#Twenty-Four Eyes

[sesiondemadrugada]

Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954).

[jimpluff]

From Jimpluff's Japanese correspondent! While on a Golden Week stay in Shodoshima, now a minor tourist draw thanks to the 1954 film (just a couple months before Godzilla) Twenty-Four Eyes, they graciously stopped by a small Kaiyodo exhibit to photograph some items of interest.

I have just a handful from this exhibit, but please don't forget to check out my coverage of the full-fledged Kaiyodo Hobby Museum Shimanto and its incredible Evangelion Figure World exhibit from that time.

[cosmonautroger]

Twenty-Four Eyes, Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954

[audiemurphy1945]

Twenty-Four Eyes(1954)

[byneddiedingo]

Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954)

Cast: Hideko Takamine, Chishu Ryu, Takahiro Tamura, Yumeji Tsukioka, Toshiko Kobayashi, Toshio Takahara, Shizue Natsukawa, Kumeko Urabe. Screenplay: Keisuke Kinoshita, based on a novel by Sakae Tsuboi. Cinematography: Hiroshi Kusuda. Art direction: Kimihiko Nakamura. Film editing: Yoshi Sugihara. Music: Chuji Kinoshita.

One of the most unabashedly sentimental movies you'll ever see, Twenty-Four Eyes may also be one of the most effective anti-war movies, without presenting bloody scenes of people being killed and maimed. Hideko Takamine plays Oishi, a young teacher who begins her career in 1928 on Shodo Island in the Inland Sea of Japan, teaching a first-grade class of 12 -- six boys and six girls -- the 24 eyes of the film's title. We follow her life, and through her point of view the lives (and some deaths) of her first pupils, for the next 18 years, as the world and the war encroach upon a peaceful, pastoral setting. Where Kinoshita's Morning for the Osone Family (1946) was claustrophobic in its presentation of life during wartime, Twenty-Four Eyes shows how the entrapment of people by war can occur in a place where there are no visible signs of the conflict. The natural setting remains undisturbed. No planes fly overhead, no bombs are dropped on the village, but the menace of war threatens the minds and hearts of the most vulnerable: the children Oishi teaches. The most chilling scenes are the ones in which young men are sent off to the war, as flag-waving crowds sing bloodthirsty tributes to the glory of dying in battle for their country. Kinoshita and cinematographer Hiroshi Kusuda reinforce the bitter irony by their restraint. They don't darken the atmosphere: It's the same lovely natural setting. Only the human beings in it have changed. I have to admit to feeling the movie is overlong, and that Kinoshita ladles on the pathos a bit too heavily. The cast weeps floods of tears, and the soundtrack features not only the Japanese folk songs that the children learn but also some old-fashioned Western parlor songs: "Annie Laurie," "The Last Rose of Summer," "Home, Sweet Home," "Auld Lang Syne," and, most curiously, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."  But repress the cynic or the realist, and you may find it moving, too.

[dailyworldcinema]

TWENTY FOUR EYES / NIJŪSHI NO HITOMI 1954 | dir. Keisuke Kinoshita

[wickmitz]

I decided to start talking about Wick and Rocky's relationship because I like their dynamics too, I like seeing Wick scared of Rocky and Rocky being aggressive with him, which is unusual because Rocky is rarely aggressive with anyone, but of course Wick is an exception to rule

Also my mini opinion about their possible relationship, I think that if Rocky didn't have to fight for his place, then he and Wick could become friends, or at least tolerate each other a little, I also see some superficial similarities, their gentlemanly and romantic natures, and their common love for explosions (remembering the quarrymen chapter), but this is my assumption, I think that I don't understand the characters' personalities well, so I can be wrong in this assumption, something like that. So, what do you think about their relationship?

for starters, i cannot thank you enough for this ask! as i’ve said previously, i have many thoughts on these two, so it’s nice to finally be able to share some of them. although given the extent to which i think about them, i apologize in advance if this is sloppy and sort of everywhere … while i’ll try to structure things the best i can, i cannot promise i’ll succeed! but hopefully this is an enjoyable reply nonetheless.

