I went "traditional" last night and this morning by watching a 2 disc set, "Saturday Morning Cartoons, 1960s Volume 1." Overall, it was very enjoyable and I saw some cartoons I've not seen since their original airings. There were also a couple in the set that were new to me.

I'd never seen any episodes of Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles (1966) or Marine Boy (1968) until viewing that set. Based on what's there I don't consider myself having missed much.

Based on the "music" parts of Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles I'd actually thought it came out a few years later than 1966 as it's similar to many of those late 60s shows where a "band" of some type is introduced into a cartoon in a attempt at "modernization" or to be "cool" for the kids. Oddly, the music "The Impossibles" performed sounds like a imitation of The Beach Boys.

While watching Marine Boy I found myself thinking it looked and played like anime (although not as extreme as "modern" stuff) so I'm waiting for the credits to be sure. Everything *looks* to be English and it ends with a "7 Arts" logo so I looked it up. Sure enough, it's early anime. I checked the Saturday morning schedule for that year to see what ran opposite (which would have played a huge factor in my even sampling the show) and found it was probably syndicated as it's *not* on the ABC/CBS/NBC schedules that year.

I enjoyed that volume so much I ordered volume 2 of the 60s shows.

I picked that for a prize this month. I'm glad to hear that it's that good! This whole line has been on my radar for awhile, but I just haven't picked any up. I may have to now that I know they are that good....

I just finished Prehistoric Monsters Revealed on H2 On Demand. It was a good show, and almost all animated too.

My biggest gripe with the set is the way it's authored. If you do a "Play All" from the main menu the episodes play in full from first to last - like a big 3 hour block of Saturday AM goodness. BUT if you go to the sub-menu to play individual programs they only play a segment at a time which means you're taken back to the sub-menu after each program segment. Yeah... you can only play the programs segment-by-segment and not the whole thing. It's not a deal breaker but it *is* a bit annoying.

When I ordered the 60s volume 2 I took a look at the 70s and 80s ones. They hold no interest for me - but I'd also pretty much given up on Saturday AM fare by the early-mid 70s as it was starting to dumb-down a bit and the goody-goody parent groups were starting to change the cartoon landscape in a not good way.

I'm always a bit amused at the "Not suitable for children" disclaimers on the early (typically 60s) cartoon series sets. I'd *much* rather my grandkids watch those "Not suitable for children" early series than 99% of the junk being foisted upon kids today.

I've got to go against the grain and declare my love for Cowboy Bebop's Edward. I found her bizarre antics amusing and thought the series didn't overuse her.

This morning I watched a few episodes of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. I'm a huge fan of Scooby-Doo and his many iterations. These are not the greatest episodes, but they're fun and silly. However, the Dynomutt and Blue Falcon segments are not very good. Much of the humor falls flat for me.

I hope Adventure Time, Wonder Over Yonder, MLP: Friendship is Magic, Gravity Falls, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Steven Universe, The Amazing World of Gumball, Regular Show, Rick and Morty, Archer, Bob's Burgers, American Dad and The Venture Bros are all in the 1%.

I started tonight's animation marathon by finishing Prehistoric Predators. The final episode was a great movie about a dinosaur migration south from the North Pole to get away from the dark winter months.

I just finished The Wind Rises by Miyazaki and I have to say it is one of my favorites he's done. Very well made, beautiful to watch and I really didn't want it to end. Graceful and just...beautiful. If it truly is his last film, it does seem like he ended on a very high note.

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender, so, thematically, THE WIND RISES was a good choice. I chose to watch a live-action drama called JAPAN'S LONGEST DAY (1967), which dramatized the way the surrender was worked out by the cabinet ministers and the Emperor and the last-ditch coup attempt by fanatical officers to prevent the surrender and continue the war. Pretty damned harrowing. The whole process could have been derailed quite easily.

I had real problems with THE WIND RISES because of the way it glossed over the destruction caused by Jiro's invention. It was used to kill American soldiers and Asian civilians. And Jiro never seemed to consider this. As an American whose father would have been sent to Japan with the invasion force if Japan hadn't surrendered--and who might never have come back--I think I have a right to feel this way.

Here's an article by a Korean-American journalist that was quite critical of WIND RISES on this front:

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/the...-rises-6440390

Here are some quotes from it:

Except for some UFO documentaries on History Channel On Demand, today will be an animation day. I started early with Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special. It was a good story of the life and death of an Allosaurus, with some scientific knowledge in the last half of the show.

