Wander Over Yonder: Analysis of a Title Sequence

Also posted this on tumblr for some reason.

So, a new cartoon made by Craig McCracken is coming on to Disney Channel called “Wander over Yonder,” starring a young, aptly named, wanderer in space and his many adventures. As a fan of McCracken, as soon as I heard about this new show I’ve been interested in it, and fairly recently did Disney release the intro sequence on its youtube channel. Now, I thought it’d be interesting if we would analyze the intro to decipher as much as possible about the show, as it has not aired yet besides a couple clips. Mind you, I have already seen some of these clips and therefore may already have knowledge of some of these things, but other things are pure guess-work on my part based on the intro sequence. I also have heard there are a couple references in the intro as well, though I’m talking strictly as to what we can decipher about the show and how it will work from the intro. This originated as just a fun idea I had at 3 in the morning while watching the intro sequence for the 20^th time.

So, with that said, the intro starts with a zoom-in from the galaxy into where we see our titular character strolling happily through many different worlds. Already, we know that this takes place in multiple creative settings as is shown throughout the rest of the show’s theme song. Wander, our protagonist, seems to be overall the happy type and enjoys exploring different worlds and never really has one place to stick around to.

He is soon taken by a trusty blue horse-like steed, as they race through the plains. In this shot, we meet what obviously will be Wander’s sidekick, who also seems to have a mind of her own. Yes, her own; this where I start really guessing here. I obviously do not know if this is a he or a she, however I have fair reasoning to believe it is a girl because A) this is a Craig McCracken/Lauren Faust show and therefore this show must have well-developed female characters, and B) it seems to have quite female eyelashes at certain shots that coupled with its mane, gives it a female look. Again, I may be completely and utterly wrong on this, but I wouldn’t pull it past them to make this character a girl. I would also however not be surprised if it was a boy either. Heck, it could be gender-neutral for all I know. With that said, I’ll call it an “it” for the rest of the post to avoid confusion. Besides the possible female-gender, it also seems to be much more violent (for lack of a better term) and quick-witted as it zooms past the different backgrounds while Wander has more time to admire the amazing sights he passes by.

Wander soon spots a local citizen of whatever planet they happen to be on, and immediately makes friends. Wander, his companion and his new friend, whatever it may be, start to dance and have fun as soon as they shake hands in the name of peace and friendship. Wander’s new alien-friend then shows him the magnificent city that he/she is from. This part showcases how Wander is a friendly soul at heart. He can go anywhere and find a friend quite quickly. He also manages to explore different cultures along with natural settings, and shows that the universe is filled with plenty of odd civilizations. This creates some more basic world-building, as well as set-ups that he has friends all over and can make new ones quite easily with his optimistic, curious and friendly demeanor.

While they are introduced to the civilization of the day, a dark ship immediately invades and begins to terrorize the planet. It seems to be manned by a dark skulled overlord with electrical powers as well as what seems to be an army of eyeball minions, which of course one of whom is the overlord’s right-hand man. The song and demeanor of the sequence takes an overall downturn as the planet becomes red and covered in terror and fear, as the overlord comes closer and closer to view. Obviously this is a very serious and dark villain that makes a small bit of juxtaposition with the rest of the show’s happy exploratory tone.

This optimistic tone is soon dominant however as the overlord is confused and slightly frightened by Wander’s complete disregard for the fear he tries to inflict. Wander merely dances in front of him until he finally hugs the reluctant overlord in the background of a heart-shaped tree. This seems like it will be probably the most basic point of the show: a Dennis-The-Menace style relationship between the dark villain and the happy-go-lucky hippie. Thus, the villain is reduced from a serious threat to a Squidward-type-character against the mild nuisance of Wander’s antics and overall attitude. This also implies that no matter where the villain will go to invade, Wander will also happen to be there and somehow thwart whatever plans he has in a probably un-knowing, comical fashion. This is most likely at least one of the underlying formulas of the show.

After this, we also pan over to Wander’s sidekick beating up the Villain’s sidekick with ease and satisfaction. This also continues to show its overall personality and ability, as well as probably that the horse will be the main actually-doing-stuff-character as Wander just mindlessly goofs off or creates well-done distraction. This also shows more of the incompetence of the villain’s minion as well as of his overall agenda, that it can be so easily stopped in such comical efforts by what amounts to a nomad and his horse.

