5 Reasons Why Fruits Basket is (Still) Amazing

Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket, published as a series of mangas from 1998-2006 and turned into a one-season anime in 2001, was one of the first anime series that I really fell in love with.  A friend lent it to me my senior year of high school and, though it took me a few episodes to get into it, I quickly went from entertained to hooked.  I watched it every year all through college, sharing it with different friends.  Recently, after a long hiatus, I decided to watch it again and see if the magic is still there.  It is.  

In my upper twenties now, I'm looking at it a little differently and more critically than I did before.  The dialog isn't always super well-written (especially the translation for the English subtitles--read my note at the bottom of the post!), and, yes, it tends to lean towards the melodramatic, but there are still so many things that the show gets right.  

Here are five major things that make Fruits Basket really remarkable. (*There are some vague spoilers, but I don't give away any significant plot points.)

Kids' Movies: Animation in Emotional 3D

Spoiler alert...? 
I don't really tell anything about what happens in Inside Out, but I do talk about the "conclusion of the story," which would probably give you a good idea of how it ends.  ;-)  Read on at your own risk.

Book, Movie, & TV show Discoveries of 2014

Last year, just for the heck of it, I decided to start keeping a list of all the books I read, and movies & shows that I watched.  I included things that came out in 2014 and things that have many years behind them, and even ones that I was reading/watching for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th time....  Now that the new year has arrived, I thought it would be fun to look back and consider what were my favorite discoveries (and re-discoveries) of 2014. 

BOOKS

My favorite comic book/graphic novel of the year was definitely Joe Sacco's Safe Area Goražde--a powerful depiction of the war and genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina from 1992-95.  It tells the stories of the Muslim residents in the small town of Goražde: a UN designated "safe area" which was anything but safe.  Just like Sacco's earlier graphic novel Palestine (which is what inspired me to volunteer in the West Bank a few years ago), Safe Area Goražde is beautifully drawn and tells a riveting and devastating account of the war through a deft combination of intimate, personal stories and cold, hard facts. 

My favorite short story/novella was The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth.  It's a gorgeous retelling of a Buddhist folktale.  Simple and deeply touching--if you love cats, painting, or Japan, you should definitely give it a read. 

My top non-fiction discovery of the year was Bad Girls by Jan Stradling.  Telling the amazing stories of 22 kick-ass women from throughout history--queens, pirates, warriors, serial killers, and con artists--it's a really fun, interesting read.  Some of these women are already household names--like Cleopatra and Mata Hari--but there are plenty of others whose names you've never heard, and after reading their stories, you'll wonder why!

My favorite classic re-read of the year has to be a tie between The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I enjoyed Great Gatsby a whole lot more than I did when I had to read it in high school.  I think being an adult and having a deeper understanding of and appreciation for human behavior made a big difference--and also just being allowed to focus on the book as a story about people instead of having to talk on and on about symbolism probably helped.  -_-  Pride and Prejudice gets a mention just cause it's one of my all-time favorite books and becomes more and more so each time I read or watch it.  :-)


But my number one favorite book of the year was definitely The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

This is a really personal choice obviously.  I already love Mrs. Dalloway and this book is a take-off/homage to that novel.  But even though Cunningham is basically doing a modern retelling and exploration of this great literary landmark (he even mimics Woolf's style of writing), the resulting story is still very much his own, and it's powerful both as a stand-alone novel and as a companion to Mrs. Dalloway.  They're almost more real than real life, and they allow you to experience the world in another person's skin at a level few authors are able to achieve.


 

MOVIES

This was Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino year for me.  I always liked Tarantino movies, but the more I watch the more my admiration grows--though I think Pulp Fiction is still my favorite. 

As for Wes Anderson--how did I not know about this guy before?!  I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel in theaters early in the year, and I've been on an Anderson kick every since.   Moonrise Kingdom is a marvel, and one of my all-time favorites: simple--perfect--genius. 