I've never had as big a problem as others getting upset about Japan not acknowledging as much as other countries say they should. It's not like US isn't doing the same thing with history books. I never really learned until recently about the US involvement with the Russian civil war where the US, Japan, and others sent troops over to fight.

I'm also not laying blame to the US, all countries have done bad things that they don't like to advertise.

Speaking of civil wars, I'm still enjoying Star Wars The Clone Wars. It looks like I'll be buying the rest of the series.

YouTube has a lot of The World of Commander McBragg shorts. I'm enjoying working my way through them. I just finished 'Ace of Aces'.

More "classics" for me yesterday. I started by watching 20 S1 "episodes" of The Mighty Hercules (1963). I was quite surprised that it mostly held up as it's a very limited animation production with a comic sidekick who takes precious screen time away from Hercules and the action. The "episodes" are ~5 minutes each with roughly 45 seconds taken up by the open/close theme. They really move quickly! But I can see why I was so attracted to this as a kid. The theme is great (I've actually found myself humming it at times over the decades) and the episodes, while short, are full of action and adventure. I don't recall just how this originally aired in my area - part of a larger program or if they just strung 4-5 of the shorts together as a half-hour program. I *think* I'd like to see more of the episodes (it had 128 episodes produced) but am happy with the single DVD that's available. The episodes look and sound pristine.

I followed that up with The Man Called Flinstone (1966), a theatrical feature that was somewhat a epiloge/finale to The Flintstones TV series. Other than the 6 songs which interrupted the action I really enjoyed the film. During one song they at least had the grace to slightly further the plot while it played, basically some Pink Panther/Roadrunner type antics with the villians who were following Fred, but the others really had nothing to do with the movie other than seemingly existing to get the running length to that of a feature. One featured Pebbles and Bam Bam who really made no appearances other than that song. I was somewhat disappointed that the "Slingshot-Shoe" and "Helicopter-Hat," so proudly highlighted on the back cover, only appeared during one of those throw-away songs. In spite of those gripes, it was a fun romp and nice way to end the series.

To be honest, I didn't realize that it was yesterday. I have seen a couple articles about the anniversary approaching, but didn't remember the exact day, so it was good timing, but totally unintentionally!

As for the other aspect, you're right. The war itself and what the planes actually did were kept in the background. As the movie went on, I did think about what destruction they caused. However, I did not think it odd that it was glossed over, myself. One, it is a Japanese movie and like The Man with the Golden Doujinshi said, it's fairly natural to skim over the undesirable details. Two, while not necessarily a children's movie, this is an animated one and very rarely do you see one NOT promoted for younger viewers. I wonder if he kept a lot of the actual war details out as not to get a higher rating? It already was a PG-13...

I tend to just take a movie on its own merit the first time I watch it, though, and then with multiple viewings see the faults and gaps. Perhaps I'll have a different view of it when watching it again.

This. I think you nailed it on the head of what I think as well. Having studied history, it really is something that is written by the winners. (Or losers as this case might be). Plus, this isn't a straight up biography, either, being a mix of Miyazaki's life and the real life engineer...

Though, I can definitely see why people would be upset about the lack of acknowledgment of the destruction caused. Japan does do that fairly often with some of the things they've caused/done.

I could never stand films that broke out into songs at times, when I was a kid. It just ended up being a time for me to stop paying attention. I can't think of why I didn't like it, other than I just wanted to keep watching a story and not wanting a music video in the middle of something I was enjoying.

I was that way as a kid and I'm still that way. I've come to tolerate musicals, some, and have developed a greater appreciation for the song/dance routines but I generally avoid the genre. I now watch musicals more *for* the song(s) rather than any plot that might be there as I'm still annoyed when the plot is interrupted. Don't even get me started on those which employ music to *further* the plot rather than just put that information in dialog. I'm not much of a lyrics guy (in spite of being a semi-professional vocalist) and tend to not give them much attention until I've heard something dozens of times (or more). Because of that I'll miss plot in such occasions.

While I probably won't get too far, as the challenge is half over, I just discovered that Netflix has the first two seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh. I always liked the original incarnation of the show the best, and just finished the first episode, 'The Heart of the Cards'.

One thing about insomnia. You can make good progress on Challenges. I've been up since midnight, about 4 hours, watching cartoons. Probably the reason I can't sleep is I'm excited. I have a doctor appointment today, which isn't what I'm happy about, but we're going to the zoo after my appointments. I haven't been to the zoo in years.