The next shot re-iterates the whole basic relationship between the villain and the hero, with him chasing Wander and trying to zap him as Wander freely jumps with silly poses to easily escape every blow. This once again points out that Wander is a nuisance and the constant chase that will most likely ensue in the rest of the show. It then ends with Wander on his steed riding away from the villain’s forces into the title card, as the theme ends.

Overall, this is one of the better intro-sequences I’ve seen in a while, mostly based on its high-usage of show-don’t-tell in its technique. Instead of just explaining the plot and characters in song, they showcase it merely by visuals, as the song just gives a catchy tune of only using the show title as lyrics. The show looks really good in my opinion, and I can’t wait till it comes out later this month. Also, if you liked this whole intro-analysis thing, I’d be glad to try this out with other stuff as well. Let me know if you find anything inaccurate or something either, like I said, this is almost completely blind and mostly based on my own personal predictions. Let me know what you thought of this one, and if you’d like to see any more of these. Thanks for reading and I hope you found it interesting.

Edit: According to further research (aka Wikipedia) I was pretty on the mark, including the whole steed being female thing. I feel smart. Anyways yeah hope you enjoyed it.

And he plays a banjo.
Space Banjo.

Miyazaki Rebuttle: The Secret World of Arriety (SPOILERS)

Germans are funny

well screw what I said earlier! After watching Miyazaki's latest masterpiece yesterday, I decided to do at least a couple more reviews, starting with this very one, The Secret World of Arrietty.
Okay, BUT, I think I'll still stick to the analytical and opinionated style of the harry potter retrospective rather than the original story-parody style. Partly because that's a bit more spoiler-y, and honestly harder to remember the entire movie and make fun of it rather than just talking about it. Though I'm still gonna put spoiler alert on this one seeing as, ya know, came out yesterday.
The Secret World of Arrietty, was written by good ole Miyazaki in 2010, and took so long for a Disney dub that Britain made its own dub last year. Anyway, it is actually based on the famous British children's novel, The Borrowers. The Borrowers is basically about this family of tiny people who loves in the walls of a house and "borrows" things from humans to survive. From what I vaguely remember reading the book in elementary school, and quick skim of Wikipedia description, the movie isn't too far off from the original story, albeit more emotionally engaging which is obviously never a bad thing.

look at that hot little thang

The story revolves around Arrietty, the daughter of the small (HA.) family of Borrowers that inhabits this particular lovely abode in the forest for no particular reason. Its her first borrowing today and she finds out that there's one new human in town that sees her and makes everyone scared as crap to be forced to move. But it turns out the boy is a nice guy, not trying to put them in small jars and sell em on Ebay as really awesome animatronics, but ends up instigating the maid that takes care of him to do the very same.
Now let me talk about the boy for a minute, cause I honestly felt more sorry for this guy than the actual borrowers at some points. Now you may be wondering, why the hell is he staying at some rundown house that used to be his mom's and is apparently infested by the mini-men? Well, apparently this kid is dying of heart problems, and can't have too much excitement or else bad things go down. He's staying at his mom's old house because his divorced parents are too busy to take care of him, and he needs a heart operation so he needs to be in a peaceful environment. He lives with his Great Aunt Sadako, but ends up being taken care of their batty old maid, Hara (as my dad aptly translated from hebrew, "sh[poopy pants]") all alone in the house waiting for his probable death of operation failure. And all the while, ends up having to help out these little guys from getting exterminated by the aforementioned old maid. And honestly, with some of the stuff this kid goes through, I have no idea how he can calmly do some of the stuff he does in the movie. (SPOILER START) HE ENDS UP HAVING TO CARRY HER OVER THE ROOF INTO ANOTHER ROOM WINDOW, ENDANGERING HIS LIFE FROM FALLING, HER LIFE FROM FALLING, AND HIS LIFE AGAIN FROM HOW THE HELL DOESN'T HE GET A HEART ATTACK THERE. (SPOILER END). All the while being pretty damn calm and excepting of his inevitable death, and determined to help and protect these poor tiny guys. Damn. Apparently he survives for another year at the very least though.

