OK, I know this is short notice. Sorry about that.
Tomorrow, Friday the 3rd of June, I will be showing a movie double feature for my
Anime Friday. I hope to have a decent turn-out, but there is always room for more. The two movies I will be playing are:
Arete Hime: Confined in the castle tower by her father princess Arete spends her days watching the world outside her window. Sometimes she seeks out to watch the common people at work. The knights of the kingdom compete for the right to marry her and rule the land by competing to see who can find powerful magic objects made by a long dead race of sorcerers. Arete wants none of this. She longs to meet the common people and travel to exotic lands she has only seen in the books she keeps hidden under her bed. One day the sorcerer Boax arrives in a fantastic flying machine to take Arete as his wife and fly off with her to his far away castle.
Colorful (2010): Upon reaching the train station to death, a dejected soul is informed that he is lucky and will have another chance at life. He is placed in the body of a 14-year-old boy named Kobayashi Makoto, who has just committed suicide. Watched over by a neutral spirit named Purapura, the soul must figure out what his greatest sin and mistake in his former life was before his time limit in Makoto's body runs out. He also has a number of other lesser duties he must complete, such as understanding what led Makoto to commit suicide in the first place and learning how to enjoy his second chance at life.
Princess Arete Made me think of Victorique from
Gosick. She is in almost the same situation, stuck up in a tower, used as a tool by her father who doesn't care about her, spending all of her time reading books, and wondering what life outside her window is really like. The art style was similar in some ways to
Howls Moving Castle and also to
The Last Unicorn. If you liked those films you should definitely give
Arete Hime a try. A must see on my list.
You would think that
Colorful would be a poor choice as a double feature, but I felt that the character of Makoto aligned so well with that of Arete they just compliment each other.
Colorful covers some very deep subjects, suicide, child prostitution, adultery, and verbal abuse, to name a few. This is definitely a true life style drama, and not a kiddie flick. It has a strong message, and it doesn't pull it's punches in delivering it to you. Worth seeing at least once.
Anime Friday starts at 7:00pm every Friday at my home in Eugene. PM or email me if you want directions.
Hope to see you here.
