#Celluloid and Leftovers

[kdnss77]

Girl Hell 1999/Shojo jigoku ichi kyu kyu kyu (1999)

basic info: directed and written by Daisuke Yamanouchi (also known as the executive of such titles as "Red Room" or "Celluloid Nightmares" from the same year). it's classified under the genre of horror, for the sake of including acts of slight gore, violence and a broad range of sexual abuse performances.

overall ratings: imdb: 5,1/10 letterboxd: 2,5/5

plot summary: the movie sets off with a melancholic shot featuring the protagonist, 17-year old Misaki, which turns out to be a leap into the future in the latter take (and, probably, captures the rather suicidal state of her mind - as the events unfold, we're gradually familiarized with all that the girl had dealt with and what has left her almost completely callous to the matter of her own existence). subsequently, we learn that Misaki actively supports a homeless woman living near the bridge in the town, bringing her leftover food and keeping her company. however, it turns out she's in the center of attention of both a young, although extremely short-tempered and abusive worker and an individual standing behind the repetitive thefts of her biking seat (which, to me, at first seemed more of a cruel joke made by her classmates, so as to bully her. but it comes down to a gross piss kink later on). its also revealed that the schoolgirl parts her daily life with an unpredictable father and a heavily wounded sister, who constantly needs to be taken care of. her sibling's immobility is unfortunately taken advantage of by the parent, him imposing becoming an object destined for rape only on her. more into the movie, when Misaki resigns on meeting the guy interested in her, he and his loyal friend run for a vigorous killing spree in revenge - first, they brutally deal with the oblivious woman from under the bridge, then knock Misaki's father off and end up torturing her sister until she's become completely lifeless. in the meantime, Misaki herself is captured by the pervert, who has been the initial cause for her bike seat to magically disappear (this sequence includes a picture of the man drinking her urine from a tube). then we're finally brought to the point, with which the whole movie began - Misaki's out of any emotions, becomes completely soulless and simply gives herself in to the two previously mentioned friends, who have just murdered her only family. the ending scene is rather unexpected - while walking off, the protagonist encounters the beaten up, homeless woman, holding a different doll (the previous one and therefore the one woman has been taking care of so thoroughly ever since - Haruko - had been destroyed by the workers). this sight causes the girl to snap and proceed to continuously hurt the terrified woman with a bat.

my thoughts: this one, no matter from what angle you look at it, is plainly pointless. just a story about a schoolgirl who somehow happens to have everything and everyone against her, suffering non-culpably for being too pure and kind-hearted for this world. having oversimplified what my reflections on this have morphed into so far, of course. nevertheless, the movie has some remarkable bits, that make it live up to my expectations in a way. in terms of the production it's, however, way below those - it's clearly a low-budget one, what emerges in inadequate cuts or sudden lightning changes (on the contrary, one could state that this was purely intentional - personally i liked the random alternations between first colored and then black-white canvas in the meantime of all the dramatic shots. it points to some further vision and potential, that - unfortunately - wasn't entirely fulfilled). what i find valuable about "Girl Hell" is the aftermath of its story. the plot alone is rather senseless, but taking into consideration the burden protagonist has to deal with, it makes her a pretty complex character. firstly, she seems to live in constant fear - the moments, in which she contemplates on entering her own house are filled with unspeakable tension. deep inside she'd rather be anywhere else, far away from the hell she has to deal with every day after school. she never knows what to expect from her perverted and aggressive father, of whom she's afraid of and can't do much to stop him from sexually abusing her disabled sibling. her sister on the other hand, loathes her, even though Misaki is the one to treat her unhealed wounds. what's more, she's convinced Misaki's glad she ended up like this, prompting her to spiral down her own helplessness even deeper. in a hazardous confrontation with her father, after pointing a knife at him, she's also obstinately defending her mother, who had abandoned their family some time ago. however, it seems that - somewhere, under the surface of self-indulged guilt - she pities her parent for leaving her, not receiving this motherly kind of love. this lack emerges, among others, in the scene where Misaki starts to drink milk from a breast of the homeless woman - sucking on it just like a newborn child, almost wistfully. then, again, in the ending scene of the movie - when Misako realizes, that a new doll has already found its place in the arms of the lady, she rages on her with a blood-covered bat, granting her with numerous hits. to me, it seems that she might have seen herself in this particular piece of plastic - she's been simply thrown away by her mother (who, taking into account the words of Misaki's father, has probably run away with an another man), despite being nothing more than a child. it's symbolic in a way - it's the first and only time in the whole movie that Misaki lets her frustrations out instead of obediently cramming them inside. this scene, in fact, literally rescues the production as a whole. but it still doesn't contribute to exceeding the norms of mediocre watch. i just wish Yamanouchi contented himself on releasing a rather poorly made, although self-sufficient movie. and not something aspiring to be a high-budget crap, screaming with potential yet too proudly exhibited. and it's exactly what killed it.

my rating: 2,5/5

favorite quote: "I bet you feel real good, now that i've ended up like this." (these words come from Misaki's sister. i find them crucial in a way, as the point of the protagonist's story is the exaggerated focus her inability to prove anyone or anything wrong - including the self-loathing she most probably experienced too in the face of it. her family life is a torture, she's surrounded by perverts and abusive individuals, basically drowning in all sorts of depravation. it seems as if she was sentenced for them, the one to be blamed for everything that ever happens. just like you could imagine the generalized perception of hell, a never ending torture).

the images were found by me on the internet, credit to their original uploaders.

[lunajunctionvintage]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Statement Dangle Earrings Made with French Ivory Celluloid & Glass Grapes - OOAK.

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name (50th Anniversary Edition; 2021 Remaster)

The 13 demos and alternative takes that comprise the bonus material on the 50th-anniversary reissue of If I Could Only Remember My Name are mostly inessential. But a couple of unearthed gems and an excuse to revisit David Crosby’s triumphant solo-in-name-only debut is always a cause for celebration.

Recorded with a boffo group of compadres that included most of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, non-Carlos members of Santana, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and others, the LP is a psychedelic/folk masterpiece that remains entirely relevant a half-century later. But if we’re being honest, most of the 2021 additions are filler, which serves to cheapen a record that originally arrived with none.

Among the highlights in the bonus material are an alternative version of “Cowboy Movie,” a full-bore rocker with no harmony vocals that tells of the demise of Crosby, Still, Nash & Young in aural celluloid. This one finds Young - instead of Jerry Garcia as on the album version - on lead guitar and the result is more ramshackle and brusque. Also, a nearly finished version of “Where Will I Be?” leaves the listener to wonder why Crosby waited years to release it on a duo album with Nash.

Elsewhere, Crosby tries to imitate whale songs on “Bach Mode (Pre-Critical Mass),” an unlistenable snippet that should’ve remained vaulted. Demos of “Laughing” and “Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves)” provide crucial insight to how the songs evolved. And acoustic leftovers like “Riff 1” and the wordless, multi-tracked vocalizations of “Dancer” could’ve been rolled into proper numbers, but are mere seeds and stems as presented.

Ultimately, this expanded Remember has too much girth. But there is an argument to be made for putting it out there and leaving the listener to choose what gets played and what gets skipped. And we’ll always have the original.

Grade card: David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name (50th Anniversary Edition; 2021 Remaster) - B

11/9/21

[toozmanykids]

Chapter 2: UP & DONE!!

Blustering Storms And Wet Pants by Toozmanykids on AO3

(Hey! That's ME!)

Chapter 2: Riders On The Storm

Summary: Jen's mysterious neighbor, the reclusive Dr. Laing storms into her life. How careful does she need to be handling this fragile basket case full of eggs who won't speak about what just happened?

..........

When The National Weather Service puts out an alert for a Heavy Thunderstorm Warning coupled with a Tornado Watch, a normal person hunkers down to ride out the storm in the safety of their home and pays close attention to the TV or radio for any possible changes. So like a normal person, Jen grabbed her pillow and favorite blanket to go down to the basement when it was time for bed. Curled up with a book on an old bean bag chair leftover from college, she dozed off safe for the night - best to just start off downstairs than sleep through any actual Tornado Warnings or worse, wake up too late like Dorothy did.

