The Superman of Anime

To quite Unshavedmouse's review of Princess Mononoke.

"Ashitaka is probably the most purely moral hero of any movie I’ve reviewed. He’s utterly selfless, kind, compassionate, fearless, unprejudiced, polite, respectful to both men and women and only uses violence as an absolute last resort. He sounds like he should be as boring as a workaholic mole but he’s actually a very compelling protagonist thanks to Miyazaki’s skill as a storyteller and also the fact that the dude is a STONE COLD BADASS. Yeah, I said he only uses violence as a last resort. But when he does, shit gets resorted, yo (I don’t know what I’m talking about)."

In fact lots of people have said this about the character before me.  The character seems like the ultimate Jesus-Kun, Such a character should come off as annoyingly bland and perfect, especially when they're a Cis-Het Male.  But Miyazaki makes the character work, as do the Actors who have voiced him.

What's interesting is how strongly I agree with this aspect of how others review this movie, even though I didn't quite think of it on my own as I watched it (what I knew about the movie going in was mostly people talking about Lady Eboshi).  I started the movie accepting this male lead as I waited for the women I'm watching it for, and found myself increasingly enjoying his presence.

Superman is a notoriously difficult character to get right.  I get crap online constantly for being just okay with Zach Snyder's take, much less saying I prefer it in many ways to Donner's.  But rest assured I still think we are far from having the ideal Superman movie, animated or live action.

A lot of Snyder's haters have been pointing to the MCU's Captain America as a not official Superman character who shows how to do Superman right.  I enjoy those films and Evans performance, but I'm not that impressed.

So once again, as I often have over the last couple years, I find myself turning to Anime for the answer.

Before I saw Princess Mononoke a few days ago.  The main Anime character I would point to and say "That's how you do Superman right" is Yuki Yuna, the title character of Yuki Yuna is a Hero, why?  Well for starters read the title.  That Anime is one of my favorite anime, the most underrated of the 20tweens, the dawn of the new golden age.  And probably my personal favorite Magical Girl Anime.

Why she's like Superman comes up interestingly enough when the show is criticized, when people complain that there isn't enough of a reason for Yuki Yuna's drive to be a Hero.  Essentially the exact same thing as the "Superman is unrelatable" nonsense.  She wants to do good for the sake of doing good, if you can get behind that you're probably a Superman fan, if not, then stick with the Bat.

Speaking of the Magical Girl Warrior genre.  I have compared Sailor Moon to Superman in terms of creating a new genre.  But as far as comparing a Magical Girl as a character to Superman as a character, none beats Yuki Yuna.

But Superman comes in variations, they all have the same Origin (Kara no Kyoukai reference), but are a little distinct.  Yuki Yuna is somewhere between Christopher Reeve and the early Post-Crisis Superman, Michael Baily's favorite version of Superman, and possibly also mine based on the overall quality of the Comics.  Which shows you can have a Superman as ideal as Reeve's even in a story that gets pretty dark.

I however am someone who prefers George Reeves to Christopher Reeve.  But even more then that, I want a return to Siegel and Shuster's Superman, who was called The Champion of The Oppressed.  And that is what I got from Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke.

And now, I notice how his colors seem to be Blue mainly with a little red and yellow.  And find myself thinking "was this similarity intentional?"  Was Miyazaki drawing on Western influences in his most aesthetically traditionally Japanese film?  I feel like there must be a Japanese mythical of folklore precedent for a child raised by Wolves, but I haven't found it yet, first and foremost being raised by a She-Wolf is a Roman thing. 

There is nothing new to Superman influencing Anime.  It is well known the original Fleischer Superman shorts were an early influence, the second one arguably created the Mecha genre.  They are in the Public Domain now, so they should be easy to find online if you haven't seen them.

For the record.  The Lex Luthor of Anime is Giovanni, the Boss of Team Rocket.  As he appeared in the first series of the Pokemon, the prologue of Mewtwo Strikes Back, and especially Mewtwo Returns where he finally truly got to shine.  Since 2006 I have been pointing to Giovanni as how to do a CEO Lex Luthor right.  And in 2016, I still feel the need to.

So I had basically finished structuring this post in my head.  When I remembered that the big Internet Meme is saying Goku is the Superman of Anime.  No, he is not.  Not even close.  Maybe in the creating a genre comparison where you could then also throw in Amuro Ray of Gundam.  But you're not Superman just cause your home planet blew up.

