Watchlist: all Ghibli movies

[riji]

When I was teaching piano a few days ago, I heard someone playing a familiar piece in the room next to mine. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn't figure out what it was. It took me like 5-10 mins to finally figure it out. (I tried to remember it during the lesson lol) It was Joe Hisaishi's One Summer's Day from Spirited Away. Ahhh... I love that piece. I can't believe I couldn't recognize it right away. Maybe it's because I haven't listened to it in a very long time. So I listened to it on youtube when I got home. I have this habit of scrolling the comments when a youtube video only has audio. So I read the comments while I hummed along to the tunes, and I was so surprised to find out that the Spirited Away's animator died last May. I didn't know how I missed this news, but it was so sad. Spirited Away is one of my favorite animated movies. The animation is so beautiful, especially the one where Chihiro was going to the sixth station. It's A+, and forever my favorite. And apparently she was also the animator of some other Ghibli movies. Since all Ghibli movies have gorgeous animations, I believe this is such a huge loss, for them and also for us.

I actually haven't watched a lot of Ghibli movies. I know, it's a shame. I've only ever watched Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Ponyo. And I only got to watch Ponyo few years ago, when the kid I babysat was watching it. I blame my parents for not introducing me to more Ghibli movies. They only made me watch Disney movies. While Disney is also great, it's not the same as Ghibli. Ghibli has better stories and animations. I like that the stories revolve around a little girl and there's no romance involved. Meanwhile, Disney loves princess stories. It's always about a princess falling in love with a prince. Like Danny from The Mindy Project said, they wouldn't even have a story without their princes (except for maybe like 2-3 of them). I like Pixar movies tho. When I was in middle school, my older brother told me to just watch Pixar movies because their movies always have good storylines unlike the other Disney studios. And I think he's right.

I've been seeing a lot of Ghibli posts on tumblr. Almost all of them seem so sad and/or hit too close to home. So I intend to watch every one of them. I'm thinking of starting with Hayao Miyazaki's movies first. (Btw, I'm still not over his retirement) I have Howl's Moving Castle downloaded, but I haven't got a chance to watch it. I'm so surprised that KimuTaku is one of the voice actors. Because when I was reading the wikipedia pages of Ghibli movies, I didn't recognize any of the voice actors, except a very few of them. But I really didn't expect to see KimuTaku's name there. I guess it's because the image of him as a drama king is still so strong in my head lol. Anyway, I'm not sure when I'm gonna finish this watchlist. They have a total of 20-ish movies. So I still have a long long way to go.

Comments

[riji]

Nah, kpop is definitely way more popular. It's being talked about here on tv from time to time. And a lot of people even hate the word kpop when it's only mentioned. I'm so tired of seeing kpop fans fighting with everyone on Twitter and YouTube. Manga and anime are surely popular, but generally many people still don't know about them. And don't even talk about jpop. Even some of my friends (who are Asians and following a lot of Asian cultures) don't even know much about jpop. Same goes to jdrama. Kdrama is so mainstream that it's really easy to get the subs. Meanwhile we still rely on fansubs for jdramas (and Japanese variety shows too).

I actually find it funny that they always find it hard to believe that they're popular outside Japan lol.

[sweetmaryz.livejournal.com]

Babymetal begs to differ. Just kidding XD One Ok Rock is quite popular. Katy Perry liked Kyary Pamyu Pamyu :P

I'm talking about in the broad sense the culture. The music Kpop is more popular in niche, but Japanese culture is more known with the general public imo. We have many Japanese and Chinese restaurants. But no Korean. I can buy more easily Japanese and Chinese Movies DVD. People who looks into bookstore may have a clue what it's mangá = comics. Talking about people who spend hours inside one. I do have a couple of Korean movies in dvd.

Ask about famous asian actors/actress people will say Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Lucy Liu... no Korean. Books? I can only find here Japanese or Chinese writers. And North Koreans writers talking about escaping the country. I'm talking about my perspective in not an asian country in a city with no asian.

The thing is with Jpop you have to know where to look. People are way more scared with copyright. And Japan never cared to get bigger 'cause they don't need and the other... Kpop subs is with the mainstream. I don't think people care about indies, the krock. The Jpop 48/46 and Johnnies have some subs they're the mainstream ones. Unfortunately solo singers are ignored. Subs from drama I don't follow because I'm lazy in watching hahahaha either way it doesn't matter I'm happy that Jpop is smaller because no stupid fights. Some Kpop fans can be tiresome. I prefer this way lol

I know why are they always surprised? They need to travel more lol