February 4th, 2025
- 148 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 45 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- Misc: read like 5-10 articles on NHK Easy news because I saw a thread on WaniKani where people kept talking about it and I was like “what’s all this about” and as it turns out, it’s not that difficult to read and it teaches you a bit about Japanese culture, but I need a while more incentive to properly sink into it xdd
Internet outage day 4. I’m losing my mind xddd
I won’t be back at home for the whole February, so maybe it’ll balance out, but I used 1/10-1/12th of my internet packet each day of the outage, so it’s getting a little scary knowing that’s the case xd
But today I was trying to do things in the town and also managed to clean at home, so there’s silver linings as well ^^
I went to get my nails done and I couldn’t think of a pattern, but I started thinking of Japanese influences to me, and I was able to find something! Well, it’s just an excuse to preface today’s spam, so here comes xdd
Seems familiar yet?
I think the colors came together pretty nicely ^^
Naoko Yamada and Reiko Yoshida. One thing that makes me go like, meh, most of the time when I watch anime, is that it presents a pretty narrow, a pretty limited set of perspectives. You’ll get your Satoshi Kons and Junji Itos here and there and I really appreciate them, but it makes all the difference to just, uhhh, see yourself be rEPRESENTED ON THE SCREEN.
Koe no Katachi was one thing. I remember thinking a while back that I liked it more than Kimi no Na wa, because while the latter focused on the world existing and people interacting in it, the characters felt subdued and washed out. It’s not that big of a criticism of Kimi no Na wa, I feel it pretty often in anime, that a character can only be this developed, because there’s a hard cap on ways on how specific groups of people can express their opinions. As a person who believes in the power of individuality, often I’m just left to go like “yeah, whatever, it’s anime, I guess Japanese people just think that way”.
And then Koe no Katachi comes into the picture.
Hot take. Naoka Ueno is the best character in the movie.
It’s very easy for anime to just show a list of traits a character has and ask for you to clap, and I often do it, I like for my characters to be nice and easy.
Naoka is how I would’ve personally interacted with the universe of Koe no Katachi. The way how she’s been written is just, brilliant. It’s complex, but not necessarily in a morally ambiguous way: she tries to be someone that agrees with her own values, and seeing a change in available evidence, her values lead her to reconsider her stance on things. You can see her feelings, her fighting with the new understanding of the world, but then realizing that it cannot continue, having a new set of evidence.
It’s such a great characterization, because I hate the label of “morally ambiguous” people, and having such a relief from them is something that made that movie stay with me and think about Ueno long after finishing it. I’m the same: a person who lives by her values, but the values might lead me to do wrong things to people. I hope I’m not harming people, but that’s still a possibility ^^
But Koe no Katachi is still not my favorite work of Naoko Yamada. That honor falls to Rizu to Aoi Tori, Liz and the Blue Bird
yep, that’s the color palette ^^
Absolutely nothing happens in the movie at all.
It’s in my current top 4 movies of all time on Letterboxd.
It’s an hour and a half’s dive into my soul, though, of course, I’m projecting things. That movie left a gigantic impression on me, by using synesthesia to tell a story of people that would like to do more with their lives, without sugar coating it, by just showing the raw suffering of people that suffer because of trying to be together, but unable to do so.
This is why representation really matters and I will stand by the fact that I adore this movie.
Although most of my relationships with people I care about lean very heavily anxious attachment style (Mizore), from the first minutes of this movie it was obvious to me that Nozomi with her avoidant attachment style is how I would’ve acted in that specific relationship.
It’s so sad, but so relatable, to witness a relationship that you know has no chance of taking off, and you still holding onto that thought for 90 minutes, that maybe it’ll work out, that maybe they’ll find a way how to relate to one another… But you know it’s doomed, right?
And a part of the reason why it’s doomed is because you’re trying to uphold and obey a specific image, specific rules, you believe in those values, but you see how they get in the way of being able to connect with another person. It’s not your fault, but it’s your conscious choice that you keep making.
There’s so much kindness and compassion and attempts being made not to hurt the other party, the desperate yearning and longing, from both sides, but both sides knowing that it isn’t the best solution for them. Everything shown through sounds, colors, blobs of paints, metaphors, it’s so obvious what the movie is trying to say, and yet…
I remember having finished the movie for the first time and my having my face buried in my hands with flushed cheeks going like “I feel seen. Naoko Yamada and Reiko Yoshida saw me, and made a movie about myself.” It’s a movie that’s just, catharsis in a film format.
I can’t wait for Kimi no Iro to come out in Germany in April, because judging by my previous experiences of Naoko Yamada’s movies, I know I will love it, and I know it’ll speak to me personally. But until then, I hope I sparked your interest in Liz and the Blue Bird at least!
This movie. Wow.
Give it a shot, and hopefully, thank me for it later ^^
See you tomorrow!