My top cinematic experience of the year is a tie between a very new movie and a rather old one: Interstellar and The Princess Bride.   Interstellar--for all of it's little logical faults and typically Nolan-esque convoluted plot--was powerful in a surprisingly elemental and primaeval way for me.  That's the first time I've cried in a theater since Toy Story 3.  (Yes, I'm a bit of a sap--shut up).  :-P

The Princess Bride, I had the privilege of seeing at a special late-night showing at Riverview Theater in Minneapolis.  I was rather afraid that the audience would be full of people quoting along with the entire movie, but actually the only time that happened was when everyone spontaneously joined in with the Impressive Clergyman: "And wuv...twue wuv..."  :-D  Watching a movie with fans is so much fun. 

And...I finally saw Frozen.  I didn't mean to, but my friends were all going to watch it, and I was like, "Well, why not?"  I was pleasantly surprised.  I'd been very disinclined to see it since the music and what I'd heard about the plot didn't sound all that interesting--and maybe I was also turned off by all the hype--but it was pretty good.  Even the music was better in context.  As for all the hype, I think this video does a really good job of explaining it--and they point out a lot of things that I found interesting about the movie too: Why Were People & Critics So Infatuated With Frozen? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios


TV SHOWS

Of course everyone was off their rockers this year about the new seasons of Sherlock, Downton Abbey, and Game of Thrones.  It was the first time that I've watched...practically anything...actually on TV in a long, long time.  I wasn't as crazy about this season of Sherlock as everyone else was though--in fact I had a lot of problems with it, not least of all the excessive mushiness into the which the plot sank like quicksand.  But I won't get into that.  Weis and Benioff almost spoiled an otherwise fantastic season of Game of Thrones with their disturbingly gratuitous rape scenes.  (Seriously, guys?  You don't think there's already enough misogynistic violence in the books?)  I could go into a long rant about why I think the changes they made are particularly creepy and damaging to the story, but I won't. 

My favorite new discoveries of the year though, were two (I think) relatively unknown shows called The United States of Tara and Moone Boy.  US of T is an American show that ran from 2009-2011 about a woman with multiple personality disorder and how she and her family try to cope with it.  To be honest, it's the sort of premise that I would normally roll my eyes at since TV has a tendency to make these things stupidly over-the-top--but the magic is in the details.  It's got wonderful, snappy dialog and winning characters (along with an award-winning performance by Toni Collette), and a lot of genuinely heart-felt moments.  Even if the portrayal of the mental disorder isn't accurate, I think the way they cope with it is. 

 

Moone Boy is a little comedic marvel.  It's mini-series about a little boy growing up in the west of Ireland in the late 80's, accompanied by a snarky, imaginary friend who gives him terrible advice.  The show is quirky and charming in all the best ways.  I'm looking forward to season three!

And okay, this is cheating cause I didn't see this until a couple days ago, but...whatever.  I am absolutely in love the mini-series Over the Garden Wall.  Broadcast on Cartoon Network in November of 2014, this children's/not-for-children cartoon miniseries is brilliant.  In every possible way.  With unforgettable characters, gorgeous animation, and a brilliant series of plots that mess with all your expectations, it's a tripped-out mash-up of Alice in Wonderland, Miyazaki, Huckleberry Finn, and good old-fashioned, scare-your-pants-off German style fairy tales.  It's absurd, profound, beautiful, creepy, joyous, and utterly mind-bending.  I've watched it twice in the last two days and I suspect I'll watch it again soon. 

Character Study: Zuko

Let me preface this by saying that this post is about Last Airbender, the TV show, not the movie, and there are plenty of spoilers.  If you haven't seen the show yet, but you want to, I recommend skipping this whole post.  

Zuko

from Avatar: The Last Airbender

created by Bryan Konietzko & Michael Dante DiMartino

Prince Zuko is hands-down my favorite character in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it didn't occur to me until recently to ask myself, why?  When I try to describe the development of his character, he comes across sounding like a totally generic Underdog Hero.  The defining trait of his personality is that he never gives up.  He is in many ways less talented and less clever than the other main characters, and he loses badly, over and over again, but he keeps fighting no matter what.  Of course, you admire him for that--but hasn't that story already been done to death?  How many movies can you think of where you're meant to root for the underdog as they fight their way to the top through blood, sweat, and tears?  Million Dollar Baby, Rudy, Sea Biscuit, Rocky, Hidalgo, Slum-Dog Millionaire, the Star Wars trilogy...even a movie like Legally Blonde fits the underdog story trajectory.   Pretty much any sports movie, a lot of martial arts movies, and any movie where the nerdy, unpopular kid becomes a hero and gets the girl falls into this category.