Speed Racer 2008 is a great movie.

I just saw it and I loved it.

It's a movie that mostly flopped when it came out, but has become a cult classic, more and more people, especially people into Anime, have praised it, sometimes seemingly calling it the only Western film they really like.  And some people liked it at the time, I remember relatives of mine talking about it that Christmas.

What I love about it has a lot in common with Digibro's praise for it.  He did his main review of the movie, and touched on it in the Tone Shifts video.  This movie is also a great argument for the point of my Live Action Adaptations of Anime should be Colorful post.

I didn't see it when it came out.  My Anime fandom was in it's infancy then, mostly revolving around Noir still.  My nerdiness was mainly about Comic Book adaptations, so The Dark Knight and early MCU dominated the year, though I did find time for Prince Caspian.

Overall, 2008 was definitely a great year for movies.  Jut try to pretend Frank Miller's The Spirit didn't happen.

As much as I'm into Anime now, I still haven't seen any Speed Racer anime, since my taste in Anime is mostly modern.  But I do have fond childhood memories of old Wackey Races reruns.  And I love Mario Kart.  And I love the Pod Race in The Phantom Menace.  And I like Pro-Wrestling.  Speed Racer is like all of those merged together in a perfect Hot Mess.

Ya know how some Comic Book films try to merge the modern/futuristic with a 30s/40s aesthetic to make them timeless?  Starting with Batman89?  Well this does the same thing but with the 50s/early 60s instead.

John Goodman is great in it.  Matthew Fox has a very George Cloony vibe.  And Trixie was fun, she's totally worthy of being called an Anime Girl.  And the villain was exquisitely British.

I just watched Princess Mononoke

If I had a time machine, and could arrange to have Akira Kurosawa direct a live action adaptation of an Anime with all the advantages of modern technology.  This is the Anime I would choose.  It's a 10, I recommend it.

There are a lot of analytical things I could say about this movie, others have said a lot already.  But the main thing on my mind right now is this.

It's set in medieval Japan (The late Muromachi Period, 24th through 16th centuries).  Of the different Human clans depicted in the movie, the one most ancestral to the primary population of modern Japan (the ones associated with The Emperor and Samurai), are the most villainous.

The might seem strange at first.  But we do the same thing in the English Speaking world, in works based on Arthurian Legend, where the Angles and Saxons are depicted as savage marauding pagan barbarians.  Or even more generally when the Vikings are depicted that way.

I've seen in some Disqus comments sections people being confused by Saber in Fate/Zero talking about Britain falling to ruin, since it looks to them like Britain is still there.  But the population of modern Britain mainly descends from people who were King Arthur's enemies.  They took over the island and started calling Arthur's people "Welsh" which meant foreigner in the Saxon language.  Then later we Anglo-Saxons traveled across the Atlantic and did the exact same thing to the Native American, massacred them, raped them, and appropriated their culture.

Similarly is how the movie actually refereed to the Samurai as "Samurai Thugs".  Not the opinion we're used to Anime having of Samurai.  But remember, the Samurai are often compared to European Medieval Knights, and plenty of modern Western Fiction sometimes acknowledges that they were really the Gangsters of their time.  Like in The Tudors and Game of Thrones.

Perhaps this is not an appropriate observation for a Western viewer of the film to make.  Though it would arguably take a Western perspective to make the comparison to the Saxons in Arthurian Legend.  I wonder what Gaijin Goomba would think?

Arwen and Aragorn's romance is important to the story of LOTRs

I rather commonly see people saying it is not, criticizing the Peter Jackson films for giving so much screen time to an unimportant side story for the sake of making the movie less of a Sausage Fest.

The Lord of The Rings trilogy of novels are not structured like most novels.  They are six prose narratives and a collection of Appendices published in three volumes.  A lot of important scenes are in the books revealed as flashbacks, which adaptations tend to show when they actually happened, like Gandalf going to Isengard where Saurman reveals his betrayal.

So yes, in the proper narrative of LOTR, Arwen appears in only a few scenes.  However Aragorn also comes off as a pretty one dimensional character in that proper narrative.

The Appendices reveal the history between Aragorn and Arwen, and it becomes clear his Love for Arwen is the primary thing that was driving him.  A fact that was talked about in the special features of the DVDs for the films.