insert clever shoulder joke

So, yeah. that character is boss in my opinion for the crap he goes through with such a level head, maturity and curiosity to boot. Speaking of curiosity to boot, there's are actual main character, Arrietty. She's a fairly regular girl.....if you get aside the fact that she's the size of a GI Joe. She is a beautiful, interesting female lead that doesn't quite want more but still kinda does. She's actually quite content with her life as is it seems, except the whole HUMANS ARE EVIL thing. Yes, of course there's a love interest between her and the boy(Sho in Japan, Shawn in US. dam telemarketers). Of course I question even if he forced them to move and he was dying of an illness that they could be together. Having your love interest be the size of your finger isn't the greatest idea for a relationship. Fair enough, eventually another borrower shows up who's all native american for no particular reason, telling them that there are other borrowers left, and of course to be the Arrietty's real Local Town Love Interest, interracial romance instead of interheight romance yay. Though the guy seems like his people are savage tribal members and not so much high class borrowers with their own nice home of furniture and antiquities. So, reverse-white-man-burden I guess? Anyway, he's still fairly badass himself though seeing as this is based only on the first book we don't get too much of him besides just being kinda a plot device and as mentioned earlier, a Drop-In-Local-Town-Love-Interest. I should really put these on tv tropes. ANYWAY.
As usual, Studio Ghibli oozes beautiful animation and creative worlds from their fingertips. that are usually really cramped from working so fast for a deadline. Regardless, this movie is not exception, actually being one of the better "peaceful" ghibli films. One of the best things Arrietty does best is its creative worlds of just the inside of the floor boards, or walking to the kitchen. Every sequence in the Borrowers' perspective is so interesting and engaging to look at as far as how everything works and how they made it, and how they traverse the large world of human beings. 

spoon not included.

Off track again, I notice a lot of his movies usually fit a niche of action adventure, overly magnificent world spirit-world or otherwise, coming-of-age, peaceful quiet films with maybe a little magic but not too much for magnificence, and/or combo of all of the above. This one has to be one of my favorites of the peaceful films he's made, seeing as usually those are the ones I have the biggest problems over, specifically substance and wow factor. Secret of Arrietty on the other hand, does one of the best jobs on this regard, being well paced and still engaging without the overly complicated magic of some other films. While stuff like Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro I feel just don't have enough plot and things going on to really keep it to shape, for some reason I felt Arrietty got it best in this kind. For one thing, it didn't quite fall into the trap a LOT of miyazaki movies get to, a bad ending. The feeling of unresolved or still left to be told is one of my biggest problems with a lot of his films. A lot of em I feel end pretty abrupt. And while yeah this movie does resort to narrated epilogue, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Though I still have a gripe over the narration actually, because of it ruining one of the good things about miyazaki endings, the "what now" part. So isn't the perfect ending quite yet, but getting there. 
And with that, I think I'll stop before I spoil even more or something, so TTFN non-readers.

Next Time, Spirited Away. yes, really.

Update thingy I guess

well its been quite a while hasn't it? well i don't think i'll be doing any more miyazaki films seeing as i kinda got way too late and basically lost interest. though i'm thinkin up a bunch of new ideas to review stuff, mostly in the same realm as that thar harry potter retrospective thingy. So if you got anything specifically, aneemuhs, cawtoons, feel free to put down some suggestions. I'm hankerin for a good rant or two. ;)

Random Harry Potter Rant/Analysis Thingy

I find your concurrence
amusingly enjoyable

So I randomly made a Harry Potter rant/analysis/whatever thingamajig for no real reason. Decided to put it here so its somewhere online with hard-to-read font and pretty pictures that don't show up. if you wanna see more stuff like this, let me know:

So randomly I felt like straying from the norm a bit and do a more analytical essay-type thingy. I’m not sure why, but I assume because of my awesome AP Lang class. I also randomly felt like doing said thingy on my opinion on Harry Potter; probably because of fandom in said AP Language class. It’s also convenient seeing as 11/11/11 is when they’re releasing the last of the films. But anyway yeah. Warning though this is my own opinion and please don’t rage at it. Feel free to discuss your own views of course. Also for those of you that haven’t read and/or watched towards the end, this is a spoiler alert. Though I dunno why you would even read this then at all. Anyway…

