Tokyo Blog

This site isn’t exactly great, as the avatars you create here don’t look particularly manga at all. Still, it’s a good laugh making one of yourself and your friends. I found I couldn’t easily make myself, but I could do my friends no problem!

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

Last night I finally got around to watching perhaps the only film by Hayao Miyazaki I haven’t seen: Lupin III, Castle of Cagliostro. Whilst I was watching it I found lots of similarities to the amazing PSX game by IGA and his team at KCET, ‘Castlevania: The Symphony of the Night’.

Both my heroes in their own right, Miyazaki and IGA seem to have cross-pollenated. Seeing as the anime film was made in 1979 and the castlevania game in 1997, it’s obvious who borrowed from who.

The first of the similarities I noticed was the Castle of Cagliostro itself. It looks almost identical to the castle in the opening sequence of the Castlevania game, especially the tall tower with the connecting bridge and the four turrets on it’s corners. I thought this was likely to be a coincidence, but then later the film culminated in a scene where a gold and silver ring had to be taken to a clock tower in order for a secret passageway to a hidden treasure to be revealed.

This exact scenario takes place in the Castlevania game also! Both clocks also feature a goat’s head and strike 13 when the rings are used to activate the mechanism. In both the film and the game the hands of the clock come into alignment when the rings are used (in the film the Count of Cagliostro is crushed between the hour and the minute hands).

Just an interesting little known fact, I thought. I Googled it, but couldn’t find any articles about it on the web. If anyone else knows of any other similarities, please put them in the thread.

Gake no Ue no Ponyo will be the eighth film by anime virtuoso Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli. Apparently, this time (and it’s obvious from the posters you see in Lawson’s combini), the animation style will be based on watercolours, a bit like the previous Ghibli offering ‘My Neighbours, the Yamadas’. It’s in production now, in fact, looking at the date, it should be in post-production at least - the film comes out in Cinemas across Japan on July 19th this year (2008).

It sounds pretty trite when I write it like this, but the film is about a Goldfish Princess called Ponyo who really wants to become a human, in chasing her goal she meets and befriends a young boy called Sousuke (who’s character is based on Hayao Miyazaki’s son Gorou when he was 5 years old - Gorou has since directed feature-length anime ‘Gedo Senki’ for Ghibli). I’m sure it will be a great film. Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t seem to be able to put a foot wrong, especially in the latter part of his career. So it looks like this year, I’ll get to experience a very important Japanese cultural event: A nationwide opening of a Miyazaki film at a cinema in Tokyo, with all the queues and crowds that normally come with it. Tanoshimini.

This is bound to be a total disappointment when it finally comes out in 2009, but Warner Brothers have made it official; They will make a live action version of Akira, and they’re going to adapt it from the original manga graphic novel, not from the anime. Actually they’re going to span the story over two films, but production starts right away. The reason I’m not as positive as I could be about this news is the appointment of a fledgeling filmmaker and a debuting screenwriter. The director will be Ruairi Robinson who’s most recent short film you can watch on YouTube or on his website. Personally, I wasn’t keen on the short film. I’m measuring it by the Chris Cunningham yardstick, so this may be a harsh review, but see for yourself. The other very worrying rumour that’s flying about, is that the film might be set in America in a so-called ‘New Manhattan’ instead of the infinitely cooler ‘Neo-Tokyo’. Say it aint so! I hope the film proves me wrong because it would be a great thing to see at the cinema in 2009.

As soon as my projects are out of the way, I’m off to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. So, before I get there I’m watching all my old favourites from the Ghibli collection (I’ve got 13 of their films on an external HD I bought from home, along with the rest of my DVD collection). I bought a cool bed from Takeya for my apartment which you can incline - perfect for watching movies late night - and so I watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky again. I had forgotten just how good this film is, so I’m posting about it here so that anyone who’s into their Anime who hasn’t checked it out can get my recommendation. It’s now my favourite Miyazaki film of all time.