Jen knew she'd never find her way home in such a scenario. Fancy slip-ons rarely fit her weird feet. She would be stuck in Oz forever - just another recurring nightmare filled trauma due to ill fitting shoes. She needed that like another hole drilled in her head and those dreams left her with morning headaches worse than concussions.

The thunderstorm that night was particularly violent. One lightning strike sounded so close that the whole house rattled. The sound was terrifying even from the basement; Jen pictured half the house had been ripped away. Moments later another strike hit close by, immediately followed by a loud explosion and the power went out. A nearby transformer likely blew or hopefully that's all it was.

Although she jumped at the loud noises from the storm as any normal person would, her heart did a triple axel flip when a man burst through her basement door soaked to the bone - a madman shouting into the dark. Light entered through the open door sporadically from the lightning flashes that flooded the ground floor above. The unwaning intensity of the storm revealed a hunched over silhouette stopped at the top of the steep basement staircase. Gangly limbs supported its weight on the railing with awkwardly bent elbows and knees, leaning precariously forward to crane its neck down low and scan the basement for any presence. Its movements looked surreal and erratic like a stop motion scene filmed on celluloid, backlit only by the wrath of the storm and it's violent light show.

CONTINUED ON AO3...

Links are in blue.

Forgive me for lack of proper reading break. Tumblr phone app doesn't have that function yet that I've found.

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[ta-chazei]

End of Season Piece Writing Prompt from Alan Ziegler At the end of the day, several generations ago, some fountain pen manufacturers combined the leftover celluloid or plastic and swirled it together to create “end-of-day” pens, which might make little overall sense but certainly have their moments. (This was also done by makers of other types of plastic and glass products.) At the end of each season, gather your leftovers and fragments from poems, stories, shopping lists, letters, etc. and blend them into an end-of-season piece. Continuity (of any sort) is optional. To prepare for this exercise, you must not throw anything out. Every time you cut from a piece or abandon a piece altogether, store the material in your end-of-season folder.

[chiseler]

VISAGE... VOICE... VITAPHONE

In Dimitri Kirsanoff's Menilmontant a destitute waif, betrayed and abandoned by the man who seduced her, sits on a park bench with her newborn infant. Beside her is an old man eating a sandwich. This wordless exchange is one of the greatest moments ever committed to film. Nadia Sibirskaia’s face reveals all of life’s cruel mysteries as she gazes upon a crust of bread.

The persistence of hope is the dark angel that underlies despair, and here it taunts her mercilessly. A whole series of fluctuations of expression and movement in reaction to anguish, physical pain involving hesitation, dignity, ravenous hunger, survival, self-contempt, modesty, boundless gratitude. All articulated with absolute clarity without hitting notes (without touching the keys). Chaplin could have played either the old man on the bench (his mustache is a sensory device!) or Nadia. And it would have been masterful and deeply affecting, but Nadia went beyond virtuosity and beyond naturalism.

She made it actual. And it was more than just a face. Sunlight travels across buildings at every second of the day; and the seasons change the incidence of light, too. Nothing stands still. Even déjà vu doesn’t attempt an exact rendition with the feel of a perfect replay.

***

Another face equates with pain—though a far more luxurious and decadent kind of pain, a visage summoning leftover ancient Roman excess or Florentine backstreets, the contortions of Art Nouveau with its flowers, prismatic walls and perennial themes of ripeness/rottenness, sadomasochism. While various directors have helped mold her naturally unsettling screen presence into nightmare visions, it’s Barbara Steele's vulnerability I tend to remember.

She is open and sensitive even as she materializes in the viewer’s mind as a kabuki demon one moment and a radioactive waxwork the next, a kind of alchemical transformation, an appeal to what Keats called negative capability—one’s ability to appreciate something without wholly understanding it; in fact, one’s ability to appreciate an object for its mystery.

“When did I ever deserve this dark mirror?” Barbara Steele asks me. “Clever you – I feel you’ve just twisted and wrung out an old bible to dry that’s been left somewhere outside lost in timeless years of…” She pauses. “…of rain.”

She made her Italian screen debut as a revenant.  And in so doing taught us all the eye is not a camera. It’s a projector.

Barbara Steele’s appearance in 1960’s Black Sunday is, even now, a shock of such febrile sexuality that it forces us to ask ourselves—why do we saddle her with diminishing monikers like “Scream Queen”? And, more fundamentally, why does her force of personality seem to trouble and vex every narrative she touches?

Of course, the answer is partly grounded in Steele’s unique physical equipment—and here I’ll risk repeating a clichéd word about those famous emerald eyes of hers: “Otherworldly.” As if sparked to life by silent-film magician Segundo de Chomón, the supreme master of hand-tinted illusionism. Peculiar even within the context of gothic tales on celluloid for the consumption of Mod audiences, flashing at us from well beyond their allotted time and place in history.

Barbara Steele is one of cinema’s true abominations—a light-repelling force that presents itself in an arrangement of shadows on the screen. No “luminary,”Steele is celluloid anti-matter; a slow burning black flame that devours every filament around it. Steele’s beauty is no accident of nature, even if she is, but in Black Sunday she gives a virtuoso performance by an artist in full command of her talent summoning and banishing it in equal measure in her dual role as mortal damsel in distress and undead predator released from her crypt. Filmmaking is the darkest and unholiest of arts (done right, that is), and for Mario Bava it becomes the invocation of beast and woman from the unconsecrated soil of nightmares. Steele remains the high priestess of the unlit and buried chambers of the imagination; the pure pleasure center of original sin and the murderous impulse buried just below the surface. She reminds us that existence itself is the highest form of betrayal and a continuing curse on us all.

Where Steele’s Italian films are concerned, we are watching silent movies of a sort. “The loss of voice for me has always been devastating…. It’s almost like some karmic debt…” Her sonic presence was eclipsed in a string of crudely, sadly dubbed horror vehicles, yes, including Black Sunday—no doubt aficionados of the great Mario Bava will object to my calling it a “vehicle.”  But whenever Steele appears, the storyline falls away. Anachronism rules. Not to mention the director’s exquisite sets, all keyed and subordinated to his ingénue’s stark loveliness (understood in black and white, molded by Italian cameramen into disquieting and sudden plasticity). Like a hot-blooded funerary sculpture made of alabaster, raven hair piled high, Steele’s already imposing height summons schizoid power, satanic sorcery—she’s Eros and Thanatos dynamically balanced. I’ve screened the film many times; and the famous opening sequence invariably leaves my otherwise jaded film students looking traumatized. (Just as a young Martin Scorsese was shattered by it once upon a time.) Barbara Steele’s defiant witch, spewing a final curse upon her mortal judges, pierces to the bone.

While Italian movies robbed Steele of her voice, they liberated her from what it had meant in Britain. Leading ladies in Brit films tended to be well brought-up young things, unless they were lusty and working-class like Diana Dors. Even at Hammer, where sexuality was unleashed regularly via bouts of vampirism, the erotically active roles usually went to continental lovelies (Polish immigrant Ingrid Pitt got her work permit based on Hammer’s claim that no native-born actress could exude such desire and desirability). Steele turns up all-too briefly in Basil Dearden’s Sapphire (1959) as an art school girl, the only kind of role that might allow for both intelligence and a certain liberated attitude. And Steele really was exactly that type. Her appearance is so arresting, you want the movie to simply abandon its plot and follow her into some fresh storyline: it wouldn’t really matter what.

In Italy, Steele suddenly became class-less and nation-less, devoid of associations beyond those conjured by the chiseled cheekbones and enormous eyes (convincingly replaced with poached eggs by Bava for a special effects shot). Her inescapable exoticism didn’t make sense in her native land, but that bone structure could suggest Latin, Slavic, or anything else. Omninational, omnisexual, but definitely carnivorous.

Generally remote with his actors, who were nothing more than compositional elements to him, Bava’s capricious move of selecting his female lead from a magazine photo-spread looks almost prescient in hindsight. Was it luck? Or, perhaps her now legendary eyes suggested a bizarre and beautiful leitmotif… to be destroyed, resurrected, and played endlessly on a register of emotions—extreme emotions, that is, tabooed delights.

