#budaixi

[inimoose]

Dawn in the snowfield

[mementoboni]

台北偶戲館 (Puppetry Art Center of Taipei) 凜雪鴉 x 殺無生

part 1. / part 2. / part 3. / part 4.

[tbfantashiba]

The future of Thunderbolt Fantasy and what's next from Pili - the barest of hints & teasers

I realized I hadn't posted anything about it here, so I figured I might as well compile all the tidbits of news I've seen about what Pili is planning to do next now that Thunderbolt Fantasy is over. This is stuff I've posted in other places so it's mostly copy-pasta'd almost verbatim with slight edits for flow and clarity.

From 2/28 through 3/2 Urobuchi was in Taiwan for a series of brief pre- and post-screening Q&A sessions, plus a longer talk event, as part of the promo for the final movie, and several people at different sessions asked him about the possibility of a follow-up to Thunderbolt Fantasy. A summary/aggregation of his answers that I found through various Taiwanese fans' reports on what he talked about at the events: The final movie is the end of Thunderbolt Fantasy as a series, with no further sequels planned. However, there will still be side stories penned by other writers (specifically, he named Bunkaikei, who handled almost all of the TBF audio drama CD scripts, as well as the 2-volume novelization of Season 1 that came out last year and the 2 bonus short stories about Shang and Lin that were given out at theaters during the first two weeks of the movie screenings in Japan; and Enami Mitsunori, who wrote the Sha Wu Sheng portion of the side story novel that was adapted into The Sword of Life and Death). Meanwhile, Urobuchi revealed that he was in the process of discussing with Pili the plans for a follow-up to Thunderbolt Fantasy that isn't a direct sequel but rather a new project. The details are/were still being ironed out, so he hasn't shared much concrete information, but he said it would take some time and to look forward to it.

Earlier in March, there was a Taiwanese news article covering a press event featuring Pili and the county head of Yunlin County, where Pili is based in Taiwan, that discussed government-funded strategic plans to further develop and promote budaixi as an art to an even wider audience. In this article, it was mentioned that Pili is conducting collaborations with both Japan and the U.S. to make a cyberpunk themed puppet production.

On March 30 in Taiwan, Pili hosted a special “cheer session” screening of the final Thunderbolt Fantasy movie. At the event, Pili CEO Huang Liang-hsun confirmed that a new collaborative project with Japan is currently in production. He also said that the TBF universe is not going away. (Note: Since he did not elaborate, I'm not sure whether this refers to the side stories in other media that Urobuchi mentioned, or new puppet shows set in the same world but featuring new characters, possibly in a different country, etc., or what). (Source: Fancam by MilkMother Shimo on YouTube)

Because of how vague all of the news is, I can't confirm for certain whether the projects discussed at each of these occasions are all the same project or not. But suffice to say there is concrete work in progress to deliver more transnational puppet productions.

[sealedsanctuary]

霹靂 Pili · 白衣劍少 White Prince / White Clad Swordsman

霹靂圖騰 Pili: Totem | 霹靂異數之龍圖霸業 Pili Anomalous: The Dragon Domination | 霹靂封靈島 Pili: Sealed Spirits Island | 霹靂兵燹 Pili: Military Conflagration

[dragonoffantasyandreality]

Since I bought a new ink pen, I thought I'd do a little free form sketches to test it out ^^

Featuring: Shouichi Tsugami from Kamen Rider Agito, Su Huan-Jen from Pili, a nude Virgil from Thunderbirds, Colonel White from Captain Scarlet, two of my Kamen Rider OCs, an eye and a deformed rabbit.😁

@uniwolfcorn , @teapotteringabout , @skymaiden32 , @knyee , @janetm74 , @the-original-sineater , @amistrio , @thundergeek59 , @riallasheng , @kamenriderserotonin

[hikayagami]

Another trailer for Susu’s origin movie has been posted!! I can’t wait to see it!!

[eien-no-gakusha]

Pili on Netflix!

What a year for puppetry!  Not only do we have the Dark Crystal prequel, Age of Resistance, but Pili is now on Netflix too.  Having watched pili as a kid & being one of the few losers who earnestly liked it, it’s nice seeing it finally get more attention.  And now’s a good time to spread the love and defend this artform that gets so much hate!  But before I gush, here is a crash course for those of you who don’t know.  This is all anecdotal knowledge.  I’m not an expert, just a banana who grew up with the culture.

Pili aka Budaixi (布袋戲) is traditional Chinese glove puppetry.  In China, it’s generally preserved as a traditional art so it’s very smol and basic.  More popular forms of puppetry like shadow puppets tend to overshadow pili so it tends to get buried by the competition.  But it still exists and has generally been stopped in time in all its original glory.