Now don't get me wrong, plenty of these movies are good, and there's a reason why the underdog trope shows up so often; it's exciting and we love it.  But very often when I recognize this trope, I still enjoy the story, but I'm not completely on the edge of my seat because I know how it's going to end.  With Zuko, I was more than on the edge of my seat--I was practically jumping out of my chair at times.  I felt Zuko's losses and triumphs more acutely than those of any other character in the show.

So what makes Zuko's story different?

In most stories, the underdog starts with nothing--usually poor, with no connections, few or no friends, and sub-par skills, or at least a sub-par reputation--and then, because he bravely (or foolishly) refuses to give up in the face of impossible odds, he eventually fights his way to the top and wins the love and admiration of the audience and the recognition and respect of the other characters.  To some extent, Zuko is like this.  At the beginning of Avatar, Zuko appears as the banished prince of the Fire Nation, mutilated and disowned by his father, cared for only by his uncle Iroh and the crew of his ship; and his fire-bending skills, though good, never measure up to the extraordinary bending talents of all the other characters around him.

However, what makes Zuko's situation different, and more tragic, is that he didn't come from nothing.  He was born with everything: the son and heir of the most powerful king in the world.  His banishment happened at the age of 13, when he was more than old enough to remember the life he had before, and old enough to feel some of his responsibilities as an adult, but not mature enough to deal with...anything, really.  His father also gave him (what was clearly intended to be) false hope, by telling Zuko that he could regain his honor and return home if he captured the Avatar--who at that time had not been seen for 100 years.  Zuko, being 13, was naive enough to believe that he could do this, and he spent the next few years of his life sailing around the world on this impossible mission.

Another thing that makes Zuko's story more complex, and more unusual, is that it's not just the story of an underdog.  It's also the story of a character who struggles with his own inner demons and eventually transitions from being a villain to being a good guy.  Granted, even at the beginning, you know that Zuko is not the most evil of evil characters--he doesn't kill or hurt anyone without cause, for instance--but he is one of the main villains of season 1, and the protagonists spend much of their time either fighting him or fleeing from him.

Zuko can be pretty scary when he wants to be.  

Interestingly, the other main villain of season 1 is the Fire Nation Commander Zhao, who serves as an excellent foil for Zuko.  Both he and Zuko are in a race to capture to the Avatar, but their morals are clearly quite different.  For example, in episode 3, Zuko challenges Zhao to a duel and beats him, fair and square, but chooses to spare Zhao's life.  Zhao responds by attacking Zuko as soon as the prince turns his back.  Uncle Iroh intervenes, subdues Zhao, and then calmly walks away, leaving Zhao with the scathing observation that, "Even in exile, my nephew has more honor than you."

Although Zuko clearly has redeeming qualities from the very beginning, his transformation from evil to good is very slow.  Zuko is not a very wise person, even for his age; he's impetuous, highly emotional, and tends to see everything in black and white.  Above all, he's been so obsessed for so long with restoring his birth-right and winning his father's love that he finds it hard to look at the world through any other lens.  Zuko gets smacked in the face with hard life lessons over and over again, and his uncle's constant benign influence and good advice seem to mostly bounce off him with no effect.  This can be very frustrating to watch.  But, that being said, changing yourself is hard--and I love that the creators of Avatar took the time to show this in all its anti-glory.

When your most fundamental beliefs are being challenged by everything you see around you, you can't accept it so easily.  There is a cost to letting go of the ideas you were raised with.  You can't simply change sides, at the drop of a hat, in a war that you've always believed was just.  You can't simply abandon your family, whom you've always wanted to love and be loved by in return, even when their inherent evil is so obvious to everyone else.  We see Zuko, scarred and humiliated, pay the price for changing himself, his worldview, and his values.  He moves--three steps forward, two steps back--towards becoming "the beautiful prince" that he has the potential to be. 

