Flavors of Youth, originally known as 肆式青春, Sì shì qīngchūn, is a movie that explores three people in different Chinese cities: Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai.

Each segment did a fantastic job of being original from the others while also keeping to the main themes of growth and nostalgia. When looking at an anime film such as this the three key elements are animation, story and sound.

Flavors of Youth is seen to have amazing backgrounds and animations of food. These are exactly what I would expect from a collaboration between CoMix Wave Films and Haoliners Animation League. CoMix might sound familiar as they were the production company for the award winning movie, Your Name.

This Japanese-Chinese co-production was based around the Chinese idiom 衣食住行, yī shí zhù xíng. This idiom means clothing, food, housing, and transport. It denotes the basic needs of life. The movie focuses three stories around this idea and how mundane things can have huge emotional importance for the characters.

The first story, directed by, Jiaoshou Yi Xiaoxing, explores that. It depicts a young man who seems to have lost a flavor of ramen

he had as a child with his grandmother. It explores his life through the dish and the different places he orders it. This story had the potential to rise and really set a high standard.

However, an unneeded, slightly creepy, unrequited love situation prevents that. Despite this, the grandmother and ramen aspect of the story was enjoyable and even got me thinking of past dishes like my Granddaddy’s applesauce. A flavor that when tried, can bring you back to your childhood.

The second story, directed by Yoshitaka Takeuchi, is plausibly the weakest vignette. It is focused on two sisters who have lost their parents. This story fails to mention or even show key details that would allow you connect with one of the sisters.

The connection to China and nostalgia get lost along the protagonist’s journey of being a model. Ultimately it comes off more of a saccharine sitcom kinda ending than one grounded in nostalgia. This was the only section handled by a Japanese director; which could attribute to the different atmosphere this one gave off considering the movie is based on growing up in China.

The third and final story is directed by Li Haoling, a director who is known for incorporating smooth yet rich animation to many of his works. It focuses on a young man who moves back to Shanghai after many years of being away. He finds an old tapes him and a young love sent to each other and through them they reconnect. However, this one had many stereotypical scenes that never really seemed fully original. It just wasn’t the masterpiece I expected from Haoling.

Flavors of Youth falls short in not only story but sometimes animation as well. The movie seemed very focused on backgrounds.

The cities and towns were simply amazing throughout the film.

A risk that comes with extensive detail in backgrounds is loss of focus
on the characters themselves. This became clear throughout the film, especially
if compared to CoMix’s animation work on Your Name.

One thing that does need to be considered is this was a co-production. An issue that can commonly unknowingly come up is difference in artistic views. While only slight, this can be seen in the three different stories, all of which were handled by different teams.

While this is more effective and time efficient it does come with its issues. This can be seen in inconsistencies in the overall artistic vision and slight difference of atmosphere in the three stories. Many times it was the soundtrack that helped set the atmosphere.

By no means was this a bad film, it just didn’t own up to either of the production staffs previous work. Another huge factor is the fact this was both translated and edited into an ‘international edition’. There are few changes in the story itself, the language doesn’t always translate best it could.

While there were many discrepancies in the film it did do an amazing job of quickly taking you through three lives in different Chinese cities. The animation flowed very smoothly and while the characters didn’t match up to the background it wasn’t anything that took away from the films enjoyment.

Overall, the film did a superb job of exploring showcasing Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai through three lives. This insight, while not as intimate as the production staff had planned for, did do its job it making the viewer nostalgic.

Overall : B-

—————-
Story : C
Animation : B-
Music : B

The post Flavors of Youth: a Tasteful Nostalgia appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Move over, Sailor Moon. There’s a new anime magical girl in town and she is taking names and giving zero f**** about your ideas of a female pop star, or just a pop star, or just an artist in general. This is Grimes we’re talking about, and welcome to the technicolor, out of this universe world of Art Angels. 

Let’s back up a moment. A native of Vancouver, British Columbia, Grimes (born Claire Boucher) started gaining traction and attention for her homemade music on indie music blogs while she was attending college to study neuroscience. Ultimately expelled because of her lack of attendance attributed to her progressive dive into the soundscapes she had become so enraptured with, Grimes released two albums (one of which, Geidi Primes, heavily referenced the science fiction novel classic Dune) before signing onto the record label 4AD with a recording contract.

Sharing a label with such acts as Bon Iver, Camera Obscura, and other front runners of the experimental pop genre such as Purity Ring, Grimes had immense amounts of hype to live up to as her major label debut, Visions, neared its eminent release. When it hit shelves in the winter months of early 2012, Visions was met with near critical acclaim: “ambitious”, “inventive”, and “intoxicating” are just a few of the key words used to describe Grimes’ watershed album. Deftly melding dream pop, ’80s influences, synthwave, and the ridiculously titled witch house genre, Visions and its singles “Genesis” and “Oblivion” continued to gain praise. “Oblivion” was selected by Pitchfork Media as the best song of the decade so far.