Honestly, I have a quite different experience than probably most fans do. I’d assume anyway. The book series came out around when I was two and the movie before I realized live action can actually be watchable. Though there have been many a-trials into getting into the series. At first my brother read me the first book as a bed-time story…that we never finished. Later when I started to actually read novels, I tried to read it…and never finished. Years later after seeing the films a couple times on Disney Channel and after the 7 books were already released and conveniently all in our bookshelf, I finally buckled down and read them all basically in a row. I also tried something interesting in that after I’d finish the book, I’d watch the movie it was based on; though that obviously stopped as far as Goblet of Fire. My initial reaction was that I couldn’t put the books down.  For some odd reason they captivated my curiosity more than many other books can do for me. Not quite as well as some later books I’ve read, but still. I haven’t reread the books ever since then, nor re-watched the movies even. Though at the time I was a bit Harry Potter fan boyish; at least for a little while. These were actually books with no pictures that seemed interesting, which was saying something to say the least. From what I remember, the books were mostly equal as far as my interest level, though around books 6 and 7 I felt as though J.K. Rowling had run out of ideas. Especially Deathly Hallows, seemed to feel like a blood fest to me, killing off random characters as if she were shooting at a dartboard. It particularly got quite out of hand when the protagonist himself died before us, albeit only to be revived to beat the big baddy in the end. Also the lost potential of some characters in later books, such as Luna Lovegood and Dumbledore’s brother I can’t remember the name of, frustrated me a bit. Luna in particular I had a certain fondness for her character, and felt that she sort of wasn’t used enough. I understand the story sort of demands this, seeing as she is a lower-grade and a different House than the main cast at that. Also in fairness, it fit her character that we didn’t know much about her, but that only fueled my want to know more. Though the fact that she was in a different house than Gryffindor or Slytherin kind of made her an anomaly in itself. The idea of houses in general were a strange thing in itself as well. It is a strange idea for a school to litterally seperate the potential futures of their on students as if they were herding cattle. Though of course it was a great story-winding point. With such an idea you could easily seperate your antagonists and protagonists in a nicely wrapped manner. But of course then you'd have two more houses to fill the rest of the gap of mandatory-status quo classes; the nerds and everyone else not fitting in. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw seemed sort of put in the background and never really touched upon. Slytherin had the conniving antagonists, Gryffindor the brave protagonists, Ravenclaw had the intelligent mystery characters (or should I say character), and Hufflepuff didn’t even have anything. Hufflepuff in particular seemed like the worst possible thing out of them all. From the sounds of the other houses, Hufflepuff was merely the losers and weaklings of the school. Even if Slytherin had the baddies, evil isn’t always a bad route towards success. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw seemed sort of obvious goods, while Hufflepuff had the future failures in life. They weren’t smart enough, brave enough, or clever enough; all they really had were the "goody two-shoes" of Hogwarts actually. They were the kids too nice and too dumb to do anything about themselves or others. Honestly that’d be an interesting point to go through, a trio of hufflepuff house heroes, and seeing their tribulations of being the losers. Though that is too much for the series to go into, let alone give Luna, a Ravenclaw, more to do.

Its real tiger fur..wanna touch?

That’s another thing about the series. It’s like it’s made to be tropes. As a lot of you probably know, Rowling made this whole concept in the streets homeless, and somehow it made her into one of the biggest selling authors in history. But in that case, it isn’t that farfetched that a lot of its characters and plot points are more archetypical. Though in my opinion it isn’t quite a bad thing, it still is a glaring point on the series and its characters. I assume it also sort of makes it part of the charm towards it. The story seems so complex, but it is made up of fantasy and mystery tropes, making the series look interesting, yet accessible. The characters are more cardboard cut-outs, but that of course gives audience more leeway to step in their shoes towards the reading. That point in particular is probably the only likeable thing about Harry himself. He literally has Jesus-status, and yet his personality is so bland in context. Yet he is surrounded by all these fantastic and amazing wonders around him to face as if he were a God among men. This is actually a genius idea once I think about it, because it gives the illusion that he is more interesting than he really is, and also gives extreme leeway to put you into the place mold of “The Boy who Lived.” In context, he is no real boy wonder, being his only real motivation is that he apparently holds the fate of the world on his shoulders. Even in his apparent favorite place in the world, he does grow into the doldrums of school just like any kid would eventually. He is the definition of the average kid, and while this holds very flat on its own, with the setting of him being a forced-upon-hero of legend is an idea used for many stories. The idea of this is to make you feel like your special even if you’re average. The irony is that nobody is as average as Harry, yet you fill in your own blanks on his character to make yourself feel more special. While I dunno if Rowling is such a writer as to notice this all right away, I do think it makes sense based on the situation she was in. She didn’t want to write about her problems, she wanted to get away from them all; and this small wizard-would-be sounded like a perfect escapism, even for a homeless mother. Even the writing style shows more of a lazy kid’s style of language and descriptions of things. It made it easier to read than most other novels, which all of these ideas together made the would-be selling point for book accessibility for adolescents.

