Jo & Ponyo

7.27.08

Today after waking up slightly early to accomplish some chores around the house, I headed into Tokyo to meet my friend Johanne. We were going to see Miyazaki's--think Japan's version of Walt Disney--new film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea produced by Studio Gibli in Mitaka, Tokyo (I hope to visit the studio before I leave Japan!).

The main character, a little fish girl named Ponyo, discovers what it is like to live on the land. She meets a boy and they desperately want to be great friends despite their differences. There is more, but I don't want to give away anything to those of you that haven't seen it yet. According to a review I read, the target audience for this movie is children of age five. Fortunately for me, this meant that I would be able to understand the plot even though the movie was entirely in Japanese with no English subtitles yet available. The story reminded me of one of my favorite Disney movies, The Little Mermaid, but was quite different. I really enjoyed the movie and was able to understand bits of Japanese here and there. Ponyo was really adorable and her antics caused me to laugh out loud several times during the film. In some ways I understood and shared her amazement in certain aspects of Japanese culture.

Please watch the movie trailer below:


7.28.08

My good friend Alex sent me this picture of himself at the Obama Ralley in Berlin, Germany on July 24th of last week. I would like to give credit to a major news photographer but I'm not especially sure of this picture's origin. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see Alex's head in the middle of the green circle.