Mouryou no Hako: Bliss found in Madness
July 4, 2009
Because most of you have not yet seen all of Mouryou no Hako, I won’t be talking about the mystery aspect of the show. All I have to say is that, most likely, you will be disturbed and blown away by the end. Aside from its absorbing and disturbing mystery, Mouryou no Hako has something else to offer on the aesthetics side, and that is beauty of madness (kyouki bi 狂気美). Here is what Wabisabi once said about kyouki bi in relation to Mouryou no Hako:
“The strange and demonic beauty of madness, lunacy and all manner of mental infirmities, usually accompanied by an intense yearning or obsession for some delusional concept of ‘purity’, ‘perfection’ or ‘ideal’, refusal to compromise with ‘impurity’ and ‘imperfection’ and a readiness for death and destruction.”
In his recent post ghostlightning mentioned the difference between childish and childlike, which intrigued me a great deal because that just happened to be the central concept behind my third year design project. In my research of Transactional Analysis, it is said that we each have three different egos; parent, adult and child. This child ego can be further subdivided into Rebellious Child, Natural Child and Little Professor. Rebellious Child is the part that makes us ‘childish’ by being unreasonable, disobedient, immature, etc. Natural Child is the part that enables us to have fun, find wonder and amazement in little things, while Little Professor is what makes us creative, intuitive and imaginative. In my observation, we all start gradually losing sight of our precious Natural Child and Little Professor as we age towards ‘adulthood’. In many ways our society works to suppress these qualities, which may help us function for the greater good, but very depressing nonetheless. Maybe we can find ways, whether through words, silver screen, or spaces, to not only provide stimulating experience for children, but also to offer a journey for adults, to first feel like being young adults, then adolescents, then children, for they will find their inner child once again, to be amazed, to have fun, and to exercise creativity and imagination.
What is it like to watch Casshern Sins? It’s like listening to a beautiful sound of bell, echoeing through hollow emptiness. It’s like watching sand-covered city painted in white, or singing songs of hope in a world of despair. It’s to watch flower blooming beautifully admist the ruins.
Interesting Analogy of American vs Japanese Animation
June 20, 2009
This is an analogy Peter Chung (Aeon Flux) once used to compare American (mostly Disney/Pixar) animation to anime. It’s a relatively simple observation that most casual fans would have noticed, but not as easy to articulate into words (so all kudos to him. My effort here is to make the point more concise and illustrative).
From Bizarre to Sublime
June 16, 2009
Why do strange things look the way they do? These I call bizarre. Then what is sublime? That is bit harder for me to answer but I will try using the above building Sagrada Familia as an example.
At first glance, the soaring conical pinnacles and bizarre facade seem purely sculptural, more organic interpretation of the traditional Gothic Cathedral. And yet the slots in these spires lighten the structure, reduces wind loads and ventilates the confines of staircases, while evoking the notion of “inhabited sculpture” by affording glimpses of people ascending the spiral stairs: a truly ingenious integration of engineering and aesthetics. When you feel that something looks eccentric not just to be different but because it integrates so flawlessly with other elements (whatever they may be), and when you are no longer bewildered but instead completely captured by it, that is when bizarre is elevated to sublime.
Mushishi is how to be bizarre and still fully connect to the audience
The Empire, long divided, must unite: long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.
Angel’s Egg: We all have an egg to carry
May 30, 2009
Beauty of Angel’s Egg is timeless. For me this 1986 vintage film is more beautiful and captivating than most flashy CG animated works today. Aesthetics aside, its value and meaning remain elusive to many simply because it relies too heavily on obscure Christian symbolic imagery. What does it all mean? One must remember that Oshii once aspired to become a priest, before he changed his mind and chose the path of a director. Oshii also claims that the movie is very personal for him. If so, can one see Angel’s Egg as the death of Oshii’s innocent faith in Christianity? I won’t pretend to have found my answer to many symbolisms in the film but I do want to share my views so far. In this post, I will be talking about a number of scenes/imagery and what I thought and felt about each one, before offering my humble attempt at an interpretation.
On Music and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
May 25, 2009
"Drunkenness and madness are Dionysian because they break down a man's individual character; all forms of enthusiasm and ecstasy are Dionysian, for in such states man gives up his individuality and submerges himself in a greater whole: music is the most Dionysian of the arts, since it appeals directly to man's instinctive, chaotic emotions and not to his formally reasoning mind."
In music, everything begins with rhythm. From the dawn of time, cavemen used only chantings and clappings to create rhythm in which people of all ages and gender would dance in unison to. At that moment of dancing you might feel the rhythm breaking you down as individuals and creating inexplicable desire to move, sing along and be sweeped into its flow.