That’s enough about the books; let’s talk a little about the movies. The films I hold more specific opinions on as far as their progression in the series. While the books remain about as well-written as they always were up until overkill literally in the last, the movies I found got worse as they went on. Again, these are my humble opinions, but my favorites were and always Sorcerer’s (Philosopher’s) Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Ironically enough, I am usually a huge advocate for interpretation of characters and story lines, but for some reason I find it annoying in the Harry Potter films when they stray from the books too far. The first and second movies are of course the most true to the original books being that they are the shortest books in the series. You can argue that Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 were as well, but I never saw Part 1 and Deathly Hallows is my least favorite of the series as I mentioned earlier anyway. However, the first two stories in general had the best wow-factors out of the book series in my opinion as well. The first film heeds true that sense of wonder and fantasy from the books, and captures that child-like escapism and wonder that are some of my favorite parts of the series in general. It really feels interesting and heart-warming when you can see these fantastic things from your imagination come to life on screen. This is however one of the strong points of all the movies as far as visualizing what you’d picture originally from the novel well and completely intact. The second movie in itself shows that this crazy idea of making movies coinciding with the books just might work, and does up the budget and action a bit from the first film. It also ups the stakes and has some of the most memorable points of the series history. The later films on the other hand, I’m a bit more negative towards as they go along. Starting from Prisoner of Azkaban and on, they start to annoy me with slight lack of book detail, and my least favorite thing about the movies: the actors. This is what ruined a lot of the films for me; they weren’t young enough. Because movies obviously take longer than books to make and they didn’t think ahead of time or other studio nonsense I’m sure, but I never liked teenagers to begin with. I didn’t mind as much in the books because I imagined him as the same Daniel Radcliffe as Sorcerer’s Stone, never really aging. In the movies, while if they did it gradually with one movie per year as was intended, it would have looked much more interesting than what it became. Instead it looks like adults trying to play children and it doesn’t work nearly as well. It zaps me out of the story so much more than any of the books or even earlier movies to see them so old. Eventually it became not quite as much a problem, but mostly because eventually you do stop growing as a matter of fact. And even towards Deathly Hallows Part 2 epilogue, it ironically looked like the opposite with them looking too young and very odd in that role. That specific part they obviously couldn’t do much with anyway though. Stuff like nudism with horses didn’t help either with preserving the magic of Hogwarts, though that’s fair territory for any Hollywood film.  The movies do good things as well though, specifically their use of foreshadowing and being ahead of the books in a way; the biggest example obviously being the character development of Ron and Hermione’s relationship. While the books started having romantic tension around Book 4 or 5, the movies started around 2 or 3. This also ironically is partly because of the older actors being able to play that better. It is also a good sign that the author herself works closely in the production of the films, giving it that extra potential of not straying from the formula and giving hints and cleverer hide-a-ways than the books could. But this has been enough harry potter rambling and ranting for one night/morning, so hope you enjoyed it, and please don’t burn me at a stake ;)

Also if you found this style interesting, feel free to say so and I’d love to do more stuff like this.

Miyazaki Reviews: Howl's Moving Castle

Alright, so you should know the run-down for the last review and stuff, but here's one for a movie I was considerably excited to re-visit. I watched this a loong time ago so I didn't remember ANYTHING and I think I might have thought it as a different movie at some point. It may still be I dunno! Also in related Miyazaki news, the first ever videogame made by Studio Ghibli is being brought to the US!....on PS3. CURSE MY LACK OF MODERN CONSOLES. WHY COULDN'T THEY BRING THE DS VERSION OVER HERE TOO >:( But anyway for all you PS3 owners, you can check dat out yo. But anyway, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE:

 Howl's Moving Castle starts out in a regular steam-punky town with Ms. Protagonist. Ms. Protagonist is stuck with a big hat shop and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, because she thinks she isn't pretty. Because prettiness always gets you far in life girls. She randomly goes down the street to visit her sister, when she stumbles across our Local Town Love Interest, the Dark Knight himself. So he's stalking her for no apparent reason and telling her to run in an opposite direction. They proceed to be chased by dark blobby....things, and he ends up prancing about flying them to her destination at the Bakery. He dissapears all MYSTERIOUS BADASS style, leaving her to wonder what the hell just happened. Later that night, the Witch of the West Waste comes by and dons onto her a curse making her 90 years old. Obviously she doesn't even TRY to tell anyone about this, and sneaks off to find the Witch of the Waste herself. She ends up meeting an enchanted scarecrow who helps her out find a place to stay, in the famous Howl's Moving Castle. She tries to get into the behemoth of a contraption and ends up meeting Mike Wazowski Calcifer, the fire demon. They cut a deal that if he helps her repeal her curse, she'd help him release him from Howl. OH THE SUSPENSE.

