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While I'm not overly familiar with Japanese religious practices, I was under the assumption that the anime was more shinto-focused, due to the animistic depiction (that is more of a shinto thing). But there is an overlap with shintoism and buddhism, depending on what period of Japanese history you are looking at, and Kannon is incorporated into shintoism. So distinguishing the two can be a little confusing, though in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was an attempt to remove buddhist elements from shintoism that began with the Meiji Restoration period (1868-1912). Shinbutsu Bunri is the term for the separation of the two. Shinbutsu shugo for the integration. The idea here is that shintoism is domestic and buddhism is foreign. As for what perspective you would take in relation to Key, I don't think it really has a stance and it shows elements of both. They are still officially separated, as far as I know, but that was probably relaxed as time went on, and you can see mixtures of separation and integration in Japanese culture now. Shintoism is more often associated with nationalism whereas buddhism is less likely to be because it is foreign in origin. Ajo is associated with the Imperial Japanese Army, so make of that what you will, I suppose (that might suggest a reason why the writer would choose to integrate them, if he has taken a negative stance regarding the Japanese government of the period, though he may just be going with what he is familiar with).

Okay, I added it, and I'll try that first.

The root for Buddhism is India, but the better one to point to here would probably be Kannon, which is a deity in Japanese buddhism. There's plenty of variability, but sometimes Kannon is depicted as male, other times as female, and with different amounts of arms, including 8.

Edit: I don't remember that scene too clearly. You mean you don't know who the priestess/miko/shrine maiden is? She is a backstory character (unless she is a stand-in for the spiritual element, but even if that is the case, there are two important priestess characters to the story, though they don't have many scenes or much dialogue). You'll know later. Also, I've seen the Area 88 anime and know what you're talking about, but I don't know how similar that is to the source (manga).

Yes, I'd lump it in with Ordian as one of those post-Eva sci-fi with obvious influence. Ordian has some great scenes, honestly. Though not all that great of a show so far.

I don't exactly understand your game rating divide. One has to do with gameplay more, I guess. I remember liking that game. Shmups with shops are really cool. That's funny how they fuck up the character. Though I don't know what the source material is like.

I don't know, tbh. It feels highly derivative of Evangelion and random dystopic sci-fi, without much to distinguish it other than its late 1990s anime aesthetic and wimpy protagonist. World is okay, but I wasn't keen on some of the writing and character choices. Okay sense of mood due to the audio and visuals and a quite nostalgic feel. The OP is sort of interesting, as I think it carries the tone of the show well. I might look into these after Baker Street.

Haha. There are a lot of these funny overlaps. Both DT Eightron and Cowboy Bebop began airing on April, 1998, and the one hacker kid in that looks a lot like Ed and serves a similar role, though it's more often noted as another dystopic clone of Evangelion, just without mechs, though there are robots.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/1314/DT_Eightron

I glanced over the front page for movie 3.

"The Last Wizard of the Century used to be a very fun movie. I liked how the movie was about a very popular legend about a surviving family member of Nicholas II of Russia (this legend was disproved years after the film). Coming back to this film, I feel a little disappointed with how some of the side characters aren't as involved in the main story and just show up because they have to. This is their first appearance in the movies and it seems like they don't really matter much here. While I'm fully aware that this is an old movie, it's art and animation have aged so much that it keeps me from enjoying this movie as much as I ought to. There are little moments where this movie does look great, but not much beyond that."

That's an interesting touch with the Romanovs. Kind of makes me think of Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, as there were so many theories about that story (the real one, not the film), and I still think it's his best film.

Is Baker Street (hope I'm getting this right... I remember something street) the only Conan movie you would recommend for someone who has no particular interest in the series?

It's a really contentious topic, as you have the academic stuff that I think tends to be too soft, lacking broadness, or a reason for why anyone might be interested in these things in the first place. The conspiracy ones are usually too lacking in details for how broad they are and there are a lot of texts out there to spread nonsense (like the predictive Pike-Mazzini letters, which are obviously fake, and I believe I have the name of the book that that was derived from). It's a topic sorely in need of better synthesis. But esoteric and elitist networking that can be applied in a variety of ways is how I might distill it further. Plus, there's obviously a feeling of meaning that comes with being attached to a brotherhood like this with special rites that no one else is familiar with.

Yeah, there isn't a direct middle finger, like you might see in something written by Takahashi, as his works are more explicitly political. But that religion and tradition on display predate western powers coming to Japan. Key's scientist is a "good scientist," but his experiments are viewed in a negative light and used by people like Ajo. But the Hellenic imagery being associated with Ajo is a pretty dead giveaway, I think.

