#panda and the magic serpent

[anjoviva]

HAKUJADEN (1958) dir. Taiji Yabushita

[icarus-suraki]

YOU FORGOT SAILOR MOON.

[reubenyeoart]

Kanerva, Tempest's Scion

A new personal piece tangentially inspired by the new Magic expansion, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, but mostly an excuse to paint Kanerva again!

[ms-scarletwings]

We gotta start accurately calling Sly Cooper a low fantasy universe at some point. It’s retrospectively wild how much supernatural shit is going on in front of your face that you don’t think about because it’s like… nothing to the characters that it’s happening to. People who have never played Sly Cooper have no clue how nonchalantly it grinds this rail between just “real world noire but furries” and straight up DC superpowers stuff.

• The surprising amount of undead, in hindsight

Black magic is just, you know, a thing…. and outside of when it’s the weapon of choice of the villain of the week, it’s not even really brought up. Tsao was building an army of honest to god vampires and Mz.Ruby has been fraternizing with homemade ghouls since she was a child. A second-game side quest involves descetrating a tomb, kidnapping a bunch of restless ghosts, and then unleashing them on the cops for a good prank. For Pete’s sake, Clockwerk, biggest bad of the franchise, is basically an eldritch machine possessed by the vengeful spirit of someone who became too petty and angry to die.

• There are people born with innate superpowers

So, there is no debate going on with the deal about Cooper abilities and this point, right? Sure, the Theivious Raccoonus has a lot of good pointers any thief worth their salt could gain from, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say somethings along the lines of gliding down lasers or turning invisible on command are a bit out of most readers’ capabilities. The 1st game’s humor in explaining off gameplay mechanics as in-universe phenomena had the unintended consequence of establishing that the Cooper clan members literally have a criminally inclined sort of spidey sense- literally hallucinating glowing auras and blue sparkles around anything both valuable and not nailed down. I think I also awkward appreciated the parallel to be spotted between the Cooper honer code and the self imposed limitations other media supers live by. That idea of “you have the gift of amazing power and you will choose to use it responsibly”, all the better here for the ways in which the clan’s premise subverts classic hero/villain dynamics.

• Ancient techniques of sorcery

run right alongside conventional weaponry

Some supers are born in this world, a lot of them are made. As if anyone with the time to practice and learn can just pick it up like karate. Religion has to be crazy in Sly Cooper considering there’s entire spiritualisms given demonstrable and epic power in what their followers are capable of. Murray literally can do some degree of magic from the third game and onward and there’s no telling what else he learned over the course of his Dreamtime training. Anyone with the wits and resources of the Contessa can figure out how to toy around with freaking mind controlling dark arts. Don’t get me started again on the whole “army of undead” thing which gets even weirder by the implication that the world does nothing to regulate these kind of abilities UP AND UNTIL the user starts to roleplay a cocky little warlord with their zombie friends. And Flame Fu is right there. A lot of what the panda king can do is closer to Bentley’s realm- very complicated and meticulous works of pyrotechnics, but Flame Fu is a whole something else that belongs in this discussion.

• Magical items and mythical beasts

The Mask of Dark Earth, the guru’s special stone, an entire kraken, a whole laundry list of things in The Contessa’s possession, an enormous swamp serpent, haunted trees, whatever the hell kind of ring Dimitri was wearing in the second game, a giant stone dragon statue that turns out to be AN ACTUAL FREAKING DRAGON in dormancy, a supercharged ancient bamboo forest, potentially the Cooper cane itself, and the not-to-be-overlooked every single piece of Clockwerk’s cursed body. I know I’m probably forgetting something because that was just off the cuff. It’s kind of wild that most of what we watch the Coopers focus on stealing can be stuff like museum paintings in a world where magic flying carpets are confirmed to exist. The hell. Why was I ever mocking the pirates in Bloodbath Bay for their paranoia and superstition?? Best part was always that basically none of it phased the resident smarty pants nerd character like it usually would anyone who fills that trope. Because of magic is just an accepted and normalized thing in the world, why WOULD Bentley talk about it any different than he would the history of lumberjacks or combustion physics? Instead of conflicting against his understanding of science, it just tacks onto it as more additional info, you know… the way it would if magic was just another set of rules to study and understand.

[althea-and-alcestris]

Meet Alcestris Zigvolt

(Neka by 离堂风)

,,I'd rather be heartless than have my heart in pieces."