one of my favorite things about rocky and wick’s relationship is absolutely how aggressive rocky is towards the aristocrat ; he is prone to glares and cruel jokes and borderline hissing whenever the man is within his line of sight, or can be brought to a wailing-fit over the mere mention of his name from miss m’s mouth. there is a childishness to it, but a very prominent threat as well in spite of rocky’s usual incompetence. so he goes out of his way to posture around wick, readily lying and adorning himself with the gangster drapes he so badly wants to wear, in the hopes that it intimidates … will even badmouth wick’s family and make fun of his name and rock related obsession to mitzi, and so on so forth! yet all of this is very reminiscent of schoolyard bullying rather than anything too severe, though we as the audience understand rather quickly that rocky would bash wick’s head in with a tire iron if he could. ( translation : if it wouldn’t earn the tears or hate of a certain beloved mitzi may ) and it’s all very intense despite the absence of actual violence! and i understand why many fans see this as unusual for rocky and believe that it’s only wick who makes him act so aggressively, but i’d argue it isn’t really wick at all that prompts such scary reactions from him … and that rocky is a deeply angry character who’s a.) been boiling quietly for a long, long time and b.) has turned wick into a punching bag of sorts for this inner world of resentment and hurt. basically, when he’s judging the well-to-do or poking fun, his eyes don’t look at wick and actually acknowledge him as sedgewick sable ; instead this is a being, something vague and metaphorical, who threatens to upseat rocky’s permanence in the lackadaisy and steal away his savior, and he’s had a hand in the violinist’s misfortune for a long time.

obviously, rocky doesn’t think wick robbed him of his family twice over and made him homeless, but he is channeling the fear and anguish of those events into his loathing for wick, if that makes sense? it’s easier that way -- to finally have an outlet for everything bleeding inside of you, to be able to bite and claw at something without feeling conflicted or having to take personal accountability for your own mistakes … which is something that i think rocky does struggle with to a degree. he is sort of a finger pointer! his pain has to be worth something, it has to be for someone else ; spending years homeless and losing his last bit of family was for freckle, and the scrambling of his literal brain was for mitzi, and that means he can’t ever be angry with them! well, except that he is, somewhat, but he buries it deep down instead of feeling it. with freckle there is a sense of strain between them -- an air of ‘you owe me’ from rocky to freckle as he uses freckle to appease miss m, and he constantly pokes fun at his cousin too. it’s lighter than his jabs at wick, but there’s a constant pestering, a reminder of how good freckle has it : how he’s got the mom and the house and the job and the girl most notably. i don’t think rocky is intending to come across as mean, and to his credit he hardly does! but it’s rather clear to me that some part of him, some hidden and deeply hurt part, is rather indignant about taking the fall for freckle all those years ago. which he can’t understand, because how could he? he made that choice, he decided to take accountability for something he didn’t do because he loves freckle and knows it’d be so easy to believe this family tragedy was roark’s fault ; the devilish child he was, all troublesome and too broken to properly fit anywhere. so there is a disconnect born here, where rocky can’t comprehend that he’d be angry at freckle, so instead these not so great feelings are placed elsewhere and silently boil over time. and with mitzi … i don’t think he’s angry at her per se, but there is a frustrated and desperate chorus of : why him and why not me, when i’m the one out here dying for you? which is certainly unpleasant. of course, rather than allowing those feelings to be more aimed at miss m, whom he feels unloved by, he ( again! ) represses these emotions and allows them to fester into his greatest fears and fantastical complexes. i think there is a lot of other miscellaneous anger he could have towards others too … perhaps some part of him is sore upon seeing ivy’s normal lifestyle, watching her go to university and knowing that’s been taken from him. or an ache felt when hearing stories from zib and the band and how they used to travel successfully, living as nomads, and rocky is all too reminded of his similar lifestyle and how he couldn’t make it work as effortlessly. people with immense trauma are more prone to irrational anger and jealousy, to viewing everything around them as unfair and believing it’s even more unjust that so many people get to live comfortably while they’ve suffered. a situation that gets more messy when you’re someone like rocky, a man who’s willingly made choices that have harmed himself and wants to continue on with his smiling, bumbling fool of an act. he does not want to be angry, does not want to see it within himself, i think, which leads to an accidental increase of it.