Steele shares an anecdote about her director’s temperament and working methods on Black Sunday… “Everything was so meticulously planned that Bava rarely asked me for multiple takes. There was no sense of urgency or drama, which was rare for an Italian director…” I’m suddenly detecting deep ambivalence as she vacillates between little jabs at Bava (“He was a Jesuit priest on the set, somewhere far away”) and gratitude. “There was a tremendous feeling of respect, whereas in my earliest roles at Rank I always felt shoved around, practically negated by the pressure of production.

“Bava did go absolutely berserk once,” she goes on. “John Richardson, this gorgeous, sinewy creature, for some reason couldn’t carry me across the room. And I was like eleven pounds in those days. We had to do it over and over, twenty times or something, and whenever John stumbled or dropped me, the whole crew would be in hysterics. We were all howling with laughter, except for Bava – he went simply wild! Eventually, some poor grip had to get down on all fours, and I rode on his back in a chair with John pretending to carry me.”

If Black Sunday is a summation of spiritual and physical dread, it’s because Steele is everyone in this dream-bauble, everyone and everywhere, an all-consuming autumnal atmosphere. Which, of course, provides Mario Bava with something truly rare—a face and mien as unsettling as horror films always claim to be and almost never are. The devastation she leaves behind, her anarchic displacement, which has nothing to do with conventional notions of performance or “good acting,” is hard to describe. And here Bava earns his label of genius through compositional meaning—amid the groundswells of fog, lifeless trees and gloomy dungeons, Steele is an absence impossibly concretized in penumbras and voids. She is a force of nature never to be repeated.

Nightmare Castle (1965) starts off in Lady Chatterley mode as Steele cheats on her mad scientist husband (“At this rate you’ll wipe out every frog in the entire county,” is an opening line less pithy but more arresting than “Rosebud”) with the horny handyman. She’s soon murdered on an electrified bed, hubby preserving her heart for unexplained reasons while using her blood to rejuvenate his mistress. Then he marries her insipid blonde half sister (Steele again in a blonde wig) and tries to drive her mad. So we now have Gaslight merged with Poe and every revenge-from-the-grave story ever.

The identical twin half-sisters (?) bifurcate further: blonde Barbara goes schizoid, possessed it seems by her departed semi-sibling. Dark Barbara comes back as a very corporeal revenant, hair occluding one profile, like Phil Oakey of the Human League. Tossing the locks aside, she reveals… the horror!

Almost indescribable in terms of plot, character or dialogue, the film looks stunning, as chiaroscuro as Steele’s coal-black hair and snow-white skin. Apparently the product of monkey-typewriter improvisation, the story serves as a kind of post-modern dream-jumble of every Gothic narrative ever. You might get a story like this if you showed all of Steele’s horrors to a pissed-up grade-schooler and then asked them to describe the film they just saw. As a result, the movie really takes what Dario Argento likes to call the “non-Cartesian” qualities of Italian horror to the next dank, stone-buttressed level.

When I first met Barbara Steele about ten years ago, we somehow found ourselves sitting in front of a Brancusi sculpture here in New York City—I remember a filmmaker acquaintance joking afterwards: “Steele beats bronze!” Indeed, at 66 she was still stunningly beautiful, flirtatious, frighteningly aware of the power of her stare.

She was a painter in her youth, so it’s not surprising that, even as I visualize her in a voluptuous, cinematic world of castles and blighted landscapes, her own self-image is perennially absorbed by art—in the sense of André Malraux’s Museum Without Walls. She asks me to show her my paintings and when I dodge the subject out of shyness she offers:

A friend of mine just had a show of his art in a little cinema here – very small paintings, about 8 inches by 6 – and then they projected them onto one of their screens and they looked fantastic!  Size is everything!   Unless you were born in the Renaissance… then you were surrounded by silence and stone walls, shadows and glimmers of gold, and faces that are like spells they look so informed.

Steele speaks of her “old, suspicious Celtic soul,” her bitterness at having “flitted through movies par hazard,” and a newfound desire to make audio books (what colossal revenge!). It’s poetic really, this doppelganger, a ghost-like screen persona following her around. Whenever I think of the effect her movies have had on me, the following words by Charles Lamb leap to mind.

Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras – dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies – may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition – but they were there before. They are transcripts, types – the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to effect us at all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body – or without the body, they would have been the same… That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual – that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy – are difficulties the solution of which may afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence.

Even the wooliest metaphysics can be hard to separate from actual violence. Case in point: the night of September 22, 1796. Charles Lamb had his own brush with horror, when the future poet and author of children’s stories found himself removing a bloody knife from his sister’s hand. A spasm of matricidal rage that would land her in a mad house—and tending to prove, once again, the need for genres of terror and trepidation.  For a moment at least, Steele seems to agree, bowled over by the Lamb anecdote, literally screaming: “AND THAT NAME – LAMB – IT MAKES YOU THINK OF SUCH INNOCENT BRITISH LANDSCAPES!”  She’s a fairly solitary and introspective person on the one hand, capable of intense and unexpected eruptions of joy on the other, which may be why Italians have always embraced her—a shared gloomy zest for life, fatalism and pasta. There’s something intensely porous about her (as porous as film itself), which helps clarify her otherwise inscrutable tension with that shadow-self up on the screen, the one she so busily downgrades.

***

The thirties bustled with wise-cracking, fast-talking dames, probably not for any proto-feminist reason, but simply because the writers had a surplus of sassy talk to dispense onto the screen, and audiences liked looking at legs, so why not combine the two? Amid all the petite peroxide pretties, a few acerbic character actresses were allowed room, perhaps to make the cuties bloom all the more radiantly against them. Whatever the aesthetic logic, we can be grateful for it, since it gave us Ruth Donnelly and Winnie Lightner and Jean Dixon and a few other unforgettable shrews and wiseacres, adept as stage mothers, streetwise best pals of the leading lady, etc.

Aline MacMahon sort of fits into this category, but also destroys any category she sees with her laser vision. In Gold Diggers of 1933, she’s a Fanny Bryce type comedy showgirl, and in Heat Lightning (1934) she’s an ex-moll running a garage. In between, she played world-weary secretaries and put-upon mothers, taking any role and stealing the movie along with it. Rather than resist classification, she goes on the offensive, smashing down stereotypes and insisting on her own peculiar individuality.

Big and rangy in the body and hands, she had a strange, sculpted beauty, and was as luminous as Dietrich. Maybe more so: cameramen hit Marlene with brighter lights to make her shine out, whereas Aline was typically in the lead’s shadow. Her complexion is like the glass of milk in Suspicion in which Hitchcock planted a light bulb. That white. A sheet of paper passing before her face would appear as a dark eclipsing rectangle.

The law of photogenics insists that actresses hired to play the non-glamorous roles must be staggeringly lovely, but off-kilter and unconventional enough to fool the audience into thinking they’re seeing failed beauty. Aline’s unlikely photofit of attractive features resulted in a caricature of elegance and earthiness in precisely the wrong proportions, which makes her fascinating and alluring to watch.

The eyes are seriously big, saucers hooded by the heaviest lids since Karloff’s monster, resulting in long slits which strive to echo the even wider mouth, a perfectly straight line seemingly intent on decapitation. Like a horizon with lips. The chin cleft below catches the viewer by surprise. Were chin clefts on women more common then, or did studios screen in favor of them? The cheekbones have a graceful, yet powerful curve, so the face as a whole combines the qualities of an ice-cream baby and a crystal skull. All wrong, and alright with me.

Aline’s humor about her ill-assorted collection of perfect features was often played on in dialogue, so it’s pleasing when a role like the one in Heat Lightning admits that, for all her unlikeliness, she was indeed beautiful. More than a pretty face, too: her way with a snappy rejoinder distinguished her even in an era of exceptional wit and quicksilver delivery. And her essence, which radiated out whatever the role, was that of a philosophical, warm, smart, funny, sad woman: the essence of the age.