Despite all of this, though, Grimes seemingly disappeared.

Having dealt with internet and press haters, Grimes scrapped an entire album’s worth of material that was constructed around the sound of her under-appreciated hit “Go,” and withdrew from the media and blog spotlight for close to three years. Despite this, Grimes has returned triumphantly with Art Angels, and let me tell you, all the time waited was worth it.

Taking cues from the ’90s, like she did with the ’80s for Visions, Grimes crafts a collection of songs that feel cohesive, engaging, and alternatively beautiful and challenging. Garage rock guitars are now spliced into the DNA of most of the tracks. A sense of grungy urgency carries the songs as they race through highs and lows, synths grounded by the more organic sounds Grimes utilizes. While the songs aren’t conventionally structured, they do fit into a more pop-like feel.

All the while, the genre is complemented by our magical anime girl’s fantastic vocals: they soar to effervescent heights (bubbly and bright on the title track and “World Princess, Pt. II) and huskier, subtle tones (the chorus of album highlight and first single “Flesh Without Blood” and shining moments on “Belly of the Beat”).

Despite this accessibility, though, Grimes isn’t afraid to throw the curve-balls that we’ve come to know (and love) her for: early track “Scream” features a Taiwanese rapper nearly exclusively, except for Grimes’ own screams acting as breaks between the rapid fire verses. Album centerpiece “Kill V. Maim”, while a downright banger on the surface, “[is] written from the perspective of Al Pacino in The Godfather Pt 2. Except he’s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space”, according to the singer, and she’s still somehow able to pull it off effortlessly.

On my first listen of Art Angels, I didn’t like it as much as Visions. Dark and swirling and often times menacing, Visions swathed itself in monochromes and dreams and science-fiction inspiration. If there could be an anime equivalent to it (as Grimes is known to love anime), the philosophical and post-apocalyptic Neon Genesis Evangelion comes to mind. Art Angels, however, works in brighter hues and dance-floor aspirations while still managing to be subversive of the pop genre. Art Angels is the Kill la Kill (an excellent series that critiques and homages magical girl anime) of the audio world. Grimes has created two exemplary and subversive albums, all on her own terms.

Grimes is the pop auteur of the year, and Art Angels is an experience you won’t want to miss.

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Flesh Without Blood”, “Belly of the Beat”, “Kill V. Maim”, “REALiTi”

Art Angels can be listened to on Spotify here.

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Sushi started its appearance in the United States in the 1960s in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Later sushi became more and more popular among Hollywood celebrities, as the invention of California roll boosted its popularity. Big cities like New York City and Chicago soon had their own sushi restaurants and by the late 1980s, and sushi had become very popular among the American population.

Now, sushi seems to become part of our daily diet, as different kinds of sushi are not only sold in Japanese restaurants, but also in grocery stores and even convenience stores.

But is the sushi you buy in the United States authentic?

What do the Japanese think of the Americanized sushi?

In order to find out the answer, I bought three different kinds of sushi from restaurants around the Iowa City area: California roll, Godzilla roll, and Philadelphia roll; and I invited two people to taste them and guess their names.

Let me introduce our brave tasters: Rumu Meng, the president of Japanese students and scholars’ club; and Sayaka Okumura, a former University of Iowa transfer student from Japan.

The first piece of sushi they tasted was the California roll, and none were able to correctly guess the name of the sushi.

Although the ingredients and the shape of the California roll seems identifiable to Americans, Japanese people do not seem to be able to recognize it. Sayaka pointed out that in Japan, avocado does not exist as an ingredient in sushi; traditional Japanese sushi uses raw fish instead of cooked fatty tuna; and, most importantly, Japanese sushi never put sesame inside the rice.

Although California roll was invented in Southern California in the 1970s, some Japanese chain sushi restaurants are now starting to serve California rolls in Japan, as an imported dish from the United States, according to Sayaka.

The second piece of sushi was the Godzilla roll. The Godzilla roll, for those unaware, is made of shrimp tempura in a roll, and top with cream cheese and spicy mayo. Both of the guests found the taste of the roll quite “amazing”, but still neither could correctly guess the name of the sushi.

