Tales From EarthSea (ゲド戦記)

At sea a ship is being tossed and turned by the storm, the captain of the boat called his weatherman to calm the storm, but the weatherman could not control the storm as he could not remember the names of the wind and sea. Then two dragons were sighted, what shocked them was that the dragons was fighting.

Image credit to Animeflavor

Back on land, the King of Enlad is having a meeting, as a diseases was ravaging his country, it seems the land was in trouble, the King gave orders to control the situation, then proceeded to go to his office, but along the way he was told about the sightings of the two dragons, and his wizard Root told him it was a sign of a bad omen, to further the bad news, two ladies reported the his son Arren was missing since the night before. Dismissed by the Queen, the King proceeded to his office alone, that's when a young boy suddenly appeared and stab the King and took his sword. The King's last word was "Arren".

At the shore, a wizard was just docking his boat. As he was investigating ships marooned on land, a wolf howled and he went to investigate.

The young boy who has the King's sword was being pursued by the wolves and as he was cornered the wizard rescued him. And he collapsed. The following day, the two introduced each other, the young boy's name is Arren. Ang the wizard is Sparrowhawk. And so their journey begins...

Released on July 2006 by Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney PicturesDi
Directed by Goro Miyazaki
Though this was a box office hit it, this movie got the Worst Movie of 2006 in the Bunshun Raspberry Award


Soundtrack title is availabe at Ghibliwiki.

Wallpapers can be downloaded at Minitokyo.
You can listen to one of the soundtrack with lyrics below:


Teru's Song - English translation
Toki No Uta - English translation

Opinion:
I was quite shocked to know about the award they got, Studio Ghibli's movies has always been one of the best, but this movie also got the PG rating, a first for Ghibli, due to the some of the violent scences. The soundtrack was good and so is the view, the story is somewhat lacking to me, as some of the circumstance presented in the movie was not explained. Which made me wonder if there's going to be a sequel to this. However all in all it wasn't that bad, so it made me wonder why they got the award.  Pretty sad.

This movie however was base on the Novel by Ursula K. Le Guin - EarthSea, compose of 6 books.

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Pale Cocoon (ペイル・コクーン)

In the distant future humans live in colonies and there is no trace of the once lush forest or sparkling rivers.

Ura one of the main characters in this film works for the Archive Excavation Department, which decodes the images gathered from the former world, he tried to make extra analysis of the images restored as he hopes to see the green fields, their department is the only one left in the upper colony and will be moved to the lower colony soon. It seems people at this time was living underground and also the sun does not give out rays anymore and humans had to live underground in order to survive, so it seems. The Department where Ura worked takes care of the gathered information from the past and connecting them together, or restoring them in order for the new generation to understand what has happened in the past. As they have never seen the surface of the Earth. However as time passes people lost hope or was not interested anymore in the work, so less and less people now worked in the Department.

As Ura finished off the image, he was sent another file by his co-worker, but this time it was not an image but a video, a very rare find. As they worked to restore the video, Ura's friend Riko who works on the same department was losing enthusiasm working in the Archive, as it was depressing to see how humans destroyed the surface, but as they were restoring the video, Ura realize something while watchin the video and made him ran for the elevators....

Release on 2006 by Studio Rikka and DIRECTIONS
Written and Directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura
This is an OVA.
Awarded for the Best Screen Play in SAPPORO Short Fest 2006


Soundtrack has only 1 song which is "Aoi Tamago" by Little Moa, the rest are music scores from the movie.


Lyrics can be found at Gendou.com.
The sound scores you can find in youtube, just do a search.

Wallpaper for this anime can be found at theanimegallery.com, so far only found this one image that is kinda nice.

What I love about this anime is the technology being shown such as this:
Ura's workspace

Love the spread being shown in this monitor

Everything is digital, from the monitor to the mouse and keyboard.

I think Interactive UI are fun to work with and very futuristic right?
One of the fascinating idea in technology introduced in this film is this

A book that they can use to communicate, record, edit and save. Now that would be interesting to use.


Looking at Anime like these always reminds me that the technology they are showing will soon be a reality, just take a look at these videos:



Our technology is slowly getting there.

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Perfect Blue (パーフェクトブルー)

image credit

This anime is not for kids, story has some violence in it.

A pop idol group called CHAM is doing a performance, and the lead singer Mima is suppose to make an announcement that she will leave the group to pursue an acting career, but before she could do it, a group of boys started throwing things, and was reprimanded by a strange looking person. After the scuffle the group finally made the announcement and some fans did not like this change at all. As Mima was being escorted to the car someone gave her a note, and said "I'm always looking at Mima's room."  Which surprised her. When she opened the note there was a url at the bottom, asking her Manager - Rumi about it, she was told that it was a website. So enlisting Rumi's help, she got on the internet and view the site, which turn out to be a diary online of Mima, but Mima wasn't the one doing the entry, yet the entries online was very accurate. Which creeps her out further.

On the set of Double Bind, a TV series, she was given as small role, her Manager wanting to give her a bigger exposure asked the writer if they can give Mima a chance to show his acting capability, so she was given a bigger role, but at the expense of her reputation. This did not turn out well to some of her fans, and due to the scenes she was portraying, Mima was having a hard time distinguishing from the reality and dream state. This was further complicated with the writer being murdered in the same manner as in the set. Is Mima the killer? Or is it just a dream?