Mostly it's just the nod to Pinocchio, puppets, and the tiles that I recall, but it draws from western philosophy a lot. That's the tl;dr.

Maybe some additional context, if you want... Freemasonry is a complex topic as there are many different types and levels of initiation. It's not an ideology per se. It's a secret society, which could certainly mask an ideology, though. There's a lot of conspiracy surrounding freemasonry because of a correlation of influential people within them who might favor those of the brotherhood in particular, working toward an agenda. It's similar to how Skull and Bones, a secret society within Yale University, had several presidents and important people in the U.S. Our founding fathers were also freemasonic subversives, btw (this is true whether one likes them or dislikes them, as they were subversive to the status quo at the time). Sometime later we also had an anti-mason party worried about the masons possibly being subversive. It's a great model for subversion. You'll see a lot of people say, "Well, I was a mason, and we weren't doing anything conspiratorial." Many of these accounts are probably true because you have to remember that there are different levels of initiation. 33rd degree is the highest, so what they are privy to is not the same as what lower degrees would know. Not all of them are using the same kind of ranks, and some lodges probably aren't anything other than a gentleman's club of sorts with weird rites. Other lodges may be more "nefarious." If you don't have power, then you probably want to use a secret society as a means of subversion to obtain it, and if you do have power, then you probably want to do away with them or control them. Anyway, you can see how it can be used for subversion if you look at a few examples. Our founding father's work for that. Then there's the Illuminati and Adam Weishaupt and blah blah. Okay, none of that matters that much in relation to Key but figured I'd talk more generally about them and why they're often talked about, since I brought them up. The only important part pertains to the initiation ceremony and becoming more enlightened and relatively generic symbolism that is common in pop culture.

In Pinocchio, Geppetto shapes what is a pile of wood into a puppet that becomes more human. The fairy guides Pinocchio along, and it's a moral tale in a lot of ways, as he develops and learns what isn't proper and such. That's supposed to be a similar process associated with freemasonry. Don't think too deeply about the freemasons in relation to Key. That's just an obvious thing to mention because Key is using the story of Pinocchio as a reference, a story which works on a metaphorical level in relation to enlightenment, but Key actually has a far more distinct duality to her than Pinocchio does.

Starting with the paragraph below, you might consider these to be spoilers, though I tried to be less explicit where it might count.

I'm not sure if that location she's walking in is supposed to be Ajo's building or not or if it's just for the OP (I think that room that Ajo appears in at many points with androids and candlelight has those tiles; I guess let me know if you see it...). But you'll see that little Japanese doll appear on the floor when Key is looking at the camera. I see a lot of contrast between not just religion/spiritualism and technology/consumption culture but also a feud between Japan and the west. Similar to Gasaraki but more subtle because it's not about Japan in relation to other countries, occupation, or anything like that. It appears to have a lot to do with absorption of western ideas. I mean the grand imagery of a broken Atlas and axis mundi imagery at the end that is a set piece within Ajo's elaborate scheme and a few other cues from the puppet maker, the word geist (this is what the scientist was calling spirit, indicating he sees the world through a more western lens and western metaphysics reached its peak in Germany; I know that a lot of anime will use random German words because they think it's cool, but this appears to have more of a purpose to me) being chosen to describe spirit, and a kind of cynical look at modern science that I think presents it in a similar light to the idol stuff, as a corrupting influence of sorts. I mean, Japan is in a lot of ways the most interesting Asian country from a historical standpoint, starting around the time that their isolation ended. As they were so isolated and untouched by western influence and seemed to adapt the fastest and were often operating more equivalent to a European colonial power. Russo-Japanese war, fighting alongside the Europeans in China, colonialism in Asia, etc. They are probably the most westernized Asian country.

I only watched the first clip for now because Sakuga loads slow for me sometimes. Pretty cool with the angles and using the fade to black as simulated lightning.

I've watched DB and read the manga. It had potential, but it's unfinished in both forms. I thought the film was okay, but they should have worked in a better ending or something.

Yeah, Key is similar to Pinocchio. Carlo Collodi, the writer of Pinocchio, was a freemason, and I always found the dimly lit images of Key tiptoeing along the black and white checkered tiles as quite enigmatic and distinct. That kind of flooring is significant in freemasonry and is representative of Key's duality. Pinocchio is a highly Platonic story, and, of course, Plato influenced, well... everything, for better or worse. Pinocchio becoming human is much like the allegory of the cave and freemasonic initiation.

