In this blog i will be about my exchange adventure here in Hokkaido, Japan, my discoveries and probably some random stuff too.
Please bear with me (n.n)/ (well, i guess you don't have to, but please do)
Friday was the last day of school before our summer vacation begins.
The first two periods were the usual planned lessons.
Third period was Home room and fourth period the whole school had gathered in the Gym Hall were we had to sit and watch a presentation about safety and stuff now that summer vacation was finally starting.
The presentation was about things like illegal drugs(cocaine, smoking, ...etc.) and a bunch off other things which i'm afraid i don't really remember to be honest... (=.=")
Cleaning
Then 5th and 6th period we had to clean our classroom. Not just the usual sweeping the floor and taking the trash, but we were like divided up into teams (some student had to do cleaning elsewhere i suppose). So after the sweeping, we were all on the floor and with a dish washing sponge and some soap we all had to like scrub the parts of the floor that were dirty with paint, residue from moving tables and chair and... etc. etc... before it should all be swept up like Chihiro style (Spirited Away) When the cleaning was done the whole school gathered in the gym hall again for the principals last speech before returning to our classroom for a SHR and yeah Vacation!
Ok, so i'm just gonna talk about the (3 hour?) Studio Ghibli TV Spot which was aired yesterday, since i thought it was pretty interesting.
Kaze Tachinu Teaser: Airplane noise produced with voice acting?
So one of the things which were shown on the TV spot was how the airplane noises, in the beginning of the teaser video, had been produced.
I was pretty amazed, like, how they did it was that they decided to humanly produce the sound effects?
The guy in charge of the sound effect took them to the recording studio and showed them how he had produced the sounds using only sounds produced by his mouth as well as some hand movement.
When i watched the movie i had absolutely no idea that this was how they sounds were made, ain't it somehow pretty cool? If i hadn't watched this program i would've probably never found out.
Voice acting
On the topic of voice acting. They apparent chose two newbies to play in it. Hideaki Anno, who is famous for his work with Evangelion, was chosen to play the main character though audition. The program showed that he had a pretty tough time with the recordings having to retake quite a lot of time with Hayao Miyazaki's instruction. After he had worked for quite a few hours, he didn't seem to hide his exhaustion. One of Hayao Miyazaki's comments were that he should speak with a more bright voice. I do admit this was something that i kind of surprised me while watching the movie. When the main characters voice was heard for the first time, i somehow felt that it was a bit "not-so-energetic"? monotone? from what i had expected, but not in a bad way at all, although a bit monotone i'd say it was a really gentle and kind voice and that part really matched his character, maybe this was the kind of image Hayao Miyazaki wanted to give him? Btw as for the main character, i must say that i liked him a lot. I think he is a very admirable and inspiring person ,and somehow really cool (with his enthusiasm towards aircrafts) yet in a kind way(a gentleman! :D, ah!... PSY's image popped up...#(=_=")).
Serve voice actors wine when needed XD
Alright so i thought this was pretty hilarious. I don't know if they occasionally do this or if it was because he was a foreigner? (o_O)
I kinda mentioned this in my previous post i think, but looking at it again i don't think it's a coincidence that the he (the voice actor) resembles the animations character. (Picture from the movies website)
I think he is supposed to be a newcomer at voice acting too. I think he was supposed to be American? But is playing a German character? (don't know if he actually spoke German or not) He speaks Japanese pretty well though, Hayao Miyazaki had to tell him to speak more broken Japanese during the recording since the character he plays is supposed to be a foreigner. But the thing is, in the movie there is a part where his character sings the "Das gibt's nur einmal"? Well they sorta found out that his singing wasn't so cough*great*cough (i hope he ain't readin' this). Hayao Miyazaki himself was face-palming observing the recording. For the next recording they even had a voice trainer come to help him with the singing, but Hayao Miyazaki had also (just in case) brought a bottle of wine with him for the recording. And after a while he was like "alright bring in the alcohol", and i think the guy said something like: "is this alright?", "not bad". And then they continued the recording, Hayao Miyazaki said something like "yappari alcohol desu ne" "so it's alcohol after all(that did it)", and when satisfied with the singing:~ "this will have to do" When the he(the voice actor) was asked after the recording, whether he was satisfied with the result or not, he was like, "no, i'll come back tomorrow". I wonder how it ended....