all of this is to reiterate that wick is a scapegoat for rocky and nothing more. it’s why he’s rather hypocritical whenever it concerns the man. for example, it was stated by tracy that he looks down upon wick for his excessive presence at the bar, yet he appears to enjoy hanging out with zib -- who drinks just as often! he makes fun of how all wick ever talks about is rocks, when he himself is prone to poetry rambles that people find irritating or boring, and etc etc. this is also just a human nature thing, to critique someone you heavily dislike and even going as far as to belittle things you love or do in your own day to day because you just hate them that bad! but given rocky’s willingness to befriend anyone, it more so reeks of a dehumanization element. wick is every obstacle in his way, every divine force that threatens to send him packing again, so he is equal parts unnerved by wick’s presence and angry about it. it is mostly a fear response we are seeing, an emotion that’s morphed into long held resentment and anger. so his actions are extremely defensive, with him trying to push wick far away and keep him and mitzi separate, like some sort of animal attempting to ward off a threat that’s come too close to their home. despite the loaded animosity there, this hate has hardly reached its peak … but it shall only grow more intense as things continue onward i’m afraid, since as it stands ( in the comic at least ) rocky is at an all time low … and is ten times more desperate. i’d honestly say wick has become so warped in his mind’s eye that he can only strive towards ‘winning’ over the other man, because that’s all he can see anymore. i think mitzi implying that wick willingly helped her out, the intense head injury, and rocky’s fragile emotional state is exactly what pushes him towards premeditated murder in look-see. i don’t know how people perceive that arc, but to me it’s very clear that rocky actively sought to see the deaths of wes and fish that night. going as far as to lament that he’d be, “very disappointed if ( he ) dreamed them,” and purposefully luring the marigold duo away to have freckle pick them off. while you could argue that this was a smart move, in a gangster sort of sense, there’s still no denying that rocky is oddly chipper about the whole thing and is now seeking death out ; whereas before his methods of vengeance were just, well, ruining people’s livelihood but ultimately leaving them alive. this isn’t to discredit the fact that rocky is going through something! he is in a very muddled and dark place, mentally and physically, but even tracy has said that the head injury hasn’t changed rocky’s personality -- it’s only brought things to the surface.

source : q&a with tracy .

which, yeah! makes sense! head trauma can cause a person to become a wreck emotionally ( think mood swings, irritability, etc ) but it doesn’t completely morph someone either. personality changes may occur, but it’s not like you’re being rewritten entirely, you know? and given tracy’s old statement, it’s clear that ‘personality changes’ aren’t a side effect he’s suffering from. something that adds to my beginning statement, which is that rocky is a deeply angry and troubled person, more so than fans give him any credit for.

however, to touch upon your mini opinion about these two, i actually wholeheartedly agree that rocky and wick could become friends if circumstances were different. they do in fact have many superficial similarities, but one of the more prominent things they deeply share is never really belonging in the groups they frequent. this is more overt with rocky’s character, yet wick faces it too in subtle ways. the well-to-do crowd, seen through the investors, find the gentleman to be lacking in about every place imaginable ; to them he is an obsessive freak who cares too deeply for meager rocks, something they constantly mock him for, while he’s also being noticeably set apart from the rest of them … he seems younger than the investors, more excitable, passionate, and a little less experienced, and doesn’t seem to care for money or reputation as much as them either. there is a constant rubbing between him and them, where what he enjoys is seen as wrong, such as his love for the lackadaisy and his choice in paramor, a grieving widow with extremely dangerous ties. we also know that wick doesn’t have many friends at all, with the only two he has being lacy and church ( church is listed as such on his character profile, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way ), both of whom work for or with him. they are obliged to hang around, and while they care in varying ways, they are prone to judging him just as much. honestly, it’s not shocking that wick seeks refuge at his chosen speakeasy! but even there he is rather distant from everyone else. he doesn’t speak to zib ever in the comics, nor seems all too close with viktor, ivy, or horatio … it is merely mitzi he is close to, even if he knows of the other people who work there. and, once again, wick very obviously doesn’t fit in. he is not gangster material, could never be an atlas may replacement, much less someone who could get his paws dirty in such an active way. so he has his feet in two different worlds and doesn’t know how to fit into either of them, or which one he actually wants to fit into more. i think in many ways rocky could relate -- these are two very lonely people who wish to belong somewhere and be accepted by some group or another but go about it in all the wrong ways. wick, who is too hesitant to fully commit to what he wants and is worse off for it, and then rocky, who obsessively throws himself against what he wants until he breaks every bone in his body. they also have explosives to bond over, lol, and other miscellaneous things like their taste in women i suppose … but this potential bond adds to the tragedy of lackadaisy, where we see two people who on every level should get along but we’re burdened with the knowledge that it’s an impossibility anyway, because there’s no removing the circumstance of which they’re in.

