The most important japanese animation films

[A.M. Nornes]

The television program I mentioned yesterday was preempted by a mind-numbing
live broadcast of the bus hijacking (the NHK announcer never left his two
page script for about an hour....we kept checking to see if they'd attack
the bus just to end his parroting, but the kidotai waited until 5 this
morning).

There is another program on tonight at 9:00, NHK-G, on Miyazaki and young
people.

By the way, I just saw the Japanese subtitled version of the American
version of Mononokehime. It is being released along with a 15-20 minutes
documentary on Miyazaki's junket to the Canadian and American premiers
(there was also a lengthier documentary about a month ago about the same
thing). Things I found curious:

----Why release it? Well, I suppose it's both the curiosity of seeing the
film in English and the star quality of some of the voice actors, mixed with
a dose of nationalism (anime conquering Hollywood).

----No one left the theater until the long credits were over. Enjoying the
music?

----The subtitles felt minimal, what they sometimes call "thin subs." Very
short, to the point, easy to read, and a fair number of furigana for the
difficult words. I noticed an Asahi Shinbun article that said many of the
people who have seen this version say, "Ah, _now_ I get it!" The double
translation simplified the plot so that it's easier to consume. I'm curious
to find out how exactly that happened!

----Studio Ghibli is selling a fairly thick program on the film's reception
abroad. It's quite interesting, and includes things like the American
(English) press kit, a list of American articles with annotations indicating
thumbs up/down/# of stars, etc. etc.

Gotta go,

Markus