Blandin - Ah! My Goddess

Image taken from feed92.photobucket.com

For Thanksgiving break, the feature film was the movie adaptation of Ah! My Goddess. The title had seemed oddly familiar to me yet I never watched the anime series this film is adapted from. I may actually look into though once I get some free time to do so. The film is very enjoyable and makes women feel important, while having men respect that rather than feeling like the weaker gender in comparison to strong women.

Image taken from myreviewer.com

The relationship of a power woman with an ordinary man is shown thoroughly in this film. Keiichi is an ordinary college student and the goddess Belldandy came to him one day granting him one wish. Ever since then, the two have been together, presumably inseparable just from the way their friends would speak of the two and the photographs shown in the album Belldandy stumbled upon. Regardless, most men would feel weak in his situation. Keiichi instead embraces his relationship with Belldandy with everything BUT negativity. He only has positive attitudes toward her, and she does the same in return to him. They have a strong bond together and he feels completely at ease with her. He trusts her fully. This is easily displayed when he lets the “amnesia” Belldandy do a test race with him. They succeed of course and more of her memories return. Their trust and love for each other is also tested at the end of the movie when they walk through the Gate of Judgment and pass through unharmed, something no other couple has been able to do prior to them. It shows they have a bond unknown by most, but pure at heart.

Image taken from karmaburn.com

Image taken from mania.com

With all relationships, jealousy does occur. Keiichi is not a bad guy, he was just set up and the situation looked bad because only pieces of the information where gathered. He discovered Morgan wounded at the Motor Club house and insisted he help take care of the injury. After patching her up she comes onto him and forcibly kisses him. Belldandy oversees this and runs off upset. Obviously this hurts her because she cares so deeply about him even after all the trouble she caused. Because of how she felt upon viewing the kiss she agrees without much hesitation to go through with the risky vaccine that may wipe her memories completely of Keiichi and all her friends. The two overcome this issue and reassured of Keiichi’s love despite the risk of her becoming a “blank slate” she goes through with the vaccine. It all goes haywire and both become pawns in this crazy virus scheme but they make it through in the end.

Image taken from ioffer.com

The movie was rather hard to follow and the book didn’t really help other than pointing out how women are in most anime. It explains the bond between the goddesses and the relationship between Belldandy and Keiichi but I do not get much else from it. The chapter in Samurai from Outer Space did give me insight as to why women are so prominent in anime, which was something I had wondered about for a while, but it did not help me understand the film better.

Overall, Ah! My Goddess: The Movie was enjoyable to watch, in fact I watched it with my boyfriend which made it even more enjoyable considering we usually comment about what’s going on during the movies/films. These comments usually help me come up with questions I may have about the films. The film was nicely done and conveys a strong message about trust and love. It is definitely a film that ends on a POSITIVE NOTE! Not all Japanese anime ends badly ya know. This isn’t the first time I came across this, but it lets me know not all things end badly.

Blandin - Princess Mononoke

Image taken from allpoetry.com

The film of the week was Princess Mononoke, which is the 2^nd Studio Ghibli film we have watched this semester. I’m not new to the Studio Ghibli style so without being told I was able to tell both this film and Grave of the Fireflies were from that studio. The first film I ever watched from them was Kiki’s Delivery Service and not so many ever since so I was not aware as to the wide variety of topics that are covered in their films. I thought it was mostly films aimed toward children… but after watching these two it seems to be more toward older kids.

Image taken from www3.arts.umich.edu

Regardless, this film actually had me thinking of Ferngully and Avatar while watching it because of the protection of nature theme. This film portrays more than just the beauty of nature; it exhibits the good and evil within everything, humans and animals alike. The main character, Ashitaka is given a curse of hatred from a demonized boar, though this character is not full of hatred, he does display evil from his curse and the fact others were killed on his journey in the process of protecting animals and people. Overall he is a GOOD character. He cares about everyone and tries his best to prevent hatred and spite. The people of Iron Town (mainly officials) nearly killed him yet he still helped them in the movie anyway when they were in grave danger due to the Forest Spirit’s rampage when searching for its head.  Or When Princess Mononoke (San) attacked him or shunned him various times, he still did what he could to rescue her from harm’s way. This eventually paid off though because she grew to trust him.

Image taken from freeforpsp.com

Lady Eboshi is another prime example of good and evil. Overall she seems to be a really good person. She took in lepers and prostitutes and treats them like normal people, not outcasts. She gave them jobs, food, and shelter. She is a caring leader to her entire town, but she is the main reason why the forest is distraught. Iron Town has been cutting down trees and mining resources to make their iron weapons. Any animals taken by gunshot become demonized as well. This was the case with the boar that cursed Ashitaka and what explains the iron lump found from its remains. He weapons bring darkness to the forest and even her own town. Due to her shooting off the Forest Spirit’s head, the entire forest died and Iron Town was destroyed. However at the end of the film when all the chaos was over, she seems to have learned a lesson from it all and wanted to thank Ashitaka for everything.

Image taken from absoluteanime.com

I think Princess Mononoke is an interesting film, not only does it teach you about the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, but it ALSO gives you a better appreciation for nature overall. At least that is how I felt after watching this film, although I had a great respect for nature prior to watching it.