Released on 1997 by Rex Entertainment
Directed by Satoshi Kon
Winning an award at Fantasia Festival and Fantasporto Film Festival

Soundtrack titles for Perfect Blue can be found at Anime Dream site.
Translation for the following songs:
1st Opening Theme - Lyrics and translation
Perfect Blue - Laruku - Lyrics and translation

Interview with the Director:




There are portions in the movie that confused me as the days seems to merge, but all in all in is quite a mind twisting kind of a movie. I sometimes wonder for some people who makes drastic change in their life and at the expense of their reputation, is it really worth it?

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5 centimeters per second (秒速5センチメートル)

The title is referring to the amount of time a cherry blossom falls to the ground.

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The story is about the relationship of Takaki Kono and Akari Shinohara, but focuses more on Takaki kun. The two became the best of friends since they share the same interest, Takaki thought that they'll be together for a longer time, however the unexpected move of Akari's parents due to work, when they are about to go to middle school made them realize how much they meant to each other. Not wanting to part but have no choice they kept in touch by writing letters and hoping one day they will be able to see each other again.

It's a story about their long distance love.


Released on 2007  by Comix Wave Inc.
Directed by Makoto Shinkai
The film  won the Lancia Platinum Grand Prize and a few more awards.




Movie soundtrack listing can be found at A.V.A.L.O.N Project site.
One More Time, One More Chance lyrics - English translation and piano sheet (Scroll down to Byousoku 5 Centimeter and click on no. 10)

Wallpapers can be found at WallAlphacoders.com

Another story from Director Makoto Shinkai,  as expected of this Japanese Director the scenery are superbly drawn and details are taken into consideration. Story is a bitter sweet, as some love story in reality goes, yet the way it was narrated leaves an impression in your heart.

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The Place Promised in Our Early Days(雲のむこう、約束の場所)

Two boys became good friends with a girl over the course of summer, seemed like a typical story but this has a more interesting twist - the promise they made to each other during that summer will save the world from destruction.

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Hiroki and Takoya are child prodigies, they are in their ninth grade, and secretly building a ship, so they can fly it to the Hokkaido Tower, which is visible from their current location. The two was excited about the upcoming summer so they can do summer jobs and speed up their money building so they can buy parts for the ship.

In one of the scenes, Takoya and Hiroki are discussing about girls and if they would actually go and date one, Hiroki mentioned to Takoya that he has a crush on Sayuri Sawatari also a child prodigy and their classmate. And as luck would have it Takoya bump with Sayuri in one of the bookstores, they got to talk while waiting for their train ride and he invited her in their summer workplace. Where the three of them got close and made the promise, the promise that three years later would save the world.

Released on 2004 by CoMix Wave Inc and License by ADV Films
Directed by Makoto Shinkai
Won numerous awards




Soundtrack listing can be found at Wikipedia.org
Lyrics for the song Kimi No Koe.

Wallpapers can be found at alphacoders.com and minitokyo.net

It took awhile for me to understand the story since at the start of the movie, the setting was already on the parallel universe, my mind set was, it was still in present Japan, the dialogues can get you lost if you don't listen or pay attention, specially on the talks of parallel universe and Quantum physics. You might want  to watch this movie more than once to pay attention to the details of the story.

Again landscapes is superbly presented in this anime.




Footnote:  An interesting site I found while doing research for this anime:





Visit KAF for anime music/anime OSTs, forums, and more!

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Sita Sings The Blues

The story started with a couple with a cat, where the man was offered a job to do in India, but ends up living there, while they were on discussion about the offer, the scene shift to 3 shadow puppets who are discussing about India's origins, and about the Ram's family, which is base on the Ramanaya.  The 3 shadows continue to narrate the story about Rama, and the couples scene is inserted during the narration.

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Produce by Nina Paley and directed by her
Released on 2008
Garnered a lot of awards.




The story is quite interesting since it is told in a funny way, the animation is different and the songs are quite entertaining. I thought I won't finish this movie since the animation was a  little weird, but the narration and dialogues was quite entertaining, I actually find myself watching the entire film.

And the very surprising part about this anime is, the owner decided to release this film for free and is only asking for donations, do please go to this site, to see the film. Questioncopyright.org

This anime did got some controversy as a group of people in India did not like the way Ramayana's tale was portrayed in this anime.

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Paprika (パプリカ)

The story started with a dream, as it ends, we see that the dreams belongs to a Detective named Konakawa, and a girl named Paprika was helping him in his dream, Paprika can joined the Detective in his dream and recorded it with the help of the device named DC Mini.

image credits

As Paprika is travelling to some unknown destination we see that she changes, and we see Doctor Atsuko riding her car and going to work. As she reached the elevator and the door opens a big fat guy was stuck there and asked for her help, also warning her that the DC Mini was stolen.

She contacted their Chief to tell him about the DC Mini being stolen and their worst fear is, it is an inside job.

Who stole the DC Mini? And why?


Released on 2006 by Sony Pictures
Directed by Satoshi Kon
Animated by MadHouse Studio
Won Best Feature Length Theatrical Anime Award at the 6th annual Tokyo International Anime Fair.




Soundtrack listing is available at wikipedia.org

Lyrics for:
Byakkoya no Musume - english and romanji
Pareedo - romanji and Kanji, english

Official site is at sony.

Observation:
This is again another film on the possibilities of dreams and what's the future for it. Looking for evidence in our dreams for the possible answer which is linked to our reality, and implanting dreams, to either help or destroy an individual.

What is also fascinating about this anime is, the story was very well written that even you get confuse if the characters are in reality or dream state. You can't hardly tell the two apart.

Some say that the American movie Inception would have gotten the idea from this anime. For me, it could be a possibility.

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