Nihon Chinbotsu

[Eija Niskanen]

I am now reading the 4th part of the Le Guin novels, Tehanu, and it
seems that the film picks up Arren and Gedo from book 3, The Farthest
Shore, and Therru from book 4: Tehanu. Arren and Therru's character
design look very much like the boy and girl in Shuna no tabi,
including Therru's hairdo.

I agree with Michael Arnold that the pacing of Gedo senki is better
than that of Howl - I liked the peaceful scene where Therru just
sings. On the other hand the motivations for the characters' actions
are a bit hard to understand. This applies for ex.  to how Arren
starts his journey.

Toki o kakeru shojo is a simple and delightful shojo anime with the
the main character coming up with a unique way of solving her teen
relationship problems. It manages with the story and the character
believability well, probably because the director is not tackling such
philosophical themes as the Le Guin original, but stays on the level
of everyday psychology. I haven't seen the previous movie version,
though. The director of this anime version, Mamoru Hosoda, was
supposed to direct Howl's Moving Castle, but did not. Anybody know
what happened?

Eija

On 8/17/06, M Arnold <ma_iku at hotmail.com> wrote:
> From: "Aaron Gerow" <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
> > It's Gedo senki. It's based on LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy and the character
> > Ged.
>
> I was (barely) able to catch this in the theater before I flew out last
> week. As expected it's full of elements from other Ghibli, Toei Doga, and
> Miyazaki (Sr.) films and it has a fairly opaque narrative, but the pacing
> and visuals are not nearly as chaotic as they are in something like Howl,
> and the animation in a few scenes is outstanding. I hope we can see more
> from Miyazaki Jr. in the future.
>
> As Aaron mentioned, the film is, or is supposed to be, based on Le Guin's
> Earthsea series, in particular the third and fourth books, The Farthest
> Shore and Tehanu. (It looks like there are actually six books in total.) I
> picked up a used copy of The Farthest Shore and read it over a couple of
> coffees and beers last weekend, and I had some difficulty finding the
> similarities. Apparently Le Guin had a little trouble with the film herself.
> She posted a message about it on her web site.
>
> http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html
>
> Here's a sample:
>
> "Much of it was, I thought, incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to
> find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different
> story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but
> with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.
>
> "Of course a movie shouldn't try to follow a novel exactly - they're
> different arts, very different forms of narrative. There may have to be
> massive changes. But it is reasonable to expect some fidelity to the
> characters and general story in a film named for and said to be based on
> books that have been in print for 40 years.
>
> "Both the American and the Japanese film-makers treated these books as mines
> for names and a few concepts, taking bits and pieces out of context, and
> replacing the story/ies with an entirely different plot, lacking in
> coherence and consistency. I wonder at the disrespect shown not only to the
> books but to their readers."
>
> The film credits list Miyazaki Hayao's 1983 picture book Shuna no tabi as
> gen'an. A short essay in the pamphlet says that Gedo senki was inspired both
> by Miyazaki's book and Paul Grimault's Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the
> Mockingbird, 1980) which Ghibli recently rereleased in Japan and is now
> promoting. The same essay quotes director Goro saying that he got the "heart
> and body" of the film from Le Guin, and the "bones" from Miyazaki Hayao.
>
> The other two big anime films in Tokyo theaters now (or just ending) are
> also based on books: Brave Story and Kadokawa's anime remake of Toki o
> kakeru shojo. I hear the latter is packing theaters (the few it's playing
> in) and getting rave reviews.
>
> Michael Arnold
>
>