By Daniel Riccuito and David Cairns

[tadanoichiro]

セルガモ 　体がセルロイドでできているカルガモ。体色が妙に単調で、なぜか陰影もはっきりしている。また、非常に薄く、傷つきやすい上に暑さにも弱いという性��を持つ。以前は、ある種のヒツジツザイを育てるためのエサとして、積極的に飼育されていたが、現在はシージーミによってその役割を追われ、既に絶滅に近い状態にある。 　セルガモが生み出されたのは、二十世紀初頭のアメリカだったと言われている。体を構成する物質を変化させるなどの品種改良が進み、育て方や扱い方なども様々な手法が生まれた。時には、食べられた後のセルガモを洗って綺麗にし、もう一度エサとして用いることもあった。このような工夫を経て、セルガモは、ある程度発達した生態系を中心に、世界中に生息域を広げていった。特に、二十世紀後半の日本における生息数は、世界でも群を抜いていたという。 　発生当初のセルガモは、ヒツジツザイのエサになるためだけに育てられていたため、食べかすはゴミとして捨てられていた。しかし、ヒツジツザイの隆盛に伴って、セルガモを所有したがるいきものが増え、食べかすがエサと交換できるほどの価値を持つようになる。時には、夜中にこっそり奪われたり、セルガモを育てていたコロニーが崩壊した際に持ち出されたりしたこともあったという。 　しかし、二十一世紀が始まる頃になると、徐々にシージーミをヒツジツザイに食べさせるコロニーが増えてゆき、セルガモの生息数は減少の一途をたどることになった。セルガモを飼育できるいきものも年をとり、数も減ってゆき、現在では、このいきものを使用しているコロニーは完全になくなったのである。セルガモにおいても、エサと交換するための個体がごくまれに育てられる程度であり、このいきものの存在自体が過去のものとなってしまっている。 　現在に至るまで、多くのいきものが現れては消えていった。それらは、一時は環境の維持に不可欠であるとされながらも、新種のいきものに生息域を奪われ、不必要ないきものとして淘汰されていったのである。かつてセルガモが他のいきものを絶滅に追いやったように、自身もまた時代の波に流されて消えてしまった。たった今、隆盛を極めているいきもの達も、例外なくセルガモと同じ運命をたどるだろう。

Skit-celled Duck 　Skit-celled Duck is spot-billed ducks whose body is made of celluloid. Their body color is strangely monotonous, and for some reason, their shades are also clear. Also, they are very thin, has a property that they are easily damaged and also weak against heat. In the past, they were actively raised as a feed to raise a certain kind of Nonexistent Yousheep, but now they are deprived this role by Basket CGlam, and are already near extinction. 　It is said that Skit-celled Ducks were born in the early 20th century America. Various breed improvements such as making to change substances constituting the body were advanced, and various methods were born in such as how to raise and how to treat. Sometimes, there are also cases that Skit-celled Ducks that were eaten were washed and make to be cleaned, and are used as feed again. Through such ingenuity, Skit-celled Ducks have expanded their habitat in all over the world, centering on the ecosystem developed to a certain extent. In particular, their number of inhabitants at Japan in the latter half of the 20th century was especially outstanding in the world. 　The Skit-celled Ducks that had occurred at the beginning were bred only to become Nonexistent Yousheep feed, so leftovers was discarded as garbage. However, with the flourishing of Nonexistent Yousheeps, the number of creatures that wish to own Skit-celled Ducks have been increased, and leftovers become to have worthy enough to replace feed. Sometimes it was plundered them secretly in the middle of the night, or it was taken out when a colony that had been breeding Skit-celled Ducks collapsed. 　However, when the 21st century began, the number of colonies that let Nonexistent Yousheep eat Basket CGlams grew gradually, and the number of Skit-celled Ducks was declining. The CREATURES that can breed Skit-celled Ducks also have aged, their numbers are decreasing, and now the colonies that use this CREATURE are completely gone. Skit-celled Ducks are also the extent to which individuals for exchanging with feeds are very rarely raised, and the existence itself of this CREATURE has become a thing of the past. 　Until now, many CREATURES have appeared and disappeared. They were supposed to be indispensable for maintaining the environment at one time, but they were deprived of their habitat to new CREATURES and were screened as unnecessary CREATURE. As Skit-celled Ducks once forced other CREATURES to extinction, themselves were also washed away by waves of the times and disappeared. The creatures that are reaching their peak right now, will also tarce the same fate as Skit-celled Ducks without exception.

[kingofbluebell]

Top Physical Anime Releases of 2016

I wish I could spend this entire month making "Best of the Year" lists for 2016, but unfortunately, it would be disingenuous to do so. Most of the media I consumed this year was either older or just not strong enough for me to promote. However, there is a year-end list that is entirely made up of content not released in 2016 I consumed that I can put out: A List of my "Ten Favorite Anime Home Video Releases". That’s an overly specific title, but pedantry is something that comes with the territory. I am by no means an expert in the field of disk encoding nor would I say I’m well versed in all the goings on with the way anime is distributed, this is just a list containing the anime I was happy to see got a release or a re-release this year with a few honorable mentions. I’m also limiting this list to North American releases, only because I have even less knowledge of other regions' anime markets. Since this post is rather long, I’ve provided a list of the anime I’m going to cover here making it easier for you to search for a particular title.

Table of Contents

Shirobako (Honorable Mention)

Maria the Virgin Witch (Honorable Mention)

Otaku no Video

Belladonna of Sadness

Gundam Thunderbolt

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Dai-Guard

The Vision of Escaflowne

Dennou Coil

Only Yesterday

Getter Robo Armageddon

Sword of the Stranger

Shirobako: As impressive as this show is I wouldn't call the anemic release it got this year a must buy. A shame as the release and popularity of Shirobako in the West has aided in the significant change happening to the western anime fandom in recent years. The show opened a lot of eyes to the struggles inherent in creating anime, leading to a greater appreciation of the medium as a whole. I've seen it spur on people already present in a community branch out and diversify the type of content and critique that gets produced about the medium. These claims may be a bit unsubstantiated, but I’ve known a lot of people who after watching and enjoying Shirobako got a fire lit under them to really dive in and give back to the community/industry more than they had before. The knowledgeable and passionate members of our community are creating more content than ever that help breaks down the barriers between consumers and creators that appeared to exist for decades. Slowly we’re coming together to support these fans turned scholars and the medium of anime more and I can’t wait to see what 2017 brings to the table in this way. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, my hyperbolic statements about Shriobako and what it may or may not have done for this community aren't reflected in this two-part Sentai Filmworks release (nor could they ever realistically be). With the show available to stream currently on Crunchyroll as well as Sentai’s oft-forgotten The Anime Network and its license nowhere near close to expiring this is a show you don’t need to run out and buy immediately. Frankly, if you’re still fanatical about the show you probably bought a bunch of character goods or the second pressing of the Japanese Blu-rays. I bought this domestic release an impulse buy because Amazon has decent pre-order discount and I had the leftovers of a birthday gift card. For everyone else who wants to buy I suggest you wait until Sentai inevitably releases a complete series set.  

Maria the Virgin Witch: Another impulse buy, this the result of a Rightstuf.com holiday sale daily deal, but one I’m less regretful supporting early. What pushed me over the edge to buy it is because I am almost certain this gem of the Winter 2015 season will continue to be overlooked. It may be in part due to its title or the fact that a lot of anime fans tend to check out during the winter season. Either way, this show about a witch in an alternate history version of a European conflict is far more engaging and endearing than the one that aired in 2016 (though those are the only similarities between Maria and Izetta I swear). I want to talk about this show for the blog this year, so I don’t want to spoil too much. I will say that you can currently stream it through Funimation or Hulu and with Funimation’s partnership with Crunchyroll I’m sure it will enter their catalog as well next year (which would be a good time to release whatever I’ve written about it). Until then this show is destined to reach Funimation’s S.A.V.E. line in the coming years as a lot of good shows, unfortunately, do in this era of overwhelmingly huge anime seasons.

