Saw this on eBay and was curious if it’s authentic. Seems like it’s being sold for not a bad price but I’m not experienced that much in this sort of stuff.

Vote your least favourite female lead and the top up voted comment will be eliminated the next day.

I'm sorry if I didn't put enough character here. So I apologize for all of you fans of Marnie, Madame Gina, Ronja and many more work of Ghibli Past and Present

Also I put satsuki and mei here together because I don't know who's the main lead in Totoro. If it's a mistake then once again my apologies.

This one hurt, as it should

It is about 16” tall. Made from 10mm ‘Snow white’ glass tubing. Hope you enjoy it!

In My Neighbour Totoro, what is the mother ill in hospital with?

I do like spirited away don’t get me wrong but there’s better ones out there

Edit: Just tagging the whole post as a spoiler so people don't have to click through loads of spoiler highlights.

tl;dr This film is an indictment of the adults and culture surrounding Seita and Setsuko. Seita has flaws, but those pale in comparison to the adults. The war is mostly a backdrop to explain how the world got to where it did and how adults could watch as two children, one of them a four-year-old, slowly died of malnutrition and starvation.

I finally watched Grave of the Fireflies knowing it's a highly discussed film, but have never actually read much of the discussion (beyond it being a very gut wrenching watch) in order to avoid spoilers. After watching it I did some googling around to finally read some takes on the film. The film was...impactful...and I'd like to type up my own thoughts here which has, admittedly, turned into a wall of text. One other thing to note, you'll probably get tired of seeing me call out the ages of the kids. Sorry about that - just know it's for a purpose.

First and foremost Seita is a kid wrapped up in a situation most adults wouldn't do very well in. Sure, he makes some decisions that aren't great, but at the end of the day he's a kid with basically zero guidance from any adults around him. That brings me to my second and final takeaway - this film is an indictment of the adults around Seita and the culture driving them.

Let's tackle Seita first. A really common theme I see discussed is that Seita's pride is what eventually kills Setsuko; Seita was too proud to work, too proud to apologize to the aunt, and too proud to seek help.

• Work: Not once did the film ever show an adult guiding him on how to get a job - where to go, who to talk to, what might be available. The aunt makes plenty of passive aggressive comments about working, but she never actually helps him in how to get work. Her husband and daughter are basically mutes and are also no help. The farmer who knows Seita is trying to find food seems to have no "work for food" proposal. Literally no one in the film seems to have any guidance for Seita on how to earn his share. You know what we do see Seita doing? Up until he's forced to forage for food while living in the cave, he's taking care of his four-year-old (Four. Years. Old.) sister 24/7. That in-and-of itself is basically a full time job.
• The aunt: We're going to address the aunt shortly.
• Seeking help: Ok, here's where I find fault with Seita. Sure, none of the adults actively try to do anything beyond a simple band-aid to get him to go away, but that doesn't absolve him of responsibility to reach out himself. Why doesn't he ask the farmer if he can work for food? Why doesn't he tell the police officer (who obviously was willing to help to some extent) that his sister was in bad shape? Why doesn't he seek out the family friend from the beginning of the movie who seemed to be the only character in the whole film who gave more than one shit about him and Setsuko? There were adults who identified themselves as people who might be willing to help, yet he didn't take the first step to ask for that help (beyond trading and then begging). The doctor scene could have been an opportunity, but I understand how Seita's frustration got the better of him in that moment, plus the doctor literally saw how bad Setsuko (a four-year-old) was and couldn't care less. Seita thought he could make things work on his own and I agree that his pride (due to cultural upbringing) was part of the problem here. Pride plus ignorance (due to still being a kid) with no adult guidance are the full problem.

Ok, on to the adults. I'm going to talk about them all and leave everyone's favorite, the aunt, for the end.

