Narutaru Ch. 4-5 — New Friends and Enemies

Narutaru,

Ch. 4 Summary: Shiina encounters Akira at her family’s restaurant. Akira shows Shiina her dragon child, and they become friends.

Ch. 5 Summary: Shiina and Akira go to investigate what is happening to Shiina’s father’s company. They are attacked by a mysterious boy.

Setting the Mood

I want to point out how, even while showing cutesy and peaceful scenes there’s a deeply disturbing undercurrent to Kitoh’s work.

First, consider the scene where Shiina is napping and Hoshimaru puts the blanket over her. An innocent, idyllic scene. Right?

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Then Hoshimaru extends his arm and mercilessly squashes a mosquito. He doesn’t even blink an eye. Continue reading Narutaru Ch. 4-5 — New Friends and Enemies →

Narutaru Ch. 3 — Refusing to Play the Game

Narutaru,

Ch. 3 Summary: Shiina makes breakfast for her father, and discusses what happened on the plane. Shiina hides everything about Hoshimaru and the fact that she saw Otohime. After breakfast, Shiina attends a sword-fighting class where she meets Akira, a shy and awkward girl. Akira doesn’t want to hit people, doesn’t want to win, and doesn’t want to lose. Shiina befriends Akira, but Akira runs away when she sees Hoshimaru after practice. At home, she puts a blade to her wrist but doesn’t cut herself. She opens a box that holds a creature similar to Hoshimaru.

Trust

While Shiina and her father are having their family pow-wow over breakfast, Shiina asks her dad if he believes her about the monster. He says that he does. Then he asks her if she saw the princess, and Shiina denies it. This denial is all the more pronounced because of what we see in the next frame:

narutaru_02_03_7 Continue reading Narutaru Ch. 3 — Refusing to Play the Game →

The Dreamer’s Journey: A ‘The Wind Rises’ Review

Reviews,

Hey guys— joshspeagle here from Chromatic Aberration Everywhere. Like Myna, I’m a guest blogger here, who decided to answer the call a while back. This is my first attempt at doing this sort of thing, so hopefully it turned out well!

Introduction

I’m currently spending my summer in Japan, which means that I managed to go see Miyazaki’s new movie – Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) – in theaters last week, along with Otomo Katsuhiro’s (the Akira guy) new film Short Peace. As Kylaran from Behind the Nihon Review has already done a pretty good review of Short Peace (although I think it’s a bit too harsh), I’ll be focusing on reviewing Miyazaki’s film here. Let me say right up front that both movies are good and worth your time. I really enjoyed both of them, and regardless of whether you’re looking for something “deep” both movies are well-done and fun to watch. I also want to point out that I’ve only taken a year of Japanese, and therefore spent most of both movies piecing together the dialogue and events from context, so my impressions might be totally off. Even given this, I still really enjoyed both movies.

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Anyways, onto The Wind Rises. Continue reading The Dreamer’s Journey: A ‘The Wind Rises’ Review →