Otaku no Video: Probably the most impressive complete package I bought this year, Animeigo’s remaster of this classic OVA/Live-Action documentary by studio Gainax is pure shelf candy. I had slept on their remastering of Bubblegum Crisis, but I was enthusiastic in backing their second Kickstarter to give this essential commentary on fan culture the high-definition treatment it deserved. This limited edition comes in a solid chipboard box and includes an 180+ artbook on top of the additional audio commentaries, liner notes and three language tracks provided in the standard Blu-ray release. Though OVA itself looks better than it ever has the documentary, being not shot on 35mm film, looks decidedly more dated but less compressed than it did on the older DVD release. Robert Woodhead and everyone involved deserve high praise for the package they put together, and I would suggest any anime collector to grab the standard Blu-ray copy if they are the least bit interested. While I came from the generation of anime fans that grew after this project, I still find the topics it brings up relevant to fan culture today. There are numerous anime now that star “Otaku” now but the reasoning for almost all of those shows to do so is purely self-referential. The main character/characters are “Otaku” because the writer is one, and it gives them carte blanche to so how genre savvy they are to their majority otaku audience. Very few of these shows tackle the issues brought up about fan culture, and instead the "Otaku" character archetype has become so emblematic that it’s almost become a necessary cliche for a lot of writers to fall back on. So when I see shows that set out to address fan culture it makes me elated to watch. Shows like Genshiken, Welcome to the N.H.K. Comic Party and even Lucky Star to an extent come from a more genuine place. Whether this place is a more critical or celebratory doesn’t matter to me as it does to a lot of other fans and Otaku no Video clear cut between the fun-loving OVA and the far more sobering documentary may turn off some viewers. Sure both halves aren’t as seamlessly melded together as in later series but they are two halves of an essential whole, and I urge you to watch both if you haven't to gain the full experience.

Belladonna of Sadness: I adore this film and relish in its beautiful restoration, but I’m at a loss for words with how to sell it to those not already in the know. Conceptually Belladonna of Sadness your straightforward rape revenge story but its presentation is anything but, not only in the realm of anime but animation as a whole. Belladonna is the final of the three Animerama films made by Osamu Tezuka’s Mushi Productions, a project that aimed to create more adult-oriented animation. It’s by far the shortest of the three films and, from what I believe is due in part to Tezuka’s lack of involvement, by far the most serious. Still, it shares the trilogy's real sense of wanting to experiment with animation on top of showcasing more mature storylines. Belladonna tale is shown through ornate watercolor stills, their elegance worthy of presenting in any art gallery. Despite showcasing limited animation for an animated feature the use of these still images through cinematography manages to make its tale no less poignant. However, in movement Belladonna is a surreal journey unlike anything on celluloid. The closest comparison I have are some of the films of Ralph Bakshi but even the most psychedelic of his sequences appear far more grounded than Belladonna’s phallic parade. The use of color and sound in these moments would be electrifying by themselves, but given the stationary nature of the film these energetic and unearthly sequences stand out even more. Despite all my praise, I understand that not everyone is as willing as I am to watch a 1970s, experimental, anime rape-revenge flick that is made up of mostly watercolor paintings let alone run out to purchase it. Luckily Amazon has it for streaming for Prime members so if you’d like to try it before adding it to your collection or just want to watch something daringly different be my guest.  

Gundam Thunderbolt: In a year where Nozomi was putting out a Gundam release every month, fans of the long time mecha franchise, such as myself,  were downright spoiled for choice when it came to collecting the series on home video. If I was a more die-hard fan I could have made a list consisting of almost nothing but Gundam titles, but I decided to have one release represent the franchise this year. I could have chosen traditional favorites such as Zeta Gundam, 0080 War in the Pocket or Char’s Counterattack. The oft-maligned ZZ Gundam or underrated series like Victory Gundam and After War Gundam X, surprising newcomers in Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Build Fighters Try are also appealing buys. The glorious trainwreck known as Reconguista in G was at points calling my name to defend it here and if I really wanted to send I could have even chosen the excellent adaptation of Gundam: The Origin which came in some lavishly designed art boxes. However, if I had purchased all of these this year, even taking advantage of every sale and discount possible,  I’d have been downright broke. Besides, I have a much better candidate. Gundam Thunderbolt December Sky, the compilation of the previously released four episodes, is probably the biggest piece of fanservice anime I’ve seen so far this decade. From the action choreography to the mechanical design and fluid animation all nestled in a dour military plot where neither side is the clearly in the right: This is the stuff of Gundam fans' dreams. Thunderbolt demands to be viewed in the highest definition possible, its excellent jazz soundtrack and overall sound design pleading for an appropriate surround system and this minimalistic Blu-ray release doesn't disappoint on that front. Where it does, however, is in the included dub. A dub little to most Gundam fans, especially those willing to import a Blu-ray movie, but after coming off one of the best dubs this decade, Gundam Unicorn, this is a real letdown. I’m sure this will still go over well when this eventually airs on Toonami, but I think this could have been casted a lot better. As of this writing, Gundam Thunderbolt isn’t legally streaming anymore, but hopefully when the planned second season comes out, the original will be made available either through streaming or a domestically released Blu-ray. It may be too much to ask most people to shell out for, but this right here is one of the best looking series this decade. Truly a high point for anime and animation in general. Plus one of the leaflets included in this box announces the Japanese release date for the Mobile Fighter G Gundam Blu-rays, which means they can’t be too far out from releasing domestically. I can’t wait to experience that beautifully godawful dub again, this time in high definition.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: Shinkai’s first non-franchise film initially came to the West with far less fanfare as his name carries now. Sure there were fans of Digimon Adventure: Our War Game! And One Piece Film 6: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island but the cultural cache behind the director's name hadn’t exploded yet. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time changed that and probably lead to Funimation’s decision to pick up the rights and heavily market his next film Summer Wars, a film which increased his level of notoriety to the point where people began calling him “The Next Miyazaki”. While still beloved post Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time had the unfortunate distinction of being one of the last anime Bandai Visual had licensed before they closed up shop. The film’s popularity combined with the small print run the Blu-ray received lead to massive price gouging on the secondhand market even for the more readily available DVD copy. Having already acquired the rights to Summer Wars, Wolf Children, and the then upcoming The Boy and the Beast it seemed clear to everyone that a Funimation relicense of this film wasn’t far off. In the meantime, many in the collecting community decided to purchase the frankly stunning South Korean Blu-ray set, though others including myself waited for a far cheaper domestic copy. I bought the standard release although Funimation released a limited edition version as well that I hear doesn't compare favorably when up against the previously mentioned South Korean release. Either way, this major film from a now well-established director has finally been made available again so it can reach the wider audience he has now. Funimation’s release comes with a number of extras on the disks the most valuable being the two interviews with Hosoda. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time might not be in my upper echelon of anime films, but it’s certainly one I enjoy on occasion, even with my general lack of interest in time travel and I'm glad to have it back in my collection in an affordable higher fidelity.

Dai-Guard: In this modern era of anime where new giant robot shows, outside Gundam, are infrequent it sure was kind of Discotek Media to redistribute this forgotten title in the genre. Imagine if events similar to those in Neon Genesis Evangelion occurred except that N.E.R.V. was not a ludicrously well-funded organization and instead had a budget similar to many of our real-life underfunded government organizations. Yes, the angel-like, amorphous threat known as the Heterodyne have returned after humanity's destructive confrontation with them twelves years prior but the only weapon capable of defeating them, the robot Dai-Guard, has seen better days. Now used as a mascot for the military Dai-Guard is barely able to make it through a battle without falling apart. This somewhat more comedic take on alien lifeforms set to destroy earth is one of the many things that set Dai-Guard apart from the many anime the share its premise. Unlike a lot of those anime, however, Dai-Guard is piloted by three people and their conflicting personalities and interpersonal stories, along with those of the rest of the 21st Century Defense Security Corporation add a lot of the flavor and weight to the series. The ensemble cast is what makes Dai-Guard more than your average giant robot show and anyone who's been a fan of office comedies, both in and outside anime, in the past decade will find a lot to enjoy here. Dai-Guard itself, while not the most memorable robot in anime history, is well designed and its signature weapons lead to some very well done fights. This show's more light-hearted tone acts as a nice reprieve in between watching more heady programming, for example, I decided to give this show a rewatch after watching Casshern Sins, and it worked wonderfully as a palate cleanser. As always Discotek does an excellent job maintaining the quality of the original release as well as shipping it in solid packaging. The original dub from the ADV release is here and is on par with what they usually produced back in those days. Overall Dai-Guard isn’t the flashiest show, but much like its titular robot it manages to hold itself together to deliver a satisfying punch to fans of a currently underserved genre.

