{"id":4801,"date":"2020-09-06T14:29:26","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T18:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/?p=4801"},"modified":"2021-08-09T17:35:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T21:35:58","slug":"michaelc-journal-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/michaelc-journal-1\/","title":{"rendered":"MichaelC – Journal 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Name two aspects of Princess Mononoke which you feel are particularly successful (or not), and explain how and why they work (or don\u2019t). Use one full paragraph for each. Try to focus on aspects that might be particular to anime if you can.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One aspect I find very successful about the movie is the setting\/lore of the mystical\/spiritual\/godly forces at play throughout the film.\u00a0 However, one thing I found did not work so well was the voice acting\/dubbing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To me, the reason why the setting and lore of the film worked so well was because the audience didn’t have many answers to why things are happening.\u00a0 For example, we don’t know about the curse at first, or San, or spirits in the forest.\u00a0 It is all something that we have to learn as we go through the movie.\u00a0 This allows for a deeper interest and curiosity as to how the world has been built and what resides in it.\u00a0 It is not anywhere close to realistic which helps to work off of the viewers unknowns.\u00a0 The sequence that stands out to me is the opening one where Ashitaka fights the demon boar.\u00a0 It is the first thing that happens so the viewer has no idea about the setting, mystical forces and such in a similar way to the characters.\u00a0 They don’t know much about this boar, only that it is cursed and it has infected Ashitaka.\u00a0 Things brings a connection between the viewer and the characters in that they are both trying to figure out how to get rid of this curse together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Personally, I felt that the voice acting was sometimes distracting.\u00a0 This is an unavoidable fault to the film as it is dubbed over with English voice actors.\u00a0 Generally the actual voices were fine, but the mouth’s not matching to the words being said was something I could not move past and ignore.\u00a0 As someone who as done video animation with characters speaking and mouth movements it is just something I pull focus to.\u00a0 Also, most of the voice actors did a great job with delivering their lines.\u00a0 However, Ashitaka’s voice actor had some personal faults.\u00a0 During action where he was projecting his voice loudly I felt that it worked very well.\u00a0 However, when he was speaking quietly and in an almost whisper, it just felt weird and forced.\u00a0 I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why but it is something that I subconsciously felt was off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

2. Reflect on the Princess Mononoke analysis. List two techniques or choices that you would consider using in your own anime story. \u00a0Explain how they work and why they interest you. Two short paragraphs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To me, theme is always the most important aspect in story telling and I felt that Princess Mononoke did a great job with it.\u00a0 The reason why I think it worked so well is because it is an easy to grasp theme that transcended more characters than just the main one.\u00a0 All things throughout each act tied in and never lost focus while still being able to stay fresh and not beaten to death.\u00a0 Not only was the theme of seeing peace through the unclouded hatred sprinkled throughout each character and action, but it was also the goal of the film.\u00a0 To cleanse the curse Ashitaka had to literally understand the theme of the film and live by it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another technique\/choice that I felt worked very well was the fact that there was no set “big bad” for the hero to overcome.\u00a0 There were many problems Ashitaka had to overcome throughout the story, mainly the curse as it was the driving plot point.\u00a0 However, each character had a sense of good and evil inside of them.\u00a0 Nobody was black and white purely good and purely evil which helps to add sympathy and understand characters motivations.\u00a0 Generally what makes a good villain\/antagonist is someone who believes they are the hero and have true motivations, even if they aren’t the right thing to do.\u00a0 This is something I strive to achieve when creating stories as they are always the most compelling personally to me.\u00a0 Even though I love the heroes of the stories, I also love a good villain with depth, mystery, and who I understand where they are coming from.<\/p>\n

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3. What parallels do you see if any between the \u201cwar\u201d in Princess Mononoke and in our own country at the moment. \u00a0Does the film offer any advice that might be helpful to us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest parallel I draw from the movie and our current climate is the polarization of both sides of an argument.\u00a0 The war on nature is something that humans have been fighting for a long time.\u00a0 However, it is truly coming to a head recently as our actions are creating many issues.\u00a0 As in Princess Mononoke, there are people who want to disregard nature in order to maximize the benefit for humans, while there are also those who want to preserve nature and work around the issues that could be solved by taking the resources, demolishing, or whatnot.\u00a0 The biggest advice the film seems to offer is that there are middle grounds to each side where both can succeed.\u00a0 We don’t want to destroy nature because without it horrible things can happen to the balance of the world, but we also want to succeed as a species and sometimes we need what nature has in order to do that.\u00a0 However, there is always a balance and middle ground where both parties can leave satisfied.\u00a0 We don’t need to destroy the “spirits” (nature) just to get the iron underneath the forest.\u00a0 However, there are work arounds to where maybe that iron can be taken in a more safe and precocious way, or maybe there is another solution entirely.<\/p>\n

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1. Name two aspects of Princess Mononoke which you feel are particularly successful (or not), and explain how and why they work (or don\u2019t). Use one full paragraph for each. Try to focus on aspects that might be particular to anime if you can. One…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[99,79],"class_list":["post-4801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-fall2020","tag-journal-1"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pahVGy-1fr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4849,"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions\/4849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jolineblais.net\/nmd343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}