Blue Peter shows clip of anime movie

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
Barefoot Gen was featured on Blue Peter today, as part of a programme dedicated to the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II. They travelled to Hiroshima and talked to manga creator Keiji Nakazawa about his first-hand experience, visited his old school and showed some clips from the film. He then drew a sketch of Gen, with the the message "No more war!! No more nuclear weapons!!"

Thanks go to Andy Glass (Sir Haggis) for this news post.
 
yeah, i saw that this afternoon as well. i ended up getting into a heated discussion with my dad about the ethics of the Bomb attack! it was great to see even clips of an anime film of Gen's calibre on mainstream TV though. i'll have to add it to my 'to buy' list after seeing it.
 
It's nice to see that Blue Peter are showing such things, I have not read more than a few panes of Barefoot Gen, but I think it is a great manga, and I'm sure that the anime is also rather sobering.
 
the anime is sad but no where near as sad as grave of the fire fly. barefoot gen as a very happy feel at parts and gen is always looking for the good things in life and always playing and haveing fun. i think thats the reason i like the movie so much, its different then most war films and anime series as its not always about death and surffing.
 
but its mainly because of the americans that all war films have a sad theme to it, think about it if the americans did there own version of dad's army they would make into the biggest sadfest of the year making it that the americans again were there at the start of the war and they saved us all well one thing i can say to the americans.

JOIN IN A FIGHT HALFWAY THROUGH ISNT REALLY BEING IN THE FIGHT AT ALL
 
^My my, someone's bitter. :lol:

Realistically though, the whole 'we saved your ass in WWII' thing kind of denigrates the whole war.

There are several competeing factors to make this a stupid argument, not the least of which is that the UK managed to hold its own against the German war machine despite the odds being heavily stacked against them. Unlike the UK, the US never suffered attacks and devastation on its own homeland. Then of course there's the fact that the UK was fighting with the Germany for far longer than the US was, as they arrived late in the war.

The final issue though is the most important, being that if the UK had fallen and europe had been claimed by Hitler without any real opposition, I wouldn't have given the US much of a chance after that.

Now a lot of this is specualtive on my part admittedly. But it's far more rational than the typical right wing US response that they somehow won the war for everyone.

/Aside

Back to the topic of commedy, I've alway felt that was one of the best things about British commedy, you can laugh at the most tragic and warped stuff (sometimes the best way of dealing with the subject matter unless you want to break down and cry), and there's plenty of black humour and cynicism used. I still rate Black Adder goes Forth as the best in the series personally, but the entire series ( maybe excluding season one) really did showcase the kind of sardonic humour that makes British commedy special. You could never have shows like 'The Office', 'Drop the Dead Donkey', 'Yes Minister', or 'Goodness Gracious Me' crop up naturally in the US. At least I don't think so.

These days though I'm not sure British commedy is as witty as it used to be, which is a real shame.

Er, sorry, I appear to have gone off topic from anime...

Hmmm...

I thought Grave of the Fireflies was a brillaint depiction of the affects of war.

There. I'll go into more detail later. :mrgreen:
 
It's not that British humour isn't as funny, it just doesn't get the same screentime and attention as the hipper, shinier American series, often relegated to late timeslots that few people ever pay attention to. The likes of Spaced and Black Books were aired after Friends and Will and Grace, so naturally they weren't going to stand as much of a chance. The funniest stuff is often made with the lowest budget.

It's a culture thing. Americans don't seem to 'get' irony in the same way we do, their satire isn't nearly as clever or biting. They seem to have fallen into a routine of simply mimicking the last big thing and so keep using the same jokes, hoping to cash in on its success - it's all about the money, after all. And because American audiences know no better, they keep watching it. It's only when they do discover something else - such as Monty Python and Shaun of the Dead - that they realise that other kinds of humour can exist. Politics also play a part - they may claim to have freedom of speech, but often seem afraid to openly criticise the government (compare Sin City to Yes Minister, for example).

You can't really blame them for their attitude on WW2 either; they were brought up on propaganda, just like the rest of us, what with all those war movies and misinformation and such. Some are just more suceptable to it than others, which is where the dry British cynicism comes in handy. ;)

Wow, way off topic. Sorry bout that :)
 
Well I wouldn't go that far, especially not on the susceptibility to propaganda. Every government uses propaganda, and people are susceptible to it whatever country they're in. Although like you said, perhaps the increased cynicism in the UK helps some with that. In the US, the culture is slightly different. The people are taught to have pride in their country and its achievements. It's something they find their strength in, although this is a bit of a contrast to the typical British way of thinking. This is after all, a nation of hecklers (and proud of it!). :mrgreen:

And there are US sitcoms that I like. I really think Scrubs is good for example. Malcolm in the Middle used to be really good as well. There's also stuff like Family Guy, which is great, and often quite witty in its own right. I used to like Futurama as well while that was going. Not neccessarily original, but what it did, it did quite well.

But for sheer biting cynicism, I don't think they're ever going to have a show quite like Monkey Dust. :mrgreen:

*uh oh, off topic again, think fast... Ah, got it*

With regards to anime, a lot of the attempts humour is often zany and slapstick, at least from what I've seen. Either that or more slice-of-life style of humour, which when done right, is really brilliant. Is there any anime out there though, which could be said to make use of 'dark humour'?
 
Back
Top