The Vision of Escaflowne: There was and still is a lot of drama in the anime collectors community surrounding the re-release of this well-loved anime from Sunrise. Funimation’s successful Kickstarter to redub the series was already showing warning signs before funding ended and their handling of the aftermath left a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouths. Needless to say, I doubt they’ll consider using crowdfunding again. I was unable to back the project and therefore I wasn’t privy to a lot of the discussion that took place about it. From what I managed to glean, unfortunately, it looks like an actual resolution hasn’t been met which is a shame that will continue cloud this release. Escaflowne was a huge deal in the western anime fandom upon its initial release and while it’s time in the limelight isn’t as constant as its contemporary Cowboy Bebop it is by no means a show that has aged poorly. Sunrise did an excellent job remastering this title in the Japanese release a few years ago, and the show has never looked better. I’m a bit biased toward the style of the show, being a huge fan of Nobuteru Yuki’s character designs since Chrono Cross, and when you add giant robots into the mix, you have a show that hits me right in the sweet spot. Top it all off with one of Yoko Kanno’s most celebrated scores, and you have a series poised to remain a staple in the western anime fandom for decades to come. As far as the new dub is concerned, it is certainly more up to the standards of new anime dubbing than the original, included with Bandai’s release. I never had a fondness for the original, so I can’t say I miss it. Nevertheless, I’ll still be sticking to the original Japanese for this show, unlike so many other Sunrise shows from this period. If this new dub is capable of bringing in more modern fans to enjoy this classic, then I am all for it supplanting the old one. I’m a bit disheartened that due to the new dub Funimation decided to split the series initially like they do with a lot of their newer acquisitions of similar length. They could have charged the combined price and kept everything in one box, but I guess that’ll happen when this show gets reprinted for their Anime Classics line. In the end, I’m for more people viewing this stunning show however possible either through purchasing these physical sets or streaming through Funimation and hopefully Crunchyroll sometime this year. Despite all of the mishegas, I’m glad to add this series again to my collection. However, I decided not to purchase Escaflowne: The Movie. The movie itself is an odd duck, being a pseudo-compilation movie that also alters many characters and events not just for the sake of time. I tend to find a lot of these movies rather substandard, the exception being The Adolescence of Utena which I have grown to enjoy over time and will be pleased to repurchase along with the rest of the series on Blu-ray in 2017. As for Escaflowne: The Movie I may pick it up for the sake of completion but only further down the road when it’s discounted.

Den-Noh Coil: 2016 was going to be the year that I began importing a lot of anime as domestic licensers were either slow or unable to distribute the shows I wanted. Many these series were made available by Australian publisher Siren Visual, whom I’ve purchased from before to get my copy of Welcome to Irabu’s Office. Luckily Sentai Filmworks stepped in to begin distributing a handful of Siren's catalog in Region A including this one (now if only they or anyone would license Monster or Kaiba). Den-Noh Coil had been a show that struck a chord with me when I found it online in 2008 and was one of the big things I shared with my college anime club when I was asked to run nights. I held out hope that the show would officially available in English, but that wish and the little fanfare the show received subsided as the years continued.  It’s a shame the series and its talented creator Mitsuo Iso haven’t become household names, and I’m hoping this late release can help restart the conversation about both. What surprised me most about this release from Sentai Filmwork’s Maiden Japan imprint is that they decided to dub it, and I honestly think it isn’t half bad. I rewatched the first handful of episodes dubbed and while North America’s limited anime VA talent limits it (as it does almost every modern dub) I’d hazard to say it tops Maria the Virgin Witch’s for my personal choice for best dub of the year. Unlike Maria’s I find the dubbing of this show far more important as I genuinely think this is a good show for younger children. The kids in this show look and act like kids and while it gets a bit dark in places there is nothing here that I think would frighten kids more than the cavalcade of horrors I saw growing up watching Don Bluth movies. I also see this show as a good candidate to ease your older friends and family into anime as there isn’t anything here I’d consider objectionable or embarrassing. Besides, a lot of the concepts in this show are moving far closer to the realm of possibility than they were a decade ago. Wearable computers, virtual reality and the omnipresence of technology and how it meshes with where we live are far more relevant topics than they ever were in 2007 due to how tangible all these ideas are to us now especially with kids who grew up only knowing smartphones and tablets. I’m glad I got to revisit this show recently, and I’m hoping more people do in the coming years so I can talk about it with someone. It’s only available to stream through The Anime Network for now but hopefully, some other site (Crunchyroll) will be able acquire it as well.

Only Yesterday: It makes sense that this would be the last of the major Studio Ghibli films to see release in North America. A movie about the growing ennui of a late 20-something business woman isn’t something you can easily sell to kids, especially when there isn’t a randomly inserted fantasy sequence such as with the similarly tonal Whisper of the Heart. Still, as I hasten to reach the age of our protagonist Taeko Okajima I’ve only found this film more relatable and it has managed to climb the ranks of my personal “Ghibli Hierarchy”. There was a lot of buzz around this Disney dub starring The Force Awakens' lead Daisy Ridley, but I can’t say I’ve listened to this one yet. I can assure you that the mixed reactions  I've heard and read from a lot of people haven't affected my decision to do so. My reasoning for not listening to it is rather simple: I don't want to watch a film grounded in 1980s Japan with English voices. The dub is there for those who want it, and if it manages to get more people to see this movie, then it was worth making. Only Yesterday is a fantastic film worthy of placement in your collection alone, but the over 40-minute making-of documentary included in its extra features make it a must buy for anyone interested in animation production or Studio Ghibli.  Not only does this cover a lot of the movie's unique production aspects of the film but the culture of Studio Ghibli at the turn of the decade. Being filmed around Only Yesterday’s 1991 release this is relatively early in the studio’s life, so it’s an excellent snapshot of this period. Being one of Takahata's films we see a great deal of him and his worth ethic both in animation directing and with running the studio, something we, unfortunately, don’t get a lot of due to the cult of personality surrounding Hayao Miyazaki. Of course, Miyazaki is prominently featured here, as well, and this being the early 90s he’s relatively less cynical. Being able to own this documentary that I’ve watched for a number of years is great, and I’m thankful the folks at Disney went out of their way to acquire it again for this release. It's a sizable contribution that makes an already great package truly stellar.

Getter Robo: Armageddon: I tend to have horrible luck when it comes to purchasing old media. Most times I buy something that’s long out of print it gets announced for a re-release within the next few weeks. Getter Robo: Armageddon would surely have been another one of those cases had I not checked Facebook to see Discotek Media’s announcement. I used to show this one as well in my college anime club, and a lot of the folks who were Gurren Lagann fans ate it up. For months I had been waiting for this action-packed OVA to be released in high definition, getting jealous of those who attended summer cons grabbing and early print copies. This gritty, high-octane giant robot show is an enjoyable romp from beginning to end. The remaster not only makes the colors pop, but the improved sound makes all the action scenes for me, that and most of the episodes starting with the second opening HEATS doesn’t hurt either. This entire series scratches that itch for hot-blooded fun and looks marvelous doing it. I’m always happy to support a company like Discotek because time and again they release quality products and Getter Robo: Armageddon is no exception. After the anime crash in the late 2000s, I thought a company like Discotek that only licensed older anime would be a flash in the pan. With every box set and movie, I buy from them I'm reminded how wrong I was in my assumption. Their 2017 lineup is already looking stellar and the fact they announce new licenses almost every other month shows how strong they’ve become.

Sword of the Stranger: You might wonder why I’ve taken a photo of the older Bandai release instead of Funimation’s recent reprinting. This is because despite the Funimation release getting a dub I didn’t feel the need to rebuy something I already owned on Blu-Ray. I’ve heard the dub is fair and the extra features are nice, but neither are spectacular enough for me to double dip so early. Nevertheless, I wanted to bring attention to this great action film’s re-release and if you read until this point in the post you know I’ve already spent my fair share on anime this year so cut me some slack. Sword of the Stranger one of the first names brought up when anime fans want to showcase a great action scene. The choreography the folks at Studio Bones nailed down here is outstanding and worthy of any action showcase. Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood should be elated in finally getting access to this movie again as that series owes a lot to the style of action created for this film. Not only that but the film as a whole is a solid feature: a simple samurai story told well. There isn’t anything revolutionary going on here plotwise, and the characters are familiar archetypes though not to a fault. It isn’t trying to deconstruct its themes and characters for critique. Rather it comes off as a slick action movie that effortless falls into the greater chanbara canon. I appreciate this film's simplistic approach. It makes for easy sharing with friends and family who don’t usually watch a lot of anime. Sometimes all I want is a good self-contained action movie and Sword of the Stranger delivers and then some even a decade later. My only reservation about picking this one up now is that somehow Funimation failed to include subtitles for the Chinese dialogue, something included in the Bandai release I own. I'm hoping that with the release being so recent and the mistake pointed out that it will be fixed in newer pressings and that those who picked it up early can get exchanges. Maybe 2017 will be the year Funimation also revamps its attitude toward quality assurance? Here's hoping because I'd hate for a great film like this to be dragged down by an easily fixed mistake.

