Konshuu Volume 57, Issue 3

Elira Pendora

Art

By Willow Otaka

ANIME RECOMMENDATION

BY MITCHELL MADAYAG

Persona

3

the

Movie #1: Spring of Birth

Now is a good time as ever to get into Persona 3, since Persona 3 Portable has recently been ported to all modern consoles and PC. Yet, fans of Persona 5 and other modern JRPGs may not find the gameplay of P3P to be as comprehensive or engaging. Regardless if you enjoyed playing Persona 3 or not, definitely give this movie and its three sequels a try to experience the story of S.E.E.S. in a different way.

Fall 2013, A-1 Pictures

Directed by Noriaki Akitaya 1 movie

DON’T REALLY LIKE TOTORO – AND WHY THAT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER

There’s this intangible sense of magic that permeates throughout most Studio Ghibli works as their releases typically feature beautiful backgrounds that really draw audiences into fictional worlds.  While I wouldn’t call Ghibli films unrivaled in this regard, their quantity of films featuring this quality in high amounts certainly is.  One shining example of this quality is Miyazaki Hayao’s My Neighbor Totoro which is captivating in its depiction of the Japanese countryside.  Totoro, like Miyazaki’s subsequent release Kiki’s Delivery Service, is also notable in the more relaxed tone.  In spite of some slightly more distressing background plot elements, with the main characters’ mother battling long term disease, My Neighbor Totoro is a very light film that captures the oh-so elusive idea of childhood wonder rather well.

In spite of this, I’ve never really enjoyed it as much as most people have.  My Neighbor Totoro is a film that should appeal to me on the surface.  Having spent a considerable amount of time in my youth around a similarly sparse Asian countryside, I feel a unique kinship with the particular sort of setting that Miyazaki seems keen on aggrandizing within this film.  Beyond that, Totoro is the second anime film I remember ever watching, as my parents possessed a Studio Ghibli DVD collection.  In said collection was the first anime film I remember watching, Castle in the Sky, a film I still consider to be among my absolute favorites.  My reasoning for that opinion can be found in a previous article I’ve written, but it boils down to that very potent sense of magic present within the aesthetics of Studio Ghibli releases.  For what it’s worth, I’ve seen both Castle in the Sky and Totoro upwards of ten times at varying points throughout my life.  In most regards, My Neighbor Totoro is a movie which perfectly matches my preferences in regards to a childhood favorite family film.

I find that Totoro suffers in aspects outside of that “Ghibli magic”.  Outside of its aesthetics, its mise en scène, I can’t say that Totoro really has much meaningful to say about anything.  I should clarify that this is only in regards to my personal view of the film, but Totoro never really breaks past the most basic of themes that a child would understand.  That’s perfectly fine for its target demographic, but it just never appealed to me, as I really enjoy media that has particularly strong main themes that

I can continuously ponder upon.  I hate to be that one old annoying guy, but Totoro is to me completely serviceable as a family film, yet just doesn’t have much beyond the initial hook for children to make it appealing as an adult.  As a child, I enjoyed media that I didn’t understand out of a desire to seem smart.  That was obviously shortsighted and immature, but it still illustrates to me Totoro’s relative lack of more significant ideas past a rather lighthearted exploration of a child’s wandering imagination.

This is not to say I detest Totoro.  I often find myself in vitriolic rants about why a piece of media is absolutely one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, but that just isn’t the case with Totoro.  It’s a film that I find many positives in, particularly from its production aspects.  I ultimately cannot say it is really meaningful to me on any deeper level, as I’ve never really found much to contemplate from it.  Totoro can really bore me if I view it too soon after a previous viewing, because I kind of feel like I get everything that it’s saying and I don’t find it terribly relevant to my personal experiences.  However, on the rare occasion every few years where I do rewatch My Neighbor Totoro, I still find myself at awe at the sheer brilliance in its audiovisual presentation.  Ultimately, Totoro has never and will never be a favorite of mine - it simply doesn’t appeal to me personally and I don’t find it to be really ambitious.  Yet I find its existence to be a profound statement on behalf of its director, alongside the Studio Ghibli staff, regarding their skill.  It speaks to Miyazaki’s talent as a director that even a film that has absolutely nothing to offer to me in narrative or thematic appeal is still entertaining to a certain extent because he had a role in creatng it.  My Neighbor Totoro is not and has not ever been something I love, but I’m not the target demographic.  It is an absolute masterpiece in regards to what it sets out to be, a family film that embodies the very notion of childhood wonder.

TONY T.

