manga – Speculative fiction and art from Thea Dee

How do Miyazaki films capture the essence of humanity?

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:

from far away

A review of this Japanese manga, with stars in my eyes

WOW.
i’m in love.
again.

perhaps if i were paying closer attention, i wouldn’t be so surprised. i’m somewhat predictable in this area.

i checked out more manga from the library. just finished reading volumes 1-4 of from far away by kyoko hikawa. love it!

i admit, it was a bit of a rocky start, and i almost didn’t read it. the beginning is such a cliche that I had to laugh a little. the drawing style was a little old school (for my tastes), which made me wonder if i’d be able to get into it (without being distracted by these factors).

then there was the explosion and the rescue.
and the good-looking, reluctant hero.
more trouble.
another rescue.

ah, the typical unlikely and at-first-resisted shoujo relationship, with just the right dash of naivety. the girl saying, “i’d never act like this at home, what am i thinking?” and the guy saying, “i’ll most likely kill her in the morning.” (or was that the princess bride?) LOL.

>flips through the book again<

i looked at the copyright, and it’s originally 1991 (released in America in 2004). that explained the manga style. by the end of the second volume, though, i was totally hooked.

and not just by the story! the artist did some great effects, the layouts are solid, the characters very expressive.

i never realized how long certain manga techniques had been around until i read this series. think about it — after 15+ years, manga has been using the same basic look, layout, effects techniques, and visual shorthand. it’s practically a visual language.

>stares off into space, remembering little artistic details<

okay, maybe i’m getting carried away, but still! i guess that’s part of the beauty and tradition of the manga medium. 15 years seems like a long time to me (compared to my lifespan so far), probably because even the Web has only been around for barely ten years. if i really looked into it, they’ve probably been doing manga like that for lotsa decades.

whew! i’ll stop thinking about years and decades now. my brain isn’t hurting, but the room is starting to spin a bit. ^_^

so, back to the story.
the japanese schoolgirl gets thrown into a fantasy world where she is the key to everything. hmm… sound familiar? everyone is after her, actually trying to kill her. not to mention the random forest monsters. what’s a girl to do?

trip and fall to the ground, scream in fear, cry a little, and cling to the hero, apparently.

about the only thing special she has going for her is that her dad is a sci-fi author. that’s gotta count for something. it’s probably the reason she’s able to pull herself together and start learning the language of this new world. (a nicely realistic addition to the typical multi-dimensional story — how does the whole universe manage to speak english in all those other stories, anyway?)

i love how hikawa keeps the identity and true nature of the hero (anti-hero?) secret for several volumes. peeling back layers of backstory is always nice.

so i haven’t finished the series yet, but for now i give it a solid OH, YEAH, READ IT BABY!

if you like fantasy-style shoujo manga, that is.
or want to find out if you like it.

>grins, shrugs, picks up the book and keeps reading<

polly and the pirates

a review of Polly and the Pirates comics

i love the drawing style for polly and her strange water world. are there any buildings actually on land? there are docks, i guess, but most of the buildings seem to be boats. towering, three and four story, sprawling victorian boats (or whatever the time period might be, i’m no expert).

beneath young polly pringle’s dull, proper, rule-abiding schoolgirl surface lurks a bold, clever, sword-fighting pirate.

and it doesn’t take much to scratch the surface.
a few threats to harm her good reputation and her friends.
and her pirate self leaps onto the page without ado.

a swash-buckling good ride.

on the critique side… i gotta wonder if ted has trouble drawing hands and feet, because the characters are a bit short-changed on those items.

but there is a panel or two with very. detailed. gnarly. old. sailor. hands…

so maybe it’s about artistic shorthand (um, pun intended, i guess) and not lack of skill.

i can relate to that.
artistic shorthand, that is.
(well, i can relate to lack of skill, too… but that’s another story)

i’ve been thinking about what it takes to keep a webcomic going regularly, and how much time it probably takes for those that post more than once a week. my time on the computer is kinda limited. no, no, no–not by a straitjacket! well, not exactly. but there are… restrictions.

so how will i find time to keep such a thing going? as a reader, it’s really hard to wait when you get hooked on a webcomic and then the author doesn’t post regularly.

>turns a half-hearted frown in the direction of caroline curtis<
>but can’t keep frowning at a favorite storyteller…<
>the frown morphs to hopeful, puppy-dog eyes<

after all, we’ve all got real lives to live outside the Net. well, most of us do. so… one of the things i’d probably do is pick a style that i can draw quickly. not heavy on the details. not too busy in the layouts. because, hey! (imho) it’s all about the story, anyway. as long as the art is good enough to get the story across, you can survive if it’s a great story.

not that i want to do sucky art.
uh-uh.
but i’m not one of those artists that’s super picky about certain details. at least not with a webcomic. i want a rollickin’ good story, that’s all. artistic shorthand is a-okay.

anyway, back to the polly review. ted naifeh is a GOOD artist, for sure. didn’t mean to imply otherwise. just noticed that the hands and feet were sketchy. the story is great, characters interesting, i loved looking at the details on the ship buildings and even the spirals he used in the wave foam.

conclusion? a pleasure for the eyes and the imagination.
is there more on the way, ted?
coming to a library near me?

what are you waiting for?
go read it already!

skip-beat manga

a review of Skip-Beat Japanese comics

i’m reading Yoshiki Nakamura’s shojo manga “Skip-Beat!” the layouts are sometimes a bit confusing (and therefore the whole series seems less polished to me). it’s often hard to tell whose thoughts you’re reading, and she likes to span several pages with a single thought separated into several words at a time — PLUS you have to read the dialogue, and cute little action notes, so my brain gets full trying to follow all those fragments. BUT nonetheless, the story caught my interest.

a girl who has been self-sacrificing and boring and normal is transformed into someone of passion by a traumatic incident. it’s not a good thing, in some ways — her dark side is unlocked by a cold-hearted rejection. but even that is interesting to watch.

the art includes illustration of the evil spirits that are given freedom to operate in her life when she lets rejection lead to anger, hate and bitterness. these spirits, labeled “grudge” and “hate” and such things, fly around her. even other characters notice this dark aura.

but she quickly realizes that she has lost something precious by letting this dark side run free. and she seeks to restore the “human emotions so precious to life” that she lost. it isn’t easy, though. a small angelic “pure self” spirit flutters around at times, fighting with the illustrated evil ones. but her “pure self” gets womped quite a bit. no telling how long that battle will go on.

i’m interested in stories that bring the invisible, supernatural side of life into visibility through various manga or movie techniques.

here, put on these 7-D glasses and tell me what you see. heh. yeeeaah… i wanna do that.