Rhubarb and Anime

[altivo]

Celebrated the newly cleaned oven by baking another rhubarb pie. This one has strawberries in it as well, since they had some decent ones on sale at the market Saturday. Mmmm. I'm amazed how many people have been telling me they never tasted rhubarb. To me it was part of home cooking, something we had every spring, but I guess in an age of take out food and frozen microwave convenience all but the most popular and common choices just tend to disappear. That's sad.

One of my grandmothers was of Pennsylvania Dutch descent. Pies are a central feature of that culture's food, and she was a fine baker. I learned pie-making from her and from my mother, to the point where most of my friends think it's a genetic skill.

Now, revisiting the subject of anime, we watched Pom Poko over the weekend. I know, everyone else was at the theatre to see Over the Hedge and I have no intention of missing that. But I wanted to look at something not directly influenced by Miyazaki in case my dislike for anime turned out to be actually a dislike for Miyazaki. It isn't. Pom Poko is different, but still has major problems for me. Fuller commentary is available on the Clydesdale Librarian pages.

Comments

[doco.livejournal.com]

I don't know why, but most of the time I get to eat rhubarb now, it seems to be too sweetened for my taste. You know, the crunchy kind of sweet, where there's so much sugar in the dish it does even refuse to dissolve... ugh. Either I'm not as sweet-toothed anymore as I was ten or fifteen years ago, or my parents just don't like the sour taste of rhubarb any more and try to outsweeten it, I don't know which.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There is a general tendency in cooking today to oversweeten everything. I agree that rhubarb should retain enough tartness so you notice it. :)

We find in trying out recipes from the newspaper or newer cookbooks that we can cut the sugar back by as much as half and they turn out just fine.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

*self-slaps* I read that as Porn Poko and immediately wondered why you'd be into hentai.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nope, there's no porn in it. The PG rating is for violence.

GREAT idea!

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I live right in the middle of the rhubarb triangle, and as such, can appreciate the qualities of the most under-rated food stuff in the world.

I have never had a rhubarb crumble with strawberries in though. I suppose the sugars in the strawberries are good for counter-acting the tartness of the rhubarb. I will certainly have to give it a go, next time I have do some cooking. :)

Re: GREAT idea!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Whoa! I never heard of the Rhubarb Triangle before. Makes me think of the Bermuda Triangle though. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, unless you like rhubarb... ;P

Strawberries and rhubarb go together just like bread and butter. It's an old tradition, probably out of that notion that things that ripen at the same time are meant to be eaten together. In any case, they compliment each other very nicely, and here in the US, you rarely see rhubarb pie in restaurants or bakeries. It is always strawberry-rhubarb. For most people, the idea of rhubarb alone just wouldn't occur to them.

I should probably post a recipe for rhubarb cake or rhubarb muffins. :)

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

*sniffsniff* *headbutt* PIE!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Poke your muzzle into a hot pie and you might regret it. Not a nice place to have blisters.

[niko-winterset.livejournal.com]

*grins* Funny how nearly everyone so far focused on pie instead of the anime. Personally I have always thought myself to be an odd furry in that I generally loathe anime in every shape, form or fashion. It is just not an art style I can enjoy. The characters tend to be so unrealistic, overdrawn and exaggerated. I am sure there is some out there that I would like but to me art and animated shows have to have some semblance of realism to them.

I had to blink and rub my eyes as I was driving around Dallas for they have chains of stores here devoted to Anime. I think that is the case anyway. I cannot imagine a store with 'Anime' in the name being related to anything but just that.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, Anime is usually a turn off for me as well. But there is the odd one that is done really well. Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke for example. As well as Howl's Moving Castle, and Wolf's Rain.

Anime's major problem in my opinion is its lack of accessability to the un-itiated. Therefore, I think the secret to good Anime as far as people like me are concerned; lies in a story that is halfway possible for a Westerner to follow.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

I think you'd like shows like Wolf's Rain or Scrapped Princess, then. They're drawn much more realistically, doesn't do the chibi-style characters fifteen times for every scene, and have a good story as well. Wolf's Rain is kinda violent though, whereas the fights in Scrapped Princess ... Let's just say the heroes are ridiculously overpowered. ;-)

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Pom Poko, but I can't really disagree with any of your assessment of it (though tanukis are actually canids, rather than badgers). The pacing was a bit slow, and there are a lot of actions on the parts of the characters that are hard for non-Japanese to relate to. Besides having a general Japanese sensibility, I've heard the film described as a "survey course in Japanese folklore", with various bits from Japanese ghost stories, nursery rhymes and the like thrown in to invoke smiles of recognition from Japanese viewers only serve to puzzle most American viewers.