One of the most brilliant master-strokes of the entire show is in season 3, when Zuko finally has everything he wanted: his father accepted him back, his honor is restored, and he's being hailed as a hero throughout the Fire Nation--but then he chooses to give it all up.  This  is the most difficult and the most intriguing part of Zuko's journey, because now the conflict is purely internal.  All external enemies and obstacles have been removed, everything he wanted is his, and yet he still feels this deep contradiction, this wrongness within himself.  He has nowhere else to turn, no one else at whom he can direct his rage; the only thing he can do to cure himself is turn inward and truly confront his own demons. 

And he does. 

That's what makes Zuko amazing.  Most people in that situation would bury themselves in pleasures and power, and drown out those nettling barbs of conscience with thoughts of self-righteousness, egoism, and desperate self-justification.  Not Zuko. 

He takes his final step to self-determination when he confronts his father in a scene that is both touching and powerful.  Zuko finally becomes his own person, free of the negative influences and lies that he was raised with.  And he got there precisely because of his relentless refusal to give up the things he held most dear.  He's an underdog who got to the top, and then had the strength to give it all up for something lonelier and riskier, something purer and infinitely more precious: a chance to destroy the influences that had so corrupted him, and replace them with something better.  He chose to risk everything to try and create a better world, rather than reign over the tortured remains of the world corrupted by his forefathers. 

Zuko's journey is profound, poignant, painful, and awe-inspiring: the prince who became a outcast, the outcast who became a false hero, the false hero who became a revolutionary.  His inner strength is unparalleled, not just because he refused to give up in the face of impossible odds, but because, at the moment of his greatest success, he had the courage to look his darkest self in the face and triumph over him.  For that, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, I applaud you!

Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" - a story of genius fulfilled

SPOILER ALERT: In this post, I talk in great detail about The Wind Rises.  If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip this post and come back later.  :-)

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Miyazaki's latest and (allegedly) final movie doesn't have much of a plot.  There is no grand climax, and not even much character development.  It's just the story of a boy's life, as he follows his life's ambition to be an aeronautical engineer.  It takes place in Japan, from just a few years before the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, through Japan's ensuing economic collapse, and into World War II.  Although you witness all these disasters in the film, the main character, Jiro, seems oddly detached from them emotionally.  And though the moral question of how the planes that he's creating are being used does come up repeatedly, he never really grapples with the issue in any noticeable way.  Even surrounded by the wreckage of a war that he, in a material way, helped to create, he remains aloof, untouched--forever in his own little world.  

It is easy to describe The Wind Rises in this way, and if you do, it sounds terrible.  But with all this being said, I found this movie to be beautiful, touching, full of life, inspiration, and experiences both sensual and surreal.  I loved it.

Two Visions of van Gogh

I recently watched two documentaries about Vincent van Gogh: one, simply called Vincent, came out in 1987, directed by Paul Cox and narrated by John Hurt.  The other is called Van Gogh: Painted with Words (2010), directed by Andrew Hutton and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Vincent.  Both of them are comprised entirely of words taken directly from period sources, principally from van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo.  Yet, they're strikingly different takes on the same man and the same events.

The Paul Cox film is powerful in great part because of its pure simplicity and cohesion.  It consists entirely of a narration of van Gogh's letters to Theo, voiced by John Hurt, while the camera moves over scenes of the places, buildings, and countryside like those that van Gogh frequented and painted.  The few actors that actually appear in the film are not heard at all--they move silently across the screen, almost ghost-like.  You have the sense of being in van Gogh's head, of hanging suspended amid those images as you listen to his thoughts as he expressed them to his beloved brother.