Huh, weird how it's the opposite for me, how I'm much more fond of NotGR and less so of Genji. :P

Yeah, looks good. I actually saw the third clip earlier, and it isn't characteristic of Nakamura, so I can see why they were guessing otherwise. So low-key. Nice to see it has scenes like that. Looks like a good fight too.

Eh, Just watch the OP and ED once in Japanese, I guess. They shouldn't be essential. There are a few pop songs incorporated into the plot, though (which I'd guess they would translate). I'm not sure it's the kind of title I'd recommend watching dubbed in another language, but I don't know. I don't like the English dub for Key, but the Spanish might be better. I wonder how they handle Key's monotone (and shifts), lol. I try to avoid dubs outside of comedy and action or select titles.

Ugh, rugbyshit for unity sounds very awful. It takes crazy talent to make a sports film watchable. XD

Oh, looking into the sound director... a lot of his credits are not "sound design films" in the sense that I doubt they fully take advantage of sound, but I'd guess this one was good in that respect:

https://myanimelist.net/anime/1494/Darkside_Blues

I want to watch this one:

https://myanimelist.net/anime/13215/Guskou_Budori_no_Denki_2012

I have seen the original film of it.

lol, I refuse to watch any Hollywood films about presidents. Trying to separate what I'd want to see versus what I think I could tolerate from Hollywood is difficult. Some of the Kennedy ones are probably entertaining for the assassination, I guess. Assassinations are usually a decent bet. That reminds me of how McKinley, who was assassinated, and his cabinet are often presumed to have been part of the influence for Wizard of Oz. Yeah, that's a start, thanks. Some of these are very light, though. Noroi is a pretty amusing horror film, I think.

lmao, Bambi filler! XD

Well, with history in particular, I tend to find the history from below perspectives tend to obfuscate what is really going on from a broader perspective and turns it into emotionalism. The ideal is to have some amount of mixture to get a broader understanding. That's not a problem with great man (though it might be a problem with directorial/writer tendencies and expectations, ugh). It's a problem with how the romance was portrayed or even focusing on it to the extent that it did. That's on Tezuka (or whatever the other film was), and I don't think I'm going to watch it. Bela Tarr should have directed it instead. This is my answer to everything film related. XD

Hmm... I wonder if there are good shinto lists on Letterboxd. Kind of curious to see this outside of anime, which I don't remember too often with the Japanese films I watched.

Oh, I was wondering what was up with all the frog ninja stuff, lmao. Yep, a lot of the newer, more realistic European animation, maybe French more than others, tends to always be about either an immigrant entering a new country or focusing on a foreign country and usually the main is female or LGBT and oppressed by the regime or whatever (or it's more about integration in the former case). It's very common, lol. I tend to avoid those unless they look really good. And a lot of it just feels like propaganda for foreign aid, immigration, or regime change to me. I have to say that I hate the displacement of "great man" theory for "history from below" bullshit. Seeing the perspective of someone who had a prominent role in history or a hero or someone involved in politics is often much more interesting than the downtrodden (not to say that's the only thing you get from the latter, but that's what tends to be the outcome with fiction). I mean, if it's a truly artistic production than it should be good if it's about some hobo or whatever, but that's rarely the case with most of this slop. Well, how is the movie? :\

The way you've framed it seems interesting... perhaps more interesting than what it will end up doing with the idea. I guess with the author's approval, that would suggest the series had an adequate ending and stands alone rather than feeling like it needs another season that will never be made. I think there is probably something to what you're saying as to why it didn't get popular, but I can't help but feel the bigger factor is how ugly the MC's design is, lmao. It looks like a mascot rather than a main. But gives it a distinct feel that really makes it standout. What you said also brings to mind that young-old look he has. Honestly, it makes me think of progeria, and I doubt that's a coincidence, even though he kind of has that look when his mother is kidnapped in the opening scene too. Like he's robbed of becoming a normal adult and his childhood was stolen sort of thing (and then fast-tracked into becoming a Ninku commander), so he has this weird in-between form that seems both youthful and old and also has these contrasting personality characteristics.

It's sort of an amusing masochistic twist. Is that the scene in question in the second clip? Fuusuke is sort of strange in the way he lets people abuse him, like even in the first episode where he and the penguin are strung up from the tree. Almost makes me wonder if he somehow feels guilty about something or if it's just a bit quirky and humorous. Because your example has a precise logic to it. I mean, I guess in the first episode, he let the baker string him up because he actually was guilty of sneaking in for the bread. But is something like this repeated often?