When fandoms collide

Dec 15, 2005 12:12

Man, a stupid unit in class reminded me of fandoms. We saw today something called greedy algorhythmsFor the love of... *headdesks* Fate, stop rubbing it in ( Read more... )

random, ghibli

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Comments 16

etrangere December 15 2005, 04:46:48 UTC
...yeah, Miyazaki's son is adapting Earthsea to anime
Holy fuck !

That, and the fact Ged seems... *squints at pre-production poster* you know, too white
ARGGHHHH GRRRRRR

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I should've kept my Howl WTF icon rainmage December 15 2005, 06:23:02 UTC
Geesh, I know! I have to wonder if Ghibli's character designers even get to glance at the books they adapt, they just read summaries with no descriptions at the Internet, or it's the producers who just change the character's looks so it's more appealing to Japanese children (ie, Michael in Howl... yeah, cute kid, but he's missing at least 7 years more and a personality.) Really. What's wrong with dark-skin!canon!Ged?!

Also, it frightens me a bit the poster has the dragon. And Ged looks too small to be eighteen, so it's probable they messed the plot badly.

I wonder if LeGuin will wank again when she finds out yet another adaptation whitened her characters again. And I also wonder if Ged would've been reddish brown if Hayao-san had participated in the project. At least Howl looked like Howl in the movie...

I still want to see it, though. Ghibli are such brainwashers.

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likewise icons etrangere December 15 2005, 06:39:50 UTC
so gorgeous

I can't hate Ghibli studio. For HMC I watched the movie first, so it's not as much painful for me... but yeah, they did do... weird stuff with it.
I guess it's a case of needing to appreciate both work separately and forget one is the adaptation of the other...

But still.... I wanked on my journal about the TV serie adaptation's lack of black people XD now I'm going to feel like a hypocrite if I like the Ghibli version despite it.

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Re: likewise icons rainmage December 15 2005, 07:20:17 UTC
Same here, I watched the movie first as well. But I couldn't understand a thing, really, and bird!Howl disturbed me so much. At least it made me appreciate the book better.

And it happened to me with The Neverending Story, also. I adored the first movie when I was a kid, so I was never bothered because Bastian is thin and Atreyu is lacking the olive green in all adaptations. Then again, I read the book like 15 years later, so I never knew.

Nah, just think you hated the TV miniseries because it sucked and not because of the lack of black. That way you can be a hypocrit with an excuse =D

I still know I'm going to like it because it's Ghibli, and it's going to rock as long as you forget the white jailbait bishie is supposed to be a black guy with a scarred face. No matter what they do to the plot. but if they change the shadow plot, or if they give him a Sue love interest, they'll be maimed

And the dragon looks cool, I must admit. I hope they keep the otak and sell cute plushies of it.

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rainmage December 15 2005, 08:04:11 UTC
I never saw him as BLACK BLACK. It's the whole American/European way to see things. Basically, any tone of brown = black for the average Western now, but I was raised in a South American country ( ... )

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rainmage December 15 2005, 08:34:50 UTC
I don't think it is, because I read two translations of the first book (the library one and the home one), and he's still red-brown. And LeGuin said it herself in her SciFi channel wank, that she was inspired in indians Native Americans.

Yeah, I know. I hate it when we're just thrown in a sack. I had a classmate who was white with blue eyes, and she was half Arab half Portuguese. Myself, I don't even know what race am I. Physically speaking, I'm white, and my parents are white. But while my mother's family is Spanish -and that doesn't even make me racially safe, as my grandfather could have moor blood as far as I know-, my father's family is Venezuelan. That means I could easily have black and indígena in my gene pool. Actually, I bet I do. That explains the hair.But really. I think a pure black or a pure indian doesn't exist in Venezuela. So I can't call an apparently black person black or an apparently indian person indian. We had waaaay more "mestizage" in upper South America than in Argentina or Chile ( ... )

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rayechu December 15 2005, 10:04:37 UTC
I am thinking they went with a white Ged simply because it would be easier to do from a visual standpoint. I would think the animators would have a bit more color choice with peachy skin tones over a brown and green background, making more of a "pop" while a reddish/brown skin would blend into the background more easily. Especially because they do complicated backgrounds.

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rainmage December 16 2005, 01:01:38 UTC
Perhaps. That makes sense.

I think I can't recall any dark-skinned (as in, not white or Asian) Ghibli character.

Then again, almost all of A Wizard of Earthsea happens either at the sea or inside school indoors. There are some settings where the dark characters wouldn't blend so much. But I'm thinking book canon again.

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paper_seagulls December 15 2005, 14:23:47 UTC
I didn't even remember that stuff about the differences in ethnicity going on in Earthsea. Maybe I should hit up the library and read the thing again. Force back the negitive feelings from english class.... ugh, that'd be tough.

Looking at the movie poster though, (They've been working on this for awhile apparently. Summer release?) it looks like 'generic miyazaki style' which means... everyone's white. Or asian, whatever. Not surprised. (As for the Sci-Fi mini-series, that's one reason I'm glad I don't have cable.)

I personally shocked I posted anything relevent to my blog for once.

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rainmage December 16 2005, 01:06:38 UTC
I saw the news first in your journal, actually ^^u

But yeah. They mention Ged as red-brown skinned a couple of times, in the first book all of them are non-white, except for the invaders at the beginning of the book.

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goodchristina December 15 2005, 19:53:38 UTC
I know how you feel! I saw a game at a store today called seven deadly sins and thought of the humonculi. Oh and HMC? I was so glad to see it and then I read the book, I couldn't believe how off it was! Where did he get the bird from? And the witch just is suddenly ok at the end? And WALES!? The plot (other than Sophie being old) was entirely different. It made me mad, I liked the book a lot better (and got it for Christmas ^^) Anyways, i'll stop the ranting for now ^^;

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rainmage December 16 2005, 01:14:10 UTC
Ghibli screenwriters like their selective reading. Read the two or three first chapters, read the last one, and then invent anything in the middle XDDDD

Man, I miss the Wales subplot! I think that's the real reason movie!Howl never dyed his hair again. He buys his L'Oreal "dye potions" at a drugstore in Wales. And he can't so there anymore and be blond again because Ghibli substituted his Welsh black dimensional door of doom with a stupid battlefield.

He turns into a bird and attacks around so he can go through that crap and find his L'Oreal the real door back home because he's worth it.

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