though i like to believe that despite wick’s fear of rocky, he maintains a kindness towards him regardless. i think his worries about rocky are rather surface level … he doesn’t know the boy at all, really, and thus can’t make heads or tails of him, hence him believing the lie in balderdash. so when i’m feeling particularly self indulgent, i like imagining a world where they’re forced together and sort of ‘stuck’ together ; to which rocky finally breaks and exposes his wounds to wick, in every sense of the word, and wick finally gets him. the aggression, the possessiveness of mitzi … it is all fear and desperation and a profound sadness, things he’d sympathize with. if rocky was able to explain that he loathes wick because if he saves the lackadaisy then mitzi won’t need him anymore and that it’s not fair that wick gets to so easily fix things when rocky would give his soul for his home, for her, and how wick could render every sacrifice he’s already made for naught by smoothing things over with some greenbacks and he can’t lose this, he just can’t --! … which, well, wick is too kind of a man to be able to do anything except feel awful, even though it’s not his fault at all. here we have two people who could coexist! and they should, since rocky logically can’t do every speakeasy job ( band member, rumrunner, mitzi’s shadow, also the guy who gets the money for the hooch ) by himself, just like how wick can’t save the lackadaisy with only his cash and limited booze stash. it’d be a joint cooperation, a collaboration between them, both equally important in the grand scheme of crime’s every turning wheel … but rocky’s rage and fear won’t let him see that, and likely never will. still, in scenarios where everything ends up alright for the lackadaisy and the people involved in it ( which is not how canon will go, by the way ), i fancy wick and rocky getting better within their relationship. rocky will always be prickly and quick to upset around the other man sadly, but perhaps he could see wick in a softer kind of light. or at least understand vaguely enough that he isn’t out to get rocky, so to speak. and then maybe wick learns that pancakes soothe rocky’s ire and poorly makes them anytime he wishes to talk to the man, and other fun things like that! but you should have more confidence in your character analysis skills, because you were spot on ( at least in my eyes ) about them potentially getting along if things were different. it’s certainly a fun aspect to play around with, and is important to note when discussing their relationship so you can fully understand just how warped rocky’s perspective on things are. and how unstable and traumatized he is too, of course </3 sidenote, but i also hope that throughout everything i’ve said here, or anything i’ve said before on my blog, that my love for rocky and my own sympathy for him comes across well enough. while he’s deeply flawed and i have no qualms discussing said flaws in depth, i also don’t think of him as some insane freak who’s evil at his core or anything like that. honestly, i adore analyzing him so much as a character because of how far down his issues go! he’s very well written, i’ll say, as is wick and many of the other characters, but i digress.

once more, thank you for the ask! i’ll end this here because i fear if i don’t i’ll start going in circles, since their relationship is so vast and very important for rocky in a character sense. hopefully i shed some more light on it though! i love these two to bits and pieces and i wouldn’t be half as invested in lackadaisy if their dynamic wasn’t so monumental -- at least to me.

[lamentable-comedy]

okay so you're 24, and you've kind of always lived in the shadow of your sister and how great she is. not only is she significantly older than you, she's also the smartest, and the most powerful, and most impressive, and everything everyone could want her to be. so you play the rebel. you don't take anything seriously, you fuck around, you have fun, you sneak out at night. you travel halfway across the world, cause you're young and you're powerful and you have more to learn and you might not be totally over that guy you were dating and anyway why would you bother to stay where you're always being compared to the best?

and then she dies.

she was the best and she died and suddenly you're back home, in the house that still has your teenage angst literally painted on the walls of your room. she's dead, and you're spending most of your time helping her husband raise your nephew when you were supposed to be being young and reckless while she was impressive and powerful and everything she's always been, but she's gone and you're not her.

you watch her husband fall apart. you watch everything she stood for get overturned. you watch her son grow up with a memory instead of a mother. what are you supposed to do? you can't lead a war, you can't raise a child, you can't do what she would be doing if she were here.

by the time you're 30, your brother-in-law's moved on to someone else, like you can just replace the best, and the more time passes the less anyone else around you seems to understand how much they lost. how much they are still losing by not having her here and you

can't.

be.

her.

you never could. no one could. and that was fine when she was still here, but she's gone and it took everything from you, it upturned your whole life, and now you've got to try to keep going despite that?

you know what, fiona pitch, i get it.