By now I’ve written more than enough about the anime on home video (re)published in 2016. Not only that but some well-beloved classic titles have already been announced for release (again) next year. Featuring plenty of Gundam, Revolutionary Girl Utena Blu-Rays, Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, Captain Harlock: Arcadia of my Youth and if we're lucky more popular Sunrise shows. 2017 looks to be an even better year for those of us who relish in collecting disks and I'll be there, my bank account willing, ready to enjoy it.

See you next week.

[absurdistocchiolism]

Reading meme

Neat! this really make me think about all the books that have passed through my shelves. So many memories! Thanks @theticklishpear !

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

Dictionary of Superstitions is probably my oldest, and reading through said superstitions was always good imagination-fodder. Brown Paws and Green Thumbs gave me an early love of animals. And Carl Sagan’s Contact definitely broadened my horizons astronomically.                                                                

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

Currently : The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley.  Last : Winter of the Gods by Jordanna Max Brodsky  Next : A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers.                                                                 

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

Most YA things either rub me the wrong way or bore me, and most classics much the same. But I am still left with a deep and abiding HUH?? when it comes to the popularity of Margaret Atwood in particular. Blasphemous as most of my fellow Canadians would consider me for it, her writing bores me with a capital B, and if you ask me why, I would never be able to quantify why. She wrote only one quote that I love in all her writings : Whoever said that light was life and darkness nothing? For some of us, the mythologies are different.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

Probably J.R.R.Tolkein’s Silmarillion. Much as I found the world of middle-earth interesting, his writing style makes it hard for me to absorb all the information and their relevance. I mean, Tom Bombadil, a super-interesting individual, gets so little actual time in the books??? Clearly our priorities differ too much as to what makes for an interesting read for me to follow along. Oh well.

5. Which book are you saving for ‘’retirement?’’

I tend to devour books pretty quick, so... probably just re-read what I already have? Or maybe The Bel Dame Apocrypha , if I can get my hands on the complete trilogy.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

End, unless the book has proved a disappointment somewhere in there, I’m patient.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

They can be revealing all on their own, and if an author wishes to do a shout-out or thank people for their help, let them!

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

Sam Crow of Frank Schatzing’s The Swarm. Or Eleanor Arroway of Carl Sagan’s Contact.

I have a thing for the SETI project....

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

The aforementioned Brown Paws and Green Thumbs, it always takes me back to my childhood in the woods among animals, at a time where the concerns of life (and home) could be escaped by simply running into the woods and hoping to meet some critter. The author always spoke with such tenderness about the animals in her stories, a tenderness I felt for the ones around me. Even the ones I only ever saw once.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

A copy of Dean Koontz’s book One Door Away From Heaven kept making rounds between my house and local libraries every time I moved because my mother kept giving it to them ,but every time the libraries would have a big sell-out of used/old books, I would go,spot it get it back. Quite an adventure for a book!

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

Nah, I don’t come from a family of avid readers, or had any friends who also read the ones I liked. So my books always stayed put!

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

The One Door Away From Heaven copy I mentioned. Second place goes to Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer, and third to Contact by Carl Sagan.

13. Any required reading you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

Pet Semetary by Stephen King. Holy shit, my schools were NUTS.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

An old letter between friends in the pages of a hand-me-down book. Never did find out whose it was...

15. Used or brand new?

Generally new, unless its a book I’ve been looking for, then I’ll take it in any condition...

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

He fills a need the same way horror movies fill a need to be scared ‘in a safe way/environment’. Some of his work contains some interesting and optimistic stuff despite the horrors, and can sometimes ask deep questions. But mostly its ‘most-horrifying-case-scenario’ pretty consistently...

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

JURASSIC PARK, HANDS DOWN, ALWAYS. The changes made from the books are almost all good or justified. Some characters even went from ‘too dumb to live’ in the books to ‘reasonably scared person in a scary situation’ in the movie. 10/10 an improvement.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

Dune by Frank Herbert was attempted too early I think, technology-wise. 

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

Whenever I read about situations where food is lacking, I get so grateful for the food I have that I get nitpicky about waste. Any leftovers are soon gone or reused in another recipe.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

No, my tastes are too varied and ‘out there’ to always like the same things as another, any other really. Anybody is welcome to recommend some, but a solid synopsis is always wanted. Its all very touch and go.

tagging @veliseraptor @dragonhearted-clevergirl @theloveworthlivingfor

[kathinlucrs-blog]

The Evolution Finger to Floss

Did you know that the toothbrush is one of the oldest tools that humans still use? In fact, in a survey conducted in 2003, Americans chose the toothbrush as the number one invention over the car, personal computer, cell phone, and microwave. This may come as a shock in a day and age obsessed with technology, but it just goes to show how much value we place on our pearly whites. But it makes you wonder… how have people kept their teeth clean throughout the centuries? How did the toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss come into existence and how have they evolved over time?

One would assume that the first toothbrush was surely the finger, but evidence has shown that as far back at 3500 BC to 3000 BC chewing sticks were used in Babylonia. These chewing sticks were essentially a stick from an astringent tree with a frayed end that acted as bristles to clean teeth. These chewing sticks have also been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Their predecessors are still commonly used in certain areas of the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America and are known as miswak or mswaki sticks.

When excavating Ur in Mesopotamia, ornately decorated toothpicks were found that dated back to 3000 BC. Other archaeological digs have recovered various tree twigs, bird feathers, animal bones, and porcupine quills as the earliest toothbrushes and toothpicks. An ancient Sanskrit text on surgery dating back to the 6th century describes severe periodontal disease and stresses oral hygiene; “the stick for brushing the teeth should be either an astringent or pungent bitter. One of its ends should be chewed in the form of a brush. It should be used twice a day, taking care that the gums not be injured.” Pretty sound advice, even by current standards! Ancient Greek and Roman literature referenced the use of toothpicks to keep their mouths clean, and ancient Roman aristocrats kept special slaves for the sole purpose of cleaning their teeth. Imagine that job!

Ancient Chinese writings from around 1600 BC portray chewing sticks that were derived from aromatic trees and sharpened at one end to act as a toothpick. In the thirteenth century, the Chinese began to attach boar bristles to bamboo, essentially fashioning the first toothbrush. The optimal choice for bristles was taken from the back of the necks of cold climate boars, generally found in Siberia. Traders introduced these toothbrushes to the West and they quickly gained popularity. At that time Europeans were brushing their teeth by dipping a linen cloth or sponge in sulfur oils and salt solutions to rub away tooth grime. This was referred to as “The Greek Way”, as Aristotle had recommended this method to Alexander the Great. As these toothbrushes spread from East to West, in the West they preferred softer horse hairs over the coarse boar bristles, yet horses were deemed too valuable for the sake of toothbrushes, making boar bristles popular well into the early 1900’s.

Fast-forward to 1780 and we meet a man named William Addis of Clerkenwald, England. Addis was sitting in Newgate Prison for allegedly inciting a riot. The method for brushing teeth in jail was to take a rag and dip it in a solution of soot and salt and rub it onto the teeth. Addis believed there had to be a more efficient way, so while he passed his time in jail he began to think up solutions. Spying a broom, inspiration struck him and he took a small animal bone leftover from his meal and drilled holes into it. He then tied some swine fibers into bunches, strung them through the holes, and glued them into place. At this time in Georgian England, refined sugar was being shipped in from the West Indies in mass quantities. This caused a huge increase in the consumption of sugar for Londoners who then suffered from rotting teeth, the only treatment for which was to pull the infected teeth. When Addis was released from jail, he went on to market and sell his toothbrush under the name Wisdom Toothbrushes, which went on to become a very successful business that is still around today.

