A Dash of Paprika

Thanks to the wonderfulness that is Netflix, I watched Paprika the other day. Man, the Japanese make some awesome animation.

I'm not gonna tell everyone to watch this flick. It ain't for everyone. It's about dreams and a device for getting into people's dreams. So, dealing with dreams you know it's going to be surreal.

But it was so wonderfully animated and the story told so well, I fell in love. It also got me thinking. I really want to find a book that disects how and why and what makes our culture so different than the Japanese. The narrative in this would never pass muster in the states. It leaves WAY too much for your mind to have to fill in the gaps. But this is far from the first Japanese movie to do this. I am guessing that culturally they are cool with that. Why are we less tolerant?

Also, it pisses me off that in Japan cartoons are not seen so snugly in arms of children. Sure they have kids cartoons, but they have adult ones too. The visual skill of movies like Paprika (or Spirited Away, grave of the Fireflies, etc) is as good or better than visual treats like Lord of the Rings. Here in the states, Pixar does this to a degree, but we don't have much of a hand animated adult tradition here. And I'd really love to read about how these difference came to be.

Regardless, I thank Japan for making these wonderful stories and that we get there here. At least some of us can appreciate them :)