• The family friend at the beginning is the only character in the entire movie, outside of the mother, who seems to care at all about Seita and Setsuko (a four-year-old). We don't know how she would be several weeks after losing her home, but in that moment she cared.
  • She's content that Seita and Setsuko have somewhere to go - the aunt's. My opinion is this is reasonable.
• The aunt's husband is completely detached from everything. He wakes up, grabs his lunch, then goes off to "work in the war effort." My assumption is he has a job working machinery tucked away in a home somewhere (which, coincidentally, is part of the reason the Americans firebombed the cities - the Japanese had dispersed war-related manufacturing to anywhere they could find a roof in order to diversify away from concentrated manufacturing hubs which were easy bombing targets; the husband even makes a comment to this). He doesn't even seem to notice the family has two orphan relatives until pretty late in the story.
  • He has no guidance for Seita.
• The aunt's daughter is nearly completely detached seeing as how she does recognize the aunt isn't treating the orphans very well. But, she's caught up in the culture and basically just keeps her head down, then follows the dad out the front door every day. She does buy Setsuko new clogs, so that's good.
  • She has some compassion for Seita and Setsuko's situation, but has no guidance for Seita.
• The doctor sees just how bad Setsuko's (a four-year-old) condition is and...triages her. I have a hard time painting him as a villain because he's probably seen lots and LOTS of malnutrition cases. He thinks it's as simple as Seita knowing she just needs to eat more/better. Seita never tells him he has no idea how to accomplish that - he yells, sure, but he never describes their situation.
  • He has clinical guidance, but no "life" guidance for Seita.
• The first(?) farmer at least knows Seita's having problems finding food. He also knows Seita is caring for Setsuko (a four-year-old). But the best he can do is trade with Seita and possibly give him an occasional handout (I think that was implied). When the going gets tough, he has no alternative options or guidance for them. The farmer's literally eating his lunch in front of them in the middle of the field, but has no epiphany of "maybe I'll throw this kid a bone and see if he can help with the farming". It's this scene that teaches Seita he can use the chaos of the war to loot what he thinks he needs because no one else seems to be interested in helping in a sustainable way.
  • He's willing to trade and (I think) occasionally provide a handout, but has no "life" guidance for Seita.
• The second(?) farmer (the one Seita is caught stealing from, I'm not sure if they're the same farmer) literally sees the conditions Seita and Setsuko (a four-year-old) are living in and gives zero shits. Yes, he's angry at being stolen from, but when he's confronted with Setsuko (a four-year-old) living in squalor he has absolutely no compassion whatsoever. Even when he's at the police station, he doesn't tell the officer there's a four-year-old living in a cave with no food.
  • He has no empathy or compassion for a four-year-old living in squalor, let alone guidance for Seita.
• The police officer knows Seita is stealing food, but protects him from the farmer and offers Seita clean water as a peace offering. He has no follow-up questions for Seita - why don't you have food? where are you living? are you alone? where are your parents? My assumption is, to the police officer, Seita is just another tragedy he can't help, so he doesn't try.
  • He has no guidance for Seita.

The aunt.