The moral, if there was one aside from "It's sad, but you can't stop progress" or "pity those who can't adapt", I would see as something along the lines of "There is still a little magic in the world, but it's generally been forced to hide, put on a tie, and get a day job." Depressing, but a little hopeful. Oh, and the soundtrack was incredible.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

described as a "survey course in Japanese folklore"

This is how my brother described Spirited Away as well.

I took the "badger" explanation from IMDB. I didn't think there were real raccoons in Japan. On the other hand, those are mighty odd looking canids.

[hartree.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought there was a more interesting level to it.

The tanukis were confronted with a human encroachment that mirrored how humans have to deal with the natural world. In the face of shortage, they end up fighting each other rather than what's causing the problem. Then it's pointed out this is futile, and they adopt a grudging cooperation of trying to fight the threat directly. This fails as the reality is bigger than them.

At that point, they divide up into three groups.

The ones who the others see as unrealistic and simply attempt to leave (those following the old master to another world). (Think of them as the L5 Society group)

The ones who in one last act of defiance throw themselves into the oncoming reality and are destroyed. (Insert whatever group you feel comfortable with here. Yours may be different than my choices. ;)

And finally, those that come to understand that this is a force that can't be sidetracked and has to be lived with on its own terms. This last is in some ways less glorious than paradise or victorious glory, but more realistic. i.e. We have to live within the bounds of nature, just as the tanukis have to live within the bounds of their reality.

It's not surprising that this doesn't appeal as much in America. We tend to have an all or nothing view of victory such that winning is all, and that all victories will be final. In reality, even the most complete victory is fleeting.

In the real world, problems have to be dealt with in the long term rather than just riding off into the sunset and forgetting about any pieces to be picked up. i.e. The last evil polluter poisoning the world has been subdued, or the last of those dratted environmentalists blocking progress has been silenced depending on what extreme side you take.

In Pom Poko, no one gets everything.

That's a lot of why I like it.

But, many of the shortcomings Altivo noted are indeed there. Just as there's no perfect environmental solution, there's no perfect movie.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

You really have to watch it in Japanese with English subtitles to get a lot of the jokes the Disney dubbers edited out. They're not saying "raccoon pouch" in Japanese....

And yes, this particular font does make it look like Porn Poko

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We figured out the "pouch" thing pretty fast. It was obvious from the artwork. Had it not been dubbed out, the film would have probably got PG13 from the MPAA bluenoses.

[typographer.livejournal.com]

We went to one of our favorite restaurants last night on the way home from the theatre (the final musical of this year's season tickets). They always have a couple of seasonal desserts in addition to a few year round ones.

Both of the seasonal desserts were rhubarb. I was more than slightly tempted to try the rhubarb sorbet, but I went with the rhubarb slump. Mmmmmmmm! hot rhubarb and vanila ice cream!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Rhubarb sorbet is a concept I'd never have thought of, yet it sounds intriguing. I just might try some experiments, since we have lots of rhubarb available for the moment. I wonder if it contained cooked pulp or just squeezed juice with a lot of sugar added...

My jumbled thoughts.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I personally like anime, but am not a Miyazaki fan. How can this be! Miyazaki is widely held as the shining peak of anime-dom, as being the master of the japanese tale.

Pom Poko is one of my favorite Miyazaki stories, but it really boils down to how much you like Japanese culture and japanese folk stories. If you really aren't that interested, Pom Poko tends to fall flat on its face. Its 'furryness' of having animal characters is not enough to sell me, but the combination of the two is enough to have me enjoy the story. Yes, the ending is sad, and its something that's hard for our American sensibilities to take since we expect happy endings particularly from animated tales.

The only thing that annoys me about all of Miyazaki's works is that they are upheld as being fantastic pieces of art and that you must be CRAZY not to like them. The fact is that Miyazaki's work, though pretty in quality and heavy on the japanese folklore, is simply some of the most ACCESSIBLE anime, some of the most broadly appealing, and thus some of the most similar to the popular Disney animation we all know and love. The Regular joe audience can watch it and *accept* it, though not necessarily like it. Personally, I feel this makes Miyazaki stories not a good representation of all the different genres of Japanese anime. Is it better than the average? Almost certainly, but it lacks many of the qualities that attract anime fans to watch anime.

