Year In Review: Introduction & Challenge #1

2011 is a major year for me personally, some life-changing turning points… To you, it just means I have less free time than ever to do this stuff. Instead of writing 12 blog posts about the year in retrospect, I will blow my holiday vacation, buzz and tireless patience for large amount of moving traffic (vehicular or otherwise) in the cold for a personal challenge:

Twelve Ghibli theatrical screenings. 35 millimeter. 12/16 to 1/12.

I mean I don’t even know this “Twelve days of Christmas” thing. It is suppose to count up from 12/25 and not count down from 12/13, right? This way I kinda combine both. Sorry Shawn, but that $100 ROD Blu-ray box set is not worth as much as $100 in movie tickets for this fantastic opportunity, courtesy of the IFC Center and GKIDS.

I said 12 theatrical screenings because I’m not sure I’ll hit 12 different films. For sure I will try for Totoro, Kiki, Porco, Whisper, Ocean Waves, Nausicaa, Pompoko, and Only Yesterday. Maybe I will try for My Neighbor Yamada. I don’t know, I’ll play it by ear.

I remember someone said that the otaku is ultimately about exploiting nostalgia. I think I can see that in the case of the ideal otaku–not the western version of the term, but the Japanese salaryman who actually can afford owing a collection of anime on Blu-ray–where there is some childish fascination in which has grown into a consuming flame, tempered by the wall of paper-mache made up of not fiber, but societal expectations, pride, wishes of others, fear, and a sense of self. I think you can’t get more memory-trip than Ghibli; it’s the ultimate core of modern otakuism. I mean you can trace moe all the way to Nausicaa (and further back), amirite?

In light of that, I think I’ll write a few posts after all.