☾ Basic Information

Name: Alcestris Zigvolt

Age: 17

Birthday: February 3rd

Gender: Genderfluid (Any pronouns), afab

Species: Half serpent fae, half human

Height: 178 cm (5'10)

Dorm: Diasomnia (Freshman)

Homeland: Briar Valley

Class: 1-A

Club: Pop Music Club

Dominant hand: Right

Favorite food: Dark Chocolate

Least favorite food: Seafood or oyster

Specializes in: Archery

Hobbies:

Archery

Horseback riding

Writing music and singing

Family:

Baul Zigvolt (adoptive father)

Sebek Zigvolt (Nephew)

Meleanor Draconia (past adoptive mother)

Malleus Draconia (adoptive brother)

Maleficia Draconia (adoptive grandmother)

Personality:

At first and for as long as you aren't friends she's distant and cold, often times a bit harsh with her approach of words (blunt I should say)

Very easily irritated and pissed off, can also get violent but that's usually when she's really angry (tries to control herself despite having anger issues)

Silent observer, if you think she didn't notice, she did

Tough love type (scolds you for being reckless, tells you ,,I fucking told you" but will not let you repeat it)

Protective to motherly level

Cynical and sarcastic as hell

Some call her heartless for the way she approaches things sometimes but it somehow seems to work 99% of the time

Loud and will voice her disagreement and dislike to anyone (even someone like Malleus)

Surprisingly very wise and helpful (older sister figure)

Love language is remembering little details and reminding others of things they forget

☾ Short Summary

Alcestris is a half-fae born way back in the past, during the war in Briar Valley. She was a soldier in her time, serving under the Draconias and being the adoptive daughter of Meleanor Draconia. She was the youngest soldier, having joined at only 15 and faced a lot of discrimination for being only half fae until her unfortunate and premature death at 17. After her revival she was adopted by Baul and she enrolled alongside Sebek to NRC.

☾ Additional info

Voice claims: JP - Paku Romi (voiced Temari and Hange Zoe) EN - Angelina Jolie (voiced Tigress)

Not twisted from anything or anyone but taken inspiration from: - Kikyo from Inuyasha - Tigress from Kung Fu Panda - Levi Ackerman from Attack on Titan - Mikasa Ackerman from the same anime - Mulan from Disney - Mizu from Blue Eyed Samurai - Inuyasha - Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist

☾ Signature Spell

River Flute:

,,From a fleeting dusk to a hopeful dawn, I’ll protect you till my last breath is drawn. River Flute!”

Once the wielder starts playing the flute around sleeping people, they appear in all the dreams in the version each person sees them and protects them throughout the entirety of the dream. The spell is broken when the wielder stops playing the flute or the people wake up.

☾ Backstory

TW: Implication of SA, mention of suicid3 attempt and mention of depression

Mentions of t0rture and d3ath

Alce was born at the time Briar Valley was at war. She was born only half faerie with the name Isadora Evergreen.

Her father never loved her mother and she was born out of violence, but Pandora loved her babygirl regardless. Early on, the father showed hate towards the child who looked so much like her mother. He hated faeries himself to the core. He shunned her but his hatred was two faced. There was something vile hidden in it. And he acted on it without the knowledge of the fae woman.

When they found out the child had special blood (it heals any wound), his greed took over immediately and he told the Silver Owls about it. Of course they wanted to obtain it. Pandora defended Alce and ran away with her into the freezing Winter night, soon finding it best to hide her. She stopped at the frozen river and with a tearful goodbye, she gave her the Night's Blessing, then with magic she hid the child under the ice in an air bubble and with a sleeping spell so she wouldn't cry. The woman distracted the soldiers and led them away from the water, unfortunately dying as an aftermath. The little girl was found by the Imperial Guards of Briar Valley who thought it was best to take her to their princess, Meleanor. She took her in, knowing that she's at least half of their kind and raised her in Castle Wild Rose.

Early on the child showed big interest towards weapons and fighting, liking the armors the guards wore and begged Lilia to be trained as well. After a lot of nagging, he agreed and taught her the basics in fighting and wielding weapons and at 15 years old, she joined the Royal Guards.

Now, she was very outcasted as a child, fae children not wanting to play with her because she was different, a half human. In the army this just got worse. She got harsher training and was treated with prejudice. Not only that but she needed to work twice as hard to keep up because she was weaker than the average fae. It affected her mindset so bad. She overworked herself all the time just to show she's good enough and worthy of being in the army. She battled with depression that pushed her to the point where she attempted. Fortunately she was stopped by Baul.

