moon rabbit revolution

I research anime and cult film. My new free ebook on Miyazaki's storytelling revolution is out now at http://moonrabbitrevolution.com/miyazaki-revolution - go check it out!

[moonrabbitrevolution]

Play along with the newest edition of the Eurovision Bingo / Drinking Game!

[moonrabbitrevolution]

TONIGHT at 9pm see the original #GhostInTheShell on the enormous screen of @dukeofyorks - in Japanese with English subtitles & an introduction from me on why this masterpiece is actually a Buddhist parable. #moonrabbitrevolution #thisisbrighton #animefans #cyberpunk #buddhism #shinto #mamoruoshii #seriousanime (at Duke of York's Picturehouse)

[prokopetz]

Is there such a thing as a normal giant robot anime? Like, I’m totally down with a series where the giant robots turn out to be lobotomised clones of an alien god and the “good guys” have been collecting severely abused children to pilot them because they’re literally powered by self-loathing, or what have you, but sometimes you just want to see a fifty-meter robot punch a monster.

[prokopetz]

Recommendations that I have received in response to this post include:

A show where the giant robot grows to the size of a galaxy and beats up the laws of thermodynamics

A show where the giant robot confronts mecha-Satan and saves the day by persuading her to reset the universe

A show where the giant robot turns out to be actually, metaphysically evil, goes Akira and devours the Earth, and is defeated by the power of Love

A show where a series of giant robots pop out of an adolescent boy’s forehead, and also the whole story might be a metaphor for his penis

I am suspecting that we are employing different definitions of the word “normal”.

[yummieyummie]

[constable-frozen]

BAH-A-LA-LA-LA

[moonrabbitrevolution]

Looking to understand more of Hayao Miyazaki's wonderful creatures & the impact they had on Japan & the world? Download my new free ebook from my blog! Link: Miyazaki's Revolution - How one filmmaker changed how a nation thinks about story, heroes and women

Most people who write about Miyazaki interpret him through a Western lens. But if you want to understand his stories fully, you have to take into account the unique context of his upbringing, his connection to Japanese culture and mythology, and how he reacts to the society around him.

This is exactly what I’ve been focusing on in my research of the past few years: on how we, with sometimes very different cultural backgrounds, can understand what Miyazaki says half a world away.

By giving pointers to many Ghibli films below with this approach in mind, I‘m sure you’ll find new ways to see these films even if you’ve watched them all endlessly. But you also don’t need to be a “superfan”: you won’t be lost even if you haven’t seen most or any of his films. Download the free ebook from Moon Rabbit Revolution & start reading!

[moonrabbitrevolution]

Tonight's mass is in the Church of St. Tilda. Hoping Jimmy Somerville pops in. #orlando #tildaswinton #queerdreams (at Fabrica Gallery)

[moonrabbitrevolution]

Look into my eyes. Tell me your sorrow. We shall dance and picnic on the grassy meadows and it will be summer again. #moomin #moomintroll #southbankcentre #tovejansson (at Southbank Centre)

[matsuyamamiyabi]

The addamsfamily in kimonos.

Follow me on Instagram ｜ weibo

[theslaycademy]

[daruiisbasic]

Never stop reblogging

[weird-syrup]

And I mean, It’s Caitlyn Jenner.

[moonrabbitrevolution]

This is the closest to an Utena class as I can imagine.

[amandapalmer]

[neil-gaiman]

Everything you need to know about me, in one tweet.

[stitchmediamix]

The problem with a Kylo Ren redemption arc is that no matter what Disney does, fandom will see that redemption come at Finn’s expense. The issue with humanizing Kylo or redeeming him is that fandom WILL take it as Disney legitimizing their continuous erasure of Finn.

(“Ben Solo” in fandom is literally Kylo with Finn’s personality and character arc. His relationship with Rey? Stolen from Finn.)

There’s a bunch of ladies on tumblr who love Kylo who mock people (women of color mostly) who don’t want him to be humanized/redeemed as people who just don’t get that Star Wars is “all about redemption arcs”. But um… It’s not actually. 

Not at all. 

Not even with Lucas.

Star Wars is a political science fantasy drama that tends to focus on a single family. Redemption is incidental to a single plot & character and never drove the actual character arcs of either of the core trios.