• Here's my summary: The aunt is a narcissist with a victim complex - a pretty common combo and most of us know someone like her. She doesn't want Seita and Setsuko (a four-year-old) living with her from the beginning, but she at least masks it while she thinks their mom is still alive. I don't know if she takes them in due to social pressure or because they're her brother's kids or maybe because she's afraid a "navy family" might muster a reprisal if she turns the kids away...no idea on that, but I do know she never wants them there. Though that doesn't stop her from taking advantage of them. After she finds out the mom is dead, she no longer feels the need to pretend to hide it and goes into full-on passive aggressive mode as her narcissism rears its ugly head under the guise of providing for her own family.
• Within a minute of being introduced to the aunt she makes a comment about how "privileged" navy families are. This is her first tell that she's been jealous/resentful of the socioeconomic status Seita's family enjoys due to the father being a navy captain. She makes more comments about the "navy family" throughout her dialog that solidifies this take for me. Unfortunately for Seita (a fourteen-year-old) and Setsuko (a four-year-old) she's going to exercise this resentment on them.
• The next scene has Seita recovering the supplies he hid before the firebombing. He brings the supplies to the aunt's house and shares them with the whole family. The aunt is just ecstatic about all the things he brings, what with the rationing going on...and lets slip a comment about how spoiled Seita's family is. The next we hear about any of these supplies they've all been eaten, presumably by the whole family and not just Seita and Setsuko since Seita doesn't realize they're all gone.
• The end of this scene has the aunt finding out Seita's and Setsuko's (a four-year-old) mother has died. She has no words of condolence for Seita. Instead, she's mad he didn't tell her sooner. His reasoning of protecting Setsuko (a four-year-old) seems to not assuage her. Kudos have to go to the animators because you can see the moment the aunt realizes the orphans are no longer spoiled navy kids she can get good stuff from and are now her problem. At first her parting words about notifying their father seem like a reasonable thing to say, but my opinion is she's not really interested in whether or not the father knows the bad news. She's more concerned about the father figuring out a way to get the kids off her hands.
• In the next scene, when they get back from their bath, the aunt is scraping the last of whatever the meal had been from the bottom of the pot and eating it. Obviously food is becoming more scarce. Seita makes an interesting comment as he and Setsuko walk away - "That looked good." Setsuko (a four-year-old) agrees with a nod. This is our first hint that the aunt, who took all of the supplies Seita brought, is feeding her family (note 'her family') differently than Seita and Setsuko (a four-year-old). Seita is now realizing they're not one, big family like he thought.
• The next scene, to me, is pretty key to my defense of Seita. The aunt asks why he's not in school and Seita replies that both his school and army muster points have been destroyed and he has nowhere to go. He also sent his father a letter ten days prior and has heard nothing. Basically, he's done everything he knows how to do, but it's all falling apart. The only path he is certain about is taking care of his sister (which he's doing in this scene). The aunt now knows the father isn't answering anyone, Seita or herself, and is becoming suspicious about the father ever being able to save the situation. She has no guidance for Seita.
• We get some confirmation from the aunt's husband at dinner that the war isn't going well, rations are being cut, etc. We find out her daughter is now also working for the war effort which seems an opportune time to mention to Seita about finding a job, but we don't get that. Another piece of info we get from this scene is Setsuko is eating voraciously. Her growing body is hungry. It's foreshadowing...
• During dinner the family has to go to a bomb shelter due to an air raid. The aunt is receiving praise from the other adults for taking the two kids in, how hard it must be, and recognizing how young the kids are. What happens next is very interesting. The shot cuts to Seita and Setsuko, by themselves since the aunt is busy soaking up the praise elsewhere, and Seita (a fourteen-year-old) is doing what a typical parent would do - comforting Setsuko (a four-year-old).
• The beach scene seems to have nothing to do with the aunt, but I'd like everyone to take note of a few things here. First, the topic of swimming, Seita's flashback memory, and running to the air raid revolve around hunger. The kids are hungry already. Second, Seita takes note of some other family taking in a relative and being grateful to have them. He knows he doesn't have this at the aunt's house. Third, to this point we've only ever seen Setsuko clothed (the bath scene only shows her above her shoulders). She's had a pretty consistent rosy tint to her cheeks throughout the film, but that could just be a happy kid out of breath. At the beach she's only wearing underwear and we get a good look at her back...and there's the start of it. She already has a pink splotch on her back showing malnutrition. It shines a new light on her eating voraciously at dinner earlier - is she really that hungry or does her body know she's missing some key nutrient? We'll never know.
• The next scene hurts. The aunt now knows the kids are only worth what they have and she's intent on getting the most of it. She proposes (more like simply says it's going to happen) selling Seita and Setsuko's (a four-year-old) mom's kimono for food (which, on its face, seems like a good idea). She uses a mix of language in the dialog from consoling ("I'm selling my stuff, too" though we never see what she's actually sold), aggrandizing ("You need to eat to be strong to go to war.") to completely degrading, I-don't-give-a-shit "Your mom doesn't need this anymore (because she's dead)". And what's this? The aunt thought she was doing the dirty deed while Setsuko (a four-year-old) was asleep so she could get away with it in peace? Not so fast, Setsuko (a four-year-old) sees her doing it and the aunt has to console her and explain why...just kidding. The aunt forces Seita (a fourteen-year-old) to do more parenting and deal with Setsuko (a four-year-old) who's losing nearly the last of her tangible attachments to her mother. Setsuko's cheeks are as rosy as ever, Seita is nearly at a breaking point...and Seita's spirit, with all its hindsight, knows just how pivotal a moment it is and literally cannot bear to watch or listen. Seita's doing his best to hide his own attachment to his mother's kimono and the memories it represents, but his spirit knows better.
• The aunt comes back with the purchased rice and gives Seita and Setsuka (a four-year-old) their share. Remember when Seita (a fourteen-year-old) brought the supplies he had hidden and shared them with the whole family? The aunt is different. She sees this as a business arrangement. She sold the kimono and is taking her cut and "graciously" giving the kids their cut. They even get to keep their cut for themselves! Seita is so overwhelmed with the rice (the audience can infer they haven't been getting much, if any, rice of late) that he doesn't notice the subtle difference in behavior. He just knows he has a big jar of rice. We, as the audience, don't know if that jar represents 75% of the rice, or 50%, or 25%...we have no idea how much the aunt kept for herself and neither does Seita. Even though the aunt happily exclaims they get steamed rice for dinner, Setsuko (a four-year-old) is absolutely crushed by the finality of it all. She gets no consoling from the aunt, though Seita (a fourteen-year-old) tries to cheer her up.