Miyazaki films are those chosen by anime fans to show to non-anime fans in order to gain acceptance, and overall I believe anime fans have been frustrated by the lack of general approval by the regular American population.

Anime fans like anime because of the direct differences between traditional american animation and japanese animation. Traditional American animation has always been comedic; written for adults with slapstick humor, but then adopted as a child-safe medium. The Disney movies, Mickey and Donald Duck short-cartoons, the famous Warner Bros. tales, and so forth were interrupted by the episodic Jetsons and Flintstones and Scooby Doos. The subject matter in all of these was almost universally comedic, and each episode stood on its own two feet.

Japanese animation came much later of course, and went through its evolved phases. But the subject matter was different and very appealing to young males: Giant robots, children who were more important then they seemed (the 'princess' scenario, although many were boys who could control a giant robot, for example, and that made them special). Japanese animation became serial, where successive episodes built on the previous. A true storyline began to emerge, similar to a soap opera.

What got Anime on the map of most american fans was Robotech - on its face an aliens-attack-earth-defends-with-giant-robots story, but in fact was much more a soap opera and love story. Kids (including me) would rush home to watch the Soap Opera. It was something very different from Bugs Bunny. Before Robotech shows like Battle of the Planets (though butchered) and StarBlazers had the same formula - space battles, but in reality a soap opera behind the scenes.

Further anime had rather different subject matter. Digimon explores a concept very similar to the daemons from Pullman's novels, but with a juvenile bent. There is yaoi anime (young gay male stories, but with storylines to appeal to young girl viewers), which would be unimaginable in an american culture. There are stories of ninjas and pirates, all serial. It is the serial nature of anime, along with regular writing, that is what is appealing.

The artwork does tend to be more detailed or specialized - some may carry on and on about it and some of it is fascinating. Howl's moving castle had wonderful artwork, but none of it wowed me as much as the first time I saw The Lion King.

Re: My jumbled thoughts.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

(I exceeded the comment limit)


Miyazaki tales I have seen and my general opinion:

Howl's Moving Castle - Incomprehensible but pretty.
Spirted Away - Has a dragon (cool). Not interested in the story.
Pom Poko - Great Japanese folklore. Depressing ending. Disputed message.
Totoro - A gigantic snorefest.
Princess Mononoke - Probably the best, but most violent - a "Mythical Legend" storyline, so you have to like that kind of thing.
Castle in the Sky - I could care less.
Porco Rosso - An accessible but meaningless little yarn, I enjoyed it.

Foxes shouldn't knock the sour grapes till they try em:

[hartree.livejournal.com]

Rhubarb pie. *salivate* :)

That ranks up there with gooseberry pie in my book. Yum!

Re: Foxes shouldn't knock the sour grapes till they try em:

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Gooseberries have never worked for me. No doubt it's because I haven't found any good ones, since they're very nearly extinct in cultivation in the US. We have wild gooseberries all over here, but they are hardly worth bothering with, all seeds and little taste. Our wild blackberries, however, are well worth the trouble if the mosquitoes aren't too terrible.

[smaf.livejournal.com]

I need to speak to you, my friend. You ever on an instant messenger, or on IRC these days?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Almost never on either one. I just don't have time to sit at the computer like that any more. E-mail works, though. altivo at livejournal.com

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

"Celebrated the newly cleaned oven by baking another rhubarb pie. This one has strawberries in it as well"

*voice of Inigo Montoya*

"I admit it...you are better then I am"

*facepaws*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nah. I know you're a good cook. :)

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Wtf? You have an anime section? I thought you knew next to nothing about the genre... please explain.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The only anime I have watched are those mentioned in LJ or The Clydesdale Librarian. Without exception, I find them disjointed, lacking in plot continuity or motivation, and poor in character development. Add to that the Japanese inclination toward dark and depressing settings, a lot of angst, and inconclusive or unsatisfying endings, and I'm pretty much repulsed. I sat through about a dozen different titles because so many people kept saying "Try this one, you'll like it better," but none of them work for me. They all feel like they were designed or at least directed by someone who suffered from ADHD and autism simultaneously. They just don't connect at all.