One time, overworking herself led to her developing a fever that almost cost her life. Baul was assigned to watch over her and report in if she can't make it through the night. And in this dazed and feverish state she couldn't remain strong anymore and started bawling, asking so confused and desperately ,,Why won't anyone love me?? Am I that unfit for it?? Why do you hate me so much??". His heart broke into pieces and realized that his treatment was wrong towards her. She was just a kid, damn it. She shouldn't be feeling this way. He decided to take care of her if no one else will.

That one year was the happiest year of her short life. Someone was there to care, someone appriciated her efforts and was worried about her. She even made a friend, although he was human. His name was Asterope and he was part of the Silver Owls but he was nothing like the ones she's met before. He was compassionate and helped her when she was wounded. He could've killed her, but didn't. They had a short friendship but even then they helped each other with a lot. Alce helped him understand her side of the war and made him realize that the humans are the invading party in this war.

But unfortunately all good things must come to an end. When she was 17, she set off to help a human child find his parents (with the help of Asterope). Ultimately walking into her own demise. She was captured and imprisoned, subjected to interrogation via t0rture because she didn't comply or give answers. She was missing for a month before finally found, injured, blind but alive. After being given a healing potion, she was in a good enough condition to follow Lilia and the team back to Wild Rose Castle and reunite with Meleanor one last time before being sent away with Malleus’s egg back to Black Scale. While escaping through the forest she was shot by several arrows, including one through the throat that proved to be lethal. She died in Baul's arms, feeling a tremendous amount of rage at the very last moment.

And that last emotion stuck with her soul, entangling with it like the roots of a tree deep into the soil. She was vengeful towards humans. As a ghost, she lingered around Baul and Lilia, observing the happenings of history. Malleus's hatching, Lilia's banishment, him becoming a father, Baul having a family on his own. Soon she was reborn in Sebek, who was just like her. A half fae, outcasted and feeling insecure about himself for it.

Sometime before the current events of the game, she was resurrected by a necromancer who had heard her story and wanted to have her as a weapon for her venom and as a healing source with her blood. And he needed the soul from Sebek and her ashes for it. The spell was successful, she was awakened but her emotions and memories of who Baul was had been blocked off by the very same spell. She couldn't recognize him and so she was made to attack him. It ended with her biting him in the arm, leaving a nasty scar behind.

In the heat of the fight, what ultimately stopped things was the soul wanting to return to its original body (Sebek). The soul tore itself in half just so one part could return to the boy's body while the other remained in the resurrected teen. She passed out from the impact and Baul decided to take them both home. He was still in shock. He couldn't believe that his long dead adoptive daughter was right here in his arms again. And most importantly.

Alive

CharacterHub page for more info

Other fandoms she is in:

Honkai Star Rail

Attack on Titan

[icarus-suraki]

1, 7, and 9 for the movie ask!

It occurs to me that I could just answer Goncharov (1972) for all of these…

Movie Questions Ask Bait!

->what is your favorite film of all time? Very possibly Mad Max: Fury Road. That movie rewired my brain. That movie scraped the rust off my soul. That movie sneaked up behind me and stole my spine. And it was great.

I literally went to see it in the theater seven (7) times. Seven. If you dig back in my blog here to June 2015, you'll see that this place was full of Fury Road. Stills, gifs, music, meta, fic, shitposts, all of it. All of it.

Sidebar: I think my absolute love of Fury Road is what's keeping me from wanting to see the new Furiosa prequel: Fury Road didn't explain everything to death so we, the fandom, had a great time imagining explanations or making things up. We dissected that movie and we also left it alone. I don't want to know too much. I like that world being left a partial mystery. We, like Max, get thrown into it and we're both figuring out how it works as the story progresses. I love that.

I can't exactly explain why I love it so much. The colors, the action, the fight scenes, the music (holy shit the music), the characters, the weirdness, the story itself, the callbacks and parallels, the newness and the oldness of it (it really is a train robbery movie at its core), the sense (ultimately) of hope, the presences of women (old women even!) in action roles… Something about it, maybe everything about it, were just perfect for me at that time and in that place.

Yeah. Favorite movie ever.

->name a movie you’re emotionally attached to? There's so many ways I could take this. Positive attachment? Negative attachment? Very Strange Time in My Life attachment?

Like, I know I can never watch L'Illusionniste, Les Triplettes de Belleville, or Grave of the Fireflies again because I cried just too fucking hard at each of them, which I think is an emotional attachment.