Recommending The Ravages of Time
May 19, 2009
The only male trap character I approve
Apparently I have to write something every month so that my future blog entries can still be catalogued in Animenano. So briefly ignoring my silly hiatus, I recommend an excellent manhua that I’ve recently discovered called The Ravages of Time, which basically re-tells the events in the Three Kingdoms Period of Chinese history in a very creative, philosophical and poetic manner.
gaguri’s Ramblings on Spring Season
April 20, 2009
A notice of short hiatus first because, well, I feel like catching up on some series without editing something in between. I’m thinking about three months long break, hopefully not longer. I still have quite a number of rough drafts (more like collected notes I’ve taken in the past) on my other favourite titles but those will have to wait. I plan to marathon Casshern Sins, finish the rest of Legend of The Galactic Heroes, follow few shows from this season, and catch up on few selections from my ever-growing-backlog. If you are a newcomer, feel free to browse through and comment on previous entries at leisure. If you have been following this blog, all I ask of you is to keep me in your feedburner ^^
Friendship in Gungrave and Legend of The Galactic Heroes
April 18, 2009
Here is my attempt at something Wabisabi would write. There is a word made up of four chinese characters and that is (金蘭之交). It is pronounced Geum Lan Ji Gyou in korean (don’t ask me for chinese pronounciation) and is a quite beautiful description of a friendship. This word derives its meaning from what Confucius said long ago: “When two friends put their mind together, it is strong enough to cut through steel and is more fragrant than an orchid”.
同人 先號 而後笑 子曰 君子之道 惑出惑處 惑默惑 語 二人同心 其利斷金 同心之言 其臭如蘭. 《易經 繫辭上傳》
Beautiful Horror
April 4, 2009
Le Portrait de Petite Cossette can be considered a horror, but not in a sense that Ring is a horror. It is sometimes creepy but does not have the kind of terror that drives one senseless. There is another particular dimension added to the horror in Petite Cossette and “beautiful” is really the only word I can think of to describe its inexplicably seductive allure.
Beautiful horror is a term once used by the director Kim Ji-woon to describe his A Tale of Two Sisters. The film does not seek to senselessly terrify the viewers, it wants people to fall in love with the two sisters and their story. So innocent is the character of Soo-mi and affectionate is her sister Soo-yeon’s caring love for her, so much so that when we are revealed to the frightening truth behind their story, there is horror but most importantly a sense of grief. Horror not of the unknown but of the disturbing consequence of Soo-yeon’s love for Soo-mi, and grief for their once beautiful relationship that will only exist in her wishful past and imagination.
Winter Days
April 4, 2009
Take 35 stanzas from the poems of Basho (Japanese poet), give 35 different animators to animate each stanza and walla, you have an anime titled Winter Days. For example, the above animation by Raoul Servais is on this following stanza:
My grass hut – where I offer the heron my belonging
Having to hide while the hair grows back
The scary truth behind episode 9 of Aria the Origination
April 1, 2009
The Sky Crawlers: Must We Crawl Under That Sky?
March 25, 2009
In a world not unlike our own, teen-aged pilots known as "kildrens" fight wars that people can follow on on TV like sport to prevent further real wars. In these wars kildrens fight and die not for countries but sponsoring companies, and the survivors engage in repetitious daily activities when they are not fighting in the sky. -Summary
Setting, Animation and Comedy of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
March 21, 2009
All good things must come to an end, and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (SZS) chose about the right time to close its curtains. Comedies in general tends to become repetitive and boring as they approach their respective expiray dates, and Goku SZS certainly was showing its signs. I don’t want to repeat anything that has been already said so I will just be commenting on setting, animation and their significance to the comedy of SZS, which I personally found fascinating.
1. Creative use of setting
English wikipedia entry for SZS was surprisingly sharp on the show’s stylistic elements. It’s interesting how SZS is set in present day, but utilises various aesthetic tropes, such as costumes, architecture and technology, to evoke Showa Period. And the below quote was particularly informative:
Hard or Soft, how would you like it Goshujin-sama?
March 13, 2009
Wabisabi once wrote about the words kouha (hard) and nanpa (soft) and their usage in anime fandom. The idea was that kouha refers to hard-hitting minor and difficult works like Ghost in the Shell, while nanpa refers to popular and easily accessible works like erogame adaptations for softies. Personally, I don’t find this elitist distinction very interesting. Although I’m not about to re-define what kouha and nanpa actually means, I do want to share with you the sort of anime I personally associate with when it comes to hard and soft.
