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Movies and stuff
Went to see the new Ghibli movie tonight, Karigurashi no Arietty (aka "Borrower Arietty" or "The Borrowers" or whatever).
It's a rather nicely done piece of animation and the music is quite good. The story itself has so many holes that you have to suspend a LOT of belief to really go with it at all; I realize it's a fairy tale but in some ways it makes no sense whatsoever.
The short version, pun intended: a father, mother, and 14-year-old daughter family of 5-inch-tall "Little People" live inside an old woman's house in the countryside, and "borrow" whatever they need to survive, little things like food or sometimes a tissue or whatnot, dodging cats and mice and whatnot without ever being seen by people. One day the old woman's 14-year-old grandson Sho, who has been sickly and weak since childhood, comes to stay with her for a week or two before having heart (lung? I actually am not sure they say what kind) surgery, and naturally, he sees Arietty wandering around. She starts talking to him too, being as he says he has no real family, and she basically has no friends, essentially, as the other "littles" in the area all moved away ages ago after being seen by humans. Of course, this leads to disaster of various sorts and a sad ending, and it occurs to me that this will probably come out in English so I shouldn't say much more.
I dunno, there are just a lot of things that make no sense about the story itself. For one, I find it highly unlikely that Arietty has managed to go 14 years without anyone seeing her or without getting into trouble.
But plot aside, the movie is very well done, especially the viewpoint of the "human" world you get from the "littles", like OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SCARY LOUD CLICKING oh wait it's just a clock or HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM of the refridgerator.
One thing is that the movie is only like 90 minutes long, which is short for Ghibli I think. On the other hand, I had to pee for half the movie, so I was glad it was that short. But there were a few kids in the audience and I heard them saying "Owari?" at the end like "It's over?"
Shrug.
After the movie I went to the Kinokuniya there (this was at Saitama Shintoshin Movix) and got a JLPT application. I'm still undecided but this makes it easier to throw myself into the N3 I suppose. And then I had dinner at Kua'Aina, a big cobb salad and chicken fingers. Yum!
I was supposed to go back to Jingu for more Kutabare Yomiuri tomorrow night but it appears to be raining. Hmmm.
It's a rather nicely done piece of animation and the music is quite good. The story itself has so many holes that you have to suspend a LOT of belief to really go with it at all; I realize it's a fairy tale but in some ways it makes no sense whatsoever.
The short version, pun intended: a father, mother, and 14-year-old daughter family of 5-inch-tall "Little People" live inside an old woman's house in the countryside, and "borrow" whatever they need to survive, little things like food or sometimes a tissue or whatnot, dodging cats and mice and whatnot without ever being seen by people. One day the old woman's 14-year-old grandson Sho, who has been sickly and weak since childhood, comes to stay with her for a week or two before having heart (lung? I actually am not sure they say what kind) surgery, and naturally, he sees Arietty wandering around. She starts talking to him too, being as he says he has no real family, and she basically has no friends, essentially, as the other "littles" in the area all moved away ages ago after being seen by humans. Of course, this leads to disaster of various sorts and a sad ending, and it occurs to me that this will probably come out in English so I shouldn't say much more.
I dunno, there are just a lot of things that make no sense about the story itself. For one, I find it highly unlikely that Arietty has managed to go 14 years without anyone seeing her or without getting into trouble.
But plot aside, the movie is very well done, especially the viewpoint of the "human" world you get from the "littles", like OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SCARY LOUD CLICKING oh wait it's just a clock or HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM of the refridgerator.
One thing is that the movie is only like 90 minutes long, which is short for Ghibli I think. On the other hand, I had to pee for half the movie, so I was glad it was that short. But there were a few kids in the audience and I heard them saying "Owari?" at the end like "It's over?"
Shrug.
After the movie I went to the Kinokuniya there (this was at Saitama Shintoshin Movix) and got a JLPT application. I'm still undecided but this makes it easier to throw myself into the N3 I suppose. And then I had dinner at Kua'Aina, a big cobb salad and chicken fingers. Yum!
I was supposed to go back to Jingu for more Kutabare Yomiuri tomorrow night but it appears to be raining. Hmmm.
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If it's only an elderly woman living along (with a couple servants) in a giant house, it's not totally impossible that the borrowers could remain unseen, since most of the house would only rarely have someone in it.
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In this movie it was one elderly woman and her one obnoxious paranoid servant whose fault it actually is the Borrowers have to move (as the old woman herself seems to be aware and amenable to the borrowers, and the young boy is also totally into the idea).
I have a better question: how the hell do they educate their kids? It was clear in this movie that Arietty could read (as Sho leaves her a tiny note of "わすれもの" with a sugar cube) but they don't have tiny books, nor any scraps of paper from the humans, in their house -- they do have a few postage stamps as "paintings".
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For reading, I don't remember. It may have never been mentioned--certainly it wasn't obvious or had any attention called to it.
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I wanna see it....
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