Miyazaki Minus the Magic

TALES FROM EARTHSEA, Goro Miyazaki's adaptation of Oregon SF author Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea stories, is finally playing in the U.S., three years after its debut in Japan. (The reason for the delay: SyFy Channel had the exclusive U.S. rights to the Earthsea stories until this year.) And one of the five theaters in the U.S. showing the movie is the Landmark here in West L.A.

I wish I could recommend that you run out and see it if it's playing near you. Unfortunately, I can't. I saw the movie on a DVD I picked up during our 2007 Japan trip (thank you, Disney, for putting English subtitles on the Japanese DVDS of Studio Ghibli movies); and found it drained of most of the magic prevalent in the anime made by Goro's father, Hayao Miyazaki. I blogged about TALES OF EARTHSEA here (http://barercave.blogspot.com/2008/02/nausicaa-vs-gedo-senkai-atonement.html)

It's great to see anime on a big screen. And EARTHSEA does boast character designs based on the elder Miyazaki's art. But EARTHSEA serves primarily as a reminder of everything extraordinary about Hayao Miyazaki's movies -- because all of that is missing from EARTHSEA.

Will Miyazaki Attend Comic-Con?

According to an article in today's LA Times about Hayao Miyazaki's film "Ponyo" -- which will close the LA Film Festival tomorrow -- ". For the first time in his career, Miyazaki will be appearing at Comic-Con in San Diego in July showing clips from 'Ponyo,' which has made $182.1 million internationally."

There's nothing about this on the Comic-Con's own website, which one would expect to trumpet the news that this most revered of anime directors will appear there for the first time. (Of course, since Comic-Con is completely sold out, it has little to gain from publicity.) So it remains to see if this is an error by the Times, or a legit announcement.

Aero in the Valley of the Wind

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND is my all-time favorite Hayao Miyazaki movie. It's the first feature Miyazaki directed from his own story. When we went to Japan in 2004, on our first full day there, we went to the Ghibli Museum, which was devoted to Miyazaki's work. That night, when we went to Akihibara, I bought one Region 2 DVD: NAUSICAA -- which had just been released on DVD in Japan, and had never been released uncut on American video at that point. When our tour went to a Chinese restaurant in Ikebukuro later that night, guess what was playing on the restaurant's TV -- NAUSICAA.

So when the American Cinematheque played a rare big-screen showing of NAUSICAA this evening at the Aero theater in Santa Monica, how could we help but go? Apparently, a lot of people had the same idea -- the audience was full.

The only other time I saw the movie at a theater was when the horribly sliced up version, WARRIORS OF THE WIND, was shown at the LA Animation Festival in 1985. This version, like that one, was dubbed. But thankfully, it was a far more faithful dub -- and the film itself uncut.

The dub featured such actors as Patrick Stewart (Lord Yupa, naturally), Uma Thurman (Kushana), Chris Sarandon (Kurotowa), and Shia Lebouf (Asbell), and it wasn't too bad. But it wasn't quite up to the quality of such other Disney dubs of Miyazaki films as PORCO ROSSO or SPIRITED AWAY; or the celebrated dub of PRINCESS MONONOKE written by Neil Gaiman. And I'll always prefer the subtitled Japanese language film, particularly due to Sumi Shimamoto's performance as Nausicaa.

And the film. Oh my, the film. I've seen it many times, but it still has the power to squeeze some moisture out of my tearducts. Miyazaki's later films may be much more slickly animated (heck, this one even animates giant pillbugs by using sliding paper cutouts), and they have some excellent stories and characters; but nothing matches this one. And what character could match Nausicaa -- the teenage princess who's an ace flyer, a plant biologist, an incredible warrior (she wipes out a room full of sword and gun toting soldiers, using only a staff -- and it looks believable), a leader, a hero (she constantly finds herself saving both male and female characters, left and right), and someone who will fly toward a machine gun, unarmed, with her arms spread wide. And on top of that, she's compassionate and humble. As Amy mentioned, those parents whose daughters are infatuated with Disney princesses should show the girls this film; here's a princess who's a real role model.

Watching NAUSICAA brought to mind my recent viewing of GEDO SENKAI: TALES OF EARTHSEA, the debut animated feature from Hayao Miyazaki's son Goro Miyazaki. The character designs in GEDO SENKAI strongly resemble the elder Miyazaki's in NAUSICAA. But Goro's direction just doesn't have the storytelling art of Hayao's. Many scenes in GEDO SENKAI serve no purpose except to get the characters from point A to point B. Such a scene would be unthinkable in a Hayao Miyazaki movie. Every corner you turn in a Hayao Miyazaki film leads you to a new treat -- something that surprises you, or thrills you, or amuses you, or makes you gasp with wonder at its beauty.

Sakura-Con Wrap-up

Sakura-Con is obviously long over. I was going to post a con report right after getting home; but as usual, life got in the way. Or more precisely, illness got in the way -- a sore throat and a 100 degree temperature as soon as I got back. I dealt with the fever by spending a day home from work -- and incidently working over eight hours that day. (Hey, it wasn't physical work, so technically it was relaxing.)

Anyway, Sakura-Con. At 10,000 attendees (about), it was much bigger than Anime Vegas or Anime LA, and much smaller than Anime Expo. There was no shortage of stuff to do, and everything was on the whole neatly organized. (This was the first time I'd seen one video room devoted entirely to subtitled videos, another to dubbed videos, another to movies, and a fourth to anime music videos.)

The attempts at organization fell down sometimes, however, and one of the most egregious examples was on the last day. Japanese manga creators Kohta Hirano and Yasuhiro Nightow were offering autographs/sketches. A sign advised that prospective recipients of sketches would be given lottery tickets to determine who would be able to go into the undisclosed locations and obtain the sketches. It also said that there were no lineups before 2 pm. (You might see where this is going.) Staffers, alas, advised fans to, yes, line up before 2; and issued them lottery tickets. Shortly before 2, however, a rather loud and rude staffer chewed out the line occupants for lining up before 2 pm; and made them give back their tickets! (You can imagine the calm with which a couple hundred tired, low-blood-sugar-afflicted, hyped up young people took this information.) The atmosphere got sufficiently threatening that security guards or police officers were called. Worst of all, when the new tickets were being brought out for distribution, someone yelled, "Go! go!" The fans began stampeding toward the ticket bowls; and I, observing from the sidelines, began to get that sick feeling of watching a train wreck in motion. Fortunately, a loud-voiced burly staffer stopped the mayhem before anyone was (physically) hurt.

Below is video of the more orderly aftermath, with the still-peeved fans being chosen by lottery for sketches. Alas, Amy was not one of the chosen; but she high-fived the thirty who got sketches.




One of the delights of the convention was meeting veteran Japanese voice actress Sumi Shimamoto, pictured below. Ms. Shimamoto has done numerous voices for Hayao Miyazaki movies, including Clarice, the heroine of his first full-length movie, Castle of Cagliostro; and his (and anime's) most famous female character, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. I also captured some video of Ms. Shimamoto's panel.





I asked her if she had noticed any changes in voice actor styles over the years she had worked. She replied that the cadence of acting had speeded up; that more voice directors were using overlapping dialogue, and background/foreground voices; and that some casting directors were hiring voice actresses more for their looks than their ability.

The final video I'll post from the con is the intro to the dub voice directors panel, with Johnathan Klein and Taliesin Jaffe: