve heard about the decapitation scenes, etc., in Mononoke. Does this mean this movie isn’t suitable for younger kids?
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Most kids probably like Disney better then anime. Disney has some great animation and things that both adults and children can enjoy together. It is pretty darn rare for an anime title that can be enjoyed by both adults and children. The animation of most Disney movies is also superior to the majority of anime that I’ve seen. Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid were all pretty good animated features.
Mononoke is not appropriate for children. The violent scenes are actually few and far between though. And unlike a lot of other movies the violence actually seems to serve a purpose plot wise. Aside from the violence I’d still say it isn’t an appropriate movie for kids. Simply because the plot is a bit complex and I think they’d become bored with it rather quickly.
marc
If you’re interested in more Hayao Miyazaki anime, there’s “Laputa, City in the Clouds” and “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” (my translation, so maybe the English title is different). He also participated with Disney Studios in the production of Mulan.
Both Laputa and Nausica’s story have many things in common with Mononoke’s: no character is definitely bad or good, everyone is doing what they are because they have to from their perspective, etc. but the setting is more modern in Laputa (imagine the industrial revolution with mysterious robots falling off a mysterious flying islands) and Nausicaä is much more fantastic (picture tanks and swords clashing, tiger squirrels, giant planes and flying urns, herds of giant millipedes the size of the Titanic trying to swarm a baby avatar of destruction that spits nuclear fire.)
Miyazaki’s style is easily recognizable and the main characters in all his stories look uncannily similar.
Pretty much so. This is a story for adults that just happens to be animated.
The “animation=kids’ fare” equation is pretty much an American prejudice. Most anime is not made for kids (although a lot is), and even if it is made for kids, there’s a good chance that there’s something in it that the Japanese have no problems with but a typical uptight American parent will freak over. (Cases in point: the occasional breast-grope in Kodomo no Omocha and the pair of lesbian senshi in the later seasons of Sailor Moon – both series aimed at the pre-teen to early teen girl audience.)
– Bob
Hmm. The cast used for the various Tenchi Muyo! series is pretty good – and about half of them showed up in Princess Mononoke, though not as major voice talent. Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 has an excellent English cast (as opposed to the truly vomit-inducing dub cast of the original BGC). And I’ve heard that the dub cast for the first El-Hazard series is considered to be better than the series’ original Japanese seiyuu. <shrug> Just my two cents’ worth…
– Bob
Yay, another anime fan!
yes, it’s important to remember that in the US, animation has a reputation for 1) being aimed at kids or 2) adult humor (think simpsons, King of the Hill, Dr. Katz)
In Japan, animation is used for all types of TV shows - romance, drama, action, comedy, soap operas, kids’ shows. Like anything else, some anime is better than others.
Anime tends to focus more on the story and character development - I think it’s a mistake to only look at the animation quality. If you compare animation made for TV to Disney, I don’t think it’s as qualitative either. There’s a big difference between animating a movie and a show that must be churned out on a daily or weekly basis.
Typical translation of the title is ‘Laputa: Castle in the Sky’ - when (::Sigh:: if) Disney finally gets around to distributing it the title will simply be Castle in the Sky, because of the meaning of Laputa in Spanish. (Swift knew this meaning when he named his floating city Laputa, Miyazaki didn’t when he named his in reference to Swift’s.)
Lamia: Dubs have gotten MUCH better in the last half-decade, except for stuff done spacifically for TV (Sailor Moon) and stuff by US. Manga Corps.
Actually, there are quite a few good anime kids shows, but few of them are brought over. They’d have to compete with domsestic kid shows, after all.
I wouldn’t avoid showing PM with a kid in the room, there’s nothing in it that was worse than the bar scene in Star Wars. Younger kids might find it a bit boring, though.
There is a good amount of “all audience” anime floating around, though. Slayers and Ranma 1/2 (Well, any of the Takahashi TV series, they’re all pretty much the same) The latter has the occasional animated breast, but they’re comedy based breasts, not sexual based breasts.
Thought Kite was terribly overrated. Just kind of pretentious and dumb. A blockbuster might have Ryujin Z, Ghost in the Shell or Sanctuary, though, all three of which were pretty good. The first was pretty wierd, though. And the second is really only applicable if you like that kind of thing.
Most good anime is in either TV show or OAV (direct-to-video) format, though.
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“Something else crated by Satan, Japanimaion!”
