On Maus

Lets start out by saying that Maus was a fantastic story overall and a great read.  The comic portrays the story extremely well, it delivers a compelling story and even though the characters are animals it drives home the situation.  Most stories about jews during world war 2 are written out and present similar themes over and over again.  Maus attempts to reach other audiences that might not usually care to read that type of story adn draws them in.  Also by focusing on one character and his revails throughout a great span of time they keep the reader hooked on what is going to happen next.  I believe presenting it as a graphic novel was in fact a great choice and probaly made the book more popular in the end.  Maus itself gives a good perspective of the time, it uses one mans story to expand on what was going on at large during the time.  I love comic books so i thoroughly enjoyed the format.  soem people that dont like to read comics might bge adverse to the format, or feel it hurts the story.  but i think Maus is more about spreading out to a diffrent type of audience.  Just from reading Maus it is very clear that Vladek is a very lucky and skilled man.  He is able to overcome a lot of situations by random chance.

I beleive the war itself, or even world war 1 would make a good graphic novel in this style.  you could follow any soldier and thier story as the war progressed.  Going from life at home to life at war and the effects it had overall. the story could use even the same models of animals to groups.  It would be a way to show the4effects of war to a group that would usually never pick up a war book or movie.  there are so many books on the war adn the holocaust and personnal experinces dealing with these situations.  Maus is one of the few to present in a new format so I don’t see why it couldnt work for a personnal war story.  As long as the story itself is compellign the comic book would also be compelling.

If I could run away

Running away from society would be one way to change ones life i guess.  Ive always had this dream of what living the life of a rurouni, wandering samurai, would be like.   Living life as a nomad, on the move constantly, would at the very least be a chaotic but probably fulfilling lifestyle.   Adventuring has always seemed like a interesting and glorious lifestyle.   Chris is able to do what he wants and choose his own paths because he has broken some of the shackles of society off.   He is even able to accomplish his dream of making his Odyssey to the so called Alaskan frontier.  Even though this ends in his death. he still showed a determination to reach a goal no matter what.  to live like this is sort of a boyhood fantasy of many people but society sort of throws a shackle of safety upon people so they rarely are ever able to leave.

If I in fact could leave, I really have no clue where i would go.  I would like more then anything to go someplace beautiful but also someplace that does not have a high mortality rate.  The problem with living with nature is its always unpredictable.  No matter where i go it could always catch me off guard.  My guess is i would travel eastward to the Atlantic ocean.  If i decided to go west i would probably end up in California because of the generally pleasant weather.  the coasts seem to be the most likely places to have decent weather if i was to live in the wild, as well as sufficient amounts of wildlife to eat.  I probably would not end up heading to far north because during the winter time it can get nasty and freezing to death just doesn’t sound that fun.

Getting away from society doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea at times.  Living in it has made me, and mostly everyone else, reliant on certain commodities.  People are used to food being easily obtainable, water always available and free, clothes that can just be bought, shelter, stores etc.   I, as well as most people, are reliant on these things for our safety and convenience.  Going out into the wild means that I would need to be able to have the skill and resources to fulfill myu basic needs.  I would largely question my own abilities in fulfilling these needs.  In a harsh wilderness, like the one Chris ventured into, I wouldn’t have much of a chance of surviving ether.  I would probably play it safe and make sure i had multiple people know that I’m out there and at least a few plans if i got into trouble.  I would definitely play it safer then he did, while not as adventurous i prefer to make it out alive.

Thoughts on Chris / Zine

So far reading Into The Wild, there have been many thoughts that have come to mind regarding Chris McCandless.  Chris is a very estranged person, lost within his own personal goals and adventuring attitude.  He has a desire to get away from a lot of things, to just leave everything behind and start a fresh new adventurous life.  I am similar in a way to this, by the fact that i to desire to sometimes just leave everything behind and start fresh.  All the pressure from his family and everyone in a way pushed him to the point where he needed to escape.   This attitude makes perfect sense to me, when life seems to be pushing someone around it is very noble to grab it back and take an initative to do things for yourself.  He wants to live by his own standards and set of rules, he is trying to grasp a true sense of freedom in a way.  Dreams are one of the few things that people have for inspiration and the pursuit of them, as Chris is attempting to do, is an essential part of the American dream.  On the other hand Chris also appears to be foolish at points,  for all his wisdom he has the fault of not realizing his own welfare.  He appears to always be hungry and malnutrition at a constant rate puts his own health at risk.  He is very bold as well as foolhardy, and as a result we know that he will eventually die.  Chris is very hard to understand yet and all his actions of trying to find a home but leaving every time puts him into a constant nomadic cycle.  He is a confusing character but things have a way of slowly revealing themselves as the book progresses about his life.