The Wind Rises
I don't know if it's official yet, but at some department they had the English movie title printed as "The Wind Rises".
When they were talking about how the movie being released overseas, the guy from the department was suddenly like: "this is coming out overseas right?"
Well i do hope that it'll be released overseas too, the hype up until now has been pretty big too (or that was how i experienced it) with occasional TV spots with updates on the movie, i don't know how many times the same movie teaser has been shown on just ZIP TV.
Jiro Hirokoshi
The crew also gave Jiro Hirokoshi's son a visit. Asking him what his father was like and the sort. It seems the movie character really do portray the guy pretty well as for his character (not only the round glasses), like his desire to built beautiful airplanes.
They also went to visit his grave together with his son.
Soundtrack
There was also a few scenes showing the recording of the movies soundtrack.
First the orchestra pieces with Hisaishi Joe as the conductor, i think they said that there were 50 or so microphones set up for the recording. And them they showed the piano piece performed by Hisaishi Joe himself.
I must say that this movie too has a really nice soundtrack with some really nice classical pieces. Btw doesn't the piece in the teaser have kind of an Italian feel to it?
Looking forward to getting the soundtrack album when possible (*≧∇≦*)
Animation
There were also two features showing the numerous drawing needed for a few seconds of the movie. Another showed how the colors had been decided, i think it was done by one person alone, which i thought was pretty amazing, i think she was in her 70's(that's what i call hard working). It showed how the same things were colored differently according to the environment(light...etc) of as was used as an example, the mood of the person from which perspective the scenes are viewed, a lot of thought has really been laid in the making it seems. As with the other Ghibli movies they also presented the still paintings used as backgrounds in the movie, which had been beautifully done always.
First Showcase
I think around the ending, they showed were all the people involved (in the making of the movie i suppose, Jiro Hirokoshi's attended this too btw) came together for some kind of party were they also had a theater were they all watched the finished movie for the first time and how quite a few people ended up shedding a few teardrops during the Movie (Including Hayao Miyazaki himself).
Last comments
I think my host family recorded the program, so i might be able to re-watch it. Wish i could show it to you though(don't know if it might have been posted on youtube yet), there were some pretty entertaining moments.
I've already published this post, but will probably update it again when i get the time to do so. Since there are still a lot that i haven't mentioned yet (so please check back!). *Also do take note, that what i wrote isn't a 100 percent accurate since i might have misunderstood what they said (not completely fluent yet) and also that i might not have remembered it right(sorry'bout that, unfortunately don't have the greatest memory). Ok, i don't know if writing this is pretty much a waste or what. I mean, the movie is gonna be released overseas anyway at some point, and the news/info about the making might come up too i guess.
130719 Update
This evening "The Cat returns" was shown on Tv and was followed by a tv spot about Kaze tachinu.
It featured the long trailor of the movie, even though i've already watched the movie , watching the trailer made me want to re-watch it really badly, it showed some really central scenes of the movie. Now thinking back, it was somehow really wonderful.
Wah, i'm so excited that it's gonna be released tomorrow!
Kaze Tachinu Official Trailer
Okay, so i\m a bit late out with this update, but anyways the trailer aired (i think it was the 20th, the day of the release)
Watch it on HD mode >:)
Some of my friends were kind of skeptical about this movie being about the war, airplanes n' stuff.
But really it's not really that much about warfare and such, it's more something like "how the protagonist experienced the war" the war from a civilian perspective? So it's not really the focus of the movie.
Moreover i'm not really an aircraft enthusiast, but nonetheless enjoyed the movie even though i didn't understand every single word that was being said (i mentioned before that i couldn't take my eyes off of the screen and i meant literally).
Anyways do not hold back because of these elements in the movie.
But if you are not into life-stories/biography kinda things then maybe this is not the movie for you.
Anyhow do check out the trailer at least :)
Side - track
What did you think about the main characters voice?
I did think that it was somehow a bit dull to begin with, but watching the movie i felt that there was just something, just something about it... i don't know if it's was just me or...
I think that Hayao Miyazakisaid something about the voice acting not being amazing, but that there was somehow taste to it?
So i guess i'd like to tell you about what I've been up to for the last what, 3-4 months? But since it'll take too much time (and it's around 23:30 over here), so i hope a (not so) short post about my day will do for now. :P There's about a week until the school festivals and I'm actually quite busy with preparations, but today i excused myself for a bit.
