Shelf Life

Culture Club

To give some perspective on my tastes, here are my top five favorite Miyazaki films in order:

1. My Neighbor Totoro
2. The Castle of Cagliostro
3. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
4. Laputa
5. Porco Rosso

In the only green valley in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, princess Nausicaä leads a tribe of peaceful people. The valley is constantly under threat of falling to poisons from the Sea of Corruption, a jungle filled with deadly giant insects and deadlier mushroom spores. Also bordering the valley is an acid lake, and beyond that, warring tribes of humans inhabit the rest of the world's barren deserts (consider: Hayao Miyazaki's Fist of the North Star). Nausicaä flies around on her “mehve” glider to research the bizarre plants and animals, but when an airship with a super-weapon crash lands in the valley, war falls upon Nausicaä's people. Fortunately for the valley of the wind, their princess is one of the greatest anime characters of all time. She is the perfect leader, an empathetic and charismatic scientist who knows how to fight, but advocates peace. (I recently learned about Frederick the Great, who kept a terraced garden like Nausicaä's for similar reasons.)

Nausicaä represents the highest possible technical achievement in cel animation, and it was made in 1984! All of the flying war machines and giant pillbug-like Ohmu move as background elements, without the aid of CG. Perhaps Nausicaä and Akira (1988) are the very highest high points of Japanese animation, created at the height of Japan's economic bubble. Maybe it is appropriate that both stories have apocalyptic visions; the bubble was about to burst.

I popped in the previous release of Nausicaä to compare extras. The 2005 disc had a “Behind the Mic” featurette with the English voice actors and a “Birth of Studio Ghibli” piece from a Japanese TV show. The new Bluray edition drops these in favor of "Behind the Studio - Creating Nausicaä" which cuts between an interview with Miyazaki and comments from animation historian Charles Solomon. Hilariously, all three of these featurettes contradict each other in the details. The “Birth of Studio Ghibli” tells us that Miyazaki began writing the Nausicaä manga in Animage only after the film pitch was rejected. But Miyazaki says on the Blu-ray that he started drawing the manga and at some point was given the opportunity to make the movie. (For more on the manga, read Jason's column about it.)

I learned a lot more from the Japanese featurette on the old release. For example, did you know that Hideaki Anno animated the God Warrior after he answered an ad in Animage magazine looking for more animators?

The new release includes a French dub and French subtitles. I tried watching some of the French dub, and the French voice actors are more energetic than the English dub, which sounds a bit flat. Not that there's anything particularly bad about the English dub… I love Patrick Stewart as Lord Yupa, but Chris Sarandon as the sneering Kurotowa sounds more sarcastic to my ear in English than he does in Japanese. Alison Lohman is merely adequate as Nausicaä.

Both releases include what I call the “animatic” (some people call it the “story reel”), which is the storyboard cut to the soundtrack. For animators, this is a vital tool for timing out the film. Miyazaki's storyboards (which you can buy as books from the Ghibli Museum) are terrifyingly well drawn. [TOP]

Genshiken is one of my favorite anime TV series of all time. I know Bamboo has reviewed it in the past, but this new collection (finally) includes episodes 13-15. Previously, you could only get episodes 13-15 as extras in the Kujibiki Unbalance TV series release. The Genshiken OVA series are not typical OVAs in terms of continuity– that is to say, they aren't bonus episodes that occur after the TV series continuity. Rather, episodes 13-15 are mid-series continuity that introduce Ogiue, who is a major character in the second season.

Some readers have mentioned in the forums that “loan-ability” is never a factor in their anime purchases, but it's a major factor for me. Whenever one of my friends suddenly gets into anime, I immediately loan them a few good titles to get them started. Genshiken is something I have/do/will loan to friends (especially nerdy friends, and I hand them Otaku No Video at the same time). I didn't care for the Kujibiki TV series at all, so I never bought it. Not having three episodes from the middle of the series made Genshiken annoying to loan out. I didn't want to give friends pirated episodes from the middle of the series, especially if they were unable to play certain codecs…

Genshiken is great because it's like looking into a mirror and laughing. I wasn't in an anime club in college, but I was in the science fiction club (the two clubs met on the same night). Sci-fi club was like Genshiken insomuch as we had different types of nerd specialists, but instead of cosplayers and video game experts, we had comic book experts and table top gamers. Our levels of social awkwardness spanned the same Asperger's rainbow as the geeks in Genshiken. It's amazing how Shimoku Kio has captured some kind of cross-cultural, international nerd problems with his work of art.

I love how the Genshiken anime managed to adapt the humor of the manga to the screen. Genshiken is filled with scenes of amazing comic timing and hilarious awkward pauses. The show is so funny that it's easy to forget that most of it takes place in a single room with characters just standing or sitting around. Truly, Genshiken is an ideal of the situation comedy format, it just happens to be animated.

Since I watched the show subbed first, I have a hard time listening to Billy Regan as Madarame. Madarame's voice is so unique in Japanese, I'm not sure Regan's voice fits the character. Carol Jacobanis as Saki sounds too old for her part.

All of the extras from the initial DVD release are included in this set, like the Under 17 performance and Japanese commercials. Episodes 13-15 have a Japanese commentary tracks with two different seiyuu per episode. I actually liked the Kujibiki Unbalance OVA episodes included in the first Genshiken release, and they are included here as well.

Some fans might be waiting for a whole series Genshiken box, but I was worried about the future of Media Blasters, so I snapped up the DX collection just in case. Now it looks like Media Blasters might be around for a while longer.[TOP]