Forum - View topicDirector Mamoru Oshii Reflects on His Anime Classic Beautiful Dreamer
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earl.m
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Didn't watch much of Urusei Yatsura because I find "perverted male main character shows" off-putting. So I haven't seen this classic. Although strangely I have heard the opposite of what Mamoru Oshii asserts about "Beautiful Dreamer: it is precisely because the movie is so unconventional that one really doesn't need to know much about the character or story to enjoy it for its own sake. Which is why I have it on my "will watch one day" list to at least give it a chance in the hopes that Ataru's repelling behavior doesn't figure as prominently in this one. But as for the "at the time" critics of this movie, I can understand their point. It is similar to the controversy over the recent Netflix He-Man reboot as well as the Mortal Kombat movie: if the most popular character isn't very prominent people are going to feel let down.
Also, will people please quit it with "tanks and guns are male symbols"? Or to put it another way ... if you can come up with another shape that can be used to accurately fire projectiles, then let's see your engineering diagram and proof-of-concept. Or your proposal for a magical fantasy utopia where projectiles aren't needed? NATO, the United Nations and everyone else would love to hear it. And the whole "tanks are an example of the male principle" thing ... didn't Vandread absolutely shred that sort of gender essentialist thinking 20 years ago? I know that it wasn't the biggest hit in history especially if its second cour was planned and approved from the beginning, but maybe Oshii should check it out. |
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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You are missing out a lot. Urusei Yatsura is so much more than just a show with a "perverted male main character". Furthermore, Ataru isn't just perverted. He's also quite clever and cunning when it helps him to reach a certain goal, and every now and then you see glimpse of an honest and caring guy which is why Lum is in love with him and will stand by him forever. |
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Romuska
 Subscriber Posts: 799 |
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This is one of my all time favorite films! I've seen it many times and showed it to a lot of my friends. Keep in mind this is coming from someone who has yet to see more than three episodes of the original series.
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1422 |
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I don't know if this is just me projecting, but what I love about this movie is how it uses its Groundhog Day-like scenario to comment on how wacky anime/manga romantic comedies tend to get repetitive and creatively stagnant because the characters never change and the protagonist never commits to someone.
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Thespacemaster
Posts: 1108 |
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Urusei Yatsura was one of the first anime i ever watched when i was getting into it and is pretty much the oldest one on my roster, it is a true classic and this movie is a masterpiece that highlights it at the very top, it is a shame that a lot of newer generation fans dont really try it out as much cause many are put off by both the story and outdated animation if u ignore the later specifcally i garuntee you will enjoy it.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4371 Location: New York |
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Considering how Yatsura ended (no spoilers here), that seems to be quite the solid foundation. Add that to the qualities of these characters, and the end result is a classic work. |
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MagicPolly
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Maybe that's why Takahashi supposedly dislikes it, she didn't like getting called out 
Jokes aside, I've never seen UY but Beautiful Dreamer has always intrigued me. Maybe I'll watch it as a gateway to the series one day. |
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khaos1019
 Posts: 93 |
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This is my favorite movie of all time. I remember seeing it for the first time in 1998 on the Sci-Fi Channel. I was about 12 years old at the time, and I still believe that it shaped a lot of my tastes and feelings about cinema and storytelling in general to this day.
At the time, I didn't know what Urusei Yatsura was. I remember thinking it was just the name of the creator of the movie. Kind of like "John Carpenter's The Thing" or something. Some time later I figured out what Urusei Yatsura actually was and have seen the entire series and all the other movies. I'd recommend this movie to anyone. It really is something special, and I'm so glad ANN managed to get this interview published. It's a wonderful look into its creation. Thanks~! |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 724 |
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To anyone on the fence, Beautiful Dreamer is absolutely worth watching and you don't need to have seen any part of Urusei Yatsura or be familiar with it at all. It's a rare bird in that it could easily have characters swapped out for different, original characters and it would still work. It might even work better if you aren't familiar with the screwball comedy of the main series because the tone of BD is so different.
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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I never got into the UY TV anime or manga (despite liking Maison Ikkoku and most of Takahashi's other work), so Beautiful Dreamer being so different works in its favor for me. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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I haven't seen much of Oshii's work beyond the original Ghost in the Shell (which didn't click with me very much) and Angel's Egg (which was a whole ball of wut), so I always had him pegged as something of an oddball. (Seriously, what the hell was Sand Whale and Me?) That being said, I've loved reading both of these recently-posted interviews, as they shed a ton of light on who he is as a creator. He had such a fascinating take on what it means to be called a "creator" in the previous one, and in this it's interesting to read about his decision to place character focus in the background after the worldview and story of the film. I've always tended to enjoy more plot-focused works over character-focused ones, and I was surprised to see such an acclaimed director make a case for that method of storytelling. I know very little about Urusei Yatsura as a whole, but Beautiful Dreamer has been on my watch list for a while now.
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moshingsafely
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The strength of Urusei Yatsura as a show is that the mangaka and the anime staff did not appear to be on the same page. So the series starts out with a bunch of pretty straight adaptations of the manga, silly horny nonsense. But as the show got more popular and the staff got more comfortable, they started messing with the formula in crazy ways. Entire episodes would go by as stylistic homages to some genre or another that would in many ways transgress the original manga. Like, at one point they did a really scary adaptation of "And Then There Were None" where the entire cast got killed off, with no ironic payoff. At its best, this led to stories that explored more interesting character relationships than the manga ever did. The movies seemed particularly ambivalent about being faithful to the manga. While the first movie was pretty straightforward, movies 2 through 4 were all in some way messing with the formula and trying to comment on the phenomenon of the show / manga in a really meta way. Movie 4 in particular is basically nonsensical on a plot level, and seems to have this ultimate message of "You, the fans, are stupid because you want this dumb romantic comedy to go on forever" (I love that movie, by the way). Movie 4 apparently pissed audiences off so much that Movie 5 was a massive course correction, and basically a love letter to Takahashi's vision. As a whole, it's a fascinating series to analyze. ...We don't talk about movie 6. |
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2336 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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One of my favorite animated movies of all time. Thank you for the interview. Very intricate.
Might've asked about the Nazi stuff in the first five minutes, but I'll let it pass. |
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earl.m
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Thanks. I am - very slowly - watching Ranma 1/2 (couldn't get into Maison Ikkoku for similar reasons in that didn't like the male protagonist ... Ranma is a jerk too but similar to Inuyasha at least he can fight) so I might give Urusei Yatsura a shot afterwards. |
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Banjo
Posts: 779 |
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While my favorite anime of all time is Ranma and probably Maison Ikkoku 2nd (if you plan to watch it then hang on until episode 6~7) I find Urusei Yatsura not as entertaining. It had some good episodes every once in while but the jokes felt aiming for little kids.. I watched this dreamer movie way back then I don't remember what it was about to be honest.
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