Anyway, the next morning she meets random young child that apparently Howl has been keeping as an "apprentice"(>_>). He then dawns a magical awesome beard and pretends to be an actual wizard's helper, telling a bunch of king's courtesan guys that he got the message about that all wizards must go to meet with him. Apparently Mr. Jim Hawkins be pretending to be 3 different wizards all at the same time for the lulz. Then Mr. Rufus comes home from the fourth side of the door, and is like, "who the hell is this bitch." With which Calcifer states how she is now the new cleaning bitch. She then becomes the new cleaning bitch for the castle. Batman realizes that he has to be in 3 places at once, so he decides to send Granny Jenkins instead.....for some reason. She goes off, finding a dog she believes to be Howl, and meets the Witch of the Waste, struggling to get up the stairs. She offers to help the bitch if she changes her back, which the Witch says she doesn't know how. They manage to get up and go their separate ways.

Madame LeBitch

When Granny Smith gets to the Queen for her chat, she is revealed, and proven that the dog is actually not really Howl. Then the Witch is come back completely destroyed where she is her "real age," ugly, senile and barely alive Later the king comes....twice, proving one was Howl and he then saves Granny's behind, and they proceed to escape with hagly ole Witch of the Waste and the doggy...for some reason. They return to the Castle and become one big happy family. Howl comes back and redecorates the place into twice the house it was to fit everyone, and to find new living abodes for everyone to hide.

Queen Bitchenstien

Granny Sophie's mother comes by and somehow recognizes her 19 going on 90 daughter. This turns out to be a trap though as later they are ambushed by Queen Wizard Suliman Gym Leader Thing... and the whole town is carpet bombed. They end up trying to escape and rescue Batman, but take out Calcifer from the castle....for some reason....rendering the castle to collapse into itself without its controller...for some reason as well. Notice a pattern here folks?
Anyway, They try to get back ON the house they just destroyed, leaving litterally just Howl's Moving Floor and nothing else, to go off and save Howl. But then out of nowhere the Witch remembers "oh yeah, I'm greedy." and tries to take Calcifer(and thus Howl's heart) for herself. then to get off and save him, Sophie pours a bucket of water on Calcifer......for some reason.....thus killing not just Calcifer but also Howl himself, since he kinda needs a heart. Sophie and the dog then go off back in time....for some reason....and warns past Howl of the dangers of eating celestial balls of gas falling from the sky....after he does so. Back in the present, Howl survives for some reason to that the others find him for some reason, Calcifer is free for some reason as Sophie gives Howl his heart back for some reason, and Sophie reverts completely back to normal age again for some reason. BUT WAIT. WHAT ABOUT THE SCARECROW!? Turns out, he was all along the lost prince that started this whole war. And that all he needed to become real life was love's true kiss....FOR SOME REASON.....its Sophie. Even though Sophie ends up being like "thats nice, I'mma go with Howl" and the Prince is like "thats nice, I'mma go with my thousands of dollars worth of riches seeing as I'm royalty.....bitch."

And thus our movie ends. Trust me it sounds less "for some reason" than I make it out to be, but for comedic effect and to wrap this damn review up, here ya go. Also by the way Sophie was changing back and forth from young to old throughout the movie....FOR SOME REASO--*shot*
Also as far as what I thought of the movie? it was good. too lazy to think of much else. MYEH.

Next Time, a much MUCH more in-depth review, Porco Rosso...FINALLY.

Miyazaki(sorta) Reviews(kinda): (half of) Whisper of the Heart

 Kay so here's the deal: I made half of this review awhile ago, and don't remember much of anything else at this point, so I'mma just gonna give you half of the movie yay. Also I wanna make a new review, so yah. not quite double whammy, moreso one-and-a-half whammy. without further ado, half of Whisper of the Heart. I may re-edit this at a later date, but here ya go.