Toothbrushes continued to be made with animal bone handles and more often than not, boar bristles, although fancy toothbrushes were made with badger hair for those who could afford them. Celluloid handles were introduced in the 1900’s and quickly replaced bone handles. In the 1920’s a new method of attaching bristles to the handle was developed: holes were drilled into the brush head, bunches of bristles were then forced through the holes, and secured with a staple. This method is the same method that is commonly used today.

The next evolution in toothbrushes occurred when Wallace H. Carothers of Du Pont Laboratories invented nylon in 1937. Nylon bristles quickly overtook animal hair bristles for sanitation and cost-effective purposes. Although boar hair bristles often fall out, do not dry well, and are prone to bacterial growth, they strangely still account for 10% of the toothbrushes sold worldwide. The new nylon bristled toothbrushes were sold as “Doctor West’s Miracle-Tuft Toothbrush” due to its more hygienic properties.

With World War II looming in the background, British and American housewives were instructed to waste nothing, which translated to no more bone handles for toothbrushes. Bone handles had long been popular for things like toothbrushes, knives, guns, and handles for many more items. The shift to celluloid was a natural progression as soup bones were needed more than ornate bone handles. World War II gave oral hygiene an unexpected boost. The soldiers in World War II were expected to brush twice daily, a habit they brought home with them, likely due to the fact that Trench Mouth had become so rampant during World War I.

And what about toothpaste? Well, ancient Egyptians were making a “tooth powder” as far back as 5000 B.C.E. It was made from ox hooves, myrrh, eggshell fragments, and pumice. No device was found with the remnants of the tooth powder, which is why it is assumed that the finger was the first actual toothbrush. Other early tooth powders contained mixtures of powdered salt, pepper, mint leaves, and iris flowers. In Roman times, urine was used as a base for toothpaste. And since urine contains ammonia it was likely an effective whitening agent. In later times, homemade tooth powder was made of chalk, pulverized brick and salt. It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte regularly brushed his teeth with an opium-based toothpaste. In 1873, Colgate mass-produced the first toothpaste in a jar called Crème Dentifrice. By 1896, Colgate Dental Cream was packaged in collapsible tubes. Finally, by 1900, a paste of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda was developed, and by 1914 fluoride was introduced and added to the majority of toothpastes on the market at that time.

And what of floss? Researchers have found floss and toothpick grooves in the teeth of prehistoric humans. But it wasn’t until 1815 when a New Orleans dentist named Levi Spear Parmly promoted flossing with a piece of silk thread that floss really gained notoriety. Levi went on to be credited for inventing the first form of dental floss.

Who would’ve thought that the history of dental care would be so fascinating? And who would’ve guessed that the toothbrush we use today evolved from a stick and was perfected by a convict? Today, there are over 3,000 patents worldwide for toothbrushes. Regardless of how they got here, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss are a necessity in our daily lives.

Oracura is one of the best online store for dental product, providing best water flosser at very affordable price.

[rangermac-blog1]

Did you know that there's now more plastic and trash in the ocean than there are fish? This is a huge and ever-growing problem. While banning single-use plastic bags and other needless waste is a nice start, it’s not enough to save our oceans and other ecosystems. We can’t fix the plastic problem overnight, but there is more we must do than rely on Starbucks and Walt Disney World banning plastic straws and a few places banning grocery bags.

It’s a great step for such influential companies and cities to ban these products, but we can’t stop there. There’s so much more to the plastic floating in our waterways than just bags and straws. Hopefully this wave of plastic bans is just the beginning of greater changes in the near future. Let’s take a look at what more needs to be done on top of simply banning the use of those little plastic straws.

Why is Plastic a Problem?

Consumers began using plastic for a number of products around the end of the 19th century, when celluloid was invented. Between 1960 and 1970, single-use plastic items such as straws and shopping bags were not only becoming cheaper to make, but they were also more convenient than their paper counterparts. Plastic is lightweight, durable, and waterproof. Paper is much more likely to get soggy and/or tear. Along with the plastic that’s used to make items like computers, phones, cars, toys, and other technology, it’s also used to wrap most of our products for protection. It helps keep our food fresh on the shelf and transport fragile items to the store in one piece. However, once you fast-forward to today, it’s easy to see that our convenience with plastic has created a large inconvenience for our environment.

Tons of plastic waste washes into landfills and the ocean daily. The American Association for the Advancement of Science estimates that around 4.8 - 12.5 million tons of plastic are added to the ocean along every foot of coastline in the world per year. It’s estimated that there are around 175 million plastic straws used every single day around the world. These straws do not biodegrade. In fact, the plastic waste that flows into the environment and washes into our waterways will remain there for the foreseeable future. What a way for us to leave our footprint on this Earth.

Another problem that we’re only beginning to research is how plastics break down. While larger plastics do degrade over time (they’re not completely invulnerable to wear and tear), they simply break into smaller pieces of plastic and eventually into microscopic pieces known as micro-plastics. These plastics are potentially carcinogenic and over time will attract other harmful pollutants. These micro-plastics stick around and are getting everywhere, including our drinking water and food. This problem might even be scarier than the large piles of trash, since it’s harder to track and clean up, and we don’t know the extent of the health problems that might arise from consuming so much plastic.

Why the Straw?

If we as consumers are going to take on the issue of using less plastic, why is the current focus on something as small as the straw? Why not start with the plastic that covers almost every item at the store? The straw is just a small part of the problem.

The advocates for the ‘say no to straws’ movement say that a major purpose is to raise awareness for the overuse of all plastics. That banning straws is a small step in a larger direction. Compared with our other daily plastic use, avoiding straws in your iced coffee or water is a relatively easy habit to break on the consumer's side.

The hope behind banning single-use plastic straws is that it will grow into a larger awareness of all the other single-use items we’re tossing away. While straws aren’t the biggest concern for our oceans, it is a manageable change for those who want to make a difference.

Will Saying No to Plastic Bags and Straws Really Make a Difference?

If we don’t lose momentum on the movement to reduce plastic waste, these small steps can turn into a multitude of improvements. That reusable straw you carry around could go into a cool new stainless steel water bottle. You could bring canvas bags to the grocery store and reusable containers for restaurant leftovers. Every time you choose a reusable solution, less plastic is ending up in the environment. And while you’re working on saving the world one plastic bag at a time, the people around you are watching and they might start doing the same thing.

Your small impact can and will slowly make a difference. Although much more is needed to start really reducing the use of plastic that ends up in our ocean, you have a choice to go out and start making that change. Call your elected officials and ask them what they’re doing to help reduce the use of plastic in your state and community. Tell others around you why you use that water bottle and canvas grocery bag.

Once people feel more obligated to stop using so much plastic in our everyday lives, we can put more pressure on the companies who wrap everything in plastic for us.CLICK TO TWEET

This is a global problem that needs more attention, and we can’t be content to leave it at banning straws and plastic bags. So no, maybe these bans are not the answer to our plastic problems, but it’s a start that’s getting people thinking and talking about the issue. After people get used to the straw bans, more can follow. Once people feel more obligated to stop using so much plastic in our everyday lives, we can put more pressure on the companies who wrap everything in plastic for us. Let’s let the ocean fill back up with wildlife, not plastic.

Learn more about ocean conservation from Ranger Mac!

[lunajunctionvintage]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Ocean Blue Dangle Earrings for Summer Made With Recycled Vintage.

[17272dorsetave]

Each day until Christmas there will be a mini review of a French film and mini food post on Celluloid And Leftovers. Happy December!

Today's Film: Le petit Nicolas [Little Nicolas] Today's Food: Mini Pommes Anna

[17272dorsetave]

Each day until Christmas there will be a review of a foreign film and a food post on Celluloid And Leftovers. Happy December!

Today's Film: The Trip - UK Today's Food: Bulgogi & Oi Namul (Korean Cucumber Salad)

[17272dorsetave]

Each day until Christmas there will be a mini review of a French film and mini food post on Celluloid And Leftovers. Happy December!

Today's Film: Joyeux Noël Today's Food: 13 Desserts

[17272dorsetave]

Each day until Christmas there will be a review of a film from around the world and a global inspired popcorn recipe on Celluloid And Leftovers. Happy December!

Today’s Film: Après Vous - France Today’s Food: French Onion Popcorn