(There’s a post in tumblr that’s a screencap of NK Jemisin tweeting critically about Kylo’s redemption arc and the notes are legit full of white fans dismissing her position as a Black female author with complex character arxs and pushing the idea that fandom just likes bad (white) guys because they’re more interesting and because redemption is supposedly part and parcel wit this narrative. 

One person even tried to drag NKJ, calling her a hypocrite for supposedly writing Vegeta fanfiction ages ago. But Vegeta’s humanity never came at the expense of Goku’s so… Even any redemption arc there would be better than Kylo’s.)

[nkjemisin]

…Somebody tried to drag me? Seriously? :D I’ve been busy/traveling/sick for the past couple of weeks. But it was about my old fanfic? My literally 20+ years-old fanfic? What, because it was badly written? (It was. I was only twentysomething after all, and using it to procrastinate on my thesis/stress relief. I wrote the first version of what became The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms around that time too. It does show in some ways.) Because I used Geocities to post it? The shitty fangirl Japanese? The ~~angst~~? ::tickled:: Man, I love Tumblr. (No, I don’t seriously want to know about the attempted dragging or drag-er. If you find them, leave them alone. If you haven’t guessed, I am not remotely upset that somebody figured out how to use the wayback machine. Every writer has to do their million words of crap, after all, and I’ve always used fanfic to push out mine. That’s why I still write it – just under better pseuds now. :)

Anyway. I hadn’t seen this meta around Finn’s reduction by fandom in favor of KR’s redemption arc before those tweets (found this by searching myself here). I’m not much into SW fandom; I was just responding to some article I’d seen. I was simply talking about the fact that I’m bored with certain narratives in American media, and one of those is the white guy who can basically eat babies and be forgiven for his horrible behavior as long as he has a Very Special Moment in the last 5 minutes or so, right before the commercial break. (See also: House and every character Benedict Cumberbatch seems to play.) That’s a reinforcement/symbolization of Privilege, basically – fans assume the best about him from jump, and are willing to empathize with him every step of the way despite behavior that should make us empathize with his targets/victims more, and they don’t require any real demonstration of contrition before offering him their forgiveness. No contrition equivalent to the harm done, certainly. Vader is a perfect example. Dude basically did eat babies, a whole Jedi school/monastery of them, but at the end, he saved Luke. Well, that’s nice. And when I saw RotJ at 11 years old, that was awesome. I’m 44 now. I can see where the ugly creases on this much-folded and -reused concept still haven’t been ironed out. They’re baked into the cloth, really; there’s no saving it.  And folks who love love love that cloth, because tradition or comfort or because they are also 11 years old, or whatever, are welcome to have it. I don’t have a problem with that, as long as they aren’t correspondingly investing themselves in racist reduction of Finn. (But that so often goes hand-in-hand with the baby-eating privileged white guy trope. So often.) Meanwhile I’m going to look for – or make, if I can’t find it – something new.

And I want to make clear that my problem isn’t with redemption narratives in and of themselves.  Those are old stories – the oldest – but still goodies. What irritates me is poor (cliched) execution, because mindless repetition of privilege narratives is shitty writing. I’m also tired of certain narrative focus choices.  Folks responding to that Twitter thread raised the very good suggestion that the story could easily shift here and become centered on Leia, hunting down her son and figuring out how to forgive him (assuming he does some monumental act of contrition), or maybe killing him herself as a mercy once he comes to terms with what he’s done. That is a KR redemption arc I could get behind. I would actually fight somebody in a Sarlaac pit to see that on screen.  Alas, tho, I think that won’t be happening now. :(

(20 yo fanfic beef. ::smh:: Amazing.)

[animal-factbook]

[moonrabbitrevolution]

Come the Chichester, visit the Church of St. Pub! #chichester #gothicrevival (at The Duke & Rye)

[moonrabbitrevolution]

This film, people. Stop everything you're doing, cancel Christmas if you have to and go watch it NOW. #rogueone #zeitgeist #kurosawawouldbeproud (at Duke of York's Picturehouse)

[leehama]

A tiny journal-ish gif-comic from a few tweets I made last night!  I believed this kind of stuff until I was 14 or so, which is pretty old in retrospect…

There used to be more but I accidentally saved over it :/

[leehama]

I did manage to recover one other page, though!

[leehama]

(the end!)

[trinandtonic-deactivated2022102]

this is my favorite thing that I have ever seen in my entire life