3rd Year, Economics and Data Science 5/10

I

Editor-In-Chief

THE 2 ₵ENT ₵ORNER

What anime do you associate with springtime? Why?

Your Lie In April & March Comes In Like A Lion come to mind first, reason likely being that both of them have spring months in their names! especially for your lie, there's a theme of sakura too which is what japan's spring season is famous for.

Seeing as spring is often associated with growth, what is your favorite flower?

That's hard to pick! A couple I'd say are lotuses, jasmine, and osmanthus wine tastes the same as i remember, but where are those who share the memories? (yes you just got zhongli-rolled) reason being lotuses are pretty, jasmine smells nice, and osmanthus is tasty!

Arrietty; spring is the season of green and of youth as well, which both find an excellent manifestation there.

Hyouka. It has school and Japanese school is all about springtime and sakura.

None in particular

Spring is a time of blossoming trees and exuberant school life, sprinkled with a dash of depression and despair, right? Sounds just like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei!

I think of Koe no Katachi, mainly because of the key visual, which is beautifully framed by the branches of a sakura tree. Also, spring is often associated with new beginnings, which I think fits Koe no Katachi quite well!

The blue rose. Is there anything more gracious, and gifted with a more extraordinary colour?

Definitely peonies

Maybe a rafflesia? I just happen to really like Vileplume, the Pokemon that's based on that flower.

I’ve always really liked bleeding heart flowers! They’re pretty poisonous, but they have such a cool shape and a really nice pink color :0 (Also honorable mentions to sakura and lily of the valley flowers; small flowers are really cute!!)

Catherine Chen Artist/Graphic Designer

Erik Nelson CAA Alumnus

Alexandre Haïoun-Perdrix Writer

Catherine Rha Artist

Wai Kwan Wu Writer

Miranda Zhang Artist/Graphic Designer

Manjushage.

Aoashi

Art By Sophia Xue

Anthy Himemiya

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Art By Cas Geiger

THE RELAXED THEOS/NAGATORO AND THE MECHANICS OF INSPIRATION

Writer

ALEXANDRE HAÏOUN-PERDRIX

It is frequent for anime to focus on creators. Probably because it is easier for mangaka and scenarists to identify with their characters subsequently, among (many) other reasons. Their creation has to be motivated, and although it happens sometimes that the motivation is intrinsic to the creative processus itself (if not to the concerned “art”, as it is more often the case for anime whose main or proeminent characters are musicians), it is in most of them an exterior element — the creation which they perform thanks to it appears to be “merely” the medium at their disposal to express themselves. This motivation can take tremendous dimensions, to the point that it can look like Platonic enthusiasm — the idea of the character being set in movement by a genial driving force, a godly power. What this “theos”, at the heart of the motion, is, must be at the very heart of the anime, or at least the part of the anime regarding this creative character, for without its being of such importance, it would be hard to justify how much it empowers its possessor.

rapidity from a vaguely romantic comedy towards a pleasingly comic romance. Much is gained for sure, but the way in which this gain is made is dangerously nonchalant, and the identity of the series itself seems to be at least a bit altered, rather than merely improved.

More annoying perhaps, more interesting certainly, is the transformation of the relationship that the anime maintains with the art of painting. This latter knows a progressive but quite effective decrease in its preponderance as the milieu in which everything was to happen: the art club room is less and less often the place where the main characters meet, and painting as an activity is in concurrence with much wider a range of situations (indeed, it is even purely missing in more than one recent episod). However, since it becomes one of the main media through which love is manifested (less, nonetheless, in the paintings than in painting itself, in the creative process, that finds there a more exclusive motivation than it used to be), its scenaristic importance is probably increased, and the number of scenaristic functions it can have certainly so — especially when drawing, its preparatory step, becomes for one episode a bond between the two characters, and in a very attractive manner, one that offers the possibility of a wholly different relation on both sides.

This is however disappointing to see such a great potentiality almost forgotten from the following episode. And this is indeed what remains the main problem of Nagatoro: the propensity which this anime demonstrates to show seducing potentialities and soon after to endanger, if not to abandon them. It had sacrificed its romantic potential for the sake of its humorous capacity in the first season, but had brightly done so; it has sacrificed a part of this capacity in this second season to develop its romance, and brings hope that it will be fruitful; but it rarely manages to do it without carrying fear in the process, and by making this latter smooth and discrete.

