Chihiro complaints

[M Arnold]

I watched some of the Chihiro DVD and surely enough there is a very strong
orange-reddish tint.  White clouds and eyes etc. come out as a orangish-
pinkish color.  I saw the same thing when I looked at the samples playing on
TV sets at Yodobashi Camera, Tsutaya, and other shops a couple of days ago.
The owner at my local coffee shop even mentioned it.  Compliants have been
sprouting up on the net, but I haven't heard any response from the studio
about this yet.  This seems like it would be a huge problem considering how
many of the discs are being sold.

I went to see Neko no Ongaeshi a few days ago.  In some ways I thought it
held together better (well, made more sense) than Sen to Chihiro.  There
were a few lines of dialogue in the film that sounded like they were trying
to play on the "weak modern girl regains here energy in life" theme that
last year's film used, but again it wasn't clear that the girl was in any
trouble to begin with.  One of the essays in the pamphlet says that the
protagonist Haru is the kind of average high school student you can find
anywhere, but to me that sounded a little like wishful thinking.  The film
borrowed a lot from the old Toei Doga Puss in Boots (as many of the
Miyazaki/Ghibli films do) but it was fun to watch.  It doesn't seem to be
getting such a big release though--I could only find about 6 or 7 theaters
in Shinjuku and Shibuya playing it.

Michael Arnold