[druidonity2]

I looked at my fanart of War Crimes with Anduin holding himself dying with Chromie, and I decided I wanted to draw more Anduin trauma with dragons...(wip)

[kickbutts-singsongs]

Okay but why did they never have any holiday themed POI episodes?

More specifically, how come they never had a Halloween episode and played “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell in the background?

[todayisafridaynight]

no ones ever gonna understand how much i love daigo doin this stupid shit after dissolving the tojo

[kivishipps]

This is SO cheeky but I’ve never felt more like Technical Boy’s girlfriend then when I’m protesting and pissing celebrities off lol <3

[ghost-proofbaby]

thinking about how eddie would use his flip phone as a fidget toy

[fangirl-follies]

The comment I hear often is that Japanese movies, TV, and anime are plotless, but I'm here to tell you otherwise. Western ...

[ljf613]

I posted chapter three of my Once Upon a Time alternate season 1 fic, Not My Homeland Anymore, just the other day, and I really needed to say that the outpouring of love this fic has gotten has been overwhelming?

This has been my first time writing for OUAT, so I wasn't sure exactly what kind of feedback to expect, especially because it was kind of niche and written for an intended audience of one. (Hi, @swanfireprincessmydear!) I figured if I got really lucky, I might get a few hundred hits, and couple dozen kudos, a handful of subscriptions, and maybe one or two short comments a chapter.

And the OUAT fandom (especially the Swanfire shippers) have absolutely blown my expectations out of the water. I'm only a few chapters in and haven't even gotten to the actual "season one" part of the story (Emma hasn't even shown up yet!), and not only have I received 40 kudos, but it also has the same of amount of subscriptions! In other words, more people than I expected are enjoying it, and just about everyone who likes it wants to be updated as soon as there's more.

But what's really astounded me are the comments. Because I have had fics blow up before (though usually not this quickly), but I have never seen comments like this in either quantity or quality.

Generally, comments on active WIPs tend to be something along the lines of "I like this and am excited to see where you're going with it." Those are great. I love those! They tell me that I'm doing something right, and that there are people interested in the story I'm telling. Which is awesome!

And while I have gotten some of those, I've also been getting several comments on each chapter that go into detail on exactly what parts they really enjoyed, AND theorizing and speculating on what might be coming next! (Many of them are even multiple paragraphs? Which is so cool, I really like seeing y'all go into minute detail on exactly where you think this is going.) I CANNOT tell y'all just how much I love, love, love these sorts of comments, and they're generally so few and far in between, and you guys are just handing them out over here like candy?

Thank y'all so much, and I really hope you guys stick around for the ride!

[mcmcntomorii-later]

Mukuro's Kitsune Abilities

Transformation(s):

— Human ( default ) - Either with or without her vulpine features ( ears and her four tails ). When they're hidden, the ears and tails could still be seen on her through reflections of herself and will come out when she's drunk or completely relaxed around a person.

— Small fox - pink and white fur with little black tips on her ears, four tails. standard fox size.

— Medium(?) fox - think the proportions of the maned wolf but with Mukuro's color scheme lol she takes this form for shits and giggles mostly.

— Large fox - about the size of single family home, uses this size strictly for intimidation and for when she wants to end a battle quickly or need to escape/run quickly.

— Other people/creatures - Mukuro can take the complete form of another being, so long as she's seen them ( and can mimic their voice perfectly if she's heard them ) This is a short term transformation since that tends to drain a lot of her energy to maintain the image of someone else. Max time is maybe about four ( 4 ) hours ( an hour for each tail ).

— Inanimate Objects - Much like the above, Mukuro can temporary turn into things for the sake of hiding. Same time duration as the above ability.

Other Abilities:

— Illusions - mainly used to confuse people for escape or if she's feeling malicious enough, to torture people. Can be something as simple as just fake copies of herself / weapons to even images of her victims' loved ones.

— Enhanced Night Vision - ability to see clearly in the dark