Hey, remember when I said I was gonna review Porco Rosso? Yeah, I thought so too until instead I got Whisper of The Heart....yeah I'm disappointed too. Anyways, guess I should get this over with...(111 minutes later) oh my god...that was extremely boring yet compelling at the same time.....my head hurts. Seriously, don't be fooled by that cover poster right thar. this movie is more interesting than it is...interesting. its weird. While it isn't directed by good ole' Hayao, he did write it, and yet it seems as if its the opposite. The film seems closer to a regular high school anime than a Miyazaki film. But before I go full-conclusion-mode, lets dive into this.
The movie starts out with a random country song in the background as it pans through apparently Tokyo(please tell me the song is different in the japanese version >_>), as we close in on Ms.Protagonist herself, J.K. Rowli--I mean...Shizuku Tsukishima, a middle school average girl who loves to read and hates studying....wait what? She apparently starts getting books that everytime she does, its always read right before her by the mystery man, Seiji Amasawa. oooooh. Oh yeah and she apparently writes lyrics to songs, including that country song thingy. Anyway, her bestest buddy Candace says that she got a love letter but she has a crush on somebody else! OH THE DRAMA! Protagonist forgets her book and when she comes back, there's a mystery man reading it(gee I wonder who that is) and before giving it to her, suavely states that her lyrics in the song were "even cornier than the original." words that seem to resonate this entire film ironically. Anyway, she is angered by her comment and runs away thinking him as a jerk.
The next morning as she takes a subway, she randomly meets this mysterious cat next to her, who seems to get off the station with her and she decides to completely forget her duties and go off following the strange feline. The cat then leads her to a random neighborhood near an antique store. She goes into this mysterious antique store to meet Mr.KindlyOldWiseManOwnerGuy. He shows her some of the trinkets, including an interesting grandfather clock, and a statue of a gentlemanly cat known as The Baron. She realizes she still needs to bring her groceries home, and bring back her book, however in her hurry to leave, she forgets the groceries at the store. Thankfully, Mysterious Totally-not-Local-Town-Love-Interest comes by on his bike to give it to her, strangely with also Mr. Mystery Cat. The real one not the statue. GAWD. Anyways, before leaving, Mr.Smooth makes another ladies comment that she must eat a lot with all that food in her grocery bag. She is not swayed by this obvious swagger however, and leaves quickly in anger. Later he is angered by the idea that he might be Mr. Seiji Amasawa. oooooh, letting everyone in the library know as well. The next day, after school, apparently Sharpay is found crying because the crush that she had, asked if he could date the guy who made the love letter, which made her cry and even miss a test. Yeah this subplot is confusing, don't worry it ends in a minute. The next day, the crush guy asks Protagonist why Maddie was so upset. She then explains that she had a crush on him, and not the love letter guy. Then in some random subplot twist, the crush guy says he's in love with Protagonist,  making this teen soap opera full circle.

Miyazaki Reviews: My Neighbor Totoro

so, I finally am at a movie I just saw a day ago and not a week ago, so what do I do?....procrastinate for a couple more weeks. I dunno, maybe its better for me to not have it so fresh in my mind =I But Anyways, My Neighbor Totoro:
My Neighbor Totoro is a 1988 film by Miyazaki and was both his third film, and the third Studio Ghibli film (though for different reasons but whatever). As Miyazaki put it, "it was a film I had to make someday in my career"...or something like that. Damn procrastination. Anyways, the story begins with a Professor and his two hyperactive and giant-mouthed daughters, Satsuki and Mei (see, Satsuki is "May" in Japanese, OH YOU SO CLEVER MIYAZAKI), moving into their new apparently haunted house on a hill in rural Japan. On their way they meet "Granny Not-Really-Your-Grandma-Stop-Calling-Me-That" and the local town love interest AND HIS AMAZING COLOR-DEFYING HAT that never really amounts to anything. But seriously, its a random farmer boy with a police-man's hat for no reason at all...anyway--

I will name you Squishy

As they go into their rugged new abode, the little girls' antics zoom all over the house to find strange ghostly creatures with barely anything to do with the plot whatsoever except reveal the idea of spirits. Then it shows their tidying up of the place, the two girls goofing off some more, and we learn that their non-existant-mother-until-this-point is actually in the hospital with a deathly illness. Though it is never explained why they moved up to The Haunted Mansion, my guess is to find cheaper living grounds, seeing as it doesn't seem any closer to the big city and the hospital. So later that night a storm's a brewin and daddy has some good ole fashioned bathing time with his two adolescent children in one tub all together...Japan is weird.

