Managing productivity? What’s that? I only make videos at 9 in the morning after staying up the whole night.
The summer anime season is fast approaching us, and since I somehow managed to find the motivation to do the thing I have been saying I was going to do for a while, I decided to make a video as opposed to the normal post. Will this be a regular thing for the blog now? maybe. Do I have any control over my own creative processes and motivation levels? no.
What are you watching next season? Let me know in the comments below.
If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.
Check out my writing blog, Solidly Liquid!
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
By the time this post comes out it will probably already have been about a week or so since the last teaser for Mamoru Hosoda’s newest feature film “Belle” has come out. However, being the fan of his that I am, I still wanted to react to it and give my initial, albeit ill-informed take on what has been released so far.
The reason I say ill-informed is cause, well, as far as I can tell, there is still relatively little information about the movie as a whole, outside of a general plot layout. The addition of a few more frames in a thirty second teaser does not really add much more to the equation. However, I will say that from the amount that we got, I am incredibly excited.
In terms of modern directors, I feel like Makoto Shinkai gets a lot of credit, deservedly so, for the visuals of his movies. Yet, it feels like Hosoda never really gets that same credit even though his works are all also visually stunning. “Summer Wars,” for example, not only had an incredibly diverse color palette, but had tons of Sakuga in the final act of the movie. The same can also be said for “Boy and the Beast” which had a number of great fight scenes even down to the final minutes of the movie.
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I mentioned this in my last post about the movie, but the limited knowledge we do have implies that movie is not going to be unfamiliar territory. The film’s plot is about a young girl from a rural village who one day joins an online world called “U” and ends becoming a famous singer. People who are familiar with Hosoda’s work might recognize that this is very similar to the plot of “Summer Wars.”
The difference, though, is that “Summer Wars” came out during a time when the internet still felt like a novelty to some people, whereas now it is infinitely more important to communication and daily life. There have also been a lot of burgeoning political movements to come out of the internet in last 10 years, some innocuous, some much more harmful *cough cough* literal nazis *cough cough*
Regardless, this is still all speculation at this point, and nothing concrete can really be said until we see the movie, or at the very least get a longer trailer. However, given the consistent quality of Hosoda over the last decade and half, it would not be surprising to see this movie be another excellent addition to his catalog.
What do you guys think of this latest teaser for “Belle?” Let me know in the comments below.
If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.
Check out my writing blog, Solidly Liquid!
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
It was announced recently that Mamoru Hosoda would be premiering his next film in Japanese theaters come 2021. As this article from Variety explains, “Paris-based sales company Charades is set to reteam with Japanese auteur Mamoru Hosoda on his next directorial outing, ‘Belle.'” The article also explains that the movie will follow a female lead and interaction within the virtual world of “U.” (Note: The Japanese title is “Ryu to Sobakasu no Hime,” which in English would be “The Dragon and the Freckled Princess.”
While this will probably already be old news by the time this post comes out, I want to take today just to celebrate this new film and Mamoru Hosoda.
Now, while he never started there, Mamoru Hosoda has slowly become one of my favorite directors of all time. His works like “The Girl Who Lept Through Time,” “Mirai,” “The Boy and the Beast,” and “Summer Wars” have slowly become some of my most cherished first time viewing experiences. On top of that, all of these films have a the sort of timeless feel that radiates from a lot of Hayao Miyazaki’s and Ghibli’s work.
After the release of his latest smash hit “Weathering with You,” There was a point in which people were starting to wonder whether which of Makoto Shinkai or Mamoru Hosoda would be considered Miyazaki’s successor. While it is certainly a fun conversation to have, ultimately I do not think it does any good to pit to great directors against each other. Still, if I had to pick one…it would probably be Hosoda.
While Shinkai does a great job at capturing feelings of youth and romance, it is rare that his films are ever grounded in any kind of substance. In fact, “Weathering With You” was probably the closest he has come so far, and even then the themes about Climate Change and the need to act are kind of secondary.
Hosoda and Miyazaki, meanwhile, do a lot to work substance into their films at nearly every turn. Miyazaki is a lot more concerned with the environment and the need to protect it, while Hosoda tends to focus on the idea of how we interact online and the need for family. For a good example of how he deals with both these themes at the same time, I would highly recommend watching his 2010 film “Summer Wars.”
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“Summer Wars” actually has a pretty similar storyline to “Belle,” at least from what is known so far, with the only major difference being the gender of the main character, though knowing Hosoda, this will probably matter quite a bit.
The internet, while having been around now for around a generation, is still a complex web of interwoven communities existing both separately and often within the same spaces. Looking at nearly any popular social media site will give a good example of this. Even here on my own website, while I am usually the only person who writes on it, there are still people like you who are reading, commenting, interacting, sharing, etc.
All of this rambling aside, Mamoru Hosoda has come a long way since his days directing “Digimon: The Movie,” and while it is clearly to early to say anything definitively, his next film will likely end up being a powerful statement about the nature of communication online, and I for one am extremely excited.
How do you feel about Mamoru Hosoda? Do you think he is a better director than Shinkai? Let me know in the comments below.
If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.
Check out my writing blog, Solidly Liquid!
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
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