Yeah, saw it dubbed though…grrr. but i plan on stealing my friend’s japanese version soon.
I loved it, it actually had a really deep plotline and was good bloody anime:)
I haven’t watched anime heavily for about seven years (I had a girlfriend at the time with a massive video collection), and am glad to hear that the dubbing quality has since improved. At the time it seemed as though all the voices were performed by only two or three actors – and by “actors” I mean “people who couldn’t get work doing voice-overs in ads for used car lots”. Then of course there was the infamous Piercing Anime Falsetto. I’m sure you know what I mean.
It definitely has more bloody scenes than any other Miyazaki movie. Laputa is much better suited for younger children. Nausicaa I feel is a more powerful story - not as much explicite violence as Princess Mononoke. My personal favourite is Laputa - the Industrial Revolution era setting works very well, combined with the early aviation (airships) theme.
There’s one other Miyazaki film nobody has mentioned yet - Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. There are many shows and movies in the Lupin III series, but this is the only one directed by Miyazaki. Not as deep as his other movies, but still a very good and entertaining movie.
There are also The Crimson Pig (aka Porco Rosso) and If You Listen Carefully, but IMHO they are awful.
I took all my kids to see Princess Mononoke and we all thought it was great. My son being a Pokémon fan, I wanted to give him a wider sense of what Japanese culture can provide. The quality, richness, and density of Miyazake’s work in landscapes and nature scenes was breathtaking – you never get to see anything like that in American animation. Only the dubbed version was shown in Washington, DC. I like Billy Bob as an American just fine, but to hear his drawl coming from a Japanese character didn’t work for me. He used to be tubby–how’d he wind up so skinny these days?
OK, this thread has gotten old, but I finally got around to seeing Princess Mononoke on video this weekend. Of my three kids, only my 10 year old son watched the whole thing with me. I really wish I’d ignored those who said it wasn’t for kids and asked all three to watch it. My 3 year old daughter watched the last hour or so, and wasn’t too disturbed by any of the gruesome stuff. She remarked that the bloody boar was “gross”, but it didn’t bother her much, and she hasn’t had any nightmares over it. Yeah, as MGibson pointed out, her attention wandered, but she did keep watching until the end. Considering that she didn’t see the first half of the movie, she kept up with what she did see rather well.
Compared to the violence that kids are exposed to regularly on television (Pro wrestling, etc.), I didn’t think this was bad at all. Yes, it was a bit more graphic. But at least the consequences of violence were shown, unlike in most American movies.
Sigh. I happen to think that assuming complex stories are automatically not for children does a great disservice to them. Ever read Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales? Some are very complex.
I used to read my sons to sleep every night, sometimes fairy tales or folk tales, but also longer books, a few pages a night. When they were two and three, I read the Hobbit to them. By the time the oldest was 6, I think I’d read it to them 3 times. I read the Canterbury tales (in middle English, not a translation), Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and about a third of Don Quixote to them as well. Maybe they didn’t understand everything (even with my frequent questions, explanations, and recaps), but they understood enough to enjoy them. I can’t prove it, but maybe this contributed to the fact that my son tested as reading at 12th grade level when he was in the 3rd grade. (And, for the record, this was while attending public school.)
Oh, and Billy Bob’s voice was perfect for the character he did.
True enough. I suppose I’m not the best judge of what a typical kid will or won’t like (I – like most other Dopers, I suspect – was not a typical kid, nor do your kids sound typical, either…), but I felt the story line was a bit sophisticated for the Pokemon/early Sailor Moon set.
As for things that will freak out an American parent, actually, Princess Mononoke doesn’t have much. Like you said, violence doesn’t really do it. However, you go to other shows, and things like the Japanese attitudes towards sexuality and nudity will surely start some know-nothing excuse for a parent screaming somewhere. Cases in point: the digital alterations of the Sailor Moon transformation sequences and the Tenchi Muyo! bathing scenes, as well as the revision of Haruka and Michiru in Sailor Moon from lesbian lovers to ambiguous cousins (huh?).
– Bob
Yeah, like Bob said, we’re a heck of a lot more uptight about nudity/sex than we are about violence despite the fact that violence is arguably the worse of two ‘evils.’ It’s like I said when I was in high school, it’s really the US Government’s not so subtle attempt at population control. Make violence seem more tempting than sex and soon we’ll be killing each other off faster than we reproduce.
Hey, it was a pretty good conspiracy theory for an 11th grader. 