In case you don't know about it yet there was an upcoming Studio Ghibli movie called 風立ちぬ [ kaze tachinu ] i think it is translated to "The Wind is Rising" in English (according to wikipedia, which you should not trust... but everyone uses it anyway).
Commercial posters have been up for quite a good while now and some time ago you could pick up some flyers at ÆON (i believe it is a mall chain over here of some sort) well you just had to fill out your full name, age and contact information and put it in their mail box and then maybe you where lucky enough to win a pair of free tickets to the upcoming 風立ちぬ movie.
*it was this kind of thing (right) that you can fill out. As you can see you they're having a giveaway of tickets to see the upcoming movie "少 年 H" (shounen eichi?) at the moment (Oguri Shun plays in this btw, just thought i'd mention it). Among the commercials before the movie today, this movie's trailer came out, it seemed really interesting (wanna watch this too~) don't know if it was my mental state at the time, but the trailer almost made me cry(>_<), i wonder if i can win these tickets as well >.<
This also seems to take place during the time of the war, and you get to see what Japan was like at the time.
Kaze tachinu info leaflet
To be honest i haven't read the info leaflet of "kaze tachinu" yet, maybe i'll understand the story better if i do? If i'm really kind (and have time slacking off) i might make a translation just for the heck of it :D.
So when my host family and i went grocery shopping at ÆON we saw these flyers and decided to try and hand'em in and see if we'd win the tickets. Me and my host siblings filled out one each (y'know so that there is a higher possibility of winning). But then some time ago, my host mother came and told me that i had been mailed a post card saying that i had won the tickets and i was like "ah, yes, thank you", but deep inside i was like crying of happiness (well it was in the middle of the night at that time, but yeah). Anyway, i was like super happy right, i have really been liking Ghibli's movies even before i came here y'know, and this movies seemed really interesting so i was super excited yo (>_<)!
Here's the card they sent me, front and back,
*I censored our contact information for safety reasons :p
Well after winning the tickets i thought i'd go and watch it with my host family, but looking at the situation they could go because we have like three small kids and two tickets (so yeah that was kind of a problem...). So in the end we decided that I should invite one of my friends to go with me. I asked the friends whom i hang out with the most, but they all had festival preparations to do as well as club activities, i there was only for me to try and find someone else to go with or give the tickets to some people who had some spare time. I decided to try and ask someone in the tea ceremony club to go with me, since this is also a chance for me to strengthen my friendship with some of the other club members i thought. I think there was a girl who said she liked cartoons (Anime) when we presented ourselves for the first time before the other club members and i decided to ask her since she seems to be a really nice person and i haven't got a chance to really talk with her yet. Well i was out quite late and asked her out when i accidentally met her in the hallway after school, the day before the movie... but luckily she said she was free, so we decided to meet up at ÆON after club activities and festivals rehearsals the next day.
Some of the movie posters at the entrance, dunno if i was actually allowed to take pictures in here (well others were too, but yeah...) i'll find out if they send me a notification to take it down...
But yeah there's the horror movie, the tacky super hero movie (kamen rider), the western movies, and of course the Japanese' beloved animation films, (btw there were also ginormous Pokemon posters for the new Mewtwo movie at the moment)
Yo, so back to today, we went to ÆON's cinema, it was my first time there by the way. I've been to ÆON quite a few time both with my host family and friends, but it was my first time to go to the theater here in Japan and i must say that it was quite awesome !(>.<) Even though came here right from school, so i was all gross from sweating all day (T_T) It's still really hot over here 20+ and sometimes 30 celsius.
As you can see there's a Looney tunes and Monsters University (upcoming Monsters inc. 2 like movie, about the story that takes place before the original movie, or so it seems) setup at the moment.
