The Anime Movie Paradigm

*Includes spoilers (Seriously this time. I'm going to tell about endings of movies, be careful). All media credits go to their owners.*

Yo, guys. Sorry about the delay - it has been a crazy studying weekend. But I'll take this Sunday morning off and ditch the climate changes report just to complete my weekly task of blogging. Yes! Feel flattered!

Do you know how to recognize an anime movie that is going to end bad? Well now. Besides the fact that most of them don't end so well. 
It's when it all starts really good and adventurous. No joke. I have actually witnessed only a few of them that end well - most of them, no surprise, by Miyazaki. I guess that's how the man got famous. "Oh here's an idea - how about I don't kill of some of my main characters by the end of the movie...? That could work!" He sure was a pioneer, eh. And thank goodness, cause if Totoro had sacrificed himself in the end there to save the girls mother or some similar BS....  GRRR!
Sure, there are exceptions, like Hosoda's 'Summer Wars'. But that also starts out kind of slow and only evolves into a massive story. So it doesn't actually qualify under the 'good start, bad ending' category.
I'm going to make a list that proves my point.

Jubei

Ninja Scroll - We see a lone warrior striding down a bridge - epic setting - and soon a pretty epic beginning battle! That's about when you know shit is going to hit the fan. It really is. Sure, there are epic fighting abilities and battle scenes in between, but in the end he basically rejects his girlfriend's offer to spend the night, then she dies, then he kills everything, then he spends his life in solitude. Awesome, dude. You must be so happy with your life choices. I guess I can see sense in there too though - who would want their wandering hero to be a homebound husband, eh?

Millenium Actress - I'm not usually the type that likes to watch anyone's biography, but I had a feeling that one might be good. And it was - except it was obvious from when the director and his assistant arrived at the fragile actress' home, that things were not going to end well. Basically, what this movie shows us, is that it's okay to be obsessed with some dude you only talked to once in your teenage years for the rest of your life. No joke, 60 years minimum. That's like an extended overly attached girlfriend syndrome. And then, obviously, it's only going to end with: "Oh, he's actually dead already, sorry. Now go follow him in the afterlife." A bit heroic, I guess. But mostly alarming. Don't actually ever do that, girls.

Mononoke and Ashitaka

By the way, it's not like Miyazaki has all good endings. Like Princess Mononoke. Sure, the prince hangs out with Mononoke and her wolf crew and it's all fun and giggles, but basically what is said is that humans are vile monsters who like to kill the forest-kami and wolfs are smart enough to know that. Even the happy ending with the head being returned and all, it's still going to be a sucky future for most of those people from the village and not to mention the prince. Sorry, dude, I don't think she's ever going to give in. Luckily lots of women from the village want you.
Also, that Sprited Away stuff - not so happy either. Yeah, Chihiro saves everyone but then they promise: to meet each other again some day! Just a wild guess but I'm thinking, what, 10... 20 years? I guess Chihiro would have stuff to learn from the Millenium Actress. 
And one other thing - Howl's Moving Castle may have ended well, but what it  mostly showed was how the poor boy was in pain the entire time because the girl could not start believing in herself fast enough. Seriously, am I the only one who thought it was an agonizing movie? Thank goodness it ended well after all.

Chiaki and Makoto

Now The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, hmmm. A happy one? A sad one? I'm pretty sure it's Hitomi and Van all over again. Didn't Chiaki say he was from waaaay further in the future? Even if he did wait for you like you asked, Makoto, I'm pretty sure you would either be an old lady by then or he would be a child... Not so awesome. And you just had to go and waste all those jumps, didn't you. And on pudding and karaoke! Bastard! I have to admit that I still felt sorry for her. Also, Chiaki is the nicest Japanese male name, in my opinion. Oh yes, you are, oh yes, you are!

Gin and Hotaru

Of course, when it comes to pure dramatics, I don't think this one can be beaten - The Forest of the Fireflies. I'm not going to actually spoil the synopsis here, but since this movie is already in the list, well.... It's a nice movie, cool mystic stuff, Japanese folklore and shinto mixed in there. Awesome. Aaaaaand as soon as you learn about Gin's condition, you know it's all going to be fucked up. Dammit. The characters are pretty good, at least. The girl is lively and dynamic and the guy is pretty straightforward and open. Coolio.

But nothing will probably ever beat 5 Centimeters Per Second. Not unless someone makes an anime movie about kitties and puppies dying in horribly heartbreaking manners. 5 Cm per Second is a movie you watch and think to yourself: All life is meaningless. The world is horrible. 
- Great, that's exactly why I want to watch anime <.<
Luckily afterwards you realize how great choices you've made in your life and see that you're such a smart person for not being a loser weirdo who can't get a grip on his/her feelings and make a move.

