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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter
Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23749
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 Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:36 pm
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I don't think the issue is so much "veneration" as it is "idealization." Sorry for making a sweeping generalization, but Japanese society has a concept of what constitutes a "good girl" and you won't see too many female anime protagonists break that mold. Frankly, the same thing is true of Western entertainment. It's only been somewhat recently that we've been getting complicated female lead characters.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4814
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:38 pm
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Does anyone else get tired of these auteur anime directors who probably make millions of dollars off their films arguing which one of them is the best?
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Zeino
Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:52 pm
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While I can sort of agree with the people saying that Hosoda here is being a person in a glass house throwing stones at Miyazaki while ignoring his own deification of motherhood and family. He also does have the shape of a point here. Miyazaki does kind of revere his female characters to a sometimes unnatural degree with one or two exceptions like San or Chihiro.
He's allowed to have complex and contradictory views on his once employer. Granted, Hosoda really does badly undermine his case here by pulling out "He doesn't have confidence as a man" Freudian bullshit.
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icomeanon6
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Joined: 19 Mar 2009
Posts: 114
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:31 pm
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I'd like to live in a world where Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Hosoda sit down and have a frank, constructive discussion about the roles women and girls play in their films and what it says about their own worldviews, psychologies, and society. But I understand that instead we live in a world where one anime director makes a dig at another anime director in an interview and any further discussion is limited to vitriolic fights on the internet by fans. Oh well.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4814
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:36 pm
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All this underscores how great it would be if more women got to direct big budget anime films.
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MagicPolly
Joined: 26 Nov 2020
Posts: 1574
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:41 pm
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | All this underscores how great it would be if more women got to direct big budget anime films. |
This. The only one I can think of is Mari Okada and even then she only made her directorial debut 3 years ago after 15+ years in the industry
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:43 pm
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| MagicPolly wrote: | |
This. The only one I can think of is Mari Okada and even then she only made her directorial debut 3 years ago after 15+ years in the industry |
Chiaki Kon also recently directed Sailor Moon Eternal though that's not on the same budget of something like a Hosoda film. And it took 20+ years to finally have a woman director for a Sailor Moon anime adaptation.
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Zeino
Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:23 pm
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: |
| MagicPolly wrote: | |
This. The only one I can think of is Mari Okada and even then she only made her directorial debut 3 years ago after 15+ years in the industry |
Chiaki Kon also recently directed Sailor Moon Eternal though that's not on the same budget of something like a Hosoda film. And it took 20+ years to finally have a woman director for a Sailor Moon anime adaptation. |
Naoko Yamada, Director of A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird also says hi.
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ErikaD.D
Joined: 09 Jun 2019
Posts: 659
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:16 am
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| Key wrote: | | And this coming from the person who practically deified the mother in Wolf Children. . . |
And also is the same Hosoda, the one who created "Wolf Children" about single mother raising her 2 kids when their father is dead --- killed off 2 MCs mothers in "A Boy and The Beast" and "Belle". Also ironic?
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harminia
Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1997
Location: australia
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:44 am
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I have no issue with him criticising Miyazaki because there is a lot to comment on there but maybe Hosoda needs to look at his own work and improve on the things he's critiqueing here.
I haven't seen a lot of Hosoda films but I do recall the female character in Boy & the Beast being such a plot character rather than her own person. she was literally just there to say the things the protag needed to hear and to insert a hetro romance that the movie didn't particularly need nor develop in any believable way (the girl was so boring and devoid of much personality beyond "perfect", MC must fall in love at the drop of a hat). TBH the sections in the Human World were so boring because I simply did not care about the relationship at all, but anyway...
It's entirely possible for someone to critique a person on things they themselves are guilty of, but I think when you're an established creator, critiquing someone as respected as Miyazaki is not something you should do if you share the same issues...
(FWIW I'm not a massive Ghibli fan and I do not like Miyazaki very much)
Anyway now let's get Shinkai in on the fight.
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Tascar
Joined: 14 Nov 2005
Posts: 18
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 9:45 am
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With regards to "Wolf Children," I have always wondered the difference in perception of the mother character Hana is due to some fundamental cultural difference between the general expectations of motherhood, for better or for worse, in the West versus in Japan and/or other parts of Asia.