They even sell food in the cinema, i think they only sell snacks and drinks in Danish cinema's. But you could get like the usual: Soda (peach, mango, grapes...not normal soda by the way), popcorn(well all cinemas probably do), nachos (w salsa/cheese, surprisingly it seems to be the same maker as in Denmark). Right now you can also get: かき氷 ( kakigori;japanese shaved ice, i like melon flavour btw), katsu sandwich, hotdogs (there's even some with cheese or hamburgers), Godiva (chocolate iceblend like thing w. cream and chocolate sprinkle topping), caramel popcorn and pringles, waffle stick w icecream inside. (maybe i should've just taken a picture...) Oh, but Danish cinema's sell a hell of a lot of candy, compared to here, i don't even know if there was any... Anyways, the ticket counter was quite packed when we arrived, and it seemed as if the people who where coming to see "kaze tachinu" had all won their tickets(there were a lot of people holding the same ticket postcard). I had wondered if our seats had been decided, but when we finally reached the counter (it took quite a while) we got to choose from the seats which were still free and then they'd print us the seat tickets.
*well the seat tickets looked like they had been printed black on write paper and cut by a not so sleight of hand staff member, but well nobody said cinema tickets had to be fancy i suppose, (got to sit in the biggest theater too) and eco seems to be quite popular over here too.
Do know, they check your stuff
Ok so they don't only check and rip your tickets at the theater entrance here, but they also have people check the stuff your carrying (handbag, backpack... etc.) but when we came still in our school uniform, w textbook stuffed schoolbag, lunchbox bag..etc. It seemed as though they were like giving us the "i-don't-think-they're-actually-carrying-any-weapons" / "looking-through-all-that-is-gonna-be-a-pain"-look and apologizing for the trouble, let us off. Yay! Anyways, ÆON is awesome :D giving out so many free tickets to see (i think it was) the first cinema release of the movie. The movie is supposed to be released the 20th of July(this month) so maybe the show today was something like pre premiere (geez i feel so lucky >.<, getting to see an awesome movie for free yeah, haven't won this kinda thing before) There were still some free seats in theater though. Don't know, but maybe some of the people who had won ticket's ended up not coming or something, which is a kind of a shame y'know. Wish my host family could have come too (T.T)
I guess Hayao Miyazaki has released quite a good amount of his aircraft-craze with this movie, and yeah yet again there's their signature short-haired girl.
These were setup at the cinema, i wonder if they did this in all ÆON cinemas... But it was quite pretty, people were standing and taking pictures here after the movie.
*Sorry to the people who were caught on the pictures against their will...
風立ちぬ (kaze tachinu review?)
It's directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and the music is by Joe Hisaishi (not bad huh? XD) The movie is based of of a comic (manga) by Hayao Miyazaki, which is a fictional biography of an aircraft designer around WWII named Jiro Horikoshi (also the name of the protagonist of the movie)
I'm not gonna spoil the whole thing, but the story is mainly about the protagonists dream and work as an aircraft engineer in the time around (i believe it was) WWII (maybe this has a connection to Hayao Miyazaki's own life), but it also tells of the protagonists romantic and sad love story. It's pretty real-life-story-like but has some surreal moments too (maybe it's about what the protagonists is seeing in his mind/dreams, i was sometimes confused as to whether what was happening was reality or something happening in the protagonist's mind) The movie starts out with the protagonist as a child wanting to build airplanes, and follows his life of becoming an aircraft engineer and meeting the love of his life and the hardships they go through with her being diseased. As some of Ghiblis other movies, this movies also has a part involving the power of earth and nature,which is quite characteristic for quite a few of their movies, around the beginning of the movie (i think) were the protagonist is caught in a big earthquake's rampage (the great earthquake in Kanto?). The protagonists love story with Naoko Satomi (which might be the part which is loosely based of of Tatsuo Hori's short novel "The Wind Has Risen" if you've read the wikipedia article) is very romantic and touching. I wonder if the movie is something that has actually taken place. It should also be noted that this movie seems more mature and less magical and playful than for example Ponyo, since it deals with themes as warfare and disease, the main character too is quite mature, but at the same time very enthusiastic and hard working when it comes to aircraft's. Because this movies takes place around WWII there are a few German and Italian characters as well, and German and Italian is occasionally spoken in the movie (by Japanese people). Well i had a bit of use of my (not so great) German skills watching this movie, that's always something. Anyways it's a very beautiful movie (couldn't take off my eyes through the whole thing), the animation graphics, movements, angles were all awesomely captivating, it wasn't even 3D but i got the feeling of actually being present and kinda lost the feeling of how long i had actually been sitting and watching. It may not be a movie for everyone, but if you like this kind of thing then check it out will'ya >:D Ah, but since my Japanese isn't perfect i might've complete misunderstood the movie. who knows? :D Wanna watch it again so much! ...but will most likely have to wait till after it is actually released... Untill then here's a compilation of the tv spots (from ZIP tv?) of the movie. Short teaser: 02:00 Voice preview: 08:30
It's kind of weird watching this on youtube having already it on tv. But that's not so bad :D It seems that this is the first movie Hayao Miyazaki himself cried watcing (T_T) i cry too easily watching movies. The theme song of the movie is by荒井由実 (Yumi Matsutoya) from 1973, yeah pretty old, but therefore quite fitting for the movie. The music and lyrics also fit well with the airplane theme. It has a really nice sound, and has been floating in my mind since hearing it, i guess it gives me a happy feeling even though it is a bit sad and reminds me of childhood(even though i still want to be considered a child) or is it just that it reminds me of the movie?.