For my zine i plan to do it about video games in some way.  I might try encompassing many parts of the video game culture or focus on the current MMORPG (Massively Multilayer Online role playing game), Rappelz, I am playing.  I also considered doing a focus on anime and video games but i don’t all together know.  I’m throwing a lot of ideas around in my head on what exactly to do.  I’m afraid I’m going to do something stupid or go far off path.  I would really like to focus on just one idea and carry it out.  I’d like to do something interesting but I’m having a hard time generating a great deal of ideas.  Im not good at drawing or collages and artistic things, so I’m trying to decide how to work around that handicap.  On top of that I want to do something I’m passionate about so I have a lot of material to work with.

The Onion interview with billy Mitchell

A group at The Onion, a satirical and funny newspaper and website, sat down and had multiple interviews with people that were in and took part in the creation of the movie The King of Kong. The A.V club division of the onion conducts the interviews during the course of this article The article mainly deals with Billy Mitchell, Seth Gordon and Ed Cunningham and their interpretations about how exactly Billy is portrayed within the movie. There are many different perspectives portrayed as multiple people try and reveal their point of view on things and why they made certain actions.

Billy Mitchell is one of the main people interviewed as he tries to explain why he did certain things and how they portrayed him in the movie. Every time the A.V club brings up certain scenes Billy does a fair job of explaining himself to viewers. The directors and Billy definitely have 2 very skewed views of exactly what was going on at different points in this movie. A main scene is when Billy walks into Funspot with his wife, and says “I don’t wanna spend too much time with certain people here.” Billy says he was trying not to interrupt Steve was he played, the directors portray at as him snubbing Steve. I believe Billy a little more because the camera angle does shift around during this scene and we don’t know exactly all that was said between the two. There could have been a gap which they had a small chat and he said that line so he could get his wife to interrupt Steve. The directors stick by what was shown in the movie. The video evidence is definitely strong against Billy but it still can be a manipulated situation by the director. Seth Green and Ed Cunningham split on this point further obscuring what exactly happened. Seth says no way did that happen, what was in the film was all that transpired. Ed on the other hand explains they were trying to capture the tension in the room, even if everything was not included it represented the moment in their eyes.

Billy also likes to defend that he does not hate Steve in any way; while they may not be the best of friends he is realistic and won’t hate someone over a video game. This sort of reveals the very human side of Billy, and even though he is egotistical, he can be very human. They tension is not so much between Steve and Billy as shown in the movie, but between Billy and the Directors of the movie and how they both view this whole situation differently. Billy comes off as this record not being the biggest thing in the world to him; this is a far contrast from his portrayal in the movie. He still has a shining ego, but the movie definitely does play up his obsession with the game. Billy wants to stay away from the controversy because he does not view it as worth his time. He even does at some points defend Walter because Walter is wholly devoted to his cause of keeping everything fair and Billy respects that. Billy comes off a lot more human in this interview then in the movie and the directors appear very standoffish. The interviews that go on definitely shed some light on what exactly happened.

Castle of Cagliostro

Castle of Cagliostro is one of my favorite movies of all time and my favorite  film from the director Hayao Miyazaki.  This movie is an anime, but it tells a whole story in just one movie.  Monkey Punch is a famous manga-ka, or manga author, who created the character Lupin the 3rd and the manga series around him.  Their was also an anime created under the Lupin name and set to a similar plot line as the manga.  In Castle of Caglistro, Miyazaki takes the more prominent characters from Lupin the 3rd series; Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, Fujiko and Inspector Zenigata.  Miyazaki then weaves his own story around these characters that Monkey Punch created.Zenigata who is definitely one of the more comical characters appears throughout this movie.  He is Lupins opposite or foil as he choices Lupin all over the world for Interpol.  He may work for the police but he always seems to end up on the receiving end of a lot of abuse and I always have a lot of sympathy for all the hassle he goes through.  Goemon and Jigen are more or less Lupins friends and allies, always coming to his rescue after he creates a load of trouble.  Fujiko is the on and off love affair of Lupins life, always switching between ally and competition she adds an extra spark of action wherever she goes.