The Andrew Hutton film, on the other hand, is slightly unnerving from the very beginning as it seems to mirror the schizophrenia that tormented van Gogh.  Contrary to the meditative quality of the Cox film, this one jumps rapidly from shot to shot, from disconcerting close-ups of van Gogh's face to views of his cell in the asylum, to other images or lines that you don't fully grasp at first.  It also goes back and forth between Alan Yentob in the present, narrating and explaining, and Cumberbatch and the other actors portraying van Gogh in his own time.  Personally, I found this style to be more jarring and less effective--at first.  But as I went along, I got that sense that what the director wanted to capture was not just the emotional and spiritual weight of van Gogh's words, but also the frenetic energy that dominated his character.  This movie is less of a cerebral-emotional experience and more of a visceral-emotional experience.  You definitely get a more powerful sense of his madness in this one--a more accurate picture of how he appeared to others and why he had such hard time with relationships, and life in general.

This is also reflected in Cumberbatch's performance vs. John Hurt's.  Hurt's version was more of...well, a narration.  It was a little more even-keel, though that is not to say that he expressed less feeling!  The emotional impact of Hurt's performance was very powerful--just less effusive.  Cumberbatch's interpretation was much more volatile, moving abruptly between manic intensity and quiet, profound depression.  Hurt conveyed more melancholy while Cumberbatch conveyed the sense of a man striving desperately to make a place for himself in the world and leave something behind that was worthwhile.

I think both interpretations are beautiful, and these two documentaries complement each other well.  I might still prefer the style of Cox's film; it seems much smoother and more crafted, while certain scenes and transitions in the Hutton film irked me a bit, but Hutton's movie also has a gritty quality to it that I appreciate.

On the other hand, perhaps the Cox film, by showing only the inner life of van Gogh and framing it with a reverence bordering on idealism, is the less realistic, or maybe less complete, portrayal of the two.  But they're both true--whether you want to lose yourself in the inner world of van Gogh's mind or witness all the inconsistent, nervous energy of a very flawed but brilliant man struggling to make his way among others, both of these homages to Vincent van Gogh are well worth your while. 

Women in Game of Thrones

It always kind of disturbed me how the women are treated in Game of Thrones.  As objects really.  As sex toys.  In the show there are countless gratuitous scenes with prostitutes, naked women, and degrading remarks about women.  On the surface, it seems like Game of Thrones is pretty grossly sexist. 

But let's take a step back.  Game of Thrones takes place in a setting that very closely resembles Medieval Europe.  The way women are treated in the show is probably a pretty accurate portrayal of the lives of Medieval women in general.  After all, in those times, women were essentially property, just as they are in Game of Thrones.   Saying that Game of Thrones is sexist is kind of like saying that 12 Years a Slave is racist.  It completely misses the point.

Not that Game of Thrones is expressly trying to spread awareness of the abuse of women or anything like that.  It is still, primarily, just a great fantasy adventure story.  But when it really comes down to it, what saves Game of Thrones from being sexist is that fact that every prominent female character in the story is strong, intelligent, and has such a depth of character that you can't help but empathize with her.

Even a character like Cersei, who I think we all can agree, is a Grade A Bitch, has moments where you really feel sorry for her, and she definitely has reasons for being the way she is.  The scene where the women are hiding in the Red Keep during the Battle of Blackwater and her conversation with Tyrion in the final episode of season three do a great deal to humanize her.  You'd have to be cold as stone not to pity her when she talks about her son Joffrey.  So sad. 

What I really love about the women in Game of Thrones, however, is the fact that they are all strong, and yet all so different.   When I was an adolescent, I read a great deal of fantasy novels, and after a while, it really annoyed me that the only women who were portrayed as "strong" were the ones who completely rejected their traditional feminine roles.  They were the tomboys, the sword-wielding women who dressed in men's clothes and took on a man's role.  When I read Game of Thrones in high school, I was overjoyed to discover Catelyn Stark--a noblewoman who remained completely within the bounds of her traditional gender role, and yet whom no one could deny had nerves of steel, was smart, brave, and fiercely loyal.  How could anyone not respect Lady Stark?  She was the ultimate strong, feminine, dutiful woman.  A true noblelady. 

Catelyn Stark was the one who struck me the most in high school, but after watching the show, I am reminded of how the strong female characters in Game of Thrones really fill the spectrum of possibilities.