AKA place where I get to be annoying about media and talk/briefly discuss what I thought of it and such.
Anything I'm able to make a full page about is linked here as well.
Evil con Carne, Funny Pets, Galaxy Express 999, Home Movies, Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, The brak show, Whatever happened to robot jones?, Æon Flux, Precure
Tokyo Godfathers is an unbelievably beautiful Christmas film. I have watched other Satoshi Kon animated classics before Tokyo Godfathers such as Perfect Blue and Paprika and loved the experience from those, however, despite not being a huge fanatic over these works Tokyo Godfather speaks out the most to me compared to the former mentioned especially now more than ever.
I really do believe you should watch this film for yourself to experience the message and themes present but I find the treatment and portrayal of homelessness/homeless people shown and also the variety and complexity of each character’s situation very compelling in a way I’ve never seen much other media, nonetheless, non-western media portray with this much depth and compassion. Even then, how this movie portrays poverty and the experiences homeless people have to go through is not as different as many cases of homelessness in America or the like and I really appreciate that kind of realism in this film.
Another aspect I also love was the portrayal of Hana and her being a trans woman, it’s rare to find media that depicts trans people, especially trans women who aren’t passing in a tasteful way, and while Hana has her comedic moments, her motivation of wanting to raise and take care of what she presumes is an abandoned baby due to her upbringing as an orphan questioning if she was ever loved throughout her childhood especially the extra risk and difficulty involved being homeless and having to scavenge for resources is extremely heartwrenching and you do just understand her reasoning and reaction towards certain things (such as her outburst towards Gin upon finding out he had lied about losing his daughter and wife when he was a gambling deadbeat).
This movie kept me on my toes about what would happen especially near the climax which gave me chills… while it is implied/the story is left on a positive end note with Miyuki reuniting with her father and all three of the main protagonists winning the lottery, it made me wish we could’ve seen a conclusion where they’re all living together happily. In conclusion, a phenomenal movie, truly one of the best Christmas movies and in my opinion Satoshi Kon movies made.
Peak cinema tbh.
Being serious here, I actually have some history with this movie, having watched this about 4 different times in different language dubs and even having a plushie of two of the titular alien character. Having remembered a good amount of what happens during the film especially the climax and ending, I can't say I was really suprised by the movie. What I am suprised however is the amount of goofy slapstick that was present in scenes, especially the fantasy sequence the main kid character Dicky (yea) has. Like I was legit caught off gaurd when all of that happened, even making me question what scenes of the movie were actually happening. On a more sour note however I also got caught off guard by the casual much less goofier, child abuse/beating that Dicky gets from his father, ig it really is just one of those major cultural differences from western media (a pretty bad one at that) where parent characters casually just beating or mistreating their children is normal.
Overall this movie while somewhat predictable is a very almost campy watch if you like goofy slapstick esc action and funny 2000s cgi marketable creature sidekicks. Watch if you're interested in viewing any kind of "outsider"/non western media or if you just wanna have a quick laugh.
To be frank, I already solidified that I wasn't going to like this movie ever since the first trailer/promo for it came out and I went into viewing the movie as a hater or with extremely high standards in order to be impressed by. Especially with what the movies tries to tackle, so not much of a suprise I really didn't like this movie. It's sad cause I did have a legit like flicker of hope to atleast find this movie an ok to decent-ish watching experience, especially with how personal the story is to the director but there's simply too many flaws and problems present within the movie to really try and turn off my brain to it to enjoy it. Fine ig if you don't really have any super high expectations or views of it beforehand like I did but it is really one of those things where the more you think about it the worst it gets. I'll elaborate more on that in here
I watched this webseries with a friend after having a good listen of the album that was based/made alongside this series. It's always super interesting to see The Residents delve into other mediums apart from music to tell a story, nonetheless an ARG during the time where interaction via emails was a pretty big part of the entire series.
There's a good sense of mystery present throughout the entire series relating to the main character, Bunny Boy/Roger, and his quest to retrace and locate where his brother Harvey has gone to after going missing from an "incident "and leaving behind hints and clues about his current where abouts. The ending to the entire series also leaves a good amount of stuff up to the viewer to get multiple different readings/interpretations of characters like Bunny Boy and what the series is.
I might potentially make a single page dedicated to my personal reading of this series but overall, a very stellar job done by The Residents of making an alternate reality game/webseries.
Clone high season 2 is honestly a bit of a mixed bag for me. While I get that most of the new changes (new clones, character dynamics/writing etc) was due to change just on account of time differences and such, especially with the removal of Ghandi till season 4, it just didn't really feel like a true predacessor of season 1 or a true evolution of the formula till 6 episodes in.
Episodes especially like the silly-legs episode or the pilot just feel unnatural to the characters/themes of season 1 and it does feel like it isn't really playing into the whole teen drama aspect that it specialized in season 1. New characters are fine enough however another thing I feel is that some characters dynamics such as jfk or confucious nor cleo and frida's rivarly weren't really expanded on much, unfortunate for the latter since I do legit like the choice to make them a pair, ig I wish instead of Cleo trying to ruin joan it was frida so we had that build up like in episode 3.
Last 4 episodes however really picked the show up in everything and I'm anticipating how season 3 will handle the cliffhanger we were left off on. Overall pretty fine watch if you're familiar with clone high, here's too hoping they can stick to the new standard set from episode 7.
