toddly6666

NOTE: SPOILER WARNING TO END OF MOVIE


I just saw the Region 1 DVD anime of The Place Promised in Our Early Days. This movie is totally overrated, boring, and has the same typical vague storyline as most anime movies. I read perfect reviews of this film everywhere online, so I was expecting something good - but this movie is fair to boring. I can't believe they compare this director, Makoto Shinkai, to Miyazaki. Miyazaki is the greatest animation director because he not only has good animation, but he has clear well-written stories with uniqueness. The Place Promised in Our Early Days, along with anime movies such as Ghost in the Shell 2 or Jin-Roh, have good animation, but the stories are mish mosh nonsense. These anime directors think they are being unique by making vague, confusing, poorly paced movies. That's not how to be original. Just look at Miyazaki - he has simple stories, but with bizarreness. He's like an animated equivalent of Jeunet and Gilliam. These directors have bizarre movies with crazy interesting characters, but their movies are simple stories and easy to follow - like fairy tale writers. In turn, they end up making original movies.

As with Miyazaki films, the relationships in the movie are realistic and the audience can relate to it - his movies may have a Japanese flavor, but anyone can relate to them. In The Place Promised in our Early Days, the relationships in the movie are written in that juvenile unrealistic way, in which it seems like the writers never had a real relationship with friends or the opposite sex. Sure, on the surface it may look sweet and innocent, but it's unrelatable cheese. The movie has the typical anime ending as well - the famous atomic bombing climactic scene.

Anyone else think that this film was overrated?

Jah-Wren Ryel

How about using spoiler tags? That warning didn't stand out. I feel asleep in the middle of the movie and was going to watch it again to find out the ending.

One thing you can say - at least the ending didn't turn into a giant blob of proto-plasmic flesh and electronics like some other famous anime have ended with...

Josh Z

I haven't seen Place Promised yet. I can understand Ghost in the Shell 2 not being everyone's cup of tea, but I honestly can't recall anything confusing or "mish mosh nonsense" about Jin Roh.

Since you're discussing a Region 1 DVD, this thread really should be in the main DVDTalk forum.

toddly6666

Jin-Roh had that great red-eyed soldier design. But the story was just filler. It's no big deal that Jin-Roh had Little Red Riding Hood symbolism. Symbolism doesn't make the movie good. There should be something special in each scene of a movie. In Jin-Roh, the only special moments were when the red-eyed soldier scenes showed up. All the other scenes were slow, poorly-paced filler, the same goes for Ghost in the Shell 2 for example. I notice in a lot of anime movies that the director has a vision of an awesome opening scene and an awesome climactic scene, but when it comes to the meat and middle of the story, they seem lost and have no idea what to do.

On the other hand, Miyazaki does not waste one scene in the majority of movies. This is why his movies are so special. The majority of his movies may be marketed for children on the surface, but his films have so much charm and depth that they are masterpieces for all ages. I'm totally into action and violent films, but I would rather watch a non-villain/non-violent Miyazaki film than a typical anime movie with loads of villains and violence created for adults.

RichC2

Curious, you ever seen Now and Then, Here and There? Isn't a movie, but plays out like one just the same.

Agreeably, I am not a big fan of a lot of anime movies - they do tend to meander through a large chunk of their runtimes. There are numerous exceptions, but I'm going off a lot of stuff I've seen that has been recommended in one form or another.

I do support the 13-episode anime series though. They generally tell a tightly scripted storyline with great, well-developed characters with little to no filler (Now and Then, Here and There.. Serial Experiments Lain).

Josh Z

That "poorly-paced filler" is called character development.

This isn't worth arguing about. These are just different types of movies, and obviously Mamoru Oshii's style doesn't appeal to you. To each their own.

Richard Malloy

I haven't seen "The Place Promised...", but given that I like both Miyazaki and Oshii, and consider them both to be brilliant in very different ways, I find your distinguishing between the two to be less than instructive. And your characterization of Miyazaki's narratives as clear and simple - simplistic? - may be true of some of his early works, but there's an emotional and thematic complexity to his later films that defies any easy distillation. "Howl's" is such a shaggy dog of a tale, I'm not sure how anyone can define its narrative as either "clear" or "simple". I certainly appreciate the child-like wonder and defiance of logic in Miyazaki's films, the similarities to fables and faery tales, but this is his style and certainly not the only "proper" form of anime.

And your dismissal of Oshii as vague and confusing is more of an admission of your own ignorance than an apt critique of his work. "Ghost in the Shell 2", in particular, is one of the few animes that doesn't take its hifalutin subject matter as just so much broadcloth upon which to tack a typical and pedestrian story. It so far surpasses nearly everything in the genre as to be nearly apart from the genre entirely. Mish mosh nonsense? Hardly. Perhaps the only anime that not only bears allusions to Hans Belmer, Raymond Roussel, Milton, etc., but which alludes to such figures intelligently. No mere name-checking, but elements of their art or philosophy that provides a fascinating counterpoint to the plot. It's a truly rare beast: an anime that purports to be insightful about its subject matter and conscious of its philosophic/artistic forebears and actually is.

toddly6666

JOSH Z,
I agree with you it's character development, but it's poorly written character development. Character development usually causes one to care about the characters or just feel some type of emotion. The result for the main girl and the main male character at the end of Jin-Roh brings no emotion or care whatsoever. That's cool that you had a better experience watching it. I still liked Jin-Roh though - it just had a lot of filler. I have nothing against Oshii - I loved Ghost in the Shell 1, Avalon, and Blood the Last Vampire. Avalon could fall into my same argument with the filler, it's just that I love Avalon and it's one of my favorite sci-fi films, regardless of it being poorly reviewed by most critics...

RICHARD MALLOY:
I'm basically a fan of well-written stories - whether it be bizarre or simple. The Place Promised, Ghost in the Shell 2 and Kar Wai Wong movies are simply painful to me. I don't have the patience or appreciation for that kind of filmmaking. But a lot of people love it, especially more intelligent people. So to me it's filler. A smarter person can see through the filler and interpret those scenes as entertaining, amazing and deep.
Howl's Moving Castle is another masterpiece by Miyazaki. There is nothing confusing about the story, because the director knows how to write and in the case of Howl's, he knows how to adapt a novel as well. There is a difference with being vague/confusing and bizarre. I prefer the bizarre.

Josh Z

Try telling that to my wife.

toddly6666

Josh Z, haha - I can't even get my wife to watch any Asian movies. The last two Asian movies she saw was Memoirs of a Geisha (which doesn't even count as an Asian movie) and before that it was Stormriders, which she liked more than I did. I tried to get her to watch Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Croutching Tiger, but no luck...

Josh Z

My wife will watch live action Asian films, and she has no problem with American animation, but she's got a serious hang-up about anime. I talked her into this one and (since I'd already seen it before) thought it would be Western-friendly enough for her. I mean, it's not like it's one of those big boobed teenage girls piloting giant robots type of anime that I know she doesn't like. But man, she just HATED it like she's hated few movies ever before.

She still complains about it. Whenever I suggest a movie to go see, she comes back with, "I sat through that godawful Howl's Moving Castle with you. You're never allowed to pick the movie again!"

RichC2

You should rebuke with the next horrible movie she picks, but then that'd be war.

Howl's isn't exactly the most accessible of Miyazaki's films. The narrative isn't the clearest, and it is pretty odd, but then all Miyazaki's films are "odd" in the sense that they're completely imaginative.

Shoulda tried My Neighbor Totoro