No one seems to know why the roll is called “Godzilla roll”, but Sayaka said that the sushi does not taste like Japanese sushi at all. Traditional Japanese sushi does not use tempura as ingredients and does not use “topping” on sushi. In Japan, “Godzilla roll” is completely unheard of, as well as other

Americanized sushi named with words from Japanese pop culture. According to Rumu, one kind of such sushi is called “Naruto roll”, which named after the main character in the Anime, is wrapped with cucumbers.

The third piece of sushi was Philadelphia roll, which is famous for using Philadelphia cream cheese inside the sushi. Sayaka guessed the name based on the city which is famous for cream cheese, but pointed out that in Japanese sushi, there’s never dairy products used.

I’m sure some will be surprised to know that many types of sushi in the United States are not authentic, even though they taste good.

But is Americanized sushi a good thing? Rumu thinks that Americanized sushi is misleading to people who want to know what Japanese sushi is really taste like; while Sayaka thinks that Americanized sushi helps people in the United States to be able to eat sushi that fit their diet, and provides them a general understanding of Japanese cuisines.

Do you like sushi? Are you surprised for finding out that the sushi here isn’t authentic? What do you think of the Americanized sushi? Leave a comment below.

Yihao is also the host of  the Global Perspective show on KRUI 89.7 fm every Wednesday from 3-4 pm. The show focuses on international students’ issues in Iowa City, as well as introducing different cultures around the world.

The post Global Perspective: Is Your Favorite Sushi “American”? appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The story deals with Major Motoko Kusanagi and her police team as they try to track down the infamous “Puppet Master” hacker in futuristic (2029 to be exact) Japan. Throughout the complex and intriguing story, director Mamoru Oshii spends time pondering a wide variety of subjects. These include technology, religion, evolution, conspiracy, gender/sexuality, identity, and the meaning of life itself.

The film, at its core, asks the audience to question their ideas of life. The characters are often inhabiting cybernetic bodies, known as “shells,” while their conscious identity, known as a “ghost,” do all of their thinking. While they may have human thoughts, emotions, and “souls,” these characters struggle with being able to consider themselves human.

The film poses a number of thought provoking questions. What if some sort of artificial intelligence is able to become self-aware? What would distinguish it from a living being? Are humans really anything more than a collection of memories, internal data, and synapses processed and stored throughout our lives?

Ghost in the Shell also forces its audience to think about their ideas of evolution and the future of the human species. With technology becoming an increasingly important and irrevocable part of the human experience, how will it shape our destiny as a species? Oshii explores the idea of technologically-enhanced human bodies, as well as the possibility of Artificial Intelligence becoming a sort of “next-step” for the evolution of humanity.

Reaching even further, the film also incorporates a fascinating feminist analysis. With increased technological alterations to human bodies, the idea of gender distinctions seems to have fallen by the wayside. Major Motoko inhabits a distinctly feminine (yet not clear-cut female) body, yet her personality and position within the police force assumes a sort of masculinity. The sub-plot of Motoko’s struggle with her own identity, including her gender and sexuality lead to a very interesting discussion about the politics and power dynamics of gender in a futuristic setting.

With all of these heavy and incredibly complex philosophical themes, it is important to remember that Ghost in the Shell is still an action film. It is filled with car chases, military encounters, gunfights, and awe-inspiring martial-arts sequences. All of these scenes are beautifully displayed in a mix of hand drawn animation and computer-generated imagery. At the time, the artwork of the film was considered the technological forefront of animation, still reigning true to this day in both beauty and power.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of hurdles that the average American film lover may have to deal with if they are to appreciate a masterpiece like Ghost in the Shell. First of all, there is the heavy presence of Sci-fi elements within the film. This may not be an issue for everyone, but I know that for myself, nothing will turn me off more than cheesy Sci-fi tropes. However, you can be sure that this film is able to deal with its futuristic setting in a believable and fascinating way. Another common complaint is that the entire film is animated. For many Americans, it can be hard to view animation outside of the realm of children’s cartoons. However, this film deals with a variety of mature subjects–often in gory detail–and is far from anything you might find from Western animators like Disney. Finally, there is the issue of the subtitles. The film was originally released in Japanese, and many purists believe that the original Japanese sound is the best. However, if you’re not warmed to the idea of reading all of the dialogue in subtitles, the English dub is well-acted. However, in my opinion, the English dub tends to simplify and dumb down some of the more subtly crafted Japanese dialogue.

As a side note, if you consider yourself a fan of The Matrix films, you’ll surely enjoy this film. The creators of The Matrix (the Wachowskis) are very vocal fans of Oshii’s work and many iconic shots from the film are taken almost exactly from images first seen in Ghost in the Shell.

My Personal Rating: 9/10

Ghost in the Shell is available for checkout at the Iowa City Public Library and is also available for download on iTunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j6wsGuzP2Q

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