Such a theos, Don’t toy with me Miss Nagatoro quite demonstrates, with its protagonist requiring it at least as an inspiration for his practice of painting; and since it is a rom-com, it would have been strange to expect it to be something else than love. What is more annoying is how long it takes to “discover” the theos: the series quietly takes its time until the very end of its first season, and even there waits for the second one to really make it a serious issue in its scenario. Indeed, the new focus brought to it leads to a transition which might be qualified, at least, of quite awkward: the anime shifts with an unforeseen

3rd Year, Philosophy

Spring is the season of beautiful, mannered flowers, that arrange their appearance and keep it for as long as they can; it is also the season of dandelions, with their more erratic behaviour, which like that of Nagatoro finds there their strange charm.

NOSTALGIA AND CRAYON SHIN-CHAN

Writer

Growing up is an exciting thing. Seasons come and go, trees blossom and wither, and our lives experience new things and changes. But with change also comes many waves of uncertainty, and before we know it, our current surroundings can start looking pretty bleak. This is why as humans, we have an instinctive penchant for nostalgia, yearning for our younger days when everything felt that much more secure, and safe. What if we could just go back to those simpler times?

Crayon Shin-chan is a franchise known for its raunchy humor that even got it banned in some countries, but what has also resonated with me is the genuinity with which it looks at heartful themes through the lens of a child. "Change" is something of a recurring theme across the many films in the franchise, but the ninth entry, Adult Empire Strikes Back, stands out through its portrayal and critique of nostalgia. The productional elements on display in this film are understatedly remarkable: particularly in its depiction of an old 20th century shopping district. Inside the film, this district is artificially created, yet the warm sunset and bountiful character animation brings this bustling street to life; it's beautiful, it's nostalgic, and it's inviting.

and Shin-chan, the main character, is forced to take care of his baby sister all on his own. Effectively, the kids are forced to grow up all too soon and play the role of adults. The actual adults are so desperate to relive their own childhood that they are essentially denying the childhood of the next generation. There is a striking scene where Shin-chan and his friends are looking over at the far distance where their parents are partying; they have been abandoned. This was truly surprising to me because many of the conflicts in Shin-chan are presented through comedy with witty humor and skits, yet peeling back the layers of comedy leaves you with something that is quite frankly terrifying.

Naturally, it is up to Shin-chan to bring the adults, and more specifically his very own parents, back to the modern day. When Shin-chan finally reaches Hiroshi, his father, we get one of the most powerful scenes in the franchise. In a single montage, Hiroshi recalls everything he's lived over the course of his life: from riding as a young boy on the back of his own father's bicycle, to experiencing his first heartbreak, to starting a new family while try to rush deadlines, to today, as the father at the helm of the bicycle for his own kids. Anyone seeing this would discern that his life is far from anything special, but to Hiroshi himself, a life that only he has lived is one that is perfectly fulfilling. He's lived a life of ups and downs, but it isn't over yet either: he has a new role to play today, but it is just as fulfilling as the life he lived as a kid. Time is an ever-running wheel, but there is always something new to be found with every rotation that it makes.

At the same time, it's this beauty that forms the central conflict of this film, one that is unsettling. Adults across town are so nostalgic for their childhood that they all abandon their homes and their kids in favor of living in the artificial world. The kids left to fend for themselves, forming into gangs that fight over the local food supply,

Adult Empire Strikes Back doesn't shame us for looking back at the past, nor does it attempt to tarnish our vision of the past. It sees the value in nostalgia, but at the same time, it wants us to know that today, and what's to come, isn't anything to be afraid of. Time will move on, but so will we. This can perhaps be seen as a cheesy message, but the simple and yet sincere approach that Shin-chan takes in telling us this message is what draws me back to this film time and time again. Which, considering the message of this film, is rather ironic, don't you think?

WAI KWAN WU

2nd Year, Molecular Cell Biology

"My life isn't boring at all! I want you to feel the joy of having a family too!"

SPOILERS FOR CRAYON SHIN-CHAN MOVIE 9

Ayaka Kamisato

Genshin Impact

Art By Catherine Rha

Staff Picks:

ANIME WE'RE EXCITED FOR!

AYAKA

SAND LAND

Awesome trailer, hopefully the show delivers!

KUSURIYA NO HITORIGOTO

I like Toriyama Akira.

POKEMON (2023)

WAI KWAN WU

Maomao a cute.

SKIP TO LOAFER

CAS GEIGER

This adorable manga looks so nice finally animated! :-D

MITCHELL MADAYAG

A Pokémon anime without Ash and Pikachu, covering my least favorite generation? I got to see this.

DATE A LIVE V

ALEXANDRE HAIOUN-PERDRIX

Because it was almost criminal to finish with this kind of cliffhanger.

TONY T.

RAHM JETHANI