Tolkien wanted Aragorn and Arwen to be as important as the Man+Elf Maiden pairings of the First Age, the first of which was Beren and Luthien.  So I really get annoyed at supposed fans of Tolkien diminishing it's importance for the sake of criticizing a trio of movies that yes, took a lot of inevitable liberties, some I'm more fine with then others, but overall they were perfectly enjoyable films.

The previous adaptation of LOTR, the Ralph Bakshi animated movie, also replaced Glorfindel in his role in the journey to Rivendale.  Since Glorfindel doesn't appear again in the main narrative, (given the continuity issues his presence in LOTR causes I suspect Tolkien picked the name at random).  So replacing him here with someone more important to this narrative is a perfectly valid decision.

The Bakshi film replaced him with Legolas, which bugs me only because I feel Legolas, Gimli and Boromir should all be introduced at about the same time, the Elf, the Dwarf and the Gondorian of the Fellowship.  So Jackson's decision to use this opportunity to introduce Arwen is a far better decision in my view, and her Bad@$$ moment in the movie helps make her a more worthy successor to Luthien, who defeated Morgoth.

Now the Hobbit films' approach to providing more female presence was much more questionable.  I enjoyed Tauriel, but the actress originally took the role being promised there wouldn't be a shoehorned in romance, then they changed that on her.  What bugs me most though is how in the final battle scene she ultimately gets sidelined for Legolas to take the most impressive action again.  I wish she had killed the Orc who killed Kili.

Arwen in the LOTR films I think was handled perfectly fine.

Hayao Miyazaki has clearly been an influence on Video Games.

When I covered Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind I talked about it's possible influences on Video Games.

Last night I watched 1986's Castle in The Sky., and I noticed more.  For one thing during the opening credits we see a Goddess in the sky blowing wind who looks a lot like how the Goddesses of Hyrule were depicted in the Instruction Manuel of A Link To The Past.

In fact the entire premise of Castle in The Sky could have inspired Skyloft in Skyward Sword, which was anticipated by the Sky Temple in Twilight Princess.

I also can't help but suspect Miyazaki's love of Air Ships helped inspire the popularity of Air Ships in Video Games, from Super Mario Bros. 3 to the Final Fantasy games.  The Airship idea was of course invented by Jules Verne, and the Airships in this film were more Verneian then the ones in Nausicaa.

People have commented before on Castle of Calgiostro being an influence on Spielberg for the Indiana Jones films.  This movie definitely felt like an Indy film at times.  Some people criticize how Castle of Cagliostro feels more like a Miyazaki films then a Lupin film, but this movie felt like it could have been a Lupin film.

Going the other way however, there was definitely a moment in Castle in The Sky where I went "Well Miyazaki definitely saw Empire Strikes Back".

It's a good film, I just gave it a 9 on My Anime List.

I've liked every Miyazaki film I've seen so far.  But I still doubt I'll get to all of them, for some the plots simply don't interest me.  But based on his track record so far, I'd say he's definitely worth checking out if any of those stories interest you.

Wrestlmania XXX was the greatest Worked Shoot in wrestling history.

Everyone just accepts the official story that the main event was supposed to be Orton vs Batista and Daniel Bryan was only added because the fans demanded it.

I feel like to any Savy viewer of Wrestling Tropes, it should be obvious that they were building to Bryan becoming champ at WM30 all along.  Yet everyone including the WhatCulture people have been dupped.

First of all if it had simply been Daniel Bryan winning the Royal Rumble, that would have given us just Bryan vs Orton, a match we'd seen several times already in the previous year.

If they really wanted to give Batista a title reign to correspond with Guardians of The Galaxy, they would have saved that for Summer Slam, much closer to when that movie came out.

Triple H knew this story-line had a Meta Quality to it, and so he pushed that aspect of it hard.

Part of why people still buy it, is that WWE apparently made the same mistake again the following year and this time didn't back down.  But that's the key difference, they didn't back down.  Vince is very stubborn.

P.S. I have some advice for WWE if they want it, on how to get people behind Roman Reigns.  Reform The Shield, the fans love for The Shield would be strong enough to override their hate of Roman.