Or I could say the Lord of the Rings movies (all of them). They came out when I was in college and a handful of us were counting down the days to the premiere, watching this miniscule clip of video taken by a fan from a train that showed a glimpse of the Minas Tirith set endlessly, gobbling up any news or leak or rumor about production on Livejournal, engaging in the fandom of that era (which was a whole thing in and of itself), even going to midnight local premiers. So while I'm not a huge fan of the movies, they certainly were a constant presence in my undergrad days.

Or it could be the other movies that rewired my brain: Mad Max: Fury Road (see above), Princess Mononoke (baby's first Studio Ghibli film in 1999 at the local art house theater), Star Wars (only episodes 4, 5, and 6 though; I kind of deny that any others exist), Kiki's Delivery Service (which I had on VHS in college and would watch when I was stressed and depressed because I love the city), Voices of a Distant Star (the concept really got me)…

Or it could be the kids' movies from my own childhood, you know? Robin Hood (1973) is very near and dear to my heart. And Panda and the Magic Serpent is what started me down the weaboo road way back when I was 6 years old.

There's so many possible answers here. But that's a few movies I have emotional attachments to. How's that?

->guilty pleasure movie? Do I have to? Okay, okay, okay: I like a good cheesy, gory giallo movie, red tempra paint blood and all. Spaghetti westerns are amazing with their half-understandings or misunderstandings of USAmerican history to the point that it becomes something different, something bigger and more epic (I love The Good, The Bad and the Ugly so much). Martial arts movies full of dramatic scenes and wire-fu are so much fun (and I get to practice my Mandarin or my Japanese). Gothic drama, especially from the 1990s, is great like the original IwtV, Crimson Peak, The Crow…

But I paid actual, real, hard-earned money for a (digital) copy of Bloodsport and it's so bad. It's so bad! But I love it--maybe as much for meta reasons as anything.

Like, the whole thing is based on this Canadian-American guy Frank Dux's memoirs about being trained in ninjutsu by a mysterious Senzo "Tiger" Tanaka (who probably didn't exist at all and has the same name as a character in You Only Live Twice) and then going on to compete in this international full-contact underground martial arts competition in Hong King (the "Kumite"). Oh and he was also in the military at the time, doing covert missions, so he had to go AWOL to fight in this competition of course. Which he does without being caught. And he keeps outsmarting the CID officers (one of whom is played by a young Forest Whitaker) when they chase him to Hong Kong, meanwhile picking up an April O'Neill-style beautiful American journalist ("reporter" because it's the 1980s).

The whole thing is so clearly ridiculous bullshit but it's marketed as being based on a true story because Frank Dux insisted his bullshit was true. And it was produced by Cannon Films, which is another can of worms entirely (I highly recommend the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films for more backstory on the company; it is bonkers). And did I mention that Frank Dux is played by Jean-Claude van Damme? And yes he does do the most epic of splits.

And the whole thing is simultaneously so deep in meta layers (self-proclaimed martial arts masters, which ties into Count Dante and the dojo wars, Frank Dux's amazing bullshit and stolen valor, Cannon Films) and yet so incredibly shallow at the same time.

There's minimal plot, zero depth to the characters, massively long flashback sequences, even longer training montages, a totally ridiculous amalgamation of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures into just "Asian Culture," the dubbing in some scenes is practically criminal, there's minimal exploration of the location (Hong fucking Kong!!!) outside of a chase and a throwaway scene about bad restaurant food, and even the fight scenes during the tournament aren't really all that great.

But the Kowloon Walled City gets some screentime (except that it's just a set sometimes). And there are tons of locally-hired extras and bit players, along with a slew of international actors and/or actual martial artists, even if a lot of them have been cast as nationalities other than their own???--like Bernard Mariano, who is Filipino by descent but was born in Hong Kong, had no martial arts experience but got scouted while he was working out, was cast as a "Middle Eastern" fighter named Hossein, but used his pay from the movie for university classes to go on to be an English teacher in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Jean-Claude van Damme is busy taking his shirt off and wearing super tight spandex underwear (he snaps them in one scene; you're welcome). Leah Ayres is a "reporter," which is really "journalist" and one of the few adventurous jobs acceptable for women in 1980s movies to have, who maybe lives in Hong Kong or maybe doesn't but she's super cute and deserves better than she got in the script; she's The Girl (Leah Ayres is now into pseudoscience). And Donald Gibb is playing this American bar brawler who somehow got invited to this elite fighting tournament and he looks like Kurt Russell in The Thing if he were still infected by the Thing and living out on the ice alone.

Like, I could just keep going. I love this shit. There is so little that's "good" in terms of filmmaking, scriptwriting, cinematography, anything in this movie and yet it entertains the fuck out of me.

Hence: guilty pleasure film.