The movie started at around 18:00 (also counting the wild Japanese commercials). i thought it would run for about 1 and a half hour, but when we got out it was around 20:30...! (pitch black outside yo (T_T) returning home was like super scary, thought a creeper would get me y'know) Here's the link for the movie website: http://kazetachinu.jp/
Shida Mirai from the drama "Seigi no Mikata" plays the protagonist's little sister Kayo (^o^)/ Oh, and the German guy is actually played by a foreigner i think /(o_o) and is it just me, or if you compare the voice actor with the cartoon character, don't you think they strangely look alike?
コクリコ坂から
On the topic of Studio Ghibli, around the beginning of my stay here the movie コクリコ坂から (kokuriko-zaka kara; From Up on Poppy Hills)was shown on tv (dunno if it was for the first time or what but) I didn't know much about this movie before it was shown on tv here, i don't think it had been released in DK before my leave to Japan. Please tell me if it has been released by now. But yeah when this was suddenly appearing on tv i was like "hey, that animation style must be..." i was like geez the Japanese are so lucky getting to watch these movies on tv. My host mother told me that because Ghibli movies are very popular even in Japan, they are broadcast'ed and re-broadcast'ed from time to time (Totoro was shown on tv some time after this). My host family really like the ghibli movies too. Unfortunately i didn't watch the whole thing at that time even though what i watched seemed very promising i tell you, but my host family recorded it, so i'm looking forward to getting some spare time to enjoy this with my host family sometime, when we aren't busy with everything else. Y'know these kinda movies should be enjoyed to the fullest,goes for the new movie too >:D Btw at some point in a conversation I accidentally told my host family that i hadn't watched the movie "Mononoke Hime" yet, and because they are waaay too kind they went straight to the media(movie, music, game...etc.) rental store to rent the movie, unfortunately it had been rented out to someone else at the moment, but for the next 2-3 or so times that we were in the area they'd go and check if the movie had been returned for rental, but it had been rented out every time. I told them that they really didn't have to do that much for me to watch the movie n'stuff, but they said they wanted to watched the movie themselves too, even though when i asked them if they had watched it before, they answered that they had, but it's been quite a while so they too would like to watch it again. I felt kinda bad about it, cause i think I've caused them quite some trouble with my thoughtless utterance. But in the end after the 3 or so visits, they successfully rented the movie. Well i was both relieved that we finally got to rent and watch the movie. Well for me it was a bit scary (i'm a chicken y'know, and you must admit the cover is a bit frightening yo with the blood n all, thought it was some ghost/horror movie geez) but nonetheless awesome and undoubtedly a must-watch if you like the Ghibli movies .
Well for now, I will use this blog to try and write down my misadventures as an exchange student for you, myfamily and friendsas well as others who should be interested.
It is also kind of for me to keep my own dairy, so that i can look back and reflect on what i have experienced.
Unfortunately i am not a literary genius and thus, i will most likely not be able to write a masterpiece of a biography.
*So beware I may lazily write random and unconnected matters using less polite speak (not to mention that I probably won't check spelling mistakes and the likes).
(sorry... ?/(=.="))
I must apologize to you, my family and friends for not keeping contact with y'all. I'll try and post what I've been up to if i get the chance
Excusing myself for these,
I hope there will be something to catch your interest. please feel free to contact and comment if there should be anything on your mind. Ah!... maybe i should consider making this blog private when i find out how to /(n.n")
