Huynh - Ah! My Goddess

                Ah! My Goddess is a very interesting movie in how it portrays humans and gods in the world. In the film, Belldandy and Keiichi are two characters, one human and one goddess, who are in a relationship and everything is going well until Belldandy’s old mentor, Celestine, returns and wipes Belldandy’s memory. Celestine then turns into the “villain” of the movie and tries to destroy and get rid of all the suffering in the world so that people only have to go through happiness. This doesn’t seem like he is that bad of a guy to me, because what he is doing is with good intentions. The only reason it comes off as a negative thing is because the goddess do not want this to happen. What makes me curious is what puts the goddess in charge? Who says that they should be the ones that juristic whether or not what Celestine is doing is wrong or not?

Image from Writer's Cafe

Another thing that kept me thinking as I watched this movie is what makes a human human. When one tries to define being human, the one thing that seems to be the same in any case is that humans have the ability to choose. There is some unknown entity that humans have that influence the choices that we make which is what makes us who we are. If this is what makes us human, then why are gods considered to be gods? In Ah! My Goddess, the goddess’ are the ones who are in power and decide what to do, but that’s just it, they are DECIDING. That is a form of choosing, and if only humans have this ability to choose, then are they even gods? They are making decisions which can potentially end badly or very well, which is what confuses me. If they are gods, then they shouldn’t be making choices at all, but does that mean that there aren’t or shouldn’t be gods? Do gods even exist? How do they work in other religions? Anyhow, this delves into another discussion entirely, that should be discussed elsewhere at another time…

Huynh - Grave of the Fireflies

                The Grave of the Fireflies was a very sad anime film to watch. It involved an older brother, Seita, and his younger sister, Setsuko, during WWII. They lose their mother, and their father is in the war and they are forced to live with their distant aunt. They get taken advantage of by their aunt, and end up leaving to live on their own. The hardships they face while living on their own are very saddening and devastating, but give a perfect feel for how it was to be a child during the war. Everybody began to take on their survival instincts and would put themselves before anyone else, including children. This is shown in the movie when Seita is trying to find some way to make money to buy food, but cannot, and people will not help them out in this desperate time. This drastic change in lifestyle causes Seita to do things that he would never normally do. The perfect example of this is when Seita begins to risk his own life, and goes into people’s houses during the air raids so that he can steal from them. This hard war time is also seen very well in Nosaka Akiyuki’s paper. In his paper, he talks about how he and his sister were on their own during the war and how very bad things had happened to them and how he did things that he would never normally do. Both the film and Akiyuki’s paper describe what it was like in Japanese society during the war. Once it turned to a point where survival was the number one priority, children were not treated the way they should be. 

Image From Ghibli Blog

                The film also shows a very strong relation between brother and sister and the impact they can have on a society. It is always very sad to see children go through this, rather than an adult which is what makes the movie so sad. The relationship that Seita and Setsuko have shows how family is in Japanese cultures. It is something that is very different from the way Americans act and sees family here.

Huynh - Harp of Burma

The Harp of Burma was a very interesting film about war. It showed how the Japanese felt during the end of the war and how they got through it. From the films and the readings, you learn a lot about how Japanese see death. The act of suicide and taking one’s life away is seen as a negative thing in American culture. It is a seen as a sin, and a sign of weakness, and should never be done. In Japanese culture, it is completely the opposite. The act of committing suicide when defeated in battle is a way to re-earn ones honor and save their family’s reputation.
                In the Harp of Burma, Mizushima finds Japanese dead comrades and knows that he must stay behind, and do what is right, and give their souls peace. He gives them a proper burial. This is very similar to American culture.

Image from xlacayo

                In Letters from Iwo Jima, you see examples of how Japan sees suicide differently than America. The group of soldiers does not know what to do as supplies run out, and they decide to go out with honor and each kill themselves. This is very hard for the soldiers to do, but they do it in order to better serve them emperor, keep their honor, and their family’s honor as well. This is very different from American ways, because in America, committing suicide like this is not seen as an act of honor. If this were to happen with American soldiers, it would be seen as a sign of weakness, sin, and giving up, which is exactly the opposite of what Japanese feel it is about.

The second example from this film is when the last platoon decides to go out into battle. They all know that they are going to be defeated, yet they still make the decision to go out and fight for their country and fight for what is right. This is something very similar to American beliefs, because it is seen as sacrificing yourself in order to help the country that you love and the ones that you love as well.

Death and suicide are very interesting topics to discuss when talking about war time films. It is something that is seen very differently in different places of the world. The Harp of Burma, and Letters from Iwo Jima both show the Japanese view on this very well.