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Well I don't know much about Japanese history like I said, but the scenery of the town looked really convincing and old-fashioned...-ish. And yeah the camera's focus on the streets was nice and broad. Panning was easier that way I assume. My experiences with black and white films was limited to John Wayne Westerns up till now. I was on the lookout for swinging double doors or a saloon. lol. No such luck.

Overall, great movie that i'm definitely gonna see again sometime. Hopefully though, Kurosawa outdoes Yojimbo and makes something better.

I read Miyazaki's People of the Desert. Woah. If he took the time to blow this up into 4 or so real volumes instead of just 50 pages, it would've been epic as fuck. And to think this was serialized in a children's magazine. sidekick riding backwards shooting his bow at pursuing soldiers and getting shot full of arrows but refuses to fall off to shield his friend, girl tries to save her two friends by jumping off a ledge and pulling the soldier with her, then later emerging from a plague-ridden shelter and collapsing pretty much dead in the arms of the main character, then dying as he balls it out and carries her across the desert since there wasn't enough camels.

lots of epicness, but not nearly fleshed out enough. If anything though, its a history lesson on Miyazaki and a peek into the Nausicaa wheels churning in his head.

I never got the impression that Sanjuro's situation was being an outdated samurai in a world of guns. I did think the (only) guy with the gun was a little strange when considering the surroundings. Everyone else had knives or swords, but I suppose the gun itself could symbolize the advent of technology into Sanjuro's world, and its consequences for Sanjuro as a later threat to his way of life. My take on the gun's consequences appears more symbolical than physical, while both.

I thought that when the villagers close to Sanjuro, namely the resturant owner, realized he wasn't some hack swordsman that he might actually be able to help them, they began to look to him as an authority figure. He is "a relic of the past", but a relic of the past that (i'm assuming that samurai in eastern culture and knights in western culture are similar) was a source of solidity in this new world of technology. Its all new and frankly everything's going to shit, and Sanjuro represents a time when things were simpler. The "Good Old Days" if you will.

I like your comments on society relying on corrupt systems. Its the truth. Sadly.

What would Kurosawa's Top 3 films be? According to you I mean.

I'm back finally but dammit can we postpone this? I just recently watched Barefoot Gen/I'm not in the mood to talk about Howl for some reason. I don't know. I swear me and my fickleness.. sorry about this...

So you've put Marco down for a while? Thats fine. Just let me know when you get around to picking it up again. I admit it really truly "picks up" when he leaves Genoa. Not that the stuff before is worthless or bad.

The dream scene (that I only just recently realized/interpreted WAS a dream) is where Howl comes back to the castle after him and Sophie escaped from Madame Sulliman, and disappears upstairs. Then Sophie wakes up as her young self and follows him up there. She opens the door to his room that is now a huge tunnel with a bunch of trinkets and such buried in the walls of the tunnel (there were a LOT of childrens toys among the trinkets. I'm still working on that one) and she sees Howl at the end resting/bleeding out and hes completely a bird. No human face. (still working on the why for that one too) and she basically says she wants to help break his spell and that she loves him. And he says she cant even break her own spell then flies off and Sophie turns back into an old woman again.

I LOVED Bale as Howl. And Sophie and Calcifer's VAs too. This is the best dub Disney has done i think, overall.

Don't hate on Miyazaki's lighthearted side. Its as much a part of him as anything else. That part of him helped give us Conan (infinite gratitude for that), and was a big element in alot of his movies.. I love his serious vein alot too, but know thats not all he is. Well I've only seen 2 episodes so far and i've liked them. The first series had a couple serious episodes where Lupin's smile disappears and he makes the choice to do the right thing. Either doing something for someone else or fixing a problem he caused. the second series is the most well known and Miyazaki is at the head with Takahata so i hope for some more good episodes like those.

Princess Mononoke i can understand. I remembered quite a few scenes very clearly after only seeing it once. Its a fucking amazing movie with a LOT of contributions to the "Best Scenes Miyazaki Has Ever Filmed" list in my opinion. Most notably and probably the longest one was San's assault on Iron Town all the way until Ashitaka carries Unconscious San out of the town on his back like a badass motherfucker bleeding all over the place. epicness.

Thats all well and good for people that like/want to draw mangas, but as for people that really like animation, is it really a dead end for them thanks to bureaucracy? Are they doomed to just be a spoke in the wheel? I don't know for sure, but I try to hope not. And even manga creators are slaves to their consumers to a degree if you want to look at it that way. Look at what happened to Dragonball. They wouldn't let Toriyama end it. Milked just shy of too far. (and I never even watched GT) I don't know about anime failing and becoming nothing but shit. I'm sure there are quite a few people that will try to evolve anime in a good direction. It would be completely ridiculous if Takahata or Miyazaki didn't totally inspire somebody. But I agree that the general direction its headed is down. For every 1 "Tokyo 8.0" there are 5 "Azumanga Daioh"s and 3 "Yakitate! Japan"s.

How was Princess Arete? As good as it sounded?

Ok I wasn't "misty eyed". That makes me sound like a girl or something. :/ just "emotional". Maybe reason i was impacted so much was because i'm an artist too. Maybe seeing a "true artist" after being in a world of manufactured/engineered emotion was like finding an oasis in the desert (to use an analogy).

Pixar and friends may worship and try to imitate Miyazaki, they'll never EVER be able to achieve anything like he did with their current mindset. The Suits lean over The Artists and tell them "This will sell. We can make money off of this." and the Artists are allowed to draw those characters. If something won't sell, they can't make it. With Miyazaki, the Artists are in charge, and its a wonderful thing. We need a revolution in animation in our own country. In the 60s, Takahata realized this and led the assault on Toei Doga. Look what he's started. He's responsible for anime being what it is today. We need a revolution. All these fake studios... we need real artists like Miyazaki.

But i think before that can happen, Miyazaki needs to become an instantly recognizable name in the US. People need to look at Ponyo and say "Miyazaki made this." not "Oh look a new Disney movie!" (Oh my GOD that pisses me off) Miyazaki needs to be known so his works can be studied by young artists that i KNOW have the talent, they're just lacking inspiration. When that happens, we'll have our revolution.