Today we salute you, mister Shinkai, for making everyone, even that homeless guy at the corner store, feel like they're the happiest person in the world! Thank you for that.

Takaki and Akari

See you again next week - I'll be on time, I promise :)

Too short - too long!

*Includes spoilers. All media credits go to their owners.*

I don't know about you guys, but I personally prefer shorter animes. The skill it has to take to fit a whole story into a short amount of time is admirable - and to make it good at the same time - well, not something that anyone could do. But I do admit that there are cases where a long series works way better than a 12 or 24 episode show could. Like in most shounen animes. Imagine Naruto had been a 24 episode anime and that's that. Pretty damn pointless. Sure, the amount of fillers makes me want to bash someone's head into a brick wall sometimes, but none of the epic skills, special jutsus and progression of our favourite characters would have been possible. Also, it's kind of comforting to know that you can tune in to the same characters and story every week for years and years.

But now, when looking for something to watch and wanting it to be good, I have noticed that people tend to split into two groups - those who will look for longer animes and those who will look for shorter animes. Both are right at times. Let's call them Team L and Team S. - Why? Because I can!
Basically what Team L thinks is more or less like this: longer animes have more action; you won't have to find a new one to watch for a longer while; you get to know the characters better; and even if there are fillers, you can always power-watch through them - which is true, if you're watching the anime from scratch, because if there's 30 weeks of fillers then that's not too great... Also true if you're the kind who likes to watch hours and hours of the same topic. While that's fine if you watch it week by week as it gets released - then if you have to watch it from scratch, doesn't it get pretty dull after like a 100 episodes? Even if the topic is really good. Hell, I'm still stuck at Bleach 136 from when I started watching it from 0 (I've seen the ending saga though, so I'm kind of up to date).
Team S thinks that: they want to see a full story; they don't want to commit to it for a long time; they want things to evolve fast. Also true - except for the times when the story evolves too fast.

An example. Ao no Exorcist or Blue Exorcist had lots of potential - sons of the devil himself, blue flames, demons, epic exorcist organization, an exorcist training school... Sounds awesome. And the first couple of episodes were pretty damn good, with the devil trying to possess people and gates of hell opening. But then what happened - the epic story turned into a school anime. And even though the story went on in bits and pieces along the line of the original story - it all ended very abruptly. Yeah, there was a battle with the Paladin and Shura, but did they really show anything of the Paladin's power? We are talking about the strongest exorcist, you know... Same with the Okumura twins' father, Fujimoto. Most of what we saw was about how he was a kind and caring old man, not about how he turned out to be at the top. The ending story might have made sense, but with that quick ending in the style of: "I'll burn you all to the ground because you don't let me live in peace!" there was little left to save.
Now, if this one had been a full scale long series, it could have been so much better. All the characters had pretty unique powers and the class system had potential - they could've shown how specialized exorcists work, how they train. There could've been longer history arcs, the stories could've entwined. But right now, all that there was, was: boy founds out he's a half demon, boy becomes better than all others. The end.

Same with a few others, like Ai no Kusabi -> I know that's not a very nice show to watch, but I did and I had to read about the entire setting to know what was going on in the first place. No explanation, no nothing. 
Claymore - not sure whether this one should've been longer or shorter, really. At the moment, all they showed was a random series of events after the epic Theresa had passed... and it ended with the greatest evil being beaten while more evil still lived on in the world. That main story could just have been put into 8 episodes, maybe 12 if we're thinking in standards. Maybe if they had more time they could've worked on the arcs a bit better?
The Legends of Legendary heroes - OMG how promising that was! But in conclusion they just talked about nothing, showed no real relics or magic battles, lamented about the past horrors and in the end showed a crazy surreal part within Ryner. Dudes!!! Why???? This one should definitely have been longer - at least 50 or 70 episodes. Could've been so much better, honestly. There was epic battle magic, after all!

Still, there are a few that should've been shorter as well.
Like my favourite anime for years and years - X (tv size). Don't judge me, I was a little emo kid! Anyway, since it was based on X the movie, it's pretty obvious why they made it into 25 episodes, but to be truthful, most of it was lamenting how the world was going to end, no matter what. Seriously, even as a little emo kid, I thought that might've been a tad over the top. Sure, there were episodes with a pretty decent amount of 'action' too, but with all the stress on how things couldn't be changed and that fate would turn out to be the same, no matter what, kind of spoiled the ending.
Same with Natsuyuki Rendezvous - damn, you should've made it into a movie instead. Might've worked better.

All in all, I'm so happy there are animes with the exact right length and story explanation time - could not endure all the horrible fillers that float around in the anime world!
Anyways, back to studying for me - see you next week.