The reason this is one of my favorite movies is because it takes the classic characters from the old anime and faithfully puts them into a epic and hilarious story.  Lupin is supposed to be one of the greatest thiefs alive yet his antics are always known to be witty yet comical.  Every character in the series is lovable and well rounded and the story plays out in a masterfully way.  The main duo of Lupin and Jigen start out the movie by robbing a casino and soon discover the bills were counterfeit.  These counterfeits are so well crafted it makes Lupin wonder if they are the legendary “goat bills”.  Goat bills become a major underlying plot element of the movies as Lupin and Jigen try and track down the source.  goat bills are introduced as having a history of causing economic turmoil so of course it sparks Lupins great interest.  When Lupin gets stuck on something he really puts everything into it, no matter how foolhardy it may be.  I really admire this part of Lupin, he gives a great commitment to anything he sets his mind to.

Upon tracking these bills back to the Castle of Caglistro he begins to gather information and comes across a bit of information.  To access the treasure of the castle he needs the princess’s ring.  The only problem is she is trapped in a tower by the evil count.  The movie gets good at this point as Lupin has to go through a variety of chases, fights and other trials to get to teh princess.  In true Lupin fashion he gets to the princess and like all women Lupin falls in love.  Lupin is known in the series to be a world class playboy and staying true to the original character Miyazakis Lupin now is after two things, the treasure and the lady’s heart.   I don’t really admire Lupins womanizing nature but Miyazaki makes Lupin have more of a pure love in this movie and he is far more romantic.  Lupin and Zenigata eventually team up to reveal the count and Lupin plays the role of the good guy as the movies heads into the final scenes.  This side of Lupin is very honorable and shows how in the end he can actually be a good guy.  It may stray away from the original veiw of Lupin but Miyazaki makes him older and a little bit wiser for this reason.

The movie is very action packed as well as romantic.  the flow of the movie in genral is smooth and able to keep the viewer on their toes as to what is coming next.  The comical trademark of Lupin is also faithfully kept and Miyazaki is able to add his own flare for an all around enjoyable movie.  the characters are also easy to like and hate which makes cheering for Lupin all that much easier.  It remains epic and lighthearted all at the same time and is all around very enjoyable.

Otaku

There are a variety of sub cultures out there but one of the ones I have the most affinity towards is the Otaku subculture.  An Otaku is a person that has a deep love and respect for anime.  Anime itself is Japanese animation, it is like a cartoon but very different then the American sense of the word.  An American cartoon is set up so each episode has similar characters but a different plot and story in each episode.  A anime usually has a progressive story line and each episode builds upon the previous one.  An otaku is obssessed with anime, we even go so far as to emulate anike characters through cosplay.  Otaku also have a great interest in Japanese culture and adapt many things teh japanese eat and do.  We follow their fashions, listen to their music and generally follow their pop culture scene.  An otaku must most importantly though keep up with anime and watch or read in manga form a sizeable amount.  Manga si the equivalent of a comic book just follows the format of a proggressive story line.  Being an otaku myself and having friends that are Otaku’s, we are often looked upon as weird and generally misunderstood.  Many people see a basic few anime’s on Televison and assume that is what we are all about.  Just cause Naruto is popular doesnt mena every otaku is going nuts over it, but im in no position to talk as I have a naruto shirt on at the moment.  Otaku’s are also very loose in nature and playfully, not everyone is like this but generally people are more carefree then normal.  Many otaku’s lovbe video games as a sort of second hobby.  In my otaku subculture , the genres of anime I am known to like most are action, mecha and samurai dramas.  This puts me at the shonen perspective of anime.  Shonen manga and anime are geared more towards oys and men, while shojo is geared more towards girls and women.  I personally find shonen to be more appealing cause it involves more action and plot based stories.  Shojo is very character based and usually centers around love or similar affair.  My girlfriend is actually apart of this sub culture as well, but she likes to watch romance comedies and shojo anime more.  So I have come to watch them as well, because watching them together is time I can spend with her.  I have no clue what the otaku dating scene is like but i can only imagine its very strange.  I am not the most hardcore otaku, I watch anime and read mange when i feel liek it cause video gaming is another one of my hobbies.  A great deal of Otaku’s play video games, because watching aniem all the time probaly would get old.  Within our subculture Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero are big, as well as any anime style influenced games.  While I am not the most devoted person i do find the otaku subculture to be very fun.  We are not all the same as many people perceive us to be, we can be just as normal as anyone but we sort of wear our otaku fandom on our sleeves.  Some of us actually do hide the fact they are otaku’s because they think society has a negative view towards them.  I tend to leave it open because people need to accept me for who i am.  I love my subculture, no matter what people think of me for it.  I’m an  Otaku and proud of it.