Slashdot Mirror
My Neighbor Totoro and Ebert
peter_gzowski writes "Well known film critic and closet otaku, Roger Ebert, has a bi-weekly segment on his website where he reminisces about the greatest films of all time (in his opinion, anyway). The most recent installment covers My Neighbor Totoro. This is the second anime to make the list, joining Grave of the Fireflies. For those unfamiliar, Totoro is a film by anime master Hayao Miyazaki, the man behind Princess Mononoke, amoung many other great films (Castle of Cagliostro being my favorite)."
Always pleased to see anime get more mainsream cred. And Miyazaki always deserves it.
Check out http://www.animeondvd.com/discdata/essential/index .htm
Apart from battle athletes ( i dont like sports anime to much ) they are cream of the crop (or near enough) for now on dvd.
For those of you who don't yet know, Disney has NO plans to release any more of Miyazaki's films, despite owning the US distribution rights to 11 of his films.
There's a petition here to get Disney to at least release some of these films on home video.
Disney's position is based on the poor performance of Princess Mononoke in the US. That release grossed just over $2 million in the US (it grossed over $150 million in Japan). However, it should be noted that Princess Mononoke was a limited release (I drove over 150 miles to see it - twice!), with little advertising before it came out.
There is hope however. A previous petition convinced Disney to add the Japanese language track and literal English translation to the DVD relese of Mononoke.
---------------
Vpered na Mars!
It's already out on DVD in Japan (NTSC, Region2).
It's a 2 DVD pack with the film on the first DVD wit English and Japanese Audio. On the second DVD you have extra features which are not always with an English audio track. Just look at www.amazon.co.jp.
I ordered it from them, but ist was quite expensive and shipping was slow.(Got to know at least Katakana to find it)
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
No one "upticked" his comment; pay attention. If someone had, it would have said "Score: 2, Something-or-other" instead of just "Score: 2." The poster has high enough karma that he posts with a +1 bonus automatically. For that matter, so do I, but I'm foregoing it for this comment because rating it higher would only cause me to lose karma when someone dings it for being off-topic.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
The Cowboy Bebop series is playing now
on the Cartoon network, BTW.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
I've been a beginner fan of anime for just under two years now. The biggest problem I've run into is that Anime is just like any other form of media out there. 95 percent of it is crap, but if you know where to look you can find some real gems.
In my opinion, the biggest pain is figuring out what age category a piece is aimed at. Most stuff isn't rated with the MPAA's G, PG, PG-13, R etc. ratings, or any similar system. Suncoast uses age recommendation stickers, but I've found them to be wildly inaccurate at times. Until recently, you couldn't find much anime at Blockbuster or other rental places, so you had to risk $20-30 on something that might be highly rated, but completely wrong for your interests or age.
I bought the first couple of disks of Bubblegum Crisis 2040 after reading very positive reviews, only to find out that the target audience is probably in the 12-14 range. The last couple of disks in the series turned into a glorified version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
But there is quite a bit of Anime that's good. I'll just list off a few of my favorites.
Cowboy Bebop: An excellent series of 26 half-hour episodes aimed at 15 and up. A small group of bounty hunters track criminals throughout the solar system while dealing with their own shady backgrounds. The music in this one is legendary, and really makes the stories pop. The plot bogs down a bit around episodes 12-15, but the series overall is excellent. This is my favorite Anime and has turned me into a die-hard fan of the music composer, Yoko Kanno.
Princess Mononoke: An incredible 120 minute movie aimed at 10 and above. I've shown this movie to dozens of members of my friends and family, and with only one exception everybody has liked it. A human mining community is destroying a forest populated by ancient animal spirits. A young boy is cursed by one of the displaced spirits, and goes on a journey to end the conflict. This one really stands out because there are no good or evil characters. Every side has their good and bad traits, and no side is completely innocent or guilty.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Another decent series of 26 half-hour episodes. The subplot is aimed at 15 and up, but younger can watch the surface story and be entertained. Giant robot combat on the surface, but with some very interesting religious undertones if you look closely. Basically, what would happen if technology progressed sufficiently that man becomes capable of resisting the will of God? Some don't like this series because the ending leaves so many unanswered questions.