Fate/Stay Night is the best modern take on Grail Romance

I have tags on this blog for Grail Romance and Arthurian Legend.  And I have a tag for talking about the Fate/ franchise, the centerpiece of Type Moon’s Nasuverse.  It’s surprising then that this is my first post with all three of those tags, since the Fate/ story is technically all about the Holy Grail and King Arthur.  But I wanted to talk about other aspects of what I like about it first.  

For people who want a summary of how the Holy Grail War works in Fate/, I recommend OtakuDaiKun’s lore videos on YouTube, though they will spoil the novels and shows if you haven’t seen them yet.  The Lore of Fate/Stay Night Part 1: The First Four Grail Wars, and The Lore of Fate/Stay Night Part 2: The Fifth Grail War and Hollow Ataraxia.

Needless to say, at face value it seems like a pretty loose take.  And it might seem outright hypocritical for me to express annoyance at how unresearched Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade seemed, and then call Fate/ the best modern take on Grail Lore and Arthurian Legend.

For one thing, as I’ve noted elsewhere, the original Grail Romances were connected to Arthur merely as a framing device.  So to someone in the know Arthur seeking the Grail herself is almost as shocking as Arthur being a Woman.  Meanwhile it seems like Perceval has still never become a summonable servant, even in Grand Order which seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

First from a continuity standpoint, it seems unclear to me whether or not the Grail being sought in these Grail Wars even is the same one sought in Arthur’s time (we know that Fate/'s Grail is explicitly not the Cup from the Last Supper).  Meanwhile Artoria is currently seeking the Grail because of how her reign ended in tragedy.

Conceptually however, I feel like Illyasviel and Irisviel von Einzbern sort of play the role of the Grail Maiden, a role often forgotten in modern takes on Grail lore.

There is no denying that the people at Type Moon did their research far more than Lucas and Spielberg did for their movie.  Everything different in the Nasuverse is a conscious decision, not a result of ignorance.

The themes of Grail Lore are echoed in Fate/ far more than in The Last Crusade.  Fate/Stay Night is about Shirou’s Hero’s Journey, Lucas told his Hero’s Journey story in Star Wars, Indiana Jones is about someone whose origin story in well in the past, and not really much of a Hero anyway.

I know one blog online that is particularly interested in fiction about King Arthur’s Children.  He might enjoy Fate/Apocrypha, where it turns out Mordred is also female, or at least assigned female at birth, how they identify gets a little confusing.  The one backstory flashback Mordred has had so far (in episode 6) was pretty interesting.

My knowledge of Grand Order is still very limited.  I’ve watched a little bit of Live Stream footage of it.  I’ll be watching the First Order OVA when it’s Dub drops in late October.  As I already mentioned Percival doesn’t seem to be included yet, but Galahad is, and is apparently fairly important.

Another reason why I think it’s best to start with Fate/Zero is that it explains right in the first episode that this Grail was not the Cup at the Last Supper.  This helps make the story less potentially offensive to Christians knowing this Grail has nothing to do with Jesus.  And it fits to me on a meta level because the Grail was just a Christianization of a Pagan concept to start with, the mythical Cauldrons of Celtic Mythology.

Thanks to Grand Order however, three Biblical Figures are summonable Heroic Spirits now.  

David is an Archer Class Servant, which is a decision I agree with, if throwing swords at people through the Magical gateway to your infinite Treasure house can qualify as being an Archer, then certainly using a Slingshot can, since I grew up with Ocarina of Time where the Slingshot and Bow are treated as counterparts.

Solomon is a Caster, largely because they’re going off Kabbalistic and Masonic lore about King Solomon controlling Shedim.  I would have made Solomon a Rider because of his Chariot mentioned in the Song of Solomon.  It’d be funny to me if eventually the game has Salmoneus as a separate servant.

Martha, the sister of Mary of Bethany, is summonable as well.  But the myth this Heroic Spirit is based on isn’t anything Biblical but about her traditional activities in Southern France according to the Golden Legend.  (I added a reference to this tradition about Martha to my Apostles of Ephesus post because I’d read up on it after watching a Grand Order livestream).

If they ever add Joshua, I would make him a Lancer based on Joshua 8:18-26 (Psalm 35:3 is also interesting here).  Though I suspect they’d want to base Joshua’s Noble Phantasm more on the Fall of Jericho.  

Characters known mostly for their Brawn tend to become Berserkers, which wouldn’t be a good sign for Samson.

Well I’ve technically rambled off topic now.  So I hope my observations proved enlightening.