I NEED PICTURES DAMMIT

Anyway, the next day Satsuki, the older of the two, goes off to school and Mei stays with her dad in the creepy old temple house thing. As her dad is busy working on....something, I dunno. Mario's Pricross? his small 4 year old girl follows a strange invisible rabbity-thing(not that one!) into the deep darkness of the forest without supervision whatsoever. As she chases the rabbit-being, she ends up falling down a rabbit's hole onto a giant rabbity-thing that is sleeping. With her annoying--I mean adorable giant mouth she tries to wake up the beast who is too lazy to eat the little nuisance. Hence forth, Mei randomly names the Snorlax, Totoro...after nothing at all. The movie says its a name for Trolls but Miyazaki says that he just thought of a completely random name, go figure. Anyway she falls asleep on the creature and wakes up being found by her father and sister in a small bush-hideout-thing. She then exclaims the passages of her story which they "believe it completely. sure."

PICTURESSSSSS

So what is assumed as a couple days later, Satsuki goes to school once more only to end up having Granny Babysitter bring in Mei who would refuse to stop crying until she saw Satsuki. So instead of giving the girl a spanking she is brought to the school and made to sit with her big sister until the end of class. After class, it starts to rain and they wait at the bus station for their father to come home from work. However it seems as he is running late or completely uncaring of his two only daughters waiting in the rain in the middle of a public bus stop. Either way, they wait until out of the blue, Totoro comes out of nowhere as Mei is sleeping on Satsuki's shoulders. He is armed with a big-ass leaf and is set to stand. Satsuki then gives her dad's umbrella to the beast to use as instead of the leaf. This proves to be amusing to the giant and he proceeds to jump making all the rain stop. He then reallizes he is late for a very important date, gives them random seeds as his gratitude, and goes off on his Cat-bus. Then the dad arrives and they all go home. woot. Then the rain comes back, Love Interest now with a WHITE HAT OH MY GOD gives them his own umbrella and runs away, and something else happens....damn procrastination...

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

anyways they plant the seeds that Totoro gave them the next day and later that evening get a visit from the plant-seeding fairy and his sister Dot....I don't even know what I'm writing at this point. But Totoro comes down on the umbrella Mary Poppins-style, let Mei and Satsuki latch on to him, and they make the plants grow into a gigantic tree that engulfs the entire house. This wakes up the father as well who does what any sane, protective father would do....smile and go back to bed.

Catbus awww yeeeah

The next morning it is revealed that their mother's illness is getting worse and she won't be able to stop by. This makes Mei extremely scared that she will kinda die. So she then disappears after a fight with Satsuki, and the entire village goes off to look for her. Satsuki believes she tried to go off to the hospital, so she then gives Flash a run-for-his-money litterally, and races off to look for her without a single stop for breath. Seriously, that girl can run. So then she decides to ask the local Frank Welkers of the business, Totoro and Cat-bus for help. She hurries back to find them with which they go off on a world of pure imagination to find her sister. They find her, and everything is right with the world, the end. No seriously, the end. They give their mother a piece of corn secretly, and thats it. A couple post credits and yah. Que Conclusion:

So thats My Neighbor Totoro in a nutshell. a procrastinated, seemingly drunken nutshell. You may have noticed the multiple references to fantasy children's classics in this review, like Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, etc. The reason for that is, like many other Miyazaki movies, My Neighbor Totoro has that sort of charm of wonder sprinkled over it, though moreso then some others that are more covered with a more complex storyline. It is said to be like the "Winnie the Pooh" of Japan. However unlike these other classics, My Neighbor Totoro lacks the sense of journey and other-worldliness. Its lack of storyline is both a fault and a plus. It gives a sort of sense of, "thats it?" with not really seeming like anything is truly accomplished. It really is just a film about two girls meeting a whimsical Spirit. This factor would work better if it actually had more than two or three spirits, but ends up feeling like it lacks there as well.

DAMN this review is long

Overall, I think it would work better if it either had more of a story and showing some more development for the children, instead they seem fairly well-off besides their mother's deathly illness which doesn't really seem to change as much as just gets back to normal. In other Miyazaki movies, the characters seem to develop more, however in this it doesn't seem like anything changes from when they meet the spirits to the end. Like I said, this would work if there were more than just two creatures. They don't go off into a giant wonder world, they just meet two mythical creatures and that seems to be it. While I seem to be panning this film, I still find it endearing though. Its an extremely basic concept, but despite all this lacking, it works. Overall, it could have been better, but it definitely is a unique experience sort of film that still does give you a sense of wonder....and damn was this review long wasn't it? Probably longer than the movie. Anyway, now I'm waiting for my next Miyazaki movie, hopefully I won't wait a month after watching it to review it though. Soooo seeya next time.

Next Time, Porco Rosso....I think.

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