Hop over to Taiwan and pili gets more controversial.  The traditional artform is still preserved but pili thrives in Taiwan because it has modernized.  The old masters don’t exactly approve of what it’s become but modern pili is always innovating and stretching the limits of storytelling with glove puppets.  Think the Thunderbolt Fantasy collaboration with Gen Urobuchi and PILI Fantasy:  War of Dragons.  Things that are in pili that weren’t there hundreds of years ago include:  CGI, practical effects, camera angles, fancy set pieces, and more advanced internal mechanics.  Seriously, these puppets are huge compared to their ancestors who were literally sock puppets the size of your hand.  Not only can primary puppets reach up to 18 inches tall but they can blink, mouth lines, hold props, wear mascara, and sport fancy hairdos.  Where it used to only take one hand to control a puppet now these guys can need upwards of 3 puppeteers to function.  Hence there’s a lot of dialogue between traditionalists and puppet nouveau.  Usually the who’s-doing-it-wrong sort of talk and yes vs no to anime influences from next door.

But outside this miniature world and their ring of hardcore fans, the Taiwanese population at large do not really care for it.  There was practically no respect for it until Thunderbolt Fantasy received worldwide attention.  Had Gen Urobuchi not praised it as artisan crafts and exported it out, no one would know that pili existed and Chinese people would just not give a damn about it.  Because you see…

The usual reasons you get to the question “why don’t you like pili?” in Taiwan is:

1)     The puppets are creepy nightmare fuel, especially these new fancy ones that blink and look really humanoid and stuff

2)     Puppets are boring and for kids

3)     It’s just wuxia with puppets, why watch that when you can watch real people do kung-fu in real locations?

4)     They’re lame and not hip at all, only puppet otaku losers watch that

5)     Bad influence for kids because remember that time a whole generation of children were led astray by these damn puppet shows?  They made a historical fantasy pili so convincing kids actually believed the fictional protagonist was a historical figure & wrote the summary of the show on their history exams and totally failed school.

Reason #5 is the most harmful as it’s the most widely cited, at least in the neighborhoods I frequent.  Televised puppet shows being so addictive it distracted children from their studies became such a huge scandal it still hurts the industry’s prestige to this day.  Since that incident, pili has been inexorably linked to rotting children’s brains.  Therefore, it’s cool to casually hate pili or call it dumb, because it’s linked to literal stupidity.  On the flip side, it’s not cool to earnestly enjoy a good puppet show since it’s viewed as grown ass adults playing with toys and there’s the stigma that people will magically turn dumb by watching them.  Basically, if you’re caught as a fan people might think you are a bit below average in the head.

I think that’s complete bullshit!  Chinese people have been making wuxia historical fantasies since we invented writing!  Some of those are even great classics and required reading in schools all over Asia.  They’re so popular they get theatre, TV, and movie adaptations.  I’ve seen some pretty pathetic wuxia historical romances that drag on and have poorly written characters and they don’t get this much hate.  Puppetry is just another storytelling medium and one’s interest in that medium is a matter of personal preference, there’s nothing objectively good or bad about it.  And there’s no direct correlation between glove puppets and being a dumbass.

My theory of what happened 50 years back was television became widely accessible to the public.  And given how TV booms start everywhere else, the local population will be inspired to film anything and everything around them.  So like Hollywood started with mimicking Broadway and theatre productions and Chinese cinema filmed Beijing Opera before coming into their own.  In Taiwan, we had pili so people filmed that and it became its own television genre.  Also like any new thing, the older generation aren’t sure how to react to the newfangled technology but the younger generation embrace it and that disconnect as well as society as a whole learning to adapt to the new thing cause a bit of conflict.  Just like in the West, neglectful and stubborn parents were quick to point fingers at the new thing when a problem happened when the issue was learning how to adapt life incorporating the new thing.  Then we figure out the new thing isn’t evil and very useful or interesting.  So I think pili is finally entering that phase when we are respecting it as an artform and not being blamed for bad grades because some dipshit parents think TV is an acceptable babysitter or bad teachers looking for a scapegoat.

Thank you Gen Urobuchi for elevating pili as an art and introducing it to the rest of the world when no one else would give it a chance.  Thank you Takarazuka for promoting it as something cool.  I hope everyone will learn to love pili more, or at least give it the respect it deserves.

I don’t know what to think of the puppet sex though, it’s a lot to unpack.

[ghoul--chan]

I took on some TBF requests on discord. We have Mu Tian Ming, Xie Ying Luo, Xiao ( i forgot his full name, add later) and Fake Shang ( this guy has no real name in canon). These were al quite fun but also challenging.