I’ve posted my excuses and rationalizations for downloading elsewhere; no need to re-hash. I just grabbed torrents for Shingu, Firefly, and (to my shame) Gedo Senki – the latter on a tip from Don.
I’ve also finished a first run through The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and frankly, it ranks up there with Sugar, Someday’s Dreamers, and Haibane Renmei on my list of favorites. However I had a lot of trouble with the subtitles scrolling off the screen in VLC, any help in managing the subtitle display would be appreciated. I want to do a second run through and snag some screen shots this time around.
I predict you won’t have quite the same ecstatic reaction to “Gedo senki” as you did to TGWLTT. Our copy of the Japanese DVD arrived this week. Let me say this — if you are a fan of LeGuin’s Earthsea books, try to forget you ever read them. Goro Miyazaki has jettisoned almost everything distinctive from her stories and Mmostly) created a pastiche of previous Ghibli hits.
I have low expectations, Mike – I was initially excited about Gedo Senki, but it became clear in numerous reviews that it wasn’t what we wanted, as fans of Earthsea. I’m just grabbing it for… completeness? dunno. Maybe I’ll use it as an excuse to reread the books afterwards. It’s been a long time and I barely recall most of it apart from the major characters.
I can’t imagine Hayao Miyazaki realizing so little of a source book’s potential. The book is far more truly “cinematic” than GM’s film version. (Only re-read “Farthest Shore” — I need to track down “Tehanu” — which is also mashed into the film).
Ironically, the perfect solution would have been HM doing “Farthest Shore” (which has adventure aplenty — and scenes of flying with dragons!) — and Takahata doing “Tehanu” (which is much more pastoral — and character oriented).
If one had never seen a prior Miyazaki film — and had never read LeGuin’s book — “Gedo senki” could well look pretty good. and it certainly cleaned up at the box office in Japan (I had thought it hadn’t — but it did).