This weekend we’ll be showing Porco Rosso, Miyazaki’s story of a snouted World War One flying ace in a fascist Italy. Even amongst Miyazaki’s films this is a standout for beauty and characters, with a more than solid story to boot. With adventure, comedy, and even romance, this is the best movie we haven’t shown in years. Hope to see you there: 7PM Saturday, Barus & Holley 190.
The end of semester marathon will be this Saturday, beginning at two and with one hour break starting at six, running until almost one in the morning. We’ll be in the usual room, Barus & Holley 190. Here’s the schedule:
2PM Princess Mononoke
4PM Vampire Princess Miyu OVA
6PM Dinner Break
7PM Five Centimeters per Second
8PM Voices of a Distant Star
8:30PM Hellsing Ultimate I & II
10PM Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episodes 1-3
11:30PM Perfect Blue
Summaries:
Princes Mononoke
Vampire Princess Miyu
Five Centimeters per Second
The movie is named 5 Centimeters Per Second for the speed at which cherry blossom petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways.
Voices of a Distant Star
Hellsing Ultimate
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Perfect Blue
This weekend we’ll be showing ゲド戦記 (Gedo Senki), or Tales from Earthsea, the first film directed by Miyazaki’s son, based on the books by Ursula Le Guin. For those unfamiliar, Earthsea is a fantastical archipelago with wizards and dragons in abundance. It’s genuine Ghibli quality and should be a good show. Usual time, usual place: Saturday, 7PM, B&H 190.
This movie will be our last regular showing of the semester; with exams starting up, we’ll be having our end of semester marathon on the eighth (next Saturday). The marathon will run about twelve hours, so we’ll be picking what to show at a meal before the showing this Saturday (the first). Anyone interested should contact myself (polm@brown.edu) or one of the other officers; the meal is casual, we meet at around noon and stroll down to Tokyo on Wickenden Street for a good, reasonably priced meal.
Hope to see you Saturday; don’t let finals get you down!
Our showing today will be another arc of HIgurashi no Naku Koro ni, specifically the answer arc to last week’s question arc. Don’t let the names fool you; this is the same story from another angle, and while it goes nicely with the last showing’s material you won’t be lost or confused without it.
For those of you who didn’t come last week, in an arc of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni you can expect several episodes of lighthearted highschool comedy, and then they start killing people and talking about cannibalism. Good stuff.
Hey everybody! Sorry for the short notice, but today we’ll be showing an arc from Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (When the Cicadas Cry), a show about a sleepy little country town full of mystery and horrible, horrible murder. Based on a PC game, the series is divided into a number of independent arcs in which they central mystery of the town unfolds in different ways. Definitely one not to miss, we hope to see you at the regular Barus & Holley 190 at 7PM.
Happy Halloween, I hope Parent’s Weekend treated everybody well.
In honor of the season, we will be screening Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust at 7PM this Saturday, as always in Barus & Holley 190. Halloween costumes are encouraged, and candy will be served!
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000) is an anime adaptation of the Vampire Hunter D novels by Japanese Horror author Hideyuki Kikuchi. Featuring a great voice cast, a satisfying story, and character designs by renowned artist Yoshitaka Amano, Bloodlust is a modern classic. It is a sequel to the well-regarded 1985 Vampire Hunter D, one of the earliest anime films to gain exposure in America. From the box cover:
The half-blood vampire hunter known only as D has been hired to track down Meier Link, a notoriously powerful vampire who has abducted a human woman, Charlotte Elbourne. D’s orders are strict - find Charlotte, at any cost. For the first time, D faces serious competition. The Markus brothers, a family of vampire hunters, are pursuing the same bounty. D must intercept Meier and conquer hostile forces on all sides in a deadly race against time. Despised by vampires for his profession and by humans for the blood in his veins, D relentlessly pursues his prey–for a price.
Due to Parent’s Weekend events, there will be no Anime Society screening this week. Please enjoy the weekend, gear up for Halloween, and we will rejoin you afterwards. (If anybody is doing Anime-related costumes, you are encouraged to wear them to next week’s showing!)
Not to completely abandon you, here’s a plug for a related event that is going to spot some anime-style work among other animations:
Attack of the Short-Form Animation
Technology House “War Room” Basement Lounge,
7PM TODAY (Thursday 10/25)
Technology House’s Movie of the Week group will be screening a series of animated shorts, featuring classics like Pixar’s amazing Geri’s Game and spotlighting hidden masterpieces like Bambi Meets Godzilla. See you there!
(Some Studio 4C and Makoto Shinkai work will likely be screened)
This week we’re breaking from the movies to give you a sampler of some recent shows.
We’ll start off with a short sampler of advertisements for shows just beginning their run in Japan right now. Most of these only have one or two episodes out, and these ads will *not* be subtitled, but as they’re no longer than two minutes a piece they should give you a good idea of whether you’d be interested in the show. All together this will take less than fifteen minutes.
After that we’ll have the first episodes of some very interesting shows from the last two years, and the first episode of one of the series starting this season:
Hayate the Combat Butler, in which a poor boy luckily lands the job of… somebody’s dreams. Features soul-searching with Santa.
Bartender, where a handy barman hears the stories of the lost souls that wander into his bar and always manages to mix just what the doctor ordered.
Welcome to the NHK, pictured, starring a paranoid shut-in and featuring conversations with household appliances.
Rental Magica, a brand-new show about a rent-a-wizard company that looks very promising.
Usual time, usual place: Barus & Holley 190, 7PM Saturday. See you there!
The Anime Society is trying to raise money by selling off some of the more dubious acquisitions of our previous president, Herr Graf von Maschinenwald, and we’re starting with this five-story, three-bed two-bath mobile castle. A charming, unique dwelling from architect Hayao Miyazaki (with a nod to Terry Gilliam) that’s sure to impress your friends and optionally compress your enemies, this is a great buy for anyone looking for a new home, even if it is rather high-maintenance. Come to the usual time, usual place (B&H190, 7PM Sat.) to get a look at this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
(We’re showing Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s won lots of awards and everybody likes it. See you there.)
TekkonKinkreet
Barus & Holley 190, 7PM This Saturday (10/6)
This week we are screening a brand new addition to our library called Tekkonkinkreet, released on DVD last week after a limited US theater run. Created by Studio 4°Celsius, it is the first mainstream Japanese anime release to be directed by an American. Studio 4°C is one of the most visually inventive animation production houses in the world, and is responsible for past Anime Society favorites such as Memories, Sweat Punch, and one of the best Animatrix shorts, as well as the 2004 movie Mind Game. The animation is like nothing you’ve seen before, the film is beautiful. See you on Saturday!
From Anime News Network:
Black and White are two orphans who roam the streets of Treasure Town, beating down any thug or yakuza who gets in their way. When mysterious foreign entrepreneurs appear with the intention of tearing down Treasure Town and replacing it with an amusement park, Black and White face their greatest adversaries yet. It is up to the destructive Black to save the fate of the city and up to the gentle White to save Black from his own dark nature.