It's a little late, but I finally remembered the Bell Science series of films,
Our Mr. Sun (1956), The Strange Case Of The Cosmic Rays (1957), Hemo The Magnificent (1957), The Unchained Goddess (1958).

They're all still quite entertaining and since the science is so basic a lot of it is still accurate. The discs appear to be out of print, but still available for varying $$, and it looks like they're all streaming on youtube.

Germany offers a model of how to apologize and atone for past crimes and I wish Japan would have learned from them. (It got into WWII because of all the bad things it learned from Germany.) China, Korea, and other Asian nations are still angry at Japan for its wartime behavior in their countries. (Not that Communist China doesn't have a lot to answer for in its own right.) The U.S., at least, has a whole cottage industry of teachers, journalists and academics correcting the record on history and demanding various apologies and reparations from the government, some of which it has paid (e.g. Japanese-Americans who were held in internment camps). We're constantly berating ourselves for past sins, but we have a structure in place to correct those sins and move on. It's a constant process. Sometimes I think we go overboard in that direction.

I monitor news and media from Japan on a regular basis and I'm alarmed at the way they've whitewashed the war in their culture and portray themselves as victims. They've never sufficiently atoned for their crimes, to a degree where I sometimes wonder if it could ever happen again! And there's no cottage industry to tell the truth to young students there. So when Miyazaki, who commands the attention of young audiences, participates in the whitewash and romanticizes the creation of the Zero fighter jet, which killed a lot of my fellow countrymen, I get infuriated.

But the bad things aren't even close to showing up in US history books anytime soon. For a kid in school to learn about what people in history, or our country really did requires them to look outside of class. History books don't even hint the suggestion that there's a lot more bad to the story you're being taught and you can find out more by visiting your local library.

I don't get angry at them because it was a war. The average Japanese or German citizen isn't the one that said for the government to do what they did and I don't see a reason to get upset as some people do when someone gets mad that they don't apologize for what their country did, in some cases even before they were born. I know that's not what you're saying but I'm speaking of others that feel that way.

Other countries in the war were trying to improve their tech to kill more people, so it's not something limited to just one country. In our films, if there's something about a new plane or technology, it's not "we should be sad" it's "let's go kill some japs/nazis" and "we killed a bunch of japs/nazis good job".

My wife's grandfather was a farmer in Okinawa and was killed by Americans for no reason. Her mom would have absolutely nothing to do with me when we were dating. She would have to sneak me into the house and I still haven't met or seen her in person since I met my wife over 18 years ago.

I've been cursed at in a store by an old Japanese lady before and I've also not been allowed to go into certain businesses, like restaurants specifically because I was American.

That being said, I still haven't seen the cartoon that sparked this conversation but I think I have it on my list for the neverending challenge thing. I also get where you're coming from and I'm glad nobody is flipping out talking about this.

I will admit I have a negative view on China but that probably has something to do with being stationed in the area and the exercises we'd do. I also don't get freaked out the same way people in the US do over NK. If our media reported all the crap they were doing, the average housewife would probably be pooping herself. They were always finding their military gear on beaches because they'd frequently come over in their mini-subs and then there's the tunnels they dug under the DMZ.

The first time NK fired a rocket that went over Japan, we weren't put on any special alert. It was just another day with them doing something else.

This was a big reason why I was not much into Disney films growing up. I guess I have Trey Parker and Matt Stone to thank for appreciating musical movies as an adult.

That being said I have finally watched Frozen. I still notice the "breaking into song" moments but they don't take me out as much now -- strong singing performances definitely help. Beautiful animation and I appreciated the humor too ("Stay out of sight, Olaf!").

I picked a couple of Russian shorts for the checklist and I really liked Varezhka (The Mitten). Cute and clever and definitely worth a watch for the challenge.

I'm totally staying out of this "I hate musicals" conversation.

Wikipedia says Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (1980) (which, I've heard, focuses quite a but on "the bad things" in US history) "has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States," so I'm going to have to disagree with you. I do agree students should look outside of class for more info so they don't get a one-sided (either way) view.

To stay on the current topic, here's what Wikipedia says the book says about WWII:

I've been biting my tongue as well!

Over the weekend, I was pretty busy, but I did watch My Neighbor Totoro. The film expertly melds whimsical fantasy and listless normality. Mei also acts like a child, sidestepping the usual treacly, utterly unrealistic characterizations of many fictional kids. There's a scene in which she piles flowers on her father's desk, announces that he's the florist, and then runs off. It's a perfect kid moment.