anime – Speculative fiction and art from Thea Dee

Hayao Miyazaki is the creator of some of my earliest experiences with Japanese manga and anime. I believe Totoro was the first anime I ever saw, back when I was going to college in the Bay Area. I met a girl at a bus stop and we started talking about the stories we loved. Next thing I knew, I was at her apartment and she was translating Totoro on the fly while we watched it. Sayaka, I will forever be grateful for your introduction to the joys of Japanese art and its beautiful language. (Edit: I just realized I told this story a few posts ago, but what can I say? It’s a key moment in my life.)

This video (below) is 17 minutes of beautiful art and wisdom from a master at storytelling. The narrator of the film also makes some insightful comments. “Sentiment is what seeps from the pores of a Miyazaki film.”

Miyazaki creates settings that evoke feelings. The landscapes are not static or flat. Often, they are in valleys or mountains. The weather interacts with the characters and their moods. As a writer and artist, I want to learn to use this effect in my own work.

Each scene focuses on portraying the emotion of that moment. We don’t need to watch the rest of the film to understand the emotions being felt by the characters in that moment. Their feelings are evident in their postures, their expressions, the colors and surroundings. How would it be for me to craft the scenes of my fiction this way?

The environment and circumstances of Miyazaki films make it clear that the world does not exist to cater to the comfort or desire of the humans in it.

Brutality and savagery co-exist with compassion and tenderness. The two do not cancel each other out, but they create the realm of contrast and tension within which we live.

His stories do not talk about fate so much as will. The characters adapt to their surroundings and find ways to rise above the things that would cripple or try to destroy them. Characters begin with things they desire, but often find that it is something else entirely that they need.

One leaves a Miyazaki film with the subconscious idea, “I can overcome the challenges of my life” and “I want to be that person who faces brutality with courage and kindness.” How beautiful is art that equips the viewer for the pains of life on earth!

What do you usually take away from his films? Leave a comment below!

Extras

Thanks to speculative fiction author Laura VanArendonk Baugh for bringing this video to my attention!

Want more Hayao Miyazaki? Check these out:

And all the more when they are Japanese.

This is the post where I tell you my favorite vampire anime. There are plenty of top 10 lists out there, but these are the ones that I enjoyed. I hope you do, too.

Vampire Hunter D

This is the one that started it all. I think the first Japanese anime I’d ever seen was Totoro. There was this girl I met at a bus stop in San Jose and we became friends based on our book preferences. (Go figure!) She invited me to her apartment and we watched Totoro in Japanese while she interpreted it for me. I have loved anime ever since.

Oh, but we were talking about vampires! So, years and years later I was working as a tech writer and there was this programmer who lived over the cubicle wall from me (you’ve seen Dilbert comics right? Office Space, maybe? yeah, so you know about cubicle walls). And he slipped some anime over the wall and it was Vampire Hunter D and BAM. Hooked on anime again.

Vampire Princess Miyu

This is the prettiest of them all. The art is gorgeous and the story’s atmosphere so very full of beauty and creepiness. Hard to explain, you just need to watch it.

Hellsing

Now this is a classic! You gotta love a series that names its main vampire by spelling Dracula backwards. That’s some chutzpah, right there. But besides that, there are some great characters and interesting politics and a lot of great anime action. Miyu may be the pretties, but this one has so many kickass pics that it’s hard to choose just one.

Vampire Knight

This one is pure YA (young adult) fun, through and through, with the love triangle and everything. What to do when you’re supposed to be guarding everyone from the vampires, but you have a crush (maybe?) on one of the vampires… One of the best things about this anime is that it only has two seasons, so you get a complete story (more or less) without giving up years of your life watching hundreds of episodes. Ha!

Oh, yeah, and of course I enjoy the classics…

…Even though they aren’t Japanese. There’s the haunting and beautiful story Carmilla, which you can download free from the Gutenberg project. And the original Dracula by Bram Stoker (and the movie version).

Anne Rice has done so much for the genre with her many books, especially with the fascinating Interview with a Vampire and our introduction to Lestat.

The recent movie Dracula Untold was pretty cool, too. Go, Bard! I mean, Luke Evans. Heh heh.

I’ll tell you a secret!

In my own story world, the vampires are called hemavores. “Hema”, meaning blood. And “vore”, meaning that’s what they eat. You know, carnivore, herbivore — and hemavore. Hemas, for short. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what they’re called. They’d suck you dry in a minute if they could get away with it.

So tell me, what’s your favorite vampire story?

Drop a comment below and enlighten me.

Tag: anime

How do Miyazaki films capture the essence of humanity?