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The Mike Toole Show - Follow the Melos Brick Road


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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13542
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 1:49 pm Reply with quote
The Greek legend, according to Wikipedia, is Damon and Pythias. By today's standards, such close relationship could be seen as a being between brotherhood/being gay.
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Eldritcho



Joined: 14 Dec 2010
Posts: 260
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 2:12 pm Reply with quote
Sounds like a pretty cool film!
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Kyuusu



Joined: 26 Sep 2009
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:25 pm Reply with quote
Damon and Phintias is a really popular legend in Greek, it's even taught at school, has a few unpopular versions which are passed from mouth to mouth and songs after them. Both takes of the story (Run, Melos! and the Aoi Bungaku version were really interesting to watch, the first one had excellent animation and I liked he way they portrayed the characters, especially Selinuntius, he had a solid profile unlike the one Damon has in the legends.

As for Aoi Bungaku's adaptation the parallels were superb and extremely interesting. I'm a fan of Dazai's works, so adding the writer's feelings to the story was the best part for me, I wish I could also read the novel so I could compare them, too bad it's not translated in English. Furuya's adaptation of No Longer Human was great though and the pride of my collection, it's a pity it's almost OOP.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 4:04 pm Reply with quote
I wonder why on Earth the 80s movie decided to include something about the Olympics in the English title? I'm assuming name familiarity, but I wonder if they changed the story a lot to pretend it was related to the Olympics?

Anyway, I really want to check out the 1992 movie, and the entire Aoi Bungaku series. I've already read Vertical's manga of No Longer Human, so I'd also like to see that one in Aoi Bungaku. Hopefully, someone like Discotek or Nozomi would go for picking up Aoi Bungaku.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15280
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:10 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
a task I'd been inspired to do by reading his English-translated manga - hey, why ain't there a translation of World Apartment Horror yet?!


The Vertical people have stated that Otomo's been really reluctant to have his non-Akira stuff published in English. Which is a damned shame, because I want those bleeping Kaba books, myself. Crying or Very sad I did try to get his acquaintance on Twitter to at least consider that one for Kon's family's sake, though.
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EyeOfPain



Joined: 14 May 2013
Posts: 312
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 6:46 pm Reply with quote
classicalzawa wrote:
I wonder why on Earth the 80s movie decided to include something about the Olympics in the English title? I'm assuming name familiarity, but I wonder if they changed the story a lot to pretend it was related to the Olympics?


Wow... Olympus. Because, yeah, the name for the Olympic games came out of the ether. Still not an entirely accurate title choice.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 7:43 pm Reply with quote
EyeOfPain wrote:
classicalzawa wrote:
I wonder why on Earth the 80s movie decided to include something about the Olympics in the English title? I'm assuming name familiarity, but I wonder if they changed the story a lot to pretend it was related to the Olympics?


Wow... Olympus. Because, yeah, the name for the Olympic games came out of the ether. Still not an entirely accurate title choice.

Yeah, and if the story goes near Olympus and that's a big plot point, that's fine, but it doesn't sound like it does. Most American parents and kids are going to think it has something to do with the sports Olympics though, based on the title. My complaint wasn't ignorance of where the term "Olympics" comes from, but why they would purposely make it sounds related to the Olympics that are held every 2-4 years if neither the mountain nor the games had any connection to the story. There's making a title deceptive on purpose from the ground up, then there's making up your own title when importing, thinking it'll sell better or something.

On a side note, man, i remember those balloon VHS kids covers! Never had that one, but I must've had some others.
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CorneredAngel



Joined: 17 Jun 2002
Posts: 854
Location: New York, NY
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:03 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
...and still, these two films aren't the only versions of the Melos story.


For what it's worth, the (IMHO underrated) Gainax show Melody of Oblivion at least references it - along with a bunch of other myths. If I remember correctly, the main character's catch phrase is Echo, My Melos!
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:26 pm Reply with quote
From my understanding, the modern Greek pronunciation of Melos would be MAY-los.
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Utsuro no Hako



Joined: 18 May 2012
Posts: 1032
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:57 pm Reply with quote
It's not just the anime that are hard to find. The only English version of the Dazai story I've been able to find was actually published in Japan as a "practice English by reading stuff you already know" book.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:31 am Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
From my understanding, the modern Greek pronunciation of Melos would be MAY-los.
Depending on whether the "e" is an ε (epsilon) or an η (eta); in the latter case the modern pronunciation is actually closer to the English "ee". But then, Dazai took the characters' names from Schiller's Die Bürgschaft, where the protagonist's name was spelled "Moerus". The German "oe" or "ö" usually corresponds to the Greek digraph οι, which is also pronounced similarly to "ee" in modern Greek.
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aquascor



Joined: 12 Jul 2012
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 8:36 am Reply with quote
Also don’t forget this has a reference in SPT Layzner… the theme song is Melos no Lonely Way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPALe1jTRzk

Awesome song Very Happy
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 9:46 am Reply with quote
Utsuro no Hako wrote:
It's not just the anime that are hard to find. The only English version of the Dazai story I've been able to find was actually published in Japan as a "practice English by reading stuff you already know" book.

The original English 1981 dub VHS might be hard to find, but it can be found in ripped version online. There's also a few subtitled vhs-rips of the 1992 movie out there...
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reanimator





PostPosted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 7:19 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Tracking Hashire, Melos! down wasn't merely problematic because of its age or limited release (VHS copies are plentiful-- you can even see VHS rips on YouTube-- but I've never once managed to find a listing for the purported laserdisc release)


I have Laserdisc version of the Run Melos movie. It's really hard to find even on Yahoo Japan auction.
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invalidname
Contributor



Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:53 am Reply with quote
Nice to hear about something from Dezai other than No Longer Human. I read the first LN of Book Girl, which is all about Dezai, and it was hard to get a sense of his work other than a) NLH, b) suicide.
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