[littleeyesofpallas]

It's funny... #DRCL's Mina Murray continues an old tradition of plucky indomitable, red headed, braided pigtails sporting school girls adapted into anime from western literature, the likes of Anne of Green Gables, Poppy Longstockings, and Judy(from Daddy Long legs)...

Not dissimilar to the way Marie-Joseph, in Innocent, very distinctly carries the torch of Lady Oscar from Rose of Versailles as an androgynous French swords woman on the eve of the French Revolution, with a complicated personal relationship with Marie Antoinette.

That said, I wonder if Sakamoto has any intentions of reviving the loose spirit and aesthetic of any other classics? Future Boy Conan? Panda and the Magic Serpent? Or if he's got any affinity for some later works, The Mysterious Cities of Gold? The Secret of Cerulean Sand? Although that one would be more like just a general Jules Verne-esque steampunk adventure. (Funny how almost all of these have tangential links to Hayao Miyazaki...)

[selkieblood]

" Why is Panda and the Magic Serpent a “trauma” for Miyazaki? This is also clear from the ambivalent attitude Miyazaki assumes when discussing this work. As an anime he rejects it as rubbish, while repeating the story of its being a formative experience for him. Isn’t the traumatic nature of this experience inscribed in Miyazaki’s words, “I like this work, but it’s bad”? Miyazaki can keep refusing to acknowledge this work, but he can never, ultimately, repudiate it. Of course, it is true that Miyazaki has not been directly hurt by this experience, nor is he trying to forget it. In other words, there is no “repression” here. Some will claim that for this reason it cannot be considered a trauma, but they would be wrong. The young Miyazaki fell in love with the heroine of this film despite the fact that it was a work of animation. The experience itself may have been like a sweet dream, but he is still plagued by the fact that he had been made to experience pleasure against his will by a fictional construct. The heroine that becomes an object of love at that moment is an object of desire, but at the same time, because she is fictional, she also contains already within her the occasion for loss. And the traumatic nature of this experience goes on to manifest itself as a definite, if modest, “split” later in Miyazaki’s career. "

beautiful fighting girl

saitō tamaki

[usssnarfblat]

If the Disney Renaissance had happened 50 years earlier...

[petsincollections]

A panda in the Helldorado Parade advertising "Panda and the Magic Serpent: a full length animated feature." 1957-1959.

Edythe and Lloyd Katz Photographs

UNLV Special Collections and Archives Portal

[oldanimeshitposts]

me with my childhood beanie babies

[lachatalovematcha]

.。.:*,☆ :*・∵∵.:*・・:*・ ❣╰(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯❣ .。.:*,☆ :*・∵∵.:*・・:*・

                白蛇伝     The Tale of the White Serpent

.。.:*,☆ :*・∵∵.:*・・:*・ ❣╰(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯❣ .。.:*,☆ :*・∵∵.:*・・:*・

[fairyetc]

[coppercookie]

Panda and the magic serpent (1958)

This is Toei's first movie we'll be seeing a lot of their works from now on. It's also called the tale of the white serpent. A boy is forced to abandon his white snake, years later the snake now a spirit goes on a journey to find the boy. A priest under the impression that the spirit will kill the boy does everything he can to stop them from being together. Meanwhile panda and a red panda called mimi get separated from the boy and try to find him.

The animation is a little all over the place. Some scenes look quite nice while others feel floaty. They clearly haven't figured out lip sync yet since sometimes they don't even move their mouths when they're supposed to.

This film is decent but needed a little polish. It's a good start to Japan's first non-propaganda animated film. If you're interested in the history of Japanese animation you might like it.

The list

[krjpalmer]

Every so often I run across comments chiding “making a big deal of entertainment consumed,” and the latest one of them was just in time to have me supposing “watching particular bits of anime from a range of different decades in the space of three months” had been a bit of a stunt. Not about to dismiss the whole thing, though, I could at least tell myself I’d found some enjoyment in the oldest works I’d seen. Along with that, however, I’d already laid plans to stop by one more decade. The earliest feature-length, full-colour animated features made in Japan were from the end of the 1950s...

[icarus-suraki]

Hakujaden or, as it was known in America, Panda and the Magic Serpent, released in 1958 in Japan and 1961 in Japan and a significant element in my childhood.

When I saw it, on VHS (which I nearly wore out with watching it), it was so brown and sepia.

But this! The colors! This is how it was meant to look! The colors! The reds and pale greens and the flowering trees in the backgrounds! This is how it was supposed to be and I'm about to cry because it's just too beautiful and special to me.