• At dinner they do, indeed, get steamed rice and Setsuka (a four-year-old) is, again, eating voraciously. The aunt comments on how much Setsuka (a four-year-old) eats when it's rice and Setsuka exclaims at how good it tastes. Setsuka's body is telling her she's getting the right nutrients from the rice and is rewarding her with the good taste. Unfortunately, from the aunt's comment, we know Setsuka isn't getting much rice. The film plays a trick on the audience by immediately showing the aunt making rice balls and we think "Yes! The kimono-rice trade is paying off for the kids!" only to find out the aunt is saving the rice for her family and feeding the kids porridge. Seita thinks they're also getting rice balls for lunch, like the family, but the aunt says they're all getting porridge. Only workers get a good lunch, plus Seita isn't sharing his rice with them and is expecting to eat their rice. And there it is - she's making it plain that the rice from the kimono was a business transaction and she took her cut. It was never "for the family" because there is no family. There's the aunt's family and then there's the kids. She drives this home when Setsuka (THE FOUR-YEAR-OLD) voices the fact that she understands what just happened - the aunt is stealing the rice from the mother's kimono through a bad-faith transaction. "Are you saying your aunt isn't fair? I give you a little rice and now you're spoiled. I took in two orphans!" The aunt is using familial terms to disarm Setsuka (a four-year-old), painting herself as the savior of the kids, and reverting back to her resentment of the "spoiled" navy family.
  • Look at the size of the lunches the aunt is making for her family versus the bowls of porridge the kids are getting. Look at the lines the animators are placing on Seita to show how he's becoming more gaunt while the aunt has no such detail. She says she's eating porridge with them, but she's eating better than they are even though she's not out "working for the country." The kids are being slowly starved on top of Setsuka (a four-year-old) getting malnourished.
• The die is nearly cast now. The aunt says they should eat separately since they don't think things are fair. What she's really saying is "I'm going to keep feeding my family well and starving you two, so let's cut the crap and just eat separately so we don't have to deal with it." But that's still too much work for the aunt seeing as how she never wanted them there in the first place. She suggests Seita reach out to relatives in Tokyo because, you know, the town we live in could be firebombed at any time. She's only suggesting he reach out to other relatives in order to keep him and his sister safe. Because of course a seemingly rural village close to farms is more likely to get firebombed than...Tokyo. The aunt is a professional gas-lighter.
• Seita (A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD) comes home with the stove to make good on "eating separate" while the aunt is eating dinner with her family. Seita seems to know the only way to eat well is to cook for themselves. If they ask the aunt to cook their rice, what're the chances they have to then share that rice with the aunt's family, which would further dip into their own cut of the kimono-rice? The husband takes the situation as "noble" which, to me, is more of the shitty culture the kids are stuck in. The husband simply sees it as the kids becoming responsible for themselves and not a really messed up situation where his niece and nephew don't feel welcome, and may even be getting cheated by his wife, even though their mom's dead and their dad is likely dead. He then asks for more - sounds like they're eating pretty well? Turns out they all have bowls full of rice, so yes, eating well. The daughter asks if the aunt has been harsh on them "again" which tells us it's happening enough, on and off screen, that the daughter is concerned enough to actually question her mom. And what does our favorite gas-lighter victim respond with? "Sure, I was harsh on them, but they haven't apologized. And they bought that cooking stuff just to spite me, the victim!" Uh, apologized for what, exactly? Saying it wasn't fair you took a cut of the rice from their mother's kimono? Not telling you immediately the mother had died? We'll never know what she wanted them to apologize for because it's simply a narcissist's mechanism to transfer blame to someone else.
• We next see Seita and Setsuko getting their rice ration, so we now know they've run through their cut of the rice their mother's kimono bought. And we know they're not getting anything from the aunt anymore since they're "eating separate." We even see Setsuko (A FOUR-YEAR-OLD) rationing her fruit drops because she knows the situation isn't good. Seita (a fourteen-year-old) is holding it together. I don't know how, but he is. When the fruit drops are finally gone, Seita (a fourteen-year-old) has the idea of making fruit drop tea to keep Setsuko's spirits up. While serving the tea, he forgets to wash their dishes and that's pretty much the last straw for the aunt, a fully-functioning adult incapable of empathy or compassion. As she's washing the children's dishes, Setsuko (a four-year-old) wakes up from a nightmare calling out for her mother. This has apparently been a regular occurrence. The aunt is sick and tired of it, and sick and tired of the kids. She can't outright say that because she's a victim, so instead she admonishes them for waking up people who work for their country and that Seita (a fourteen-year-old) needs to keep Setsuko (a four-year-old) quiet. She even likens Setsuko's (a four-year-old) crying to the American's night raids because that's definitely how bad it is and the aunt isn't simply a gas-lighter. Seita (a fourteen-year-old) does his parental duty and takes Setsuko outside to try to help calm her when an air raid siren starts. We're then introduced to the cave. This intro includes a voice over of the aunt admonishing Seita for going to the cave with Setsuko (a four-year-old) to keep her safe instead of fighting fires. I just...I just can't. The woman is garbage. The scene ends with Setsuko (a four-year-old) finally realizing they have no home.
  • One thing to note in this scene is Setsuko's blushing cheeks are bright red. At this point I'm convinced it's a deliberate indication of malnutrition which means part of Setsuko's trouble sleeping is because of malnutrition.
  • Another thing is we don't know yet that the aunt has told Setsuko (a four-year-old) that her mom died, and neither does Seita. Seita doesn't know Setsuko's nightmares are also partly because she misses her dead mother, so he can't properly console her. We, as the audience, can only imagine how the aunt broke the news to Setsuko (a four-year-old).
• And then the aunt does it - she tells them to go live in the cave because they're such pests and only bring trouble (whatever that means). Seita makes good on the suggestion and packs their things on a cart. The aunt catches them as they're leaving. Seita (a fourteen-year-old) says thank you for everything, but it's obvious they don't really have much of a plan. So the aunt says "Goodbye, Setsuko." The aunt watches as a fourteen-year-old and a four-year-old leave with nowhere to go and no way to get food. And she does nothing. She seems to have some second thoughts, some human part of her screams internally that this is a really bad thing, but in the end she does nothing. The ice in that woman's veins is cold.
• One thing I want to point out is that in the next scene, their first night at the cave, they're eating what looks like a great rice meal from fresh vegetables they just got from trading at the farm. As Seita and Setsuko watch the sun set, Setsuko is scratching her back. At first I thought it was just bug bites, and the dialog is meant to lead us in that direction, but later we see that her major malnutrition symptom is rashes on her back. She's already malnourished from the aunt's house due to the aunt underfeeding both kids.
• Finally, to add insult to injury, the last of the aunt's hateful shit comes to light as Setsuko buries the fireflies from their first night in the cave. She tells Seita that the aunt told her their mother had died. The aunt never told Seita about this. We don't know how long ago this happened, but it's safe to say it was before the nightmares. That whole time Seita (a fourteen-year-old) had no idea he needed to console Setsuko (a four-year-old) on their mother dying because he was still trying to protect her from it (for better or worse) by not telling her. We also have no idea how exactly the aunt broke the news to her, but it's safe to assume she did it with zero compassion. To a four-year-old.