Gunsmith Cats: A series of 3 half hour episodes aimed at ages 15 and up. This is the Anime version of Starsky and Hutch. A pair of female gun shop owners are forced to go undercover working for the ATF. One of the girls is an explosive expert, and is really the one that sells the show. She's always wanting to blow up anything and everything, and the other characters have to keep her in check. All her grenades have feminine touches, like a pink ribbon tied around the pin, or a lipstick kiss mark. This is a good one if you want to have fun but don't want to think very hard. My wife loves this one.
My Neighbor Totoro: A 90 minute movie, definitely aimed at children. My son is a bit young to follow most of the movie, but he thinks the Totoros are hilarious. The movie is a warm, fuzzy feel-good childrens movie all the way through. One of the best scenes is at a bus stop in the rain. A Totoro is loaned an umbrella to try to stay dry, and makes a game out of the sounds of raindrops hitting the fabric. My son laughs hysterically at this scene.
Lain - Serial Experiments: A series of 13 half-hour episodes aimed at 18 and up. A young girl discovers the internet, and a hidden world behind it. It quickly turns into philosophical ruminations on the nature of conciousness and existence. If you're not an armchair philosopher you may get bored with this one, but I liked it. There's not a lot of action here, but plenty of stuff to make you think.
Grave of the Fireflies: A 90 minute movie that can be watched by all ages, but will probably only be enjoyed by adults. This is a strong anti-war movie, and one of the saddest movies I've ever seen. It's set in the last few days of WW2 Japan, and centers around a pair of children whos parents have both been killed. The children are struggling to survive on their own surrounded by a society that's too caught up in the war to help them. This one's a tear-jerker, but a solid and enjoyable picture none the less.
Supposedly Garasaki is decent, with a strong political backstory, and I may get into that series next, when I have money again. That might be a while.
There's a couple of Animes I didn't like, as well. Bubblegum Crisis 2040, as I said above, is aimed for a younger age category than I prefer. Akira is supposed to be great, but I've never read the comic books, and it just didn't do anything for me. The Robotech series (I know, not really Anime) that I loved as a kid turned out to be nothing more than nostalgia. It's truly one of the worst things I've ever seen. The different Gundam Wing variants are awful. I don't know what people see in them. It seems like nothing more than one very powerful hero fighting off hordes of incompetent enemies. The different DragonBall series are very popular with the 8-12 year old category, and even some older people, but really it's nothing more than steriod pumped angry people in a never-ending run of trash talk a la Professional Wrestling.
If you're interested in Anime, I'd say the best thing you could do would be to lurk on a couple of locations on the internet and look for suggestions. Once you've seen and liked a couple of pieces, and know what types you prefer (political, comedy, action, etc.) people should have a much better idea of what other things you might like. If you go to a site that does ratings, make sure they are honest about bad ratings. Too many sides offer 8.5 of 10 as their lowest possible rating.
If you get the Cartoon Network, they're always playing Anime for the 10-14 year old category. Late nights on Sundays they play Cowboy Bebop. A lot of stuff on this channel is highly edited to make them suitable for television, but you can still get a taste. So far I haven't been too disappointed in the editing done to Cowboy Bebop.
Hope that helped!
Seth
Most of time I don't like post like mine now, but here it is different. An anonymous coward posted a really important information for all ghibli fans out there, and very likely most people won't notice him because it has a score of 0.
You don't have to be registered at amazon.com or have your credit card information ready, in fact you must just enter you email address and amazon.com will send you an email when the disc will be released. You don't really preorder, if you enter your mail address there, you just tell them that you would very likely buy a dvd of this title if it becomes aviable. These films are really wonderfull, please help that they get a dvd release in english language.
Jan
To anyone that is disappointed with the evangelion ending. Know that it's widely accepted that the last two movies are held as the REAL ending for evangelion. Essentially the movies says the same thing as the last two episodes, but with MUCH more money!
The story that i've heard is that the last two episodes resulted from the Studio running out of money at the end of the production of the series. Two years later the studio made it up to the fans with the release of the movies and redoing the ending. And IMHO the movies are the best anime out there, sit back and prepare to have your mind blown to pieces. It's actually more appropreate to watch the series up to the last two episodes and then watch the movie ending.