When I saw "Wolf Children," I saw a lot of my mother in Hana because I recognized in her character the same selflessness, sacrifice, and drive that I saw in my mother who raised my brother and I, mostly without the support of a father, made more difficult by the fact that she was an immigrant from Asia who came to the United States with three-year-old me. As an adult looking back, I am sure that there were many challenging moments and times for my mother, but I feel like she tried very hard to keep them from my brother and I as opposed to venting it out in front of the two of us. As such, when I watch "Wolf Children," which is told from the perspective of the daughter Yuki, I don't find the portrayal of the mother unusual at all. My brother and a group of Asian friends with whom I watched the movie with at the same time at Otakon also had the same reaction to the Hana character as I did. I did eventually show my mother the film and while she had a lot of quibbles about the last 1/3 of the film, she did also say that she could see in Hana the experience of her own mother raising her and her siblings, also in difficult times and circumstances.
For the record, I don't think "Wolf Children" is without its flaws but I am always surprised to hear so much criticism of the Hana character as unrealistic or deified or perfect, especially here at ANN (I seem to recall similar criticisms on ANNCast as well). To put it as delicately as possible, I wonder if the people making this specific criticism just haven't personally experienced or seen a mother like this in real life and as such, a mother that to me seems completely normal and ordinary seems like a completely unrealistic and fictional creation. But then I think about how many times I have seen mothers on American TV portrayed in a way completely opposite to the Hana character, mother who actively treat their children with distain, sometimes openly talk about them as burdens, and seem to be always trying to find any opportunity possible to dump them off at camp or with a neighbor to escape away for fun, and I have to start wondering if this is a cultural thing.
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Shay Guy
Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2111
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 2:04 pm
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| Zeino wrote: | | Miyazaki does kind of revere his female characters to a sometimes unnatural degree with one or two exceptions like San or Chihiro. |
I remember reading Zac's 2015 review of Spirited Away when it was posted and feeling very uncomfortable about it, because the way he described the themes suggested to me that while Miyazaki loves his ideal of children, he holds real children in contempt for failing to live up to what they're supposed to be like. Compare how Satsuki and Chihiro react to moving, for example. Zac's line "She'll get back her name when she's earned the right to have it" was especially striking -- are names a privilege preserved for the worthy now?
I'm inclined to think that people have rights. And in particular that children need, deserve, and have the right to support. Going back to Hosoda, when I think of Mirai, I don't know that Miyazaki could've made Kun so sympathetic even when his toddler-level maturity manifests in unpleasant ways. (I haven't seen Ponyo since the theater, but even though Sosuke's only a year older, I remember him being far more autonomous.)
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Saeryen
Joined: 26 Aug 2020
Posts: 880
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 2:14 pm
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Regarding Miyazaki, I've only seen Kiki's Delivery Service and The Cat Returns, and I think both leads are very well-rounded. Kiki is very typical for her age and has a wonderful coming-of-age story, and Haru, I think, is a realistic teenager who has a nice journey of learning to believe in herself (plus she decides not to go for the boy she liked at first since he was kind of a jerk).
When I think about strong female leads in anime my mind tends to go to Cardcaptor Sakura and Pretty Cure, both of which feature girls who use a combination of strength and compassion to save the day, which are really good values for any gender. On that note, I do think that compassion and kindness as strength needs to emphasized more for boys, not just in Japan but around the world, which is why I love Natsume Yuujinchou so much since it features a male lead whose strength is his kindness.
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Sakura-Alchemist
Joined: 17 Nov 2009
Posts: 489
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:22 pm
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| Quote: | | Although Hosoda did not name Hayao Miyazaki, the AFP identified him as the subject of the conversation. |
So in what way did they identify it as Hayao Miyazaki? Is it just the AFP assumed and shifted the conversation? Because if you take Hosoda's comment in the context of Moe anime it makes sense. The only reason there is even an argument is people are assuming it is about Miyazaki and not the uwu moe boom/purity porn. I would like to know if they did indeed correctly read Hosoda's mind, or if they just shifted the conversation to another popular creator and they just went with the flow of the conversation?
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Whitestrider
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Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:27 pm
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| Sakura-Alchemist wrote: |
| Quote: | | Although Hosoda did not name Hayao Miyazaki, the AFP identified him as the subject of the conversation. |
So in what way did they identify it as Hayao Miyazaki? Is it just the AFP assumed and shifted the conversation? Because if you take Hosoda's comment in the context of Moe anime it makes sense. The only reason there is even an argument is people are assuming it is about Miyazaki and not the uwu moe boom/purity porn. I would like to know if they did indeed correctly read Hosoda's mind, or if they just shifted the conversation to another popular creator and they just went with the flow of the conversation? |
| Quote: | | "I will not name him, but there is a great master of animation who always takes a young woman as his heroine. And to be frank I think he does it because he does not have confidence in himself as a man.
"This veneration of young women really disturbs me and I do not want to be part of it," he insisted. |
Now, how many japanese great masters of animation do you know that often have a main female heroine in their movies??
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