So that's that. The adults in the film failed the kids over and over. We can hope that, with no war, Seita and Setsuko would have been taken care of, but that's not the story we got. The story we got was a societal culture and a set of adults pushed hard enough by war that they idly watched as a fourteen-year-old and a four-year-old struggled until they finally died. And when you loop back to the opening scene, you see that Seita's story is only one amongst many. I think Seita had the weight of the world foisted upon his shoulders and he did the best he could with little-to-no guidance from the adults around him. It simply wasn't good enough.

---

If anyone's read this far, here's a nugget I noticed while writing this up. In the scene after the aunt suggests reaching out to relatives in Tokyo (the scene starts with ants collecting food), Setsuko overhears a mother and daughter talk about going home to see dad. The mom and little girl (roughly Setsuko's age) sing "Frogs are singing. Let's go home." The cave Seita and Setsuko live in later is surrounded by bullfrogs singing in the evening. Setsuko has watched her world fall apart around her and all she has is Seita. That cave, with the frogs singing, becomes her home with Seita. The montage of her activities at the cave reinforces this - in her mind it was her home. And when it happens (you know what I mean) she's thanking him for getting her a watermelon. And she's thanking him for building a home with her when all of the adults in her life had died or failed her, no matter how imperfect it was or how it ended. (Yeah, I'm crying as I type this.)

(posting this a little late for Halloween, apologies)

As far as I inderstand, Miyazaki draws storyboards without a script and animators and background artists do the frames looking st the storyboard? And if I understand that correctly, frames today are done digitally and only backgrounds are painted traditionally?

my kiki costume🥳

Tickets

?

Howl's

Was fortunate enough to go to the museum, we didn't know much about it when we planned our visit, just did a basic research on how to commute to the museum. We were pleasantly surprised by all of it, the tickets, no photography allowed inside, exhibits, artwork, feature film, crowd size etc.

So I went and scanned/animated the strips of film, pretty sure the first one is from Howl's, not sure what the second one is. Any guess?

My daughter was Sen, but she went on ahead with her friends, so I got to trick-or-treat with my friend and her young daughter, who was dressed as Kiki 😁

Dress from Vinted with a bit